Beta Testing 2.06

[stgatilov]

Does anyone still get garbled pixels from lights on some surfaces? I vaguely recall that might have something to do with using soft shadows with AA, but I'm not sure.

Soft shadows without FBO are hacky/buggy.

Try to enable "r_useFBO 1", most likely it will help.

[peter_spy]

I use FXAA in my drivers all the time anyway, so that helped, thanks! One other thing, changing Anisotropic Filtering settings in menu during play either disables all shadows (FBO 0), or makes the screen go full white (FBO 1).

[HMart]

Tried to edit a sound in game in TDM 2.06 64bits or 32bits, and TDM freezes, the sound editor shows up fine but when i select a sound to edit TDM stops responding, i don't have 2.05 installed so i don't know if this also happens on it, don't know if the mission matters for this but i add No Honour Among Thieves installed. Why was I trying to edit a sound ingame? Because of the thread bellow.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19372-loud-electric-light-sound-tones-in-certain-missions/

[peter_spy]

I just noticed that with some missions, e.g. with Grayman's Sir Taff's Sword, I'm seeing a sort of "matrix effect". It's hard to capture a screenshot of that, but there are flashes of letters, like font textures maybe? Either on full screen, or in places where lightgem or where inventory icon is. I should probably record a video for that.

[AluminumHaste]

Do you have FBO on?

[peter_spy]

It happens with FBO on and off.

[nbohr1more]

Hmm.

 

r_useMapBufferRange = 1

 

?

[peter_spy]

That's what I had set already. Another one is A Night To Remember, recently being restored by Biker:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19376-fan-mission-a-night-to-remember-beta/?p=419831

[nbohr1more]

That's the problem actually.

 

By default it's 0 but when it's enabled it improves performance and loading time.

I think I was suggesting it when there were widespread reports of poor performance and stuttering

to see if we should enable it by default but set the tdm_lg_split to 0.

 

So there are two cures:

 

r_useMapBufferRange = 0

 

vs

 

tdm_lg_split = 0

 

and

 

tdm_lg_interleave = 1

[peter_spy]

I can confirm that both methods solve the problem, but decrease performance on older hardware.

[nbohr1more]

Well the question is, which is worse:

 

r_useMapBufferRange = 1 + tdm_lg_split = 0 and tdm_lg_interleave = 1

 

or

 

r_useMapBufferRange = 0 + tdm_lg_split = 1 and tdm_lg_interleave = 3

 

?

 

MapBufferRange has the advantage of quicker mission loading but it doesn't

seem to offer as much of a boost as lightgem interleave settings.

 

In my testing the difference is pretty minimal when you have Multi-Core enabled

but in Single Core the lightgem interleave settings win by a landslide.

[peter_spy]

I may have found a solution. If you see that kind of font flicker, leave r_useMapBufferRange = 1, but set tdm_lg_interleave to something higher than 1. I set it to 6, and the flicker effect is no longer there, while the framerate is higher.

 

Edit: nope, for like 3 mission starts it wasn't there, but it is again. I guess the r_useMapBufferRange = 0 + tdm_lg_split = 1 and tdm_lg_interleave = 3 or higher is the best solution.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Judith

[nbohr1more]

I think Cabalistic's latest VR build has this fixed so the MapBufferRange (or equivalent) is enabled by default

but this text flicker artifact is cured. That'll be a nice improvement in 2.07.

[Bikerdude]

Should we be putting this in out autoexec.config then -

r_useMapBufferRange 0
tdm_lg_split 1 
tdm_lg_interleave 3

Edited April 2, 2018 by Bikerdude

[peter_spy]

IMO it shouldn't be the default setting. There are only a few missions with this problem. A Night To Remember uses realtime mirrors a lot, maybe that's the culprit, aside from looking ugly and degrading performance?

[Bikerdude]

A Night To Remember uses realtime mirrors a lot, maybe that's the culprit, aside from looking ugly and degrading performance?

They were placed there by the original Author of the mission, I like them personally.

[peter_spy]

I know, that's a matter of preference mostly. IMO they both impact performance too much, and they show weakness of thief animations, as they're not suited for button input. Just try to strafe repeatedly, or jump in front of any of those mirrors. The immersion goes to hell with that kind of moves

Edited April 2, 2018 by Judith

[duzenko]

 

Should we be putting this in out autoexec.config then -

r_useMapBufferRange 0
tdm_lg_split 1 
tdm_lg_interleave 3

I vote for

tdm_lg_interleave 1

[cabalistic]

I think Cabalistic's latest VR build has this fixed so the MapBufferRange (or equivalent) is enabled by default

but this text flicker artifact is cured. That'll be a nice improvement in 2.07.

The flickering is most likely a synchronisation issue. I believe the problem is that in the way it's used if r_useMapBufferRange 1 is set, it will forego any synchronisation between CPU and GPU. This means that there is a chance that the frontend will update buffers which the GPU is still rendering, leading to the flickering.

 

Obviously, not doing synchronisation "improves" performance, but it is not a valid fix. It took me a while to get it right in my BFG-style branch, and it involves triple-buffering.

Edited April 2, 2018 by cabalistic

[grayman]

Let me know when folks want another build. Stuff is still being worked on, but it's been 19 days since the last build.

 

Here's what's already scheduled for the next build:

 

7373 – 4696: Increase delay between frames from 4000 us to 6000 us (stgatilov)

7377 – 4757: Fix r_showLightCount broken (duzenko)

7378 – 4758, 4759: qglVertexPointer -> qglVertexAttribPointer in tools (duzenko)

7379 – 4754: Skip FB_CopyRender if the requested view is empty (contains zero pixels). Fixed crash from minimizing. (stgatilov)

15153 – Skina's Russian fixes (nbohr1more)

15154 – Anderson's Romanian fixes (nbohr1more)

15155 – More language fixes and Petike the Taffer's Slovak (nbohr1more)

15156 – Russian Unicode to CP1251 fix (nbohr1more)

15163 – Add video menu line “EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES” (AluminumHaste)

15164 – Correct russian.lang situation and added video menu “EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES” string to all.lang (grayman)

15165 – Fix Romanian big "Settings" (Setari) translation (nbohr1more)

15166 – A few more Russian fixes with resolutions strings (nbohr1more)

15167 – Added bikerdude to the AUTHORS.txt file (grayman)

[Springheel]

Can someone try out the "reloadmodels" command from the console? I've been trying to do some modelling today, and 4 out of 5 times that command will cause TDM to crash on 2.06, on both my dev build and the beta build.

[peter_spy]

Reload models works for me, but reload images messes things up (already in bugtracker).

[Bikerdude]

Reloadmodels also works for me, tried 6x before and after the above update.

[Gerberox]

Hi,

is it possible to mute menu music universally when I turn off /uncheck the menu music?

The music appears when I press Escape during game and the menu appears.

Sorry if this already considered IIRC I asked for this in some forum.

[grayman]

Due to a fall, I will be offline for a long while. Im ok, but not in the best of shape.