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Testers and reviewers wanted: BFG-style vertex cache


cabalistic

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I haven't had the Mod installed since I reformatted several months ago, so I thought I would try out the latest version and install the update posted above.

 

r_shadows = 2

r_testARBProgram = 1

r_softShadowsRadius = -0.65

r_shadowMapSize = 1024

r_softShadowsQuality = 24

 

My system specs:

 

Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)
HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC
Intel® Core i3 CPU M 330 @ 2.13GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
6144MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12

NVIDIA GeForce G105M

 

Open GL Version: 3.3 - have passed all rendering tests with Open GL Extensions viewer. What is the minimum version of Open GL that I would need to run this?

 

So the mod ran without any issues on the fresh install but then when I applied this update, lights no longer worked for me. It appears that the ambient_world is working, but that's it. I've used the 32 and 64 bit versions and tried updating my graphics drivers, no change.

 

I also tried deleting the cache mentioned earlier.

 

post-3-0-71071000-1540034418_thumb.jpg

post-3-0-67850600-1540034426_thumb.jpg

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C:\Users\%userprofile%\AppData\Local\AMD\DxCache

is where cache data is supposed to reside, from a little googling. Similar path for nvidia

but it's under AppData\local\Temp\Nvidia...

 

 

Ok i see that on my PC but i assume you want me to delete the data on GLCache not on DxCache? TDM is a GL based game after all.

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I haven't had the Mod installed since I reformatted several months ago, so I thought I would try out the latest version and install the update posted above.

 

r_shadows = 2

r_testARBProgram = 1

r_softShadowsRadius = -0.65

r_shadowMapSize = 1024

r_softShadowsQuality = 24

 

My system specs:

 

Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)

HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC

Intel® Core i3 CPU M 330 @ 2.13GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.1GHz

6144MB RAM

DirectX Version: DirectX 12

NVIDIA GeForce G105M

 

Open GL Version: 3.3 - have passed all rendering tests with Open GL Extensions viewer. What is the minimum version of Open GL that I would need to run this?

 

So the mod ran without any issues on the fresh install but then when I applied this update, lights no longer worked for me. It appears that the ambient_world is working, but that's it. I've used the 32 and 64 bit versions and tried updating my graphics drivers, no change.

 

I also tried deleting the cache mentioned earlier.

 

newjob_2018-10-20_07.55.35.jpg

newjob_2018-10-20_08.00.24.jpg

I believe the current shader requires OpenGL 4.2.

 

What messages are thrown to the console if you invoke reloadGLSLprograms ?

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

 

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

 

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I believe the current shader requires OpenGL 4.2.

 

What messages are thrown to the console if you invoke reloadGLSLprograms ?

I can see shadowMapA.gs requiring 4.30 but that's just a leftover.

Try changing it to

#version 330

That might help

 

On the other hand interactionA.fs uses GL_ARB_texture_gather which is 4.0 stuff. Intel is unlikely to implement it with an extension. nVidia did not backport it to 105M. Try

#define STGATILOV_USEGATHER 0

BTW FWIW the 105M rates at 38 gflops and is absolutely not the chip you want to try the SS with. It was designed for DX9 era games (think WoW) on lowest possible presets. You should not expect anything close to playable.

 

 

Open GL Version: 3.3 - have passed all rendering tests with Open GL Extensions viewer. What is the minimum version of Open GL that I would need to run this?

Good question.

Rephrase to: how modern the hardware needs to be to run TDM.

I believe with stencil shadows we should still allow the DX9 (OpenGL 2) class (Geforce 6xxx / 7xxx / Radeon X1? ). Even if it means splitting shaders for stencil and shadow maps.

DX10 (OpenGL 3) class is IMHO already too old to target/support. That's Geforce 8xxx - 3xx, Radeon 2xxx-4xxx. We simply don't have the programmers to do that.

I'd want the 2.07 to focus on DX11 (OpenGL 4) class hardware - Geforce 400+, Radeon 5000+. You'd need to run TDM on that type of GPU's to be able to experience the newly added stuff.

I think it's fair.

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Damn. I'm not even sure my desktop supports opengl 4. So will these requirements only be for soft shadows or will current users be out of luck and get a nasty surprise when they fire up 2.07? Specifically, will we be able to still play without soft shadows on their current hardware?

 

My desktop has a Geforce 8800 GTS.

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Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Where do I try these changes?

I can see shadowMapA.gs requiring 4.30 but that's just a leftover.
Try changing it to

#version 330

That might help

On the other hand interactionA.fs uses GL_ARB_texture_gather which is 4.0 stuff. Intel is unlikely to implement it with an extension. nVidia did not backport it to 105M. Try

#define STGATILOV_USEGATHER 0

 

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Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Where do I try these changes?

 

1) Extract the tdm_base01.pk4

2) Locate the glprogs folder

3) Locate interactionA.fs inside this folder

4) Edit the #define STGATILOV_USEGATHER 1 line to #define STGATILOV_USEGATHER 0

5) Locate shadowMapA.gs

6) Place #version 330 at the top of the file

7) Zip the results up as tdm_base01.zip then rename as tdm_base01.pk4

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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...)

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Damn. I'm not even sure my desktop supports opengl 4. So will these requirements only be for soft shadows

Yes

 

or will current users be out of luck and get a nasty surprise when they fire up 2.07?

With enough testing, no

 

Specifically, will we be able to still play without soft shadows on their current hardware?

With enough testing, yes

 

 

My desktop has a Geforce 8800 GTS.

That was a great card in its time - how many years ago?

2.06 dropped support of lots on ancient hardware. Geforce 1, 2, 3, 4(?), Radeon 7000/8000/9000, almost anything pre-DX9. Those were also great cards of its time. It went generally unnoticed.

2.07 should run on DX9 gpu's but unless it's tested we can't be sure. I, for one, don't have any. And moving forward with renderer updates, more and more changes are introduced that are often not supported by old card drivers. They need to be encountered and identified before fixed. We have to rely on user beta testing for that. And if no beta tester has a DX9 GPU we can't really advertise TDM to be compatible with DX9 hardware, can we? Then what do we give as a minimum system requirement?

I'd say, the lowest oldest card it was beta tested on.

We'll make reasonable effort to make TDM run on any hardware the community members have but you should also understand that it's going to require effort on both sides - on yours it's console log collecting and uploading.

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Oh, I fully understand. I work in QA at a games studio. I just wanted to get a clear understanding of what level of graphics hardware was required / supported. It's something I would suggest rolling out now to give everyone fair warning. A minimum to play with or without soft shadows and then the desired setup. My desktop is a DX 10 card and it runs 2.06 very well. I don't know if I can afford to get a new card for quite some time, my wife and I separated so I'm on a single income. As long as I can play it to some degree, I'm not concerned about the extras. ☺

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Oh, I fully understand. I work in QA at a games studio. I just wanted to get a clear understanding of what level of graphics hardware was required / supported. It's something I would suggest rolling out now to give everyone fair warning. A minimum to play with or without soft shadows and then the desired setup. My desktop is a DX 10 card and it runs 2.06 very well. I don't know if I can afford to get a new card for quite some time, my wife and I separated so I'm on a single income. As long as I can play it to some degree, I'm not concerned about the extras. ☺

I agree.

It would be great to have some sort of cap on OpenGL stuff.

 

Now shadowMapA.gs has GLSL version 430.

This is like saying that we require OpenGL 4.3. Isn't it a bit overkill?

Do you really need this late version?

 

On comparison, interactionA.fs only states version 130, which is OpenGL 3.0 (plus extension for texture gather).

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Indeed, so Open GL 4 is the latest version right? Would it be reasonable to expect Opengl 3.x to be supported?

OpenGL 4.0 is from 2010, while OpenGL 3.0 is from 2008.

I agree that we should probably stick to OpenGL 3 with extensions (e.g. stencil textures, which are already used in 2.06 for soft shadows).

But the difference is not as big as the major versions suggests.

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OpenGL 3.x is rougly D3D 10

OpenGL 4.x is roughly D3D 11

 

After 4.x OpenGL is pretty much defunct in favor of Vulkan

 

Vulkan is roughly D3D 12

 

There is a plan to get everything into a 3.x profile for 2.08.

 

2.07 is "supposed to be" a conservative bugfix change from 2.06.

 

Shadow Maps "never really existed" in 2.06 so there is no real need to follow any 2.07 rules

about conservative changes since the default mode is Shadow Volumes.

 

That said, the current shadow map implementation is nearly perfected so if it can be made to run on DX10 hardware

then it might be a candidate for the default shadow mode.

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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...)

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I agree.

It would be great to have some sort of cap on OpenGL stuff.

 

Now shadowMapA.gs has GLSL version 430.

This is like saying that we require OpenGL 4.3. Isn't it a bit overkill?

Do you really need this late version?

 

On comparison, interactionA.fs only states version 130, which is OpenGL 3.0 (plus extension for texture gather).

95% of steam users have a DX11-level GPU.

I don't see the need to focus on the 5% and shrinking user group.

shadowMapA.gs does not need 430 as stated above - it was use for debugging uniforms a few weeks ago.

The real problem is textureGather - it's likely to block shader compilation on DX10 hardware, even with extensions.

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I agree with duzenko, my two AMD HD 5770 on my old PC are dx11 (OGL 4.4) cards and those are now 9 years old.

 

Having said that, New Horizon if you want to get one of my used HD 5770 only by the postal expenses just send me a PM, there's no reason for you to be stuck on dx10 when i have two dx11 cards here getting dust.

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I agree with duzenko, my two AMD HD 5770 on my old PC are dx11 (OGL 4.4) cards and those are now 9 years old.

 

Having said that, New Horizon if you want to get one of my used HD 5770 only by the postal expenses just send me a PM, there's no reason for you to be stuck on dx10 when i have two dx11 cards here getting dust.

 

Oh wow. That is incredibly generous of you HMart. I would definitely consider it. Where are you located?

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Oh wow. That is incredibly generous of you HMart. I would definitely consider it. Where are you located?

 

I'm from Portugal, i can send to anywhere in the world but would be better if you lived within europe of course because of customs. ;)

Edited by HMart
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Haha. I am in Canada. No plans to move to Europe sadly. We can discuss it later though.

Today Europe is a mess (and Italy in particular :P - what a shame, we are the Trump-USA of the continent ), Canada is such a beautiful land :D

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Haha. I am in Canada. No plans to move to Europe sadly. We can discuss it later though.

 

Looking at the post office website sending to canada to me is not a problem, the problem maybe you having to pay additional taxes to pick up the package in your country, you need to inform yourself on that.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, I decided to download beta 14 to try out the shadow maps. Regarding them, I have two things to report.

 

1) Projected lights.

 

Projected lights (as opposed to Omni ones, in DR) don't seem to work properly with shadow maps. The behaviour is weird. If r_softShadowsQuality = 0, a projected light doesn't show up at all. If r_softShadowsQuality 0, projected lights will appear but they won't cast any shadows. In both cases, shadow maps for omni-directional lights work for me.

 

2) Z-fighting with shadow textures when foglight present.

 

I happened to be testing this on a WIP map that has sealing brushwork with the shadowcaulk texture. On top of those, I have architectural modules with normal textures, with some of the faces being coplanar with the shadowcaulk brushes. I also have a map-wide foglight. with r_shadows 2, there is z-fighting between the shadowcaulk texture and the normal one. r_skipfoglights removes the z-fighting, meaning the problem is with the foglights.

 

I tested in a more controlled setting. I made a brush with a regular texture, duplicated it in place and textured the second brush with the "shadow" devtexture. This time, instead of z-fighting, it looked like the entire regular-textured brush was getting double-fogged because of the "shadow" duplicate brush. When I changed the dimensions of the shadow brush while still keeping one side of it flush to the original brush, I got the z-fighting. Shadow volumes don't have this issue.

Edited by Spooks
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My FMs: The King of Diamonds (2016) | Visit my Mapbook thread sometimes! | Read my tutorial on Image-Based Lighting Workflows for TDM!

 

 

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Hi, I decided to download beta 14 to try out the shadow maps. Regarding them, I have two things to report.

 

1) Projected lights.

 

Projected lights (as opposed to Omni ones, in DR) don't seem to work properly with shadow maps. The behaviour is weird. If r_softShadowsQuality = 0, a projected light doesn't show up at all. If r_softShadowsQuality 0, projected lights will appear but they won't cast any shadows. In both cases, shadow maps for omni-directional lights work for me.

 

2) Z-fighting with shadow textures when foglight present.

 

I happened to be testing this on a WIP map that has sealing brushwork with the shadowcaulk texture. On top of those, I have architectural modules with normal textures, with some of the faces being coplanar with the shadowcaulk brushes. I also have a map-wide foglight. with r_shadows 2, there is z-fighting between the shadowcaulk texture and the normal one. r_skipfoglights removes the z-fighting, meaning the problem is with the foglights.

 

I tested in a more controlled setting. I made a brush with a regular texture, duplicated it in place and textured the second brush with the "shadow" devtexture. This time, instead of z-fighting, it looked like the entire regular-textured brush was getting double-fogged because of the "shadow" duplicate brush. When I changed the dimensions of the shadow brush while still keeping one side of it flush to the original brush, I got the z-fighting. Shadow volumes don't have this issue.

Let's wait for the next alpha release and see how it goes

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