New Effects in Google Earth

[Lity]

I'm not sure where to post this, if a moderator could move it to a more appropriate forum then please do. Also, I have no idea if this sort of thing has been done before, if it has the please let me know.

There's this application called ENBSeries, created by Boris Vorontsov, and can be used to apply some cool graphic effects to various games, such as Bloom, Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field, Motion Blur to name a few, it seems to work with quite a few games.

So I tried it with Google Earth and it works, so far I've only got Bloom and Ambient Occlusion working properly. I've put up some before and after screenshots showing the effects, and some instructions on how to install it, it's very simple to use.

Link: http://vality7.googlepages.com/googleearth

[Lity]

So has anyone tried it? Am I the only one who thinks it's cool?

[Munden]

I gave it a try, but I couldn't see any difference so I imagine I wasn't doing something right.

[tpstigers]

I gave it a try. My results were a different kind of cool.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28322611@N05/2644931252/

[Lity]

Munden, did you set Google Earth's graphics mode to DirectX before running? You'll know that it's been loaded when you see some writing appear at the top of the screen saying something about ENBSeries version number etc.

tpstigers, looks weird, I'm not seeing any bloom or occlusion in your screens, what kind of graphics card do you have?

This application does require a fairly new graphics card to run properly, I don't know how new, I'm using an 8600GT. If you do have a newish graphics card, then perhaps the problem may be something like you need to update your graphics drivers or directx version or something like that.

[Munden]

Munden, did you set Google Earth's graphics mode to DirectX before running? You'll know that it's been loaded when you see some writing appear at the top of the screen saying something about ENBSeries version number etc.


That was probably what I missed. :) I'll give it a shot tomorrow. er, tomorrow for me, heh.

This application does require a fairly new graphics card to run properly, I don't know how new, I'm using an 8600GT. If you do have a newish graphics card, then perhaps the problem may be something like you need to update your graphics drivers or directx version or something like that.

I've got a 7600 GS. I'll report tomorrow how it works.

[Forkboy2]

It's cool effect, but probably need a DX10 video card to use it. Brings my 7600 GS to it's knees with about 1 FPS.

Good find nonetheless.

Matt

[Lity]

It's cool effect, but probably need a DX10 video card to use it. Brings my 7600 GS to it's knees with about 1 FPS.

Good find nonetheless.

Matt
You don't need a DX10 card.

Did you try changing any of the settings in the config file? Lowering the quality options will improve performance, updating graphics card drivers can also sometimes help.

[Munden]

I had a pretty good frame rate out of my own 7600 GS. It was still really choppy, but it had a more realistic cast on things I think.

My biggest complaint is just wishing I could update the settings more easily. It's not an awful thing to use the INI file, though, just slow. :)

I'll probably tinker more later to see if I can get the buildings to render better. (they were a little stripey for me) It's too choppy to have running for just random looking around though.

I do like it though. I could really imagine using it if I had the Pro version and could make animated movies. :)

[Lity]

Another thing about performance, the performance of occlusion is based on the number of pixels on the screen, so using a smaller resolution screen or smaller window size you should notice a difference in performance. I know it's not a sacrifice most would want to take, but as you said Munden about making a video, it could be a good idea to lower it a little if you were going to make a video.

[Lity]

I gave it a try. My results were a different kind of cool.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28322611@N05/2644931252/

I managed to reproduce similar results by installing the Omega drivers. I had to uninstall them and then reinstall the Nvidia ones to get it back to normal. So I'm thinking that could be your problem.

[Xoote]

thats kind of cool