How impossible is shaders?

[asb3pe]

I have a top end rig (i7 3770K overclocked to 4.2GHz) with a top end GPU (GTX 690)... I'd love to run shaders but I always thought even on the fastest rigs, shaders make the game unplayable? Aren't shaders just for pretty screen shots?

I'd be real excited if someone says I could run shaders and still get reasonable frame rates.

Another question... using GPU-Z to see the specs, my video card says it has "1536 Unified" shaders built into it... what does that mean? I thought "shaders" was software, not hardware?

Sorry, kind of a noob at this tech stuff.

 

[Hambeau]

I keep seeing this "right click on the FTB launcher and select run with graphics processor" tip, but that option is not in my right click menu.
I have gone into my NVIDA control panel and added both FTB and java to it's list of programs to use the video card, but when I hit F3, it doesn't show that I'm using it.

(using a Gforce GTX 470 with driver v.337.88)

Do you have the card and integrated graphics? In my experiences I've had to go into the hardware bios and disable the integrated graphics. This has the side benefit of freeing up the dedicated ram used by the integrated graphics as well.

 

[midi_sec]

Another question... using GPU-Z to see the specs, my video card says it has "1536 Unified" shaders built into it... what does that mean? I thought "shaders" was software, not hardware?

Sorry, kind of a noob at this tech stuff.

You're correct, it is software. A shader is basically a small program that your gpu uses to describe how a vertex or a pixel should look. There used to be both types of shaders, pixel and vertex, but now with modern gpu's they've rolled them both into one type of shader.

 

[asb3pe]

I have a top end rig (i7 3770K overclocked to 4.2GHz) with a top end GPU (GTX 690)... I'd love to run shaders but I always thought even on the fastest rigs, shaders make the game unplayable? Aren't shaders just for pretty screen shots?

I'd be real excited if someone says I could run shaders and still get reasonable frame rates.

Another question... using GPU-Z to see the specs, my video card says it has "1536 Unified" shaders built into it... what does that mean? I thought "shaders" was software, not hardware?

Sorry, kind of a noob at this tech stuff.

Well I just went ahead and loaded up Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders into FTB and I get 20fps on average with it. It's a bit tough to play in, not because of the frame rate (that's actually acceptable to me) but because of the way the world looks. It's just too bright to me. I suppose I can learn how to tweak some settings, but I'm already in over my head right now as it is with this stuff. LOL

Also, I had to return to the default minecraft texture/resource pack to run it (stated in this helpful thread), and that makes FTB difficult for me to play. I normally use 128x Sphax and it's just not the same game without that look!

I think I'm gonna be extra daring today and make my first attempt ever to install Forge onto vanilla minecraft... so I can them run ShadersModCore and SEUS. The latest version even makes puddles on the ground when it rains! How cool is that?! I'd love to see it. Also, the latest version says it toned down the overly bright daytime look (which everyone loves in screenshots, but for playing full-time with shaders on, it took me all of five minutes to see it really isn't all that great).

I really love the shadows, cloud shadows added an immense amount of realistic feel to the game! On the flip side, water literally disappears - becomes invisible. That's a huge negative, at a minimum, water needs to lose transparency the deeper the water blocks are stacked. It totally ruins the realistic feel to fly over rivers and oceans and not even know there is water there, unless you go right down to the surface and look at it (because it has that shimmering look to it - again, great for screenshots, terrible for gameplay IMO).

 

[BIG mac]

Well I got it to work at 40 fps by disabling my integrated graphics entirely, but not my desktop looks stretched, (like when you watch older tv stuff on a widescreen and everyone looks fat). So how can I fix this. I don't want to have to restart my computer to use minecraft with shaders.

 

[BIG mac]

Okay I just realized I had the java application running on my nvidia instead of java SE binary (which is what runs minecraft). I set that to use my nvidia card, and now I am getting 20-25 fps with shaders. That's playable, but I'm scared it won't be. Right now I have nothing but forge installed, and I want to be able to run it in monster, so I'm afraid with atg, highlands, and mariculture, the frame rate might drop a little.

Should I go into the java folder and start setting every single thing in there to run with the graphics card?[DOUBLEPOST=1408306256][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well I just went ahead and loaded up Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders into FTB and I get 20fps on average with it. It's a bit tough to play in, not because of the frame rate (that's actually acceptable to me) but because of the way the world looks. It's just too bright to me. I suppose I can learn how to tweak some settings, but I'm already in over my head right now as it is with this stuff. LOL

Also, I had to return to the default minecraft texture/resource pack to run it (stated in this helpful thread), and that makes FTB difficult for me to play. I normally use 128x Sphax and it's just not the same game without that look!

I think I'm gonna be extra daring today and make my first attempt ever to install Forge onto vanilla minecraft... so I can them run ShadersModCore and SEUS. The latest version even makes puddles on the ground when it rains! How cool is that?! I'd love to see it. Also, the latest version says it toned down the overly bright daytime look (which everyone loves in screenshots, but for playing full-time with shaders on, it took me all of five minutes to see it really isn't all that great).

I really love the shadows, cloud shadows added an immense amount of realistic feel to the game! On the flip side, water literally disappears - becomes invisible. That's a huge negative, at a minimum, water needs to lose transparency the deeper the water blocks are stacked. It totally ruins the realistic feel to fly over rivers and oceans and not even know there is water there, unless you go right down to the surface and look at it (because it has that shimmering look to it - again, great for screenshots, terrible for gameplay IMO).

I am too scared to use vanilla minecraft. If you have a pack in the ftb launcher you don't use, just delete all the mods out of it and forge will still be there already installed for you and you can just drop in the mods you want.

 

[ratchet freak]

graphics lag is different from tick lag and are pretty much orthogonal as long as the graphics is run on the GPU

 

[asb3pe]

If you have a pack in the ftb launcher you don't use, just delete all the mods out of it and forge will still be there already installed for you and you can just drop in the mods you want.

I got shaders working just fine in FTB, precisely for the reason you stated. But when I went to install Forge into vanilla 1.7.2 (the recommended version for the latest beta build of Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders), it was a total fail, complete with crash reports.

Oh well, no biggie I suppose. I still go with my theme - shaders are great for screenshots but probably not meant for playing minecraft 24/7.

 

[Queue]

I use CUDA shaders... Very light yet still quite good

 

[asb3pe]

I use CUDA shaders... Very light yet still quite good

Do you run shaders all the time, whenever you FTB?

 

[Queue]

I have never used them with FTB packs as I make my own packs, but I use them often. The only annoyance is how dark shaders make unlit areas