Run installer and follow instruction. Please report success or failure of installing/run on Windows 8.1 and 10.
double-click on desktop icon to run SE.
Disclaimer This is a beta version, it have many bugs almost release version, it must have as less bugs as possible. Please report bugs here, in this thread.
Updates will be shared in this thread, and also in this first post.
Known issues:
Sagittarius A* black hole located not exactly in the canter of the Milky Way galaxy, as other real galactic black holes
All localizations except Russian are out of date
Full changelog for 0.9.7.4RC3(19 June 2016)
Major updates: - Many improvements with space ships gameplay - New physically accurate rendering of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarves with accretion disks - Planemo (rogue planets) - Massive catalogs of binary and multiple star systems, black holes, brown dwarves - Chemical composition of planetary atmospheres - Rendering in equirectangular spherical projection - Dithering to fix banding artifacts - Reversed fp32 z-buffer: no more z-fighting, camera can approach objects up to a distance of a few centimeters - New addon installation procedure - just drop a single .pak file to the "addons" folder
Space ships: - Space ships are now rendered in interstellar space and in the Wiki preview - Implemented docking of ships with each other - Engines exhaust rendering and sound effects - Landing on planets: ships become fixed on the surface - Alcubierre warp drive physics, with HUD, controls and autopilot - Autopilot: -- Flying to target using main engines (acceleration-deceleration scheme) -- Flying to target using warp drive -- Synchronization of the velocity with target -- Holding altitude (hovering above a planet) -- Target can be any celestial body or another ship -- Physically-based autopilot turns -- Autopilot commands in the right-click context menu (ability to give orders to remote ships) - Ability to bind warp drive power control to mouse, keyboard and joystick - Ship's warp state, autopilot state, reference body and target are saved to the config - Smooth third-person camera for the ship which is currently controlled - Newly built ship spawns with the same speed as the currently selected one - Simple ship editor: changing global parameters, adding/removing effects and modules, saving to the script - Button "Teleport here" in the Ships manager is available only in cheat mode - Buttons for "Fly here" and "Hyperjump here" commands are added to the Ships manager - Restored possibility of selecting the reference body - Hyperbolic orbits of ships are now displayed - Updated default ships
Procedural planets and stars: - New physically accurate rendering of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarves with accretion disks - Chemical composition of planetary atmospheres - Updated palettes for titans and iceworlds - Alien vegetation on titans with terrestrial life - Reduced too-common impact basins on titans and iceworlds - Suppressed mountain generation in impact basins - Random global tint of planets in shades of brown - Polar caps on cold selenas and iceworlds (Ganymede-like and Pluto-like thin frost deposit) - Animated surface of neutron stars and white dwarves - Improved rendering of late M-dwarves and brown dwarves - Smoother solar spots - Integrated Klud's mods for selenas and asteroids - Improved asteroid surface textures - Improved giant stars surface textures - Improved craters shape - New atmosphere models by HarbingerDawn - Added faint (Jupiter-like) rings generation with probability parameters in universe.cfg - Added detail-less gas giants like Uranus - Fixed unrealistic rings in binary planet systems - Binary planets can have outer moons - Option to change hue and saturation of atmosphere for each planet, integrated to scripts and editor - Fixed seams in terrain textures and meshes on procedural planets - Detail specular bump mapping on planets - New volcanos - New gas giants texture and cyclones - New terrestral planets cyclones
Astronomy: - Massive catalog of binary and multiple star systems by Cirax - Massive catalog of systems with relativistic objects (black holes, neutron stars and white dwarves) by Cirax - Massive catalog of systems with brown dwarves by Cirax - Integrated community catalog of binary and multiple asteroids - Added moon of Makemake - Completed Messier catalog - Updated exoplanets catalog (13 May 2016) - Added exoplanet names approved by International Astronomical Union - New textures of Mercury, Ceres, Vesta, Pluto, Charon and Saturn rings - Milky Way's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* and stars orbiting it - Integrated Bambusman's nebulae models - Integrated Astroniki's Orion nebulae complex - Reduced brightness of some Solar System bodies - Added ability to replace procedural supermassive black hole with a catalog entry - Added ability to specify star mass, radius and temperature in the star script - Implemented planemo (rogue planets) - Implemented Y spectral class for brown dwarfs - Implemented correct orientation of extrasolar systems (RefPlane "Extrasolar" for inclination and ascending node) - Added ability to specify locked position of a body relative to parent body with simplified script syntax (RefPlane "Static" and "Fixed") - Reduced luminosity of procedural star clusters - Updated open clusters size and star statistics - Some planets and moons can be in spin-orbital resonance (not only 1:1) - Added limit to mass of a catalog exoplanets to fix absurdly high densities - Added alternate designations for some nebulae and clusters, removed duplicates - Added rotational parameters of the Sun
Interface: - Improved ship manager with "Pack" and "Faction" filters for ships - Smooth switching of many display options and objects (labels, orbits, eclipse shadows, clouds etc) - Smooth lighting animation in the Chart mode - Updated Solar system browser: -- Fictional barycenter of planetary system is not displayed -- Ability to display a barycenters of binary planets -- Active navigation buttons with number of satellites counter -- Added ambient lighting for a rogue planet or solitary black hole systems - Updated Wiki: -- Finished description editor, supported standard shortcuts like Ctrl-Left, Ctrl-Shift-PgDn etc, text selection and copy/paste -- Increased length of the first column in the data tables -- User and default descriptions are saved to separate files -- Added information about exosphere temperature, chemical composition of atmosphere, etc -- Updated articles - Updated Player settings menu: -- Added option to display full and abbreviated names of constellations -- Added option to display radius instead of diameter for the selected object -- Added option to choose pressure unit - Updated Graphics settings menu: -- VSync switch is moved here from the Display menu -- Added quality switch for MSAA -- Added quality switches for aurora, black holes and ship warp field effect -- Added "Loading speed" slider to control planet loading speed vs framerate -- Maximum planet LOD is limited to +1, with the ability to set +2 in the console -- Removed "Atmo from sea level" and "Atmo extinction" switches - Updated Export skybox menu: -- Added image format selection -- Swapped pos_z and neg_z faces -- After pressing "Save", engine wait for loading/generation completeness before saving files - Updated Planet editor: -- Localized interface of the Planet editor -- On click for edit, too large/too small values are converted to the scientific notation (like 1.23e4) - Blinking cursor in the text edit boxes - Hints allows viewing of table cell contents if the cell is too small - Planet shine is disabled on previews in Solar System browser and Wiki - Displaying of spin-orbital resonance and solar day length of a planet - Button "Start" on Video capture dialog changes to "Stop" when video capture is in process - Planet SurfStyle can be updated in the Planet editor - Right side toolbar do not overlap the selected object's info table - Localized parent names in the Search menu - Changed colors of orbits, labels and markers of barycenters, suns and comets - Customizable colors of GUI and fonts (via skins system) - New GUI skins - Updated localizations
Controls: - Swapped default rotate CW/CCW keys - Camera motion mode or controlled ship is restored after closing of the Map Mode - Added ability to cancel autopilot "Warp to" and "Fly to" commands - Smooth camera rotations in Free mode, adjustable in user.cfg
Catalogs and file system: - Changed directory structure - "data" and "addons" folder are provided, which have identical internal structure (textures, models etc subfolders) and work in parallel - New addon installation procedure - just drop a single .pak file to the "addons" folder - Duplicate entry of any object in a catalog file updates/patches the older entry (entry in older file) - no need to edit default catalog files to install a patch or mod - Automatic search for catalog files through default directories - no need to edit the universe.cfg to install a catalog patch, mod or addon - Automatic search for galaxy/nebula model scripts through default directories - no need to edit the models.cfg to install a model patch, mod or addon - Automatic search for atmosphere model scripts through default directories - no need to edit the atmospheres.cfg to install a model patch, mod or addon - Shaders, music and sounds are moved into the "data" folder; overriding by corresponding file in the "addons" folder is possible - csv file format for galaxy catalog - Local group galaxies are moved into separate catalog file, others are converted to csv - Added Lum and Luminosity parameters for the nebulae, clusters and galaxies script - Added AlbedoBond and AlbedoGeom parameters for planet scripts - Advanced catalog error logging: typing file name and line number where error was detected, ability to change behaviour globally or per catalog file - Improved star solver: calculating missing parameters for catalog star using the provided ones, now works for multiple stars - Automatic creation of directories to save config/script file if they don't exist
Engine: - All shaders are moved to OpenGL 3.3+ core profile - Implemented multi-sampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) - Accelerated pak files loading - Optimized and updated GUI rendering and skins system - Optimized labels and markers rendering - Label rendering for selected object is independent of distance and brightness - Markers rendering in correct order: markers of closer objects can be visible in front of farther objects - Labels and markers for ships - Implemented custom defines for glsl shaders, some similar shaders are merged into a single file - Separate shader cache folders for each driver version - Separate files for saving default and user locations - Changed format of locations config - Added cvars for planets lighting dimming magnitude and secondary lighting limit magnitude - Added StereoIPD parameter to the config - Stars and planets does not disappear when galaxies are switch off - Exposure doesn't affect labels - Exposure doesn't affect GUI in Oculus Rift mode - New object selection method for Oculus Rift - Updated to Oculus 0.8 runtime - Separate buffers for left and right pass in stereo modes - Improved quality of elliptical galaxies rendering - Internal time representation is changed to 64.64 fixed point type - Improved quality and performance of the logarithmic z-buffer - Implemented reversed floating point z-buffer: -- Rendering orbital paths with proper order with planets and ships -- Fixed z-fighting issues on water and clouds -- Allows placing the camera up to few centimeters from a planetary surface or space ship -- Support via GL_ARB_clip_control for OpenGL 4.5+ drivers (including Intel HD 4600+) - ClipHeight is moved to main.cfg and changed automatically based on reversed depth buffer support at first launch - Improved stability at 4k+ screen resolution - Atmosphere models are managed by the memory manager - Music player working in a separate thread - Faster reloading of terrain generator shaders by Ctrl-F5 (only for selected planet's class) - Improved terrain tiles culling algorithm - slightly less VRAM is needed to load a planet - Added limit for size of a non-loaded planetary systems (optimization for Sun neighbourhood) - Fixed colorizing of the stars lens flares by orbital path lines (only in reversed/logarithmic depth buffer mode) - Switch between impostor and fullscreen FBO is occurred at matched resolution
Bugfixes: - Fixed planetary rings brightness in the "real planet brightness" mode - Fixed holes in planetary surface where lava flows should be - Fixed wrong terrain LOD calculation on small screens - Fixed Pluto system orientation - Fixed some bugs in planet script exporting - Fixed black stain artifact on a planet surface - Reduced cyclone cutting probability - Fixed lags when changing FOV - Fixed changing of a planet particle size when changing FOV - Fixed climate smoothing on planets with a thick atmosphere - Fixed clouds lighting in thin atmospheres - Fixed too many cloud layers on planets with thin atmosphere - Fixed bug with sun shining through the ocean - Fixed change of the display mode and refresh rate at SE startup - Fixed a lot of stars with wrong/error stellar class in the star catalogs - Fixed over 400 duplicated galaxy names in the galaxy catalogs - Fixed camera velocity indicator - Fixed star motion blur when changing distance with left + right mouse drag - Fixed star motion blur for ships in hyperspace - Fixed some bugs with automatic ships hyperjump - Wiki descriptions now correctly display tabulations - Fixed specular spot on ships - Fixed specular spot on Oceanias - Fixed visual artifacts with atmosphere and water on Oceanias - Fixed atmosphere height on tidally heated worlds - Fixed too small atmospheres height on gas giants - Fixed sudden stopping of ship rotation when changing orbital orientation mode - Fixed blinking LOD of a planet when Wiki is opened - Fixed Overbright slider initialization in the Magnitude/brightness settings menu - Fixed blurring of slider handle texture - Fixed bug with invisible velocity pointer text - Fixed crash on opening Chart mode for the not currently visible system - Fixed wrong animation of the currently followed planet in the Chart mode - Fixed localization change in the Chart Mode - Fixed incorrect saving of rendering options when exit program while Chart Mode is opened - Fixed continuous execution of ship's autopilot command "Retrograde" - Fixed render of orbits in the Map mode - Fixed bug with infinite radius of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarves - Fixed artifacts with black hole and ship warp effect in stereo modes - Fixed wrong camera positioning at program startup - Fixed pushing camera up while loading location on a planetary surface - Fixed camera pushing when landing on planet with Left+Right mouse drag - Fixed wrong calculation of orbital period of catalog binary stars - Fixed crash on building a ship in interstellar space - Fixed sprites rendering order in nebulae - Fixed extreme apparent magnitude of a comet nucleus if camera or ship is close to it - Fixed throttle and correction engines controls by joystick - Fixed switching ship's behind camera when planet is selected - Fixed smooth fade in of the selection pointer - Fixed orientation of the ship's orbit relative to moons - Fixed ship's orbital position calculation - Fixed ship's "Horizon" orientation command - Fixed bug with phase calculation for planets and ships - Fixed inability to change ship's hyperfactor if engines are off - Fixed autopilot warp to star systems - Fixed ship's gravity acceleration display - Fixed procedural stars generation in dwarf galaxies - Fixed rings blending with clouds and atmosphere - Fixed seam artifact in rings - Fixed star sprite in barycenters - Fixed star density in Milky Way - Fixed various rendering bugs in the Map Mode - Fixed planet particles rendering in front of water/clouds - Fixed foreground labels rendering in front of planets - Fixed instability in orbit solver for hyperbolic orbits - Fixed bug with sudden camera rotation when collide with terrain - Fixed star counter in galaxies - Fixed always off VSync in main menu - Fixed bug with clouds height of catalog stars - Fixed bug with broken Milky Way model - Fixed bug with wrong ships positions after program start - Fixed brown dwarf illumination by other stars in a system - Fixed comet tail cutoff - Fixed object name text goes outside preview area in Wiki - Fixed bug with wrong generation of a star rotation period in multiple catalog systems - Fixed bug with catalog stars not being properly overwritten by new entries - Fixed bug with wrong galaxy sysmodel loading after cache cleaning - Fixed bug with no procedural nebulae generated in Irr galaxies - Fixed sudden appear/disappear of nebula model when distance changed - Fixed camera motion direction after using of tracking - Fixed offset between terrain texture and mesh, gaps in terrain on small bodies - Completely fixed seams in the terrain textures and mesh - Fixed transparency of the interface in Fish eye mode - Fixed bug with name of barycenter of binary planet - Fixed bug with ability to select "invisible" stars and planets in the star clusters - Fixed comet tail and star corona brightness in the autoexposure mode - Fixed bug with not loading of some planet's shaders (missing previews in the Solar System Browser, transparent planets etc) - Fixes some ship models - Fixed asteroids terrain - Fixed rayed craters - Restored narrow features on gas giant's clouds - Fixed missing procedural red giant stars - Fixed behaviour of the engines thrust sliders when time flow is reversed - Fixed bug with ship's real speed in interstellar flight is 2 times faster than expected - Fixed ships flight state (interstellar/interplanetary) in catalog star clusters - Fixed too big oblateness of some supergiant stars - Fixed bug with rendering of galaxies with ModelBright different from 1 - Fixed crashes on AMD/ATI cards at startup - Fixed broken textures/mipmaps on AMD/ATI cards - Fixed ship models non-loading in Interleaved mode - Fixed non-loading of textures of rings, lens flares, ships and galaxies at program startup or at high load - Fixed inability to select a procedural planet if catalog planets are disabled - Fixed freezes on Earth and other real planets with huge texture packs - Fixed flipped saving of png images - Fixed incorrect shader code generation for warm and hot oceania - Fixed bug in atmosphere scattering precomputing code (broken atmosphere models) - Fixed bug with reading coordinates of Mintaka and other stars in DMS format with D between -1 and 0 - Fixed ' character typed in the console when it opened - Fixed changing of the camera velocity then typing + or - character into any edit box - Fixed bug with solar eclipses not affecting planet brightness in "Super" Planet shine - Fixed bug with loading/generating of incorrect galaxy sprite model - Fixed seams in nebula skybox - Fixed a bug with rendering of a black squares instead of star sprites on Intel HD in stars style mode "points" - Fixed blinking of ship star-like particles - Fixed bug with Map mode if camera tracked some object before entering the Map Mode - Fixed disappearing of the value labels near sliders in the Planet editor - Fixed camera offset in the Chart mode while animation is in progress - Fixed a bug with incorrect star/planet counter in the Star browser table - Fixed scorched asteroid moon bug - Fixed missing OpenGL version check and crash on initialization on systems with no graphics driver (generic Windows driver) - Fixed artifacts (precision issues) with zero-phase glare, detail textures and water specular then camera is close to the planet surface - Fixed brightening of the planet surface then camera is close to it - Fixed autoexposure then sun is occluded by a planet
So I continued the work on smooth eye-candy switchers. In 0.973 was implemented smooth on/off of the orbits, celestial grid, vectors, velocity and selection pointer. Now I do this for labels and markers, ie for all overlays. Also smooth switch now have graphics effects such as lens flares and ghosts, planet shine (lighting of planets by moons and vice versa), eclipse shadows and city/lava/ship lights, and a "planet layers" - water, clouds, atmosphere, aurora and comet tails. Effect looks really cool in dynamics.
Aurora quality switch in the Graphics settings menu changes new hi-detail aurora to the old 0.972 one, to fix huge fps drop on low-spec computer. Default state in the release will be OFF (old aurora).
Accelerated pak files loading improve SE loading speed a lot, if you have all texture addons packs installed. At the first launch or changing in the pak files, SE saves the list of files in the pak archives in the special file cache/filesys.dat. At the next launch it reads the data from that file, so no more reading of the contents of all pak files again is need, which was a very slow operation.
I also added a separate shader cache folder for each driver version, so if you update the driver or change hardware (switch between integrated and dedicated card for example), the old generated shaders are not deleted from the cache. You may delete them manually to free space (few megabytes).
Great patch! Many bugs gone!) Just asking - Is this an error or simply unfinished feature? Since version 0.973 planetary nebulas lack any sort of stellar remnants (white dwarfs or black holes).
1.) Thick atmospheres aren't smoothing out the climate like they used to. This has been occurring since 0.9.7.2.
2.) Moderately high temperatures (300-350k) aren't melting away ice like it should. However above ~350k the environment pops into a uniform climate which may not be realistic with lower atmospheric pressures. This has also been occurring since 0.9.7.2.
3.) EDIT:EDIT: Actually the volcanoes and flows are behaving quite strangely. Yep very strangely.
I've attached my log for any funckyness that may be occurring since I am on an integrated graphics card.
P.S. The exit screen is messing up in this version but that doesn't bother me much.
Top notch job! Great improvements over 9.7.3 and while it's very hard for me to tell because my rig tears through Space Engine anyway but it seems like there's a performance improvement which is great for people with low end systems.
I really hope that public beta testing will be a regular thing from now on. It kind of gets tedious staying on the same version of SE sometimes even for a year. Not only will users now have the option to regularly get fresh new features(albeit with the tradeoff being that the experimental versions are bound to have bugs and instabilities) but SpaceEngineer's job will probably be easier considering that bug reports will be reported throughout the development of a new version, rather than after it's release.
Added faint (Jupiter-like) rings generation with probability parameters in universe.cfg
Such a small little addition, but a very nice one. After all, if our own Solar System is any indication, wispy rings are more common than big, bright ones.
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