Issues in 2.08 final

[joebarnin]

54 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

Please delete your tdm_base01.pk4, any glprogs folders, and your darkmod executable then run tdm_update.

 

Thanks, that solved it - I did as you suggested, and set image_useNormalCompression back to 1, and now reflections look good. So I guess I didn't have a clean release after all. 

In general, are the steps you listed a good idea for getting a clean release? So, if I run into strange behavior, is it best to do those steps first to see if that resolves the issue?

[nbohr1more]

tdm_update should replace old versions of these files but if there is any doubt about the condition of shaders

then removing them and letting tdm_update replace them with good copies is a good trouble-shooting step.

[ACTomlinson]

Hi, been playing Darkmod for a few years now. On a Windows7 machine and until the update it was mostly fine.

Now, when I try to enter a mission, I see the general area but not the details. It looks like I am looking out over the city or at a flat background of the woods (depending on which mission) and it is dark, presumably because the nature of the game is generally at night. Like I only see the backdrop of the set and it is far away. Changing my point of view with the mouse will grant me glimpses of the actual set I am in but only fleeting and only at a specific angle. Certainly not playable.

I tried the fix above of deleting the tdm_base01.pk4 and the exe and do an update (did not see any glprogs folders) and it stayed the same.

Beyond deleting the whole game and reinstalling it (with the fidgety zip program I have) what can I do? I also just recently added some new missions but I doubt that caused anything.

I just updated all of my drivers and it still did not fix this. The sound seems fine.

Thanks!

[nbohr1more]

3 hours ago, ACTomlinson said:

Hi, been playing Darkmod for a few years now. On a Windows7 machine and until the update it was mostly fine.

Now, when I try to enter a mission, I see the general area but not the details. It looks like I am looking out over the city or at a flat background of the woods (depending on which mission) and it is dark, presumably because the nature of the game is generally at night. Like I only see the backdrop of the set and it is far away. Changing my point of view with the mouse will grant me glimpses of the actual set I am in but only fleeting and only at a specific angle. Certainly not playable.

I tried the fix above of deleting the tdm_base01.pk4 and the exe and do an update (did not see any glprogs folders) and it stayed the same.

Beyond deleting the whole game and reinstalling it (with the fidgety zip program I have) what can I do? I also just recently added some new missions but I doubt that caused anything.

I just updated all of my drivers and it still did not fix this. The sound seems fine.

Thanks!

Does increasing r_ambientGamma improve things?

Please post details about your GPU and driver version along with your Darkmod.cfg

[stgatilov]

5 hours ago, ACTomlinson said:

I tried the fix above of deleting the tdm_base01.pk4 and the exe and do an update (did not see any glprogs folders) and it stayed the same.

The very first thing is usually to delete or rename darkmod.cfg.

It contains settings, which are often not compatible between versions.

[wesp5]

While we are at starting up a mission, I want to report another thing that I might guess is new with 2.08:

On my system the background for the "Press attack to start mission" window isn't black at the start, but shows some kind of brick wall. This might be different depending on the mission itself, but I haven't thoroughly checked this yet. Also would it be possible to start the mission with the frob key too? Start by attacking is not fitting for a stealth game ;).

Edited July 28, 2020 by wesp5

[Dragofer]

49 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

On my system the background for the "Press attack to start mission" window isn't black at the start, but shows some kind of brick wall. This might be different depending on the mission itself, but I haven't thoroughly checked this yet.

On that screen you always see a closeup of a texture near the player's starting location. Usually ambient brightness is fairly dark so it looks almost black, but if the light is brighter you can clearly see that texture.

[wesp5]

1 hour ago, Dragofer said:

On that screen you always see a closeup of a texture near the player's starting location. Usually ambient brightness is fairly dark so it looks almost black, but if the light is brighter you can clearly see that texture.

Thanks for the explanation, but depending on the mission this really looks weird sometimes. Is there a way to fake complete blackness there before the game is started?

Edited July 28, 2020 by wesp5

[AluminumHaste]

Where were all you people during the beta test??!?!? This is exactly the feedback that was needed

 

[wesp5]

2 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

Where were all you people during the beta test??!?!? This is exactly the feedback that was needed

I read a bit in the beta thread and it seemed everything was about shader details so I would have thought obvious issues like this would have been caught anyway ;)!

[AluminumHaste]

Not if they're not reported lol

[ACTomlinson]

15 hours ago, stgatilov said:

The very first thing is usually to delete or rename darkmod.cfg.

It contains settings, which are often not compatible between versions.

I think I tried that first from another post I read looking for the answer to this issue. Mine is capitalized, does that make a difference?

[ACTomlinson]

17 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

Does increasing r_ambientGamma improve things?

Please post details about your GPU and driver version along with your Darkmod.cfg

How do I find r_ambientGamma? How do I find the GPU and driver information? And what do you mean "along with your Darkmod.cfg?" It does not open. I am not highly technical. What I have learned came from asking help in troubleshooting on various programs over the last few years. It was all working fairly fine until the last upgrade.

Had issues with a couple of missions not loading at all, but most loaded ok. Once or twice a mission was too busy for my ancient processor and the game get annoyingly slow when that happens. But at least they were playable.

 

[ACTomlinson]

7 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

Where were all you people during the beta test??!?!? This is exactly the feedback that was needed

I did not know about this project until it was finished, or I would have been all over it. I remember being on forums when Thief 3 was being made and the two suggestions I made (and I probably was not the only one who did) was an escape the prison level, which happened in 3, and dogs, which was not well done in that pretend 4th game. Keeping them in cages was NOT the point. I was hoping to have to either make friends or subdue the guard dogs as part of new challenges.

Someone should make a real 4th Thief, game and not omit Pagans and Keepers and Hammers. Erin should have been a character you got to know BEFORE something weird happened to her. Just my own thoughts. Thief 4 should change its name and the area and character names and just be a stealth game unaffiliated to the franchise.

Darkmod waaaay better than that pretend 4th game. When I get a better computer that isn't old enough to go to middle school, I hope to create levels too.

[HMart]

30 minutes ago, ACTomlinson said:

How do I find r_ambientGamma? How do I find the GPU and driver information? And what do you mean "along with your Darkmod.cfg?" It does not open. I am not highly technical. What I have learned came from asking help in troubleshooting on various programs over the last few years. It was all working fairly fine until the last upgrade.

Had issues with a couple of missions not loading at all, but most loaded ok. Once or twice a mission was too busy for my ancient processor and the game get annoyingly slow when that happens. But at least they were playable.

 

In windows to know more about your PC you can do this, go to the search bar in the windows bar, normally in the lower left corner, next to the windows icon, type dxdiag, a blue icon with a yellow X should showup, double click on it, chose no if a small window shows up, then you can see basic info about your CPU in the system tab and basic info on your GPU in the visualization tab.

You can also install this to know more deeply about your GPU and or this to know more deeply about your CPU.

 

Darkmod.cfg is a file that is on the games folder, is where the game saves all the engine/game definitions for later use, that file can be read/edited with a simple text editor, but I don't recommend editing it, if you don't know what your are doing. Because is just a small text file you can attach it to the forum, it saves no important info about you or something so don't worry. 

r_ambientGamma is a TDM console command, to know more about this go here.

Edited July 28, 2020 by HMart

[nbohr1more]

32 minutes ago, ACTomlinson said:

How do I find r_ambientGamma? How do I find the GPU and driver information? And what do you mean "along with your Darkmod.cfg?" It does not open. I am not highly technical. What I have learned came from asking help in troubleshooting on various programs over the last few years. It was all working fairly fine until the last upgrade.

Had issues with a couple of missions not loading at all, but most loaded ok. Once or twice a mission was too busy for my ancient processor and the game get annoyingly slow when that happens. But at least they were playable.

 

Press "CTRL" + "ALT" + "~" (tilde) and this should open the command-line console then type r_ambientGamma 1.2  and press enter then press "ESC" to close the console.

You should be able to right click your darkmod.cfg and open it with a text editor like notepad. For the purposes of this discussion, we would ask that you simply click the "drag files to attack" "choose files" area at the bottom of the forum reply interface and then browse to your darlkmod folder and select your darkmod.cfg. If you cannot attach it, try renaming it with a .txt extension then attach (then rename it back to darkmod.cfg).

[Apiai]

- I've got this green spot (left) before the normal green flash (right).
Weird thing : the red flash is working fine.

- The frob helper is not displayed. Here's the values used in darkmod.cfg :

seta tdm_frobhelper_ignore_size "40.0"
seta tdm_frobhelper_fadeout_duration "500"
seta tdm_frobhelper_fadein_duration "1500"
seta tdm_frobhelper_fadein_delay "500"
seta tdm_frobhelper_alpha "1.0"
seta tdm_frobhelper_alwaysVisible "0"
seta tdm_frobhelper_active "1"
seta tdm_frob_fadetime "100"
seta tdm_frob_width "10.0"
seta tdm_frob_distance_default "63"

 

[AluminumHaste]

Huh, I just noticed this on my laptop also.

What's your video card and drivers?

[Apiai]

NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 with 381.65 Geforce Drivers (Win 7 32bits)

[AluminumHaste]

Wow, those are ancient, from 2017. 2.08 is using newer graphics techniques, go get the latest.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/results/132837/

Those are at least March 2018, but it looks like your card isn't being updated anymore.

 

EDIT: Or, if you get a 64bit OS, even windows 7 64bit, you can use much newer drivers: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/results/162099/

July 2020

[Apiai]

Thanks for info, I thought I had download latests drivers which I've updated a few month ago 

[stgatilov]

2 hours ago, Apiai said:

- I've got this green spot (left) before the normal green flash (right). Weird thing : the red flash is working fine.

Fixed as 5311. The fix will be available in the next dev build.

[Apiai]

Quote

r8902 Make sure all idWinVar objects are initialized with zeros.

That remember me of a project leader that always told us : "When you declare a variable in a routine, always initialized it to its default value, you never know..."

[Apiai]

Should I report here missing textures ?

Here's a black lantern from WS4 : The Warrens

Edited August 3, 2020 by Apiai
bad grammar

[Dragofer]

@Apiai Yes please, it looks like this might be another case of black skins on FM-specific non-extinguishable lamps since 2.08.