D2X-XL Bug Reports - MS Windows

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:41 pm

I am pretty sure that if the high quality check box is unchecked movies aren't rendered high quality ... but I'll take another look.

I will eventually fix the credits screen (the text background isn't transparent there although it should be, too).

I really don't think I'll ever fix 320x200 res though. Or maybe I will?

Edit: Movie High Quality toggle works as it should.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:54 pm

Diedel wrote:Movie High Quality toggle works as it should.

Alright, I guess I should've been a little more specific... I leave D2X-W32, high quality movies off. I run D2X-W32 again, and high quality movies are now ON. However, the toggle is off. I have to turn it on and then turn it off for movies to go back to low quality.

P.S., D2X-W32 is at version 1.4.25, but your page says that it's at 1.4.24.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:59 pm

I just looked at this: No problems here. Make sure your player file isn't read only, maybe that's the reason.

Credit screen flickering solved btw.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:27 pm

BUBBALOU wrote:Yet anyone using teh h@cked up version of D2x-sdl drops no spew!! We see this alot on kali and choose not to play anyone using that version. Not to mention the other network related issues with that version, it was never finished and barely has a network code

See, the opposite is happening with me. It happend with D2x-w32 against RUL and Vinyl. Both of them told me what was happening so immediatly I switched over to my other install of D2 which uses D2x-gl.exe and there were no further complications. Atleast none they reported, which I figured they would have.

I even had RUL rehost our game and tried a second time with w32 and the same thing occured before I finally decided to switch over. I'm not sure if it is a "packet" issue, no spew appearing after death seems initially like a packet issue, which is why I said so.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:33 pm

Kept disconnecting? Interesting, that sounds very much like an experience I had... I only seemed able to continually see the game host. Anyone else in the game was dropped soon after.

I suspect the cause of this is the same as the cause of the problems I have with Kali on my router; it doesn't handle UDP very well...

It's hard to be sure though. And seeing I know nothing about networking other than configuration and what other people tell me, I couldn't start with how to fix it...

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:00 pm

Spew is created on the computer of the exploding player (ship). It uses a generic "create object" function though that is used to spawn all objects, and that reports to the other players. I can only assume that this is a connection thing.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 5:07 pm

Credits problem still persists @ 640x***... seems to be fine on other resolutions though...

320x200 display fixed. Lots of spare time on your hands, eh?

Black hud problem still persists...

Oh, new D1 stuff: The later versions of D1X supported custom robot/model files (".hx1" files), which had the same format as D2's HXM format (although the models came in a slightly different order...), and custom sound/image files (".pg1" files), which had the same format as DTX1's "PIG Patch File" format... Not sure where you could get ahold of that format though...

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:28 pm

Any idea why I can't see the movies? the nomovies tag is not present in the INI file and they are enabled in the game.

I want to take some screenshots.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:08 pm

Duper wrote:Any idea why I can't see the movies? the nomovies tag is not present in the INI file and they are enabled in the game.

Do you have them installed on your harddrive? I have mine installed on my harddrive, and I never get any problems from it... (except the movie quality thing)

OK, just played a co-op game with my dad over IPX, and I noticed several minor problems:

Freindly Fire toggle worked backwards: When checked, we couldn't damage eachother; when unchecked, we could.
Ship messages (eg "Your Energy is maxed out" or "You already have the Plasma Cannon") weren't displayed. Player messages (eg "Dad has destroyed the main reactor"), however, were displayed.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:23 pm

The latter is probably not a bug. Look for -playermessages in your d2x.ini file; if you actually want those messages, remove it.

The reason it's there is that often people want to see others talking without the text being wiped while crossing over a pile of powerups.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:32 pm

Sirius wrote:The latter is probably not a bug. Look for -playermessages in your d2x.ini file; if you actually want those messages, remove it.

Well, yeah, uh... THAT WOULD HELP! Duh!

Speaking of d2x.ini, howcome there are two instances of "-norendundancy" in the one that comes with D2X-W32?

One last thing: Since the reticle is gone in external ship view when piloting the ship, shouldn't the crosshair be gone in external ship view when piloting a guided missile?

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 10:55 pm

a complete list of the ini commands? I can't get screenshots to work. Movies still aren't working. I'll reinstall the files.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:55 pm

Duper wrote:a complete list of the ini commands? I can't get screenshots to work. Movies still aren't working. I'll reinstall the files.

http://www.brockart.de/descent/d2x-switches.html

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 1:00 am

D3Hack,

I have checked the FF toggle 3 times at least due to other players' requests, and everytime I did I found it working properly and the right way round.

Please post a screen shot with the black HUD problem and clearly mark the affected areas so that I get an idea what you mean.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 1:24 am

Alright, once again it happend. Tried playing a third different person today and again no spew after I died. Switched back to D2x-gl.exe (Whatever the last one was) and spew shows up after I die just fine. Its happening too often with D2x-w32 and NOT with D2x-gl.exe for it to be strictly a connection issue.

Like I said before, I've even tried re-joining with D2x-w32 and the same thing persists and forces me to use the last release of the original D2x. Obviously something is sending information that Kali doesn't like or vice versa...

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:15 am

Tyranny wrote:Alright, once again it happend. Tried playing a third different person today and again no spew after I died. Switched back to D2x-gl.exe (Whatever the last one was) and spew shows up after I die just fine. Its happening too often with D2x-w32 and NOT with D2x-gl.exe for it to be strictly a connection issue.

Like I said before, I've even tried re-joining with D2x-w32 and the same thing persists and forces me to use the last release of the original D2x. Obviously something is sending information that Kali doesn't like or vice versa...

Would a demo show or prove anything for Diedel to see?

Just wondering.....

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 3:42 am

I doubt it. We all know what it looks like when a ship blows up and nothing comes out. All a demo would show is my ship blowing up and nothing coming out. It would have to be taken by the other person playing me though.

On my side the spew is there and I can pick everything up. Which I neglected to mention...stupid me

. It's cheating the other player and I hate having to switch versions of D2 all the time.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 4:28 am

hummm.. well maybe what we need is 3 people playing on kali. You with W32 version and the other 2 with Win95/DOS/3dfx version. Player 3 with original version/3dfx recording the demo. You "player 1" kill player 2 or player 2 kills you. Maybe it will show up on original version side. I don't know.
Might be best if everyone in the game records demo?

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 5:29 am

Fast Spawn enabled on your d2x-w32 tyr??

I do not have that enabled

look into that if you do

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:02 am

Tyr,

#1 I never had this problem, at least when playing via UDP/IP.

#2 If the spew is created, then there must be a problem somewhere in the networking part.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:14 am

Yeah bubba, I guess I had fast respawn checked.

Diedel: All I'm saying is that now it has happend three times with D2x-w32 and that only. It hasn't happened with regular D2x at all. Sure, it could be a matter of how Kali is handling information between versions of Descent but...

I'm just reporting what I'm seeing to try and smooth things out. I'll try without having "fast respawn" checked and see if it happens again. The way things were explained it seemed as though most of the new features were either SP only or worked in MP only with other players using D2x-w32.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:15 am

Duper wrote: I can't get screenshots to work.

There is a trick to this...

sometimes you catch a screenshot inbetween frames and you get a blank screengrab! so take it again...!!

This is what I do, now that I am accustomed to how my video card responds to alt+tab with d2x-w32

1 - hit printscreen (for clipboard grab)
2 - hit F2 just to get into any menu screen, to freeze my ship position (more later)
3 - Alt+Tab to get to windows desktop
4 - open paint
5 - Ctrl+V (paste)
5a - save as jpg - leave paint open
OR
5b - if screenshot is blank - leave paint open
6 - << Alt+tab back to D2x-w32

When I return to d2x-w32 the screen will come up black...no biggy!!

7 - Hit ESC and D2x-W32 refreshes the screen and I'm where I took the screenshot ready to grab another if need be
8 - Rinse and Repeat

Note - if you forget to hit F2 before Alt+Tab when you return to D2x-W32 - Hit F2 then ESC should refresh the screen for you.... but your position will not be where you left

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:24 am

Diedel wrote:Tyr,

#1 I never had this problem, at least when playing via UDP/IP.

Yes but isn't UDP/IP only for W32 versions? If so... then for W32 to play with original D2 v1.2. You'll have to play over on kali. So really. It needs to be tested through kali with original and W32 versions. Is it possible or are you even able to do that Diedel?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:07 pm

For some reason I cannot tell, screenshot grabbing doesn't always work in D2X-W32, nor does it work on all gfx cards. Actually it's a simple OpenGL function that fails e.g. on my X800 XT for a reason I cannot tell. I have been looking into this intensely and even asking on some game dev board (no reply there though).

The screenshot shortcut key I built into D2X-W32 is Alt+F9, btw.

Aus,

I don't think I can debug D2X-W32 when it is called by KALI. There is no difference in spew handling between IPX and UDP - the function creating the spew calls some other function sending the info about the new objects to all clients, and that function calls the IPX or UDP networking code depending on what protocol you are using. The networking code doesn't distinguish any high level Descent messages - it just receives some data package and a destination address and sends the stuff there.

Tyr,

KALI doesn't distinguish between D2 versions. It intercepts IPX calls and translates them to another protocol (TCP/IP or UDP/IP - don't know what KALI uses).

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:59 pm

Diedel wrote:I have checked the FF toggle 3 times at least due to other players' requests, and everytime I did I found it working properly and the right way round.

Hmm... odd. Now it IS supposed to prevent you from damaging eachother when unchecked, right? Maybe it has to do with the IPX code, or maybe the cooperative mode code...

Diedel wrote:Please post a screen shot with the black HUD problem and clearly mark the affected areas so that I get an idea what you mean.

Alright, I'll see if I can get that done soon. If it helps any, here's the problem: transparent pixels in the cockpit image get drawn as black below a certain vertical position (410 pixels from the top @ 640x480). If you have the missions "Obsidian" or "Encounter 2: Dimensions", you can see it in the rearview. Also, it has to be something that you (

) introduced, because it wasn't there in the normal D2, and it wasn't even always there in D2X-W32 (I don't know which version it started in, though...).

Oh, and also: Custom robots are reset when switching missions, but custom music isn't.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 1:37 pm

FF checked: Team members can damage each other.
FF unchecked: Team members cannot damage each other.

Should not depend on networking protocol chosen. Not at all.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 1:40 pm

Diedel wrote:FF checked: Team members can damage each other.
FF unchecked: Team members cannot damage each other.

Should not depend on networking protocol chosen. Not at all.

Odd... You sure it doesn't have anything to do with cooperative mode, either?

Wow, I just figured out what my problem with the movies is: The toggle works fine, but the intro movie is always rendered high-quality! This means that the settings need to be loaded BEFORE the intro is displayed.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:23 pm

Diedel wrote: The screenshot shortcut key I built into D2X-W32 is Alt+F9, btw.

Thanks. You to Bubba. That's the way I had been doing it. Just kinda aweward when you need to take several consecutive pix.

Diedel, is that shortcut keys in the documentation somewhere? I couldn't find it. I was thinkin it might e different than the defalt Descent "Prnt Scrn" key.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:36 pm

When loading a saved game, the difficulty selected in "Gameplay Options" takes precedence over the difficulty stored in the saved game. Instead it should be changed to what's stored in the save game, just like it does when starting a game.

Also, black pixels on sprites (such as powerups) show as transparent.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 3:24 pm

D3Hack,

the only way to fix movie quality setting for the intro movie is to default it to low, as the setting is read from the plr file which gets opened after the intro movie.

The difficulty slider works exactly as it should.

I want screen shots from rendering bugs.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 8:05 pm

Diedel wrote:The difficulty slider works exactly as it should.

You sure it does? Here's what happens to me: If you don't set it before loading a game, the first game you load is fine. But the ones after that aren't. Unless my hardware hates me...

Diedel wrote:the only way to fix movie quality setting for the intro movie is to default it to low, as the setting is read from the plr file which gets opened after the intro movie.

That works fine for me now, thanks for changing it! Maybe you could determine the CPU's speed, and default the quality to high if it's at least 2GHz, and default the quality to low otherwise. Might work.

Also, could you see if the credits still flicker @ 640x480 on your comp? Because if they don't, then my hardware definitely hates me.

Diedel wrote:I want screen shots from rendering bugs.

OK, here are ones for the black HUD problem:

What it looks like in D2X-W32 (changed the background to the transparent color in second image, and please note that it's supposed to be a little brighter than the second image) :

What it SHOULD look like (what the actual image in the POG file looks like) :

It should be apparent from these images what the problem is. You can't see it in the default cockpit (since it doesn't have any transparent pixels that low down), but you can see it in cockpits like this (those images are in the rearview, BTW, but the same thing happens in the front view).

And here's one for the sprite problem (that's a full map powerup, BTW) :

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 11:54 pm

Ok, slight issue with the lightmapping. Its rendering all the wall textures as invisible (black). I can see my own weapons fire, and any robot within 20 or so cubes away from me...and thats it. "Render Entire Mine" has no effect. If I disable the lightmapping, the levels are rendered correctly.

AMD XP 2800+ (2.08GHz)
PNY GF4 Ti4600 (128MB DDR) running latest dets
XP Pro SP2

So far this issue has been present since the 1.4.9 build (but it did that by default). 1.4.23, and the latest build (1.4.27) only do it with lightmapping enabled. I *know* my card supports what you're trying to do, so thats not an issue. Nothing running in the background messing with my card, so thats not an issue. (all thats running in the background is Kerio, AVG, and Daemon Tools) I'd test the other older builds, but SOMEONE doesn't post them on the site.

Anyways, I can reproduce the error everytime.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 12:10 am

Ah, I thought that looked like Wizard's work... amazing how an image that looked generally pretty cool six years ago seems rather dated now...

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 12:27 am

I have a problem also. this is on a clean install. Whenever I configure everything render wise, everything takes correctly UNTIL I enable fullscreen. the menus become corrupted, and when I restart the program it crashes at startup.

system specs have not changed, and I'm using the latest radeon drivers.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:05 am

Md, Ferno,

unfortunately I cannot reproduce your problems.

Hack,

rendering bug fixed.

At program start, custom difficulty is set to a default value. It will change when calling up the gameplay options menu. Whenever you load a saved level, custom difficulty overrides the save difficulty.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 4:04 am

you've tried setting the resolution(1024x768) and then enabling fullscreen in-game Diedel? because that's what I did.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 1:40 pm

Diedel wrote:Whenever you load a saved level, custom difficulty overrides the save difficulty.

Yeah, well... I consider that a problem!

Ohwell.

Sprite problem fixed, credits and black hud problems remain.

Beams on the forcefield textures have black outlines... may happen with other textures as well (I'm not sure).

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:01 pm

Hack,

I don't even what "HUD" (part) your screen shot is showing.

D3Hack · Post by **D3Hack** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:15 pm

Diedel wrote:Hack,

I don't even what "HUD" (part) your screen shot is showing.

Alright, please excuse my bad use of the term "HUD" for the problem. It's basically the cockpit image, not the HUD. In that screenshot, the transparent pixels below a certain vertical position in the image are being rendered as black when they shouldn't be rendered at all. That's the problem.

BTW, I just found out that the black outline problem affects the spark texture used in energy centers as well. Maybe you're trying to antialias parts of the image that shouldn't be antialiased? Dunno...

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:17 pm

Hack,

please make a screen shot of the whole screen and draw a red circle around the faulty area, or so. And post me the texture somewhere. I've never seen it before.