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Dark Mod 2.09 Will Not Run


johlkien

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Hi all,

As the title suggests, I cannot run the dark mod. After installing, I run the 64 bit exe (there is no 32 bit exe) and the game freezes just after the cursor appears. Windows 10 then says the program is not responding. Have tried looking around the forums and changed various cfg values and tried using compatibility settings to no avail. My machine is a Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop with the standard Intel HD onboard graphics card and 4gb ram. I have tried updating and reinstalling to no success. Any thoughts? I have pretty standard hardware and can't understand the issue.

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I'm not a programmer so can't suggest what the reason is, but sometimes it has helped to revert to 2.08 ("Get custom version") and back to 2.09 with the tdm_installer. That should go reasonably fast.

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Hi,

Thanks for the quick responses everyone. To answer it all in one, yes its Windows 10 64 bit on a Lenovo Yoga 2 (model 20322). The only change I've made is putting in an SSD. I will try to downgrade to 2.08 and see if that works and report back. Also just as an FYI, Google Chrome views the installer as a malicious download (as does Windows Defender) and so I need to force permission to download (via right-click save as) and also to run the installer as an unverified app. In the meantime here is the log dump in case it helps for others:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13n9AC0n-yMiWfSl6FuuVrolOH4r1sA1b/view?usp=sharing

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Hmm... looks like the processor does not support AVX.

I believe there is a force generic SIMD cvar that can disable this requirement...

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

 

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

 

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@johlkien, are you sure the dump was taken after TDM hanged up, and not before that?

In the crashdump, all threads are waiting. Basically, this is a deadlock.
Frontend thread is waiting for "signalFrontendThread", which is I guess when backend would finish.
Main/backend thread is waiting for GL fence lock:

     ntdll.dll!00007ffea48bce14()    Unknown
     KERNELBASE.dll!00007ffea2011e93()    Unknown
     ig7icd64.dll!00007ffe5a9c5f8b()    Unknown
     ig7icd64.dll!00007ffe5a5b65ad()    Unknown
>    [Inline Frame] TheDarkModx64.exe!WaitForGeoBufferSet(int) Line 119    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!idVertexCache::EndFrame() Line 333    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!idRenderSystemLocal::EndFrame(int * frontEndMsec, int * backEndMsec) Line 689    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!idSessionLocal::UpdateScreen(bool outOfSequence) Line 2760    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!idCommonLocal::Frame() Line 2550    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!WinMain(HINSTANCE__ * hInstance, HINSTANCE__ * hPrevInstance, char * lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow) Line 1321    C++
     [Inline Frame] TheDarkModx64.exe!invoke_main() Line 102    C++
     TheDarkModx64.exe!__scrt_common_main_seh() Line 288    C++

@johlkien, could you please try starting TheDarkMod two times:

  1. With "r_useFenceSync 0".
  2. With "com_smp 0".

Since you cannot set cvar in console, you need to open "darkmod.cfg", find corresponding cvar there, and change its value.

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9 hours ago, johlkien said:

To update, 2.08 also froze at the same point. However, in this version I did find a 32 bit exe that would run. So success I suppose.

You can download 32-bit executable of 2.09 from the Downloads page on website.
Oh crap, for some reason it is not there! We'll add the link to archive.
Meanwhile, you can download 32-bit executables here: http://update.thedarkmod.com/zipsync/_aux/209/tdm_exe32.zip

Could you please confirm that "TheDarkModx64.exe" does not work for you in 2.09, but "TheDarkMod.exe" from the archive does work for you in 2.09?
Also, could you please go to properties of "TheDarkModx64.exe" and post a screenshot showing the exact size of it (up to the last byte).

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@stgatilov Yes the crash dump was taken as TheDarkModx64.exe was hung up. I did it as the tutorial suggested and did not close it before exporting the dump. I had tried to open the executable a few times before however if that matters. 

"r_useFenceSync 0" - No change

"com_smp 0" - No Change

To confirm, 2.09 TheDarkModx64.exe does not work, TheDarkMod.exe that you linked to does work. EDIT: While the executable runs and I can get to the main menu, trying to download a mission causes the program to crash to desktop. Also tying to play a mission leaves me hanging at the loading screen at which point Windows says its not responding.

image.png.50404b2d894ffd11ddcf8e9eb49160c4.png

@nbohr1more com_forceGenericSIMD SSE3 doesn't seem to be in my config file. Adding it in had no effect.

 

Also thanks for all your efforts. I grew up loving Thief and it is so awesome that I get to continue enjoying that experience through the efforts of dedicated folks like yourself. 

Edited by johlkien
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By the way, you can in principle play version 2.08 for now: most of FMs should work fine in it.
Perhaps having two installations would be more convenient in this case (just be sure to not confuse one for another).

 

I'm afraid the best idea I have is to send you bisecting over development versions (just like in the other thread nearby).

When you check "Get Custom Version" in tdm_installer, you will see a lot of versions, and you can install any of them. I'm interested in the versions under folder dev/2.09 (like dev16010-8948): they are listed in order of increasing age. Normally, they should work fine up to some point, and then fail after that point. Could you please find the first one which fails for you?

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@stgatilov Ok so I had the opportunity to test out a few of the dev releases for both 2.08 and 2.09. I didn't try them all but I tried the two most recent and two oldest of each version, and none would run the 64 bit executable. I didn't take any dumps of them but I'd be happy to if you would like. The 32 bit exe of 2.08 works fine for most FM (except The Painter's Wife which I have been dying to try) so I'll stick with that since the 32 bit exe for 2.09 that you linked me to would not run.

EDIT: On a lark I tried to reinstall 2.09 and run the 32 bit version (which did not load a mission previously). Now it seems to work fine so it it does not seem to be a version dependent issue.

Edited by johlkien
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@stgatilov

@nbohr1more

Great success! I've managed to get the 2.09 64-bit exe running. For the first time in my life, it came down to a driver. Trouble was that Lenovo has not had a driver update for my HD Intel Graphics card (Z3700) since 2017, and Intel would not install the newest driver (put out in October 2020) and directed me right back to Lenovo. In the end I had to force install the driver via "Have Disk". All runs well now, and I have seen a performance upgrade as well, although the load times in 2.09 seem to be almost twice as long for me. Thanks again for all the help!

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8 hours ago, johlkien said:

@stgatilov

@nbohr1more

Great success! I've managed to get the 2.09 64-bit exe running. For the first time in my life, it came down to a driver. Trouble was that Lenovo has not had a driver update for my HD Intel Graphics card (Z3700) since 2017, and Intel would not install the newest driver (put out in October 2020) and directed me right back to Lenovo. In the end I had to force install the driver via "Have Disk". All runs well now, and I have seen a performance upgrade as well, although the load times in 2.09 seem to be almost twice as long for me. Thanks again for all the help!

Wow

How many fps in Painters Wife? What screen resolution?

I remember having <10fps on a Core M5 Lenovo Yoga 11 in 2016 with small maps like Thomas Porter 1: Knighton Manor🤪

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Well I will say the Painters Wife is not smooth (5 fps). Although it runs now. The rest of the maps work pretty well actually. I have the rendering turned down just a little but, but with no other adjustments. I've also purged many needless background processes from Windows (like Cortana). Not sure if that does much, but at least it frees up the little RAM I have. I just tried Knighton Manor and was getting 25-30 on average. Sometimes it was up near 40. I think I'll tweak some of the config to turn of extra enhancements. If only I could get a lower resolution to stick that could help. 

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7 minutes ago, johlkien said:

Well I will say the Painters Wife is not smooth (5 fps). Although it runs now. The rest of the maps work pretty well actually. I have the rendering turned down just a little but, but with no other adjustments. I've also purged many needless background processes from Windows (like Cortana). Not sure if that does much, but at least it frees up the little RAM I have. I just tried Knighton Manor and was getting 25-30 on average. Sometimes it was up near 40. I think I'll tweak some of the config to turn of extra enhancements. If only I could get a lower resolution to stick that could help. 

TDM 2.09 locks resolution to Desktop resolution in Windows.

Try lowering the Render Scale to 0.75 or lower and set Sharpening to 0.7

That should give you better performance with better image quality than up-scaling via your LCD screen.

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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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Why would it lock the resolution? It seems there is no point of having other resolution options then if using a laptop. Is there any way around that? Editing the config has no effect. 

Oh and also, I've noticed no difference in fps between having rendering high or all the way down. 

Edited by johlkien
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You mean "Render Scale" all the way down?

If so, that means that fill-rate is not your weakness.

Try "image_downSize":

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks

 

Also, "MAPS" (shadow mode) should perform better than Stencil mode in 2.09

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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Gotcha. Thanks for the help. Yes sorry I meant Render Scale. I kicked myself after asking the question, but I simply turned down the resolution via Windows and that allowed me to play at a lower resolution which increased my frame rate a bit (but not in The Painters Wife which seems to be just too heavy for this paperweight). From now on for resource heavy missions I'll just do that beforehand.

I also decided to stick with 2.08 since the load times are significantly better. I'll try a bunch of those tweaks and maybe something will help. The few I tried already have only had minor benefits. Thanks again!

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@johlkien
Regarding loading times, I have a PC in a similar situation as yours (onboard graphics, loading times longer in 2.09) and found that I could get much faster loading times by applying this with the console:

image_useNormalCompression 0

This stops your PC from compressing normalmaps during loading. In theory this should lower your fps if you run out of graphics memory to store all those huge normalmaps, but I didn't notice a difference, only much better loading times.

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