D2X-W32: Feedback needed

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:50 pm

Hi,

I'd love to have some more feedback on joystick control, esp. turn speed. Is it still too fast? Can anybody compare it to D2-3dfx or D2-Win95? These D2 versions do not run properly on most of the machines I have access to.

zapp · Post by **zapp** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:39 am

I just downloaded the version from here-http://www.brockart.de/descent/
Seems to be some difference- the joystick is still too sensitive to use unless I turn the sensitivity slide almost all the way left, but I can make it playable by doing so! The sensitivity is too much once the slider is halfway to the right, and the ship is uncontrollable and in fact, flies itself when the slider is full right.

Looks good, plays very smooth. I played for a couple hours on Kali, no connection problems.
One odd thing- I seem to have my FPS locked at 76.9 instead of 80? My monitor refresh is 85 Hz, so it is not a V-synch prob.

A suggestion- since you appear to be putting out new versions almost daily (and great work you're doing!) you should have the version displayed somewhere (a readme in the zip? On the opening screen?) so people can be sure of what version they are using to help you in debugging.
Overall, great work! I can play D2 in XP w/ a Radeon!

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:03 am

I have only one thing to say about D2x-w32 now.

It's ready to roll out.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:51 am

zapp,

unfortunately I cannot reproduce your joystick problem. Please try to d/l the newest version from my Descent site.

I will add a special version string to the main menu screen to distinguish it from other D2X versions and display a version number.

ferno,

so be it.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:58 am

Just so you don't misunderstand Diedel.. when I say 'it's ready to roll out' I mean it's complete. everything's working correctly. 'Gone Gold'. Any one term you choose to say that the project is complete.

Great job dude. and thanks.

EDIT: how did you guys get it set up to work under kali?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:30 am

I knew what you meant.

In KALI, just add the game to your games list (dunno by heart how to do that). If you have several D2 versions, add them all to your "Descent" games list. If joining a D2 match via KALI, KALI will ask you which of the programs from the list to launch. Select d2x-w32 there.

I just had a KALI 1:1 in Neptune yesterday, worked great so far (only that I got my behind severly whooped due to being a mouser

).

I have just uploaded a new version, showing a special version string in the main menu screen ("D2X-W32 1.0"), so that ppl know at once whether they're using D2X-W32 and what version of it when launching it. Kind of "final touch".

zapp · Post by **zapp** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:00 am

I just got the version you have on your web page, and I don't see any version number in the main screen...
Also, it wouldn't let me select the pilot I had used w/ the previous version- other pilots were fine.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:30 am

zapp wrote:I just got the version you have on your web page, and I don't see any version number in the main screen...
Also, it wouldn't let me select the pilot I had used w/ the previous version- other pilots were fine.

Got the new version about 3 hours ago. (March 5th Sat, Aussie time/day)
http://img120.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img120& ... 5054bo.jpg Should look like that.

zapp · Post by **zapp** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:24 am

just downloaded it again... now the version is there. Hmmm.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 2:52 pm

[Mr. Burns]"Excellent."[/]

Aside from the cube rendering errors, which have always been there, the only bugs I noticed were:

- Up / Down keys ( ^ , v ) don't work the way they should. I use Up / Down primarily for Automap navigation, but they were moving at 1/4 - 1/8 the speed of what they should have been. It was the same for piloting the ship.

- Banking keys ( w , r ) were the same as above, only slightly faster.

---
Btw, any chance of allowing a 1600x1200 mode? The automap can do it.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:46 pm

What cube rendering errors? Screenshot?

Up/down not a problem for me, so I'm afraid I will not be able to fix that.

1600x1200 should be feasible.

Sapphire Wolf · Post by **Sapphire Wolf** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:54 pm

Sorry for disturbing you but, I'm not joking about the slow pitch on the keyboard, Do you have a chance to fix it?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:57 pm

How slow? How many secs. approx. does it take for a full turn of 360Â°?

Edit: Only pitch is affected, right?

Edit 2: Pitch/bank speed should be fixed now, plus 1600x1200 added, version available already.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:19 pm

hm.. on my end, when I fire up D2x-w32 from inside Kali, it hangs at the pilot select submenu for some reason. I tried to work around it by adding the '-player' switch in my d2x.ini file, but that only got me so far as to the main screen logo.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:04 am

Did you try to delete your player profile and create a new one?

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 1:44 pm

Tried that. still hangs at the main screen before any menus come up when launched under kali. though when I deselect the 'Needs winsock support' option under game options it works correctly.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:35 pm

So you can play with D2X-W32 over KALI now?

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:38 pm

Probably not as D2 needs winsock support in Kali...

Teddy · Post by **Teddy** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:44 pm

wow, this has to be the best playing version of d2x ever.... the only problem im seeing so far is that once the game is started, i cant get back to the menus, the game hangs if i hit f2 or escape to go back to change any settings....

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 4:06 pm

Without winsock support D2x-w32 tells me that IPX is not active even when I launch it under kali. which means I won't be able to see any D2 games.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 11:31 pm

Are you using Kali 1.68 by any chance Ferno? Virtually no-one does any more, but it does cause the problem you're talking about... to run Windows games over Kali in WinXP, Kali 2 seems to be a necessity.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 11:42 pm

1.68 isn't supported anymore last I heard. Meaning you can no longer connect to any servers and use the tracker while running it. I may be mistaken though.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:30 am

I'm using the latest version of Kali.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:26 am

Ferno,

I really don't know what to do about this, I can connect to KALI w/o problems and chose a player.

I can btw. also fire up the menu from within a KALI D2 game.

Crap. I'd really need to debug on the machines where the problems occur. Never have problems on any of those I can access (currently 3 with WinXP pro, WinXP home, Win2K pro, all patched to latest service packs).

The weird thing about this is that it happens with one release of d2x-w32, but not with a build just a day or two older, and I haven't changed anything in the player file handling recently.

Ferno & Teddy,

I will prepare a special debug version of d2x-w32, logging everything happening around player file and menu management to some log file and will ask you to fire up a KALI game with it and post the log file contents here, or e-mail it to me.

Update:

Find the debug version here:

http://www.brockart.de/descent/resource ... 32-dbg.exe

It's a self-extracting archive.

The program will create a file named c:\d2x_log.txt. Please post the contents of that file here.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:32 pm

Tyranny wrote:1.68 isn't supported anymore last I heard. Meaning you can no longer connect to any servers and use the tracker while running it. I may be mistaken though.

I've done it, even the Descent server. (It gives you endless 'strong warnings' about it though.)

Curiously, the more recent 2.508 - which supports D2X-W32 and still retains actually useful proxy services - doesn't connect to the Descent server - probably because it was designed not to when obsolete. It also does give the tracker error; regardless I can still connect to Rangers with it...

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:30 pm

If I check "Disable Visual Themes" on the .exe in the properties/compatibility tab (current build 1.0.5) it will run in kali. Haven't tried playing a game with it though. Looks pretty stable so far.

I wish screenshots worked how they should though. You don't need an outside application to take them. D2x originally captured screenshots as .png files using PrtScrn into the root directory of the game. However this feature isn't working how it should. I have fraps, but I shouldn't need to run that while running D2 just to take a screenshot.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:21 pm

I am not sure whether I can make in-game screenshots to work again in d2x-w32, because all rendering is done to some OpenGL buffers, and I'd need to find out how to access them and how to convert them to some regular image file format.

I wonder why it is so important to make screenshots anyway. The only application I can think of is for having screenshots of a level you built, and why not use FRAPS for that?

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:41 pm

Diedel wrote:I wonder why it is so important to make screenshots anyway. The only application I can think of is for having screenshots of a level you built, and why not use FRAPS for that?

I have 421MB of screenshots in 728 files. I like them because they capture cool moments or simply the beauty of the game it was taken in.

---
Taking a screenshot in D2x works (latest version), but it's not in one step. Hit Printscreen, minimize the game, paste into a picture application, tweak if need be, and save.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:42 pm

PrintScreen doesn't work in D2X-W32 for some odd reason.

Taking screen shots from the game doesn't work either.

Funny enough, if I set a breakpoint before the current frame buffer is copied, I get a screen shot of my IDE. If however the game is running while taking a screen shot, I get a totally garbled image. I really cannot tell why. The calls used are

Code: Select all

	buf = d_malloc(grd_curscreen->sc_w*grd_curscreen->sc_h*3);
	glReadBuffer(GL_FRONT);
	glReadPixels(0,0,grd_curscreen->sc_w,grd_curscreen->sc_h,GL_RGB,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,buf);
	write_bmp(savename,grd_curscreen->sc_w,grd_curscreen->sc_h,buf);

and a TGA file is created from the contents of buf, but it looks like the game doesn't render to OpenGL's front buffer (no back buffer used), or whatever. I don't know enough about D2X and OpenGL to find out whats wrong here.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:00 pm

Diedel wrote:PrintScreen doesn't work in D2X-W32 for some odd reason.

It works for me.

Taken 30 seconds ago.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:04 pm

That's of no help whatsoever for me, because I still cannot have D2X-W32 take its own screen shots.

I have temporarily built Alt+F9 into D2X-W32 as screenshot key, so I can call up its screenshot routine.

I need some OpenGL guy to tell me whats wrong, or tell me how to dump the canvas buffer D2X is rendering to to a TGA or BMP file.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:42 pm

Diedel wrote:That's of no help whatsoever for me, because I still cannot have D2X-W32 take its own screen shots.

I know.
Not sure if this will help, but here.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:45 pm

snoop around the quake2 source code. it should have it.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:05 pm

No way. I don't get paid for this.

The strange thing is that if I call the glReadPixels function while my desktop is visible, it works.

If I call it while d2x-w32 is visible, it doesn't work.

http://www.brockart.de/descent/images/scrn0015.tga

Garak · Post by **Garak** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:40 pm

Turned to gamedev I see. Hope they can help ya, it'll only make d2x that much better

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:04 am

well looks like whatever you did Diedel, it fixed the problem. I can now select my pilot and browse IPX games. Can't wait to play Tyranny in D2 again.

I'm not sure how it happens, but when I am in game and I want to access the options screen, it resets the custom gamma and brightness that I have set in my driver properties (latest official catalyst build from ATi). It kinda sucks seeing the game suddenly get darker after I press F2.

You can get around to this if you want, but do you think you can throw in some pixel shader or vertex shader tricks? like colored lighting? It would be cool to see green lasers light up the tunnel with a nice emerald green.

If the engine can't support it, or if you don't have the time, then no worries. I can live without.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:23 am

I'd like to.

Anybody around who can explain me how to implement pixel and vertex shaders in OpenGL?

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:04 am

Maybe these sites can help

http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/
http://www.shadertech.com/
http://www.humus.ca/index.php?page=3D

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 4:39 am

...

...*shudders*

That's a pretty hefty project there. The time would be better spent fixing the bugs and adding gameplay features - once that's done and we have people masochistic enough to do it, then we can go do the graphics engine overhaul.

At least that's how I see it.

I assume Diedel has other things to do...

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:07 am

I'd love to have the Fusion have a distortion effect light the big ray guns of HL2's striders ...

On the other side, pixel shader programming is not that easy, and I am absolutely no 3D math or programming expert. Heck, I can't even figure why reading D2X's render buffer with glReadPixels() doesn't work the way I think it should.

I can however look into D2X's code and find out where the lighting effect for lasers etc. is done (they do light up their environment), and maybe I can simply add some color to it.

Doing colored lights is a different story, as all lights and light effects are precomputed in the level building program (i.e. DMB2, DEVIL, DLE-XP), and thus are static. There is no information available about the light source in D2X's rendering engine, or at least it is not used.