Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Testers and reviewers wanted: BFG-style vertex cache


cabalistic

Recommended Posts

The lightgem on this branch *does* work, even better than before, because it's integrated into the frontend/backend split. It's the fbo/MSAA part that's not working with it :) And yeah, I'll fix that.

Right. I was referring to the "current" LightGem in SVN trunk with FBO changes, and not the Lightgem in this BFG branch. ;)

 

Thanks again.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's done, I merged the changes.

Also did a quick fix for the lightgem; it turns out that the lightgem was rendering to the window, not the FBO. That should have been fine, but for some reason it didn't quite work. I haven't figured out why, yet. Possibly a clear missing somewhere or something similarly trivial. But for now I switched lightgem to the (primary) FBO, and that works fine on my machine. A separate FBO could still be worthwhile, especially if MSAA is enabled, because we really don't need to render the lightgem with MSAA...

 

New test executable: https://github.com/fholger/thedarkmod/releases/download/2.06_bfg_cache/TheDarkModx64.zip

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing you might want to take a look at is the gamma settings, which are ignored, both in fullscreen and windowed mode. Everything else seems to work fine for me, and I think there is a boost in framerate. TDM tends to struggle in some places at 1440p, where people playing in 1080p don't have any problems. Looks like it handles those places better now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing you might want to take a look at is the gamma settings, which are ignored, both in fullscreen and windowed mode. Everything else seems to work fine for me, and I think there is a boost in framerate. TDM tends to struggle in some places at 1440p, where people playing in 1080p don't have any problems. Looks like it handles those places better now.

We've already begun moving to "soft gamma" in 2.07 so we'll no longer be plagued by Windows 10's poor Gamma interface.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19239-soft-r-gamma/

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good news:

 

1) Lightgem works again

2) Mission load time is shorter than ever

3) MSAA and FBO play nice

 

Bad news:

 

Missions crash at the Mission complete screen.

 

(SVN compile of the 32-bit executable.)

 

I'll test a few config changes to see if it happens with safer settings.

 

Edit: Disabling com_smp fixes the crash...

 

Edit: same behavior in x64

 

More bad news:

 

Reflective water renders the splash screen instead of the skybox.

Entering water freezes the last scratch image making any under-water navigation impossible.

  • Like 1

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's done, I merged the changes.

Also did a quick fix for the lightgem; it turns out that the lightgem was rendering to the window, not the FBO. That should have been fine, but for some reason it didn't quite work. I haven't figured out why, yet. Possibly a clear missing somewhere or something similarly trivial. But for now I switched lightgem to the (primary) FBO, and that works fine on my machine. A separate FBO could still be worthwhile, especially if MSAA is enabled, because we really don't need to render the lightgem with MSAA...

 

New test executable: https://github.com/fholger/thedarkmod/releases/download/2.06_bfg_cache/TheDarkModx64.zip

 

Tested this on No Honor Among Thief's, got graphical problems, water was black and showed what looked like a small white dot pattern on it and the sky flickered like crazy. On the vanilla 2.06 x64 exe, water looks fine but the sky shows a translucid blueish plane moving with the view, if I noclip towards the blue plane it disappears and the sky looks normal, if i look down i can see it show up in the top of the screen, but if i look up it goes away, very strange, could be the fog acting bad again.

 

Video showing the problem.

 

Some important info, because of a problem on my mobo, i add to go back to a old AMD GPU i add, the HD 5770 and because its a old GPU AMD has put its driver support into the legacy section, what that means is that there are no new drivers for it. So the last supported driver for this GPU is the Radeon Crimson 16.2.1.

 

Don't know if this would happen on my newer R9 270X with new drivers but i can't test it until i fix the mobo problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crap, I forgot about the water. I kinda expected this to need work.

 

Also just debugged the mission end issue. It boils down to the mission end triggering a final savegame on the frontend thread, which in turn tries to take a screenshot, and that can no longer happen (if SMP is enabled) on the frontend because it no longer has a GL context. As i recall, the water is potentially a similar issue, with it trying to do stuff on the frontend that it shouldn't. Do either of you have a mission in mind where I can quickly get to some affected water?

 

Both issues need a slight refactor to properly adhere to the frontend/backend split. All perfectly doable. I'll try to get it fixed asap, but it might not happen before the weekend, sorry.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hm, underwater is expected for the reason I stated, underwater vision is doing stuff on the frontend it shouldn't. Over water artifacts I'm not sure, might be the same cause or something completely different. But I'll find out soon enough :) Thanks for letting me know.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, now I'm really confused. After looking at the code, any saving of the game happens in the frontend. How the hell is this even working at all with SMP enabled?! At the latest, my vertex cache changes should have broken it completely, at least the part that's trying to take a screenshot. And yet, somehow normal saves seem to work ok, even with screenshots, it's only the final save that crashes the game. I must be missing something...

 

Edit: Never mind, regular saves appear to be scheduled via the command queue, which is executed before the frontend/backend split. I was confused by the calls to SaveGame in RunGameTic(), which is apparently dead code? Because it's only triggered by setting the cvar 'saveGameName', but that one's set to read-only...

Edited by cabalistic
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen this weird effect prior to Cabalistic's update.

 

The same effect is also visible on torches, so that would be a problem with heatHaze.vfp, right? Reverting to x64 from latest 2.06 update solves the problem, so that must have been fixed.

Edited by Judith
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I committed a partial fix for the crash on mission success. I moved where the final save is created so that it can now succeed. However, trying to quit the game afterwards freezes the game in an infinite loop. This is caused by some interactions not being properly cleaned up, or so the game claims. Will continue to investigate.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have problems with opening console in-game in windowed mode on the current trunk. Probably due to these changes?...

The console opens by tilde the first time, but it does not open after that (and it I spawn main menu, it opens there).

I hope I'm not alone who has the problem? :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hm, console works fine for me in windowed mode. But there is still at least one slight rendering issue I'm currently tracking down. Perhaps, under the right conditions, it might stop the console from rendering properly?

 

Does the console react if you type a command blindly? If yes, it might be that rendering issue. If not, it sounds more like a logic issue and I'm not sure how these changes would have affected that.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hm, console works fine for me in windowed mode. But there is still at least one slight rendering issue I'm currently tracking down. Perhaps, under the right conditions, it might stop the console from rendering properly?

 

Does the console react if you type a command blindly? If yes, it might be that rendering issue. If not, it sounds more like a logic issue and I'm not sure how these changes would have affected that.

When I try to open it for the second time, the window loses focus, and I start seeing my mouse cursor (which no longer affects player orientation). If I then press tilde again, TDM gets focus back. For the whole time, TDM renders without any problems just as nothing happened.

Maybe that's not a TDM problem at all, maybe I just messed somehow with generic Windows interface :blush:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, reflective water only sort of works if FBO is enabled, but still wrong without it. I'm trying to figure out what's going wrong, but I have a feeling some render copies are not created or used quite right. No clue why the BFG-style vertex cache would have any effect on those, though.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK. Don't get to angry with me. :blush:

 

I accidentally left Shadow Maps enabled (r_shadows 2). :blush::blush:

 

Setting back to Stencil Shadows resolved the ambient rendering issue.

 

Strange that there's such a disparity whereas Shadow Maps work in other missions.

 

Now I see the water rendering issues but it's at least the fully rendered scene.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...