Greate Divide water fall problem

[ivanstalyn]

Hi all,

I installed eqemulator in a Linux server. It works fine. I can play without any problem using the Minilogin software. However, I noticed that when I go to the entrance to Thurgadin in GD, I can not see the waterfall that covers this entrance. This is weird because when I login in other servers, I can see the waterfall in the Thurgading entrance in GD.

Has anybody had and solved this problem?

Thanks for any help you can provide

Ivancho

[Midgett]

I've notcied this also. In the Great Divide, the waterfall is missing at the entrance to Thurgadin and also above the waterfall there is suppose to be another waterfall in the background (you can't get to that one). In the Plane of Tranquility, there is suppose to be a waterfall in front of the entrance to PoJ. The sound effect is there though. There is also a long white line that runs from the entrance of PoJ all the way down to the front of the buildings. In PoN, it's missing as well.

I thought it was because the emu was having problems with the new waterfalls since the old world waterfalls are all there, then I noticed all the newer animated waterfalls in Undershore were there in full force.

Can anyone shed some light on this phenomenon?

[steve]

Sounds like you're missing info from an emitter file...

[trevius]

Looks like the waterfall is missing for both SoF and Titanium in Great Divide at least. I checked for emitter files, but didn't see any for either client. I also checked the .S3D files, but didn't see any objects that look like they might be the waterfall.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

The waterfall is also missing from the far snowy end of Stonebrunt mt. The sound is there but no graphics.

[pfyon]

I remember that happening in live around some expansion I think. As is common for sony, they never went back to fix it.

[steve]

The one in great divide works on Live. Saw it a few days ago.

[pfyon]

Hm, something in graphics settings then maybe? They redid water textures around PoP I think, and I quit around OoW, so sometime around then I remember waterfalls having issues.

[Andrew80k]

The one in great divide works on Live. Saw it a few days ago.

Yep it's a current hotzone and I ran by there the other day and it was working for me. I'll have to check mine in the EMU and see if it's there or not.

Hm, something in graphics settings then maybe? They redid water textures around PoP I think, and I quit around OoW, so sometime around then I remember waterfalls having issues.

They redid water again in TSS and made it much more processor intensive. I could barely zone in with my old machine and then it was so bad I couldn't play anything. I had to upgrade the machine to play in those zones.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

the chances are that SOE forgot to include some of the zone emitters info for waterfalls on original disks, and patched them later.
Since we using vanilla T/SoF disk that why probably we don't have them

[Kobaz]

I have particle effects turned off to reduce lag on this tiny computer. This kills the Thurg waterfall for me. Perhaps you should play with the particle settings.

[Midgett]

I believe I have purchased just about every expansion SOE put out on CD except for anniversay.

I'm going home this weekend to visit family. I have all my earlier expansion kits from classic to trilogy at home. I can go back and look on the CDs for missing emitter files from Velious forward. If they are missing, I will add them and see what I come up with.

It has got to be emitter files. I was running through all the DoD zones on my server and the waterfalls were all there. I opened up the emitter files and saw parameters for waterfall top and bottom in those zones.

[steve]

I checked my Live EQ folder and there are no emitter files for Great Divide.

Also, the 'waterfall' in Great Divide isn't really water, so wasn't affected by the water texture upgrades. It's more of a flowing 'mist' particle effect than anything else. Which leads me to believe it's probably graphical settings turned down too low that is stopping it from displaying for some people.

I tried using Process Monitor to see what files are accessed when zoning into Great Divide from Thurgadin. EQgame.exe tries to access a greatdivide emitters file but it doesn't exist. The client must be programmed to look for it if it exists and then ignore it if it does not.

In either case, even without an emitter file, the waterfall still shows up. I looked through all of the files it accesses when zoning and couldn't pinpoint where it could be coming from. Perhaps someone else could download Process Monitor and try it out?

[Sakrateri]

This is something unique to EQEMU that waterfall has never worked with it and has always worked in live.

[lilmuff]

The river ran out of water :P

[Sakrateri]

Make a text file and call it greatdivide_EnvironmentEmitters


Now open the file and paste this there...

Name^EmitterDefIdx^X^Y^Z^Lifespan
waterfallbottom^61^-35.6^-115^140.7^40000000
waterfallbottom^61^-35.6^-115^99.2^40000000
spray12^44^-35.6^-115^99.2^800000000
fallmist76^54^-38.6^-105^90^4000000
ekwaterfallbottom^71^-35.6^-115^85.2^40000000
falls33^54^-35.6^-115^99.2^40000000


Save it and put it in you EQ folder

This will give you somewhat of a waterfall in front of the Thurg opening....
I will work on making it better soon as I get some time...

[Midgett]

Make a text file and call it greatdivide_EnvironmentEmitters


Now open the file and paste this there...

Name^EmitterDefIdx^X^Y^Z^Lifespan
waterfallbottom^61^-35.6^-115^140.7^40000000
waterfallbottom^61^-35.6^-115^99.2^40000000
spray12^44^-35.6^-115^99.2^800000000
fallmist76^54^-38.6^-105^90^4000000
ekwaterfallbottom^71^-35.6^-115^85.2^40000000
falls33^54^-35.6^-115^99.2^40000000


Save it and put it in you EQ folder

This will give you somewhat of a waterfall in front of the Thurg opening....
I will work on making it better soon as I get some time...

Thx for the time you put into this, Sak. I added it to my directory in the mean time.

I have been working on finding the source of this problem ever since my last post. I am now 99.9999% certain the problem is not the emulator. I have been experimenting with the tutorialb zone where two of the new waterfalls can be found. I figured if I could make the waterfalls go away, I could figure out how to fix them in great divide. I attached .bak ext. to all of the tutorialb zone files except the tutorialb.eqg file. The waterfalls didn't go away when I zoned out and back in. I then used the S3D tool to go into the eqg file to see what all it had in it. I eliminated every texture file and model file in there except for the terrain (sp?) file. With the exception of the NPCs the emu put there, everything went away except for the waterfalls and terrain. The terrain textures went away and the "blank white screen" of the waterfalls were all that was left. I did this same experiment in an older zone with the older waterfalls. I can remove the texture and the "blank white screen" of the waterfall is all thats left. For some reason, this blank white screen is missing in great divide and therefore there isn't a "wall" to "wallpaper." This blank white screen is obviously apart of the zone terrain, or at least, part of some emitter in this file.

I went back to all the expansion kits I purchased in the past and tried installing them in different directories. I then moved the great divide files to my client directory in hopes that they were just corrupt files. It still didn't fix the problem. This leads me to believe that SOE implemented their new 3D engine into eqgame.exe before all of the zone files were brought up-to-date. That would explain why all the newer zones have waterfalls and some of the older zones don't (e.g. PoN, GD,PoT,Stonebrunt..). Or, it could be a combination of the three: Newer DirectX + Newer eqgame.exe + older waterfall parameters. They more or less sold us broken files on a retail CD with the intention of patching them. As for SoF, they just sold us the broken titanium files again. They just added the new files on top of them. If I had to guess, Anniversary is the same story since it was released after titanium.

The classic waterfalls from the old world work just fine. Unfortunately, I can't confirm my "theories" because none of my earlier expansion clients work with the emu.

I read in a thread that you are working on an older classic server with the older clients. Can you fire up your server and swing by GD and see if the falls are there?

If anyone has a live account, could you move the great divide zone files from your live directory over to your SoF/Titanium directory and see if the waterfalls appear? Don't forget to backup your files first!

I would hate to re-activate my account just to test a theory.

[steve]

No change moving the files over.

I really think it's a DirectX issue. They never went back and changed any of the old zones when upgrading the DirectX version during GoD. They updated a few textures, but I think that was before GoD came out.

I'd blame a broken eqmain.dll file, but the waterfall was for sure working during SoF. And even with SoF client files, the waterfall does not show up in the emulator. Perhaps it's a missing opcode or data sent during the zoning process that we haven't identified yet?

Maybe someone could check the zone output when zoning into Great Divide?

[Sakrateri]

This is definitely an EQEMU issue only, No the waterfalls do not work with the oldest client and CD I have (The Gold Oiginal Disk).

In the past playing on live the waterfall has worked then EQEMU updated and you were able to play with the live client till live patched again. I was an avid lover of Great Divide and still am and noticed switching from playing to live then to EQEMU the waterfall would disappear on EQEMU then come back when I played live on the SAME client.

The only explanation I could come up with was the waterfall was on the SOE database only.

I have wasted many hours in the past trying to figure this out but it is an EQEMU only problem...

[Midgett]

No change moving the files over.

I really think it's a DirectX issue. They never went back and changed any of the old zones when upgrading the DirectX version during GoD. They updated a few textures, but I think that was before GoD came out.

I'd blame a broken eqmain.dll file, but the waterfall was for sure working during SoF. And even with SoF client files, the waterfall does not show up in the emulator. Perhaps it's a missing opcode or data sent during the zoning process that we haven't identified yet?

Maybe someone could check the zone output when zoning into Great Divide?

Thx for taking the time to do this Steve. You saved me some $$. :)

[Midgett]

This is definitely an EQEMU issue only, No the waterfalls do not work with the oldest client and CD I have (The Gold Oiginal Disk).

In the past playing on live the waterfall has worked then EQEMU updated and you were able to play with the live client till live patched again. I was an avid lover of Great Divide and still am and noticed switching from playing to live then to EQEMU the waterfall would disappear on EQEMU then come back when I played live on the SAME client.

The only explanation I could come up with was the waterfall was on the SOE database only.

I have wasted many hours in the past trying to figure this out but it is an EQEMU only problem...

This is interesting. Maybe it's like what Steve said, an unknown opcode not being sent by the emu? I didn't take that position for very long in the beginning because it didn't make sense that all the newest/oldest waterfalls worked but the ones in the intermediate eras didn't work. It seems like a waste of server resources to put the responsibility of waterfalls on your servers rather than the clients. I guess they get what they pay for. :rolleyes:

You called some things to my attention I didn't know. Now I know what the patch_live.conf file is now. If you went from emu to live and vice versa, using the same client, that would seem to sum things up.

Thx for all the great feedback, gentlemen. I hope the poor soul that started this thread returns one day to see all the great feedback. :grin:

[AndMetal]

I have particle effects turned off to reduce lag on this tiny computer. This kills the Thurg waterfall for me. Perhaps you should play with the particle settings.

Also, the 'waterfall' in Great Divide isn't really water, so wasn't affected by the water texture upgrades. It's more of a flowing 'mist' particle effect than anything else. Which leads me to believe it's probably graphical settings turned down too low that is stopping it from displaying for some people.

When I played on Live, I would see the waterfall when heading into Thurg. However, if my guild was raiding Kael, I would turn my particle effects to low/off to reduce lag (sometimes using /showspelleffects off). If I would forget to turn them back on after the raid, I would no longer see the waterfall.

However, when I tested this on both the Titanium & SoF clients, the waterfall didn't appear :mad:

[Sakrateri]

Well, It seems to be the City of Edmonton, Washington that is to blame!

http://www.edmonton.ca/attractions_recreation/attractions/natural_attractions/the-great-divide-waterfall.aspx




P.S. will still be trying to figure this out.

[ivanstalyn]

Thx for all the great feedback, gentlemen. I hope the poor soul that started this thread returns one day to see all the great feedback. :grin:

The poor soul also thanks all your feedbak. :D

The emitter file for this zone works really nice.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

anyone managed to fix Stonebrunt waterfall the same way?

[Midgett]

I know the waterfalls were fixed awhile back (Thanks Derision!). Does anyone know a way to adjust the clipping? Unless you get right up on the waterfall in Great Divide/Tranquility,etc., the waterfall clips real bad.

I quit Live back before the new waterfalls went live, so this might have been Sony's solution to the zone lag issue caused by the old waterfalls, or it could be as simple as adjusting parameters in the database. I don't have a live account so I can't log in to confirm it. I have already played with the display settings on the Titanium and SoF clients. Same result.

There used to actually be two waterfalls in GD. The one in front of Thurgadin and at the top of that one, up against the mountain, there was another one. You could see both from a distance.

Any suggestions?

Emu: 1804
PEQ: 1804

[Caryatis]

You can adjust the zone clipping plane in the zone table.

[Midgett]

You can adjust the zone clipping plane in the zone table.

I did toy with the minclip and maxclip as well as the fog_minclip and fog_maxclip. No luck. I didn't think at first this would be the issue since I could see accross the zone, but I gave it a shot anyway.

It could be that the new waterfalls were meant to clip like that. I can't verify that though. Thx man!