NASSP v8 1537 and latest Orbiter Beta r90 installation issues?

thermocalc

Active member
Joined
Aug 18, 2014
Messages
217
Reaction score
78
Points
43
Location
Bangkok
Hi there, I am sorry but I am facing a new problem for which I would ask for your kind help.
I decided to start studying and practicing Apollo 9-10-11 from scratch, until now I only managed Apollo 8 and partially Apollo 7 (still ongoing) with NASSP v7 and Orbiter2010P1, so NASSP on Orbiter2016 is new for me, so I decided to make a completely new installation of Orbiter Beta as for r90, as well as NASSP v8 beta 1537, I followed all steps described in the “NASSP 8 Installation Guide” post and for your reference here what I did:
  • I downloaded the latest Microsoft DirectX, I run the installer and I got this message: “DirectX setup has determined that a newer or equivalent version of DirectX has been installed already. No installation is necessary” -> so I think I am ok.
  • I downloaded from Dr. Martin website the zip file of the normal Orbiter2016, and I installed it into a new directory, named “Orbiter2016” (and it worked fine with traditional Orbiter vessels)
  • I created in C: a new directory named “Orbiter Beta r90” and after SVN checkout to download orbiter beta rev90 I got all “green” small icons on the bottom left corner of the folder yellow icon.
  • I didn’t download the High Resolution “Orbiter 2016 planetary textures (Earth and Moon)”, as my PC is not so powerful anymore, I just copy the whole EARTH and MOON folders (containing the ***.tree files in the Archive subfolder) found inside the TEXTURE folder of the original Orbiter2016 installation I made at step 2 above, into the TEXTURE folder of the “Orbiter Beta r90” directory: as there were no preexisting Earth or Moon folders there everything went smooth.
  • D3D9ClientBeta30.0-forBETA r90(r1329) -> here I got an alert message when copying cloud1.dss file, as I saw that the file from the D3D9 unzipped folder was 1 MB and the one already present in the Orbiter Beta r90 folder was only 64.1 Kb I said YES and it was automatically overwritten.
  • I open “orbiter-ng.exe” and I set up everything as described in the installation post. Actually, in the “Video”->”Advance” I also click the bottom “create symbolic links” as I saw that while starting a scenario on the bottom of the screen it told to enable symbolic links.
  • I unzipped the files of “Surface MicroTextures” into the main Orbiter Beta r90 folder
  • I installed OrbiterSound50_20200811_setup (actually the post say the version 4.0 but I saw that the version 5.0 is available and ok for the newest orbiter beta, so I think I can use it (?)).
  • I unzipped NASSP-V8.0-Beta-Orbiter2016-1537 into the main Orbiter Beta r90 folder.
  • I configured Project Apollo as described in the post.
After all this the initially green icon on the bottom left corner of the folder in which I download all the previous stuff “Orbiter Beta r90” was red and with an exclamation point; by opening the folder I saw that some folders were still green and some red.

Is that a problem to run the simulation? Is there a way to turn it green again? Do we (as end users) are supposed to run the sim independently of the status of the icon…red or green?. Do we need to “bother” about the color or not?

Now the real problems/questions come.

Q1) I started NASSP v8 loading some launch scenarios to see what happens.

During the loading time of the scenario, I saw the Earth with the BETA script and the following information: “Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – Build September 14 2019 [190914] D3D9 Client Beta 30.0 [Aug 10 2020]” -> is it normal? I mean, the information reported are coherent with the latest orbiter beta/D3D9 client status?

Q2) Upon loading the scenario I saw “dark patches near the Launch pad” as in these examples taken by the default Apollo 7, 9, 10 and 11 MCC Launch scenarios:

Apollo 7 MCC Launch.JPG

Apollo 7 MCC Launch scenario
Apollo 9 MCC Launch.JPG

Apollo 9 MCC Launch scenario

Apollo 10 MCC Launch.JPG

Apollo 10 MCC Launch scenario

Apollo 11 MCC launch.JPG

Apollo 11 MCC Launch scenario

Q3) I try to activate the visual helpers as in the old NASSP v7 or in the normal Orbiter2016 version, for the Earth (while in Earth orbit) and Moon (while in Moon orbit):

Surface -> Config -> Earth -> I saw a lot of choices to select such as: Airport/city/Montain…. But no “Apollo Earth Landmarks”, and moreover even if I select all NOTHING (none label) was displayed on the Earth globe (while with Orbiter2016 or NASSO v7 there were there to see);

Earth surface.JPG


for Surface-> Config->Moon-> I saw even more choices such as: catena, crater,….vallis, but no “Apollo Moon Landmarks”, and moreover even if I select them all, NOTHING (none label) was displayed on the Moon globe (while with Orbiter2016 or NASSO v7 there were there to see);

Moon surface.JPG


is this normal? (I read some posts in the forum where people were saying that there were no more Apollo Moon Landmarks but they were around 2018-19 if I am not mistaken, so I thought that maybe by now developers have find out a way to recreate these visual aids in the latest betas…so maybe I did something wrong to set up the files? But I never read about similar problem happened for the Apollo Earth Landmarks….so I am still puzzled…

The Celestiial -> Config -> Apollo AGC Navigation stars are there, they are displayed , so they are fine.

Sorry for the extremely long post but hope I gave you all possible information and please let me know if this is “normal” at this stage of development, so I have really the latest status set-up correctly or instead I did something wrong, if so please give my advises.

Thank you for any help…

Paolo
 

n72.75

Move slow and try not to break too much.
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Donator
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
2,687
Reaction score
1,337
Points
128
Location
Saco, ME
Website
mwhume.space
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
Some of that is definitely normal, there are a lot of things here that are still work in progress. I can and will write a longer reply when I get home later.
 

n72.75

Move slow and try not to break too much.
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Donator
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
2,687
Reaction score
1,337
Points
128
Location
Saco, ME
Website
mwhume.space
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
Hi there, I am sorry but I am facing a new problem for which I would ask for your kind help.
I decided to start studying and practicing Apollo 9-10-11 from scratch, until now I only managed Apollo 8 and partially Apollo 7 (still ongoing) with NASSP v7 and Orbiter2010P1, so NASSP on Orbiter2016 is new for me, so I decided to make a completely new installation of Orbiter Beta as for r90, as well as NASSP v8 beta 1537, I followed all steps described in the “NASSP 8 Installation Guide” post and for your reference here what I did:
  • I downloaded the latest Microsoft DirectX, I run the installer and I got this message: “DirectX setup has determined that a newer or equivalent version of DirectX has been installed already. No installation is necessary” -> so I think I am ok.
  • I downloaded from Dr. Martin website the zip file of the normal Orbiter2016, and I installed it into a new directory, named “Orbiter2016” (and it worked fine with traditional Orbiter vessels)
  • I created in C: a new directory named “Orbiter Beta r90” and after SVN checkout to download orbiter beta rev90 I got all “green” small icons on the bottom left corner of the folder yellow icon.
  • I didn’t download the High Resolution “Orbiter 2016 planetary textures (Earth and Moon)”, as my PC is not so powerful anymore, I just copy the whole EARTH and MOON folders (containing the ***.tree files in the Archive subfolder) found inside the TEXTURE folder of the original Orbiter2016 installation I made at step 2 above, into the TEXTURE folder of the “Orbiter Beta r90” directory: as there were no preexisting Earth or Moon folders there everything went smooth.
  • D3D9ClientBeta30.0-forBETA r90(r1329) -> here I got an alert message when copying cloud1.dss file, as I saw that the file from the D3D9 unzipped folder was 1 MB and the one already present in the Orbiter Beta r90 folder was only 64.1 Kb I said YES and it was automatically overwritten.
  • I open “orbiter-ng.exe” and I set up everything as described in the installation post. Actually, in the “Video”->”Advance” I also click the bottom “create symbolic links” as I saw that while starting a scenario on the bottom of the screen it told to enable symbolic links.
  • I unzipped the files of “Surface MicroTextures” into the main Orbiter Beta r90 folder
  • I installed OrbiterSound50_20200811_setup (actually the post say the version 4.0 but I saw that the version 5.0 is available and ok for the newest orbiter beta, so I think I can use it (?)).
  • I unzipped NASSP-V8.0-Beta-Orbiter2016-1537 into the main Orbiter Beta r90 folder.
  • I configured Project Apollo as described in the post.

That looks good. We aren't """officially""" updated to Orbiter sound 5.x yet, but at least a few of our contributors have tried it without issue. I don't expect you'll have any issues, but if you have sound problems, or crashes caused by OrbiterSound.dll please let us know.

After all this the initially green icon on the bottom left corner of the folder in which I download all the previous stuff “Orbiter Beta r90” was red and with an exclamation point; by opening the folder I saw that some folders were still green and some red.

Is that a problem to run the simulation? Is there a way to turn it green again? Do we (as end users) are supposed to run the sim independently of the status of the icon…red or green?. Do we need to “bother” about the color or not?

This us because your SVN client with which you downloaded the Orbiter is saying those folders are different (not bad) than what's in the Orbiter beta repository from which you downloaded it. They only reason they are different is because you have NASSP stuff in them now. Don't worry about it, it's the expected result and definitely not an issue.

Now the real problems/questions come.

Q1) I started NASSP v8 loading some launch scenarios to see what happens.

During the loading time of the scenario, I saw the Earth with the BETA script and the following information: “Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – Build September 14 2019 [190914] D3D9 Client Beta 30.0 [Aug 10 2020]” -> is it normal? I mean, the information reported are coherent with the latest orbiter beta/D3D9 client status?

Yes, normal. nothing to be wrong here.

Q2) Upon loading the scenario I saw “dark patches near the Launch pad” as in these examples taken by the default Apollo 7, 9, 10 and 11 MCC Launch scenarios:

View attachment 22767
Apollo 7 MCC Launch scenario
View attachment 22768
Apollo 9 MCC Launch scenario

View attachment 22769
Apollo 10 MCC Launch scenario

View attachment 22770
Apollo 11 MCC Launch scenario

Yes the pad is a little darker than the surrounding scenery. I think it's a shadow/D3D9 issue but @Jordan would probably know more.

Q3) I try to activate the visual helpers as in the old NASSP v7 or in the normal Orbiter2016 version, for the Earth (while in Earth orbit) and Moon (while in Moon orbit):

Surface -> Config -> Earth -> I saw a lot of choices to select such as: Airport/city/Montain…. But no “Apollo Earth Landmarks”, and moreover even if I select all NOTHING (none label) was displayed on the Earth globe (while with Orbiter2016 or NASSO v7 there were there to see);

View attachment 22771

for Surface-> Config->Moon-> I saw even more choices such as: catena, crater,….vallis, but no “Apollo Moon Landmarks”, and moreover even if I select them all, NOTHING (none label) was displayed on the Moon globe (while with Orbiter2016 or NASSO v7 there were there to see);

View attachment 22772

is this normal? (I read some posts in the forum where people were saying that there were no more Apollo Moon Landmarks but they were around 2018-19 if I am not mistaken, so I thought that maybe by now developers have find out a way to recreate these visual aids in the latest betas…so maybe I did something wrong to set up the files? But I never read about similar problem happened for the Apollo Earth Landmarks….so I am still puzzled…

The Celestiial -> Config -> Apollo AGC Navigation stars are there, they are displayed , so they are fine.

Also normal, unfortunately, but I can't remember why.

Sorry for the extremely long post but hope I gave you all possible information and please let me know if this is “normal” at this stage of development, so I have really the latest status set-up correctly or instead I did something wrong, if so please give my advises.

Thank you for any help…

Paolo

There's nothing wrong with long posts. Thank you for being so detailed. Orbiter, D3D9 client, and NASSP are all still in development. Thank you for your effort and continued interest. If you manage to break NASSP, let us know and endeavor to fix what ever bug caused it.
 

thermocalc

Active member
Joined
Aug 18, 2014
Messages
217
Reaction score
78
Points
43
Location
Bangkok
thank you very very much n72, you saved my day, now I know I am ready to start the new endeavor, I did correctly all steps and don't need change the computer...as you said I will keep orbiter sound 5 for the time being, if crashes will arises i will inform the forum about it after cross checking before posting if similar problem happen also with orbiter 4 (actually I have already re-downloaded everything and set-up two folders: Orbiter Beta r90 (with sound 5) and Orbiter Beta r90 s4 (with sound 4.0).

If I may ask few other questions concerning installations....

about Orbiter2016 "normal", the one downloaded by Dr. Martin website ... upon unzipping and launching I got the following information about revision:
Orbiter2016 h.JPG


if I want to download the D3D9Client for it, when I go to the website for downloading it, I am faced with many choices ....
D3D9 orbiter2016.JPG


which is the one to choose for installation????
the logic would suggest the revision r1335 which says "stable" .... am I right?
I think here there is no issue to make sure to match the latest D3D9Client version valid for the latest Orbiter Beta version, as for Orbiter2016 there is still the original version of 2016 and all subsequent developments are taking place at all "beta" stages .... isn't it?
As I said I never used actively Orbiter2016 for others addons yet, so I never bother to install D3D9 for Orbiter2016 before .... only for NASSP v7.0 on 2010P1.
Paolo.
 

n72.75

Move slow and try not to break too much.
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Donator
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
2,687
Reaction score
1,337
Points
128
Location
Saco, ME
Website
mwhume.space
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
The revision or build number for Orbiter, D3D9 Client, or NASSP, are independent of one another, and don't need to be matched. Generally the latest stable build is your best option, for Orbiter 2016, that would be r1335(as of writing this post).

If you want to use NASSP v8 Beta, then you need to use:

Orbiter Beta Rev 90
D3D9client FOR BETA (the latest is r1307 right now)
OrbiterSound 4.0
NASSP latest release https://github.com/orbiternassp/NASSP/releases (1538 right now)
 

Jordan

Active member
Joined
May 13, 2010
Messages
136
Reaction score
80
Points
43
Location
Germany
Yes the pad is a little darker than the surrounding scenery. I think it's a shadow/D3D9 issue but @Jordan would probably know more.


The pad environment was created as a "3D model" and I think D3D9 renders it differently than the earth textures. But it's definitely darker. It's a satellite image from the space shuttle era, I have adapted it to the Apollo era. It is also possible to adjust the brightness or the colors more to the standard earth textures. Whereby the standard textures are too "green" in my opinion.
 
Top