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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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 Posted: Feb 04, 2010 07:57 Post subject: Build 9.01 Released |
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I've released a new build with some minor changes. In order to diagnose some problems I added two new command line arguments:
-safe : runs DarkXL with the minimum settings - no bloom, dynamic lights, no texture filtering, windowed, 800x600. If DarkXL ever gets into a bad state, run with command line argument to fix it.
-nosound : if sound is causing issues, you can run with no sound and see if this fixes the issues.
In addition logics have been added for the Blue and Yellow keys. More logics to be implemented in future builds.
See the Build 9.0 post for more information.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 09:59 Post subject: |
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Wow, that was fast.
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I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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Barry Brien
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 14:26 Post subject: |
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Well I tried running it in safe and I had the same problem. It is graphics driver-related, according to a balloon in my bottom right corner which told me that the graphics driver was being repeatedly disabled and enabled. Considering that I am the only person experiencing difficulties, the problem must be on my end. I don't really know how to go about solving it though. I've never had any trouble like this in the past.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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Barry Brien
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 17:39 Post subject: |
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I'll try that, thanks. Strange thing is that Build 8 works no problem.
I had the motherboard of my laptop replaced recently. Could that have anything to do with it?
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 18:04 Post subject: |
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It may be actually, especially since you said it was an intel chipset right? Usually the graphics cards are integrated with those motherboards. Could be a faulty one.
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I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 18:30 Post subject: |
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Hmmm, I'll add some more options next time I do a build. The renderer has changed significantly since Build 8, so it could be that I'm doing something that is technically valid but your particular card/driver does not like. I'll do some research next time I work on a build.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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Barry Brien
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 04, 2010 19:01 Post subject: |
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If it's any help I took down what was on the blue screen the last time it crashed. Will I post it?
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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ZOmegaZ
Dianoga
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 00:28 Post subject: |
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WOOHOO! This is great!!!!! Thanks lucius!
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 02:56 Post subject: |
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Hey, earlier someone mentioned still having collision problems. I wanna add to that -- I'm now having collision problems 
Just checked the previous build (8.05) and the problems weren't in it. Now, however, I get stuck in certain geometry. Crouching, jumping, and the adjoin cheat all don't help; usually moving around a bit gets me unstuck, but not always.
By the way, this is something I encountered in my own test level, so that might be the problem. The sectors are letters engraved into a floor with a different texture; the hallway has floor height of 0, ceiling of 8, and the subsectors have the same except a floor height of 0.01 to make them visible in DarkXL (otherwise they flicker). I know you're not supporting custom missions yet, but it kinda stuck out because it never happened before.
(Awesome glow effects, btw -- my forcefield looks really cool now  )
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 04:19 Post subject: |
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Barry Brien wrote:
Well I tried running it in safe and I had the same problem. It is graphics driver-related, according to a balloon in my bottom right corner which told me that the graphics driver was being repeatedly disabled and enabled. Considering that I am the only person experiencing difficulties, the problem must be on my end. I don't really know how to go about solving it though. I've never had any trouble like this in the past.
Does it say the driver crashed, or that Aero was disabled? Both are very different things and shouldn't be confused.
Aero wasn't disabled for me though I think, not sure. Would need to run windowed to be sure and I haven't done that yet.
-nosound doesn't work as one might expect IMO, darkxl still tries to load openal32.dll. I suggest you look into "late binding"... this makes a DLL only load when the first function call to it is issued. It might be a Windows API thing though... :/ If so you'd have to make your own solution by using LoadLibrary, FreeLibrary, and GetProcAddress to dynamically load and call functions in openal32.dll instead of dynamically linking with it. Lots of trouble for a switch but it would really be the "best" way to do it imo. If you use the .h files included with openal as a base you should be able to make them late bind like that, if needed.
If DarkXL tries to launch the launcher, it tries to run it through cmd.exe it seems? I don't see the point to this, use the CreateProcess API.
Audio volume is too low. It's the same volume as every other app, other apps sound great, DarkXL is too soft.
Cursor stops moving in Launcher while waiting for keybinding keypress. Could give the impression the program is hung.
You support Mouse4 and 5 yay, might want to give them better names than MX1 and MX2 I don't care if those are the official names.  MOUSE4 and 5 work, or MBACK and MFORWARD or something.
Make the mousewheel cycle through your weapons plz.  Or add two bindable keys for next/prev weapon so I can bind them. Hint: Add a dedicated keybind page, you'll need the room since you still have more keys such as Alt Fire anyway.
Player starts facing the ceiling in secbase.
Didn't actually play much but looks nice on my new comp.
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Gez
Gamorrean
Joined: 05 May 2008
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Barry Brien
Dark Trooper Phase 1
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 13:02 Post subject: |
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MAZZter: I have Aero disabled. It's pointless. Classic Windows all the way.
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BlazingPhoenix
Ree-Yees
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 17:26 Post subject: |
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I can't get this or 9.0 to work since it keeps saying it can't find some LFDs when it IS in fact, pointing to my Dark Forces folder. What is going on?
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 17:59 Post subject: |
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You probably don't have a full install. Do a full install from the DF CD.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 18:14 Post subject: |
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But as Barry reported earlier build 8 worked fine for him so it wouldn't be that he didn't have a full install
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I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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BlazingPhoenix
Ree-Yees
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 19:35 Post subject: |
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I do have a full Dark Forces install, I can't fathom why it wouldn't work for me. The other builds worked. 
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 19:48 Post subject: |
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Burning Gundam wrote:
But as Barry reported earlier build 8 worked fine for him so it wouldn't be that he didn't have a full install
It's a data problem for BlazingPhoenix, which is why the game is telling him that it can't find some LFD's. A partial install from the CD won't work. I posted this before I saw your previous post. However if a message box pops up saying it can't find an LFD then either the directory in the DXL_Settings file is wrong or the LFD it is looking for isn't in the directory. Can you post the exact error message?
The MAZZTer wrote:
nosound doesn't work as one might expect IMO, darkxl still tries to load openal32.dll. I suggest you look into "late binding"... this makes a DLL only load when the first function call to it is issued. It might be a Windows API thing though... :/ If so you'd have to make your own solution by using LoadLibrary, FreeLibrary, and GetProcAddress to dynamically load and call functions in openal32.dll instead of dynamically linking with it. Lots of trouble for a switch but it would really be the "best" way to do it imo. If you use the .h files included with openal as a base you should be able to make them late bind like that, if needed.
If DarkXL tries to launch the launcher, it tries to run it through cmd.exe it seems? I don't see the point to this, use the CreateProcess API.
Audio volume is too low. It's the same volume as every other app, other apps sound great, DarkXL is too soft.
Cursor stops moving in Launcher while waiting for keybinding keypress. Could give the impression the program is hung.
You support Mouse4 and 5 yay, might want to give them better names than MX1 and MX2 I don't care if those are the official names. MOUSE4 and 5 work, or MBACK and MFORWARD or something.
Make the mousewheel cycle through your weapons plz. Or add two bindable keys for next/prev weapon so I can bind them. Hint: Add a dedicated keybind page, you'll need the room since you still have more keys such as Alt Fire anyway.
Player starts facing the ceiling in secbase.
Good point about OpenAL, I didn't think about it loading the dll. However with nosound enabled, that's all it does.
The method I use for launching apps is simple and works well for what DarkXL needs. I don't see any need to change it.
Audio and music will have full volume controls in a future build. On my systems the volume level is just right and the music was way too loud before. But this will be different for different systems/setups so proper volumes controls are needed. There are also issues with midi volume on Vista / Windows 7 - I'll probably be moving to a software midi synthesizer in the future (such as FluidSynth).
Mouse button names can be changed if they are confusing.
As for a keybind page, if you look at the UI at the moment you'll notice that there is a black rectangle below the main UI window. I plan on adding tab buttons down there to switch between different options screens. Things such as Controls, Display, Gameplay and so on. So I fully plan on seperating out the different types of options at some point - with more extended features and rendering modes (such as the pure renderer) as well as the ability to adjust sound volumes and such that screen would get very crowded as is not to mention all the additional controls as you point out... I will spend some time in the near future cleaning up the UI and finishing the launcher, which will including better organization and tabbing for the options dialog.
sheepandshepherd wrote:
Hey, earlier someone mentioned still having collision problems. I wanna add to that -- I'm now having collision problems
Just checked the previous build (8.05) and the problems weren't in it. Now, however, I get stuck in certain geometry. Crouching, jumping, and the adjoin cheat all don't help; usually moving around a bit gets me unstuck, but not always.
The funny thing is that collision problems tend to occur more frequently when running at a higher framerate. So you're probably having more problems now because DarkXL is performing better on your system.  Anyway the collision issues are my top priority right now.
sheepandshepherd wrote:
By the way, this is something I encountered in my own test level, so that might be the problem. The sectors are letters engraved into a floor with a different texture; the hallway has floor height of 0, ceiling of 8, and the subsectors have the same except a floor height of 0.01 to make them visible in DarkXL (otherwise they flicker). I know you're not supporting custom missions yet, but it kinda stuck out because it never happened before.
The new renderer has some issues with the way concave sectors are handled - it works much better (and faster) most of the time but there are some cases that just don't work right now. Once that is fixed then all your subsectors will work properly. That is why clipping has been disabled until I fix the problem. Fortunately I know the cases where it doesn't work and was on the path of debugging it - but I decided that the build was good enough to make a release rather then delaying it yet again.
I wanted to move on to incremental, frequent builds. This means releasing builds that have issues such as collision and clipping - but it also means constant improvement and not getting bogged down in one issue. As I said before, though, my #1 priority is fixing the collision issues. Beyond that my next priorities are finishing the launcher, polishing the UI and implementing missing logics and weapons. Once that is complete I'll focus on the remaining rendering issues and INF issues. At that point the game should be fully playable, look good and run well. After that I can focus on iMuse, other outstanding issues and the editor again.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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DF4GL4ever
Gamorrean
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 19:53 Post subject: |
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Been playing a little more, found some bugs in Anoat with 9.01:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geolegg/4332532897/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geolegg/4333273086/
In the whirlpool (and when travelling through the tunnels) there's a door activation sound that plays every time you pass into a new sector of sewage. When in the whirlpool it's especially noticeable
I was able to pick up those shields through that barrier, so the pickup radius may be a little large.
Is there any momentum when running jumping? When I release the forward button I stop moving forward midair, which threw me off for a second.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 05, 2010 19:59 Post subject: |
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The door sound occurs because those sectors are actually start rotating when the player enters - except that none of the walls are flagged to follow that rotation. This is done so that the player is rotated to follow the current even though the sector itself doesn't actually move. Anyway by default a sound plays to accompany this activation - like the doors in SecBase. There must be a flag I'm missing in the INF that basically disables this sound. When I go back to INF issues this should get resolved.
You should not be able to pickup stuff through an adjoin that has player collision enabled - it's a known bug but I haven't fixed it yet.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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BlazingPhoenix
Ree-Yees
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 04:32 Post subject: |
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The error I get revolves around the Briefing LFDs and my install is a full install.
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 05:50 Post subject: |
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For some reason I read Barry Brien when I posted that response to what was actually Blazing Phoenix's question, I didn't notice the question immediately, just MAZZter's response. My bad 
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I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 07:11 Post subject: |
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Burning Gundam wrote:
For some reason I read Barry Brien when I posted that response to what was actually Blazing Phoenix's question, I didn't notice the question immediately, just MAZZter's response. My bad
No problem. Sometimes it's easy to miss posts, especially when the topic is similar.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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darktrooper27
Dianoga
Joined: 11 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 07:14 Post subject: |
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Did anyone else find that the main menu MIDI was nearly double the speed at which it should be playing?
Also, when I try to punch an enemy, sometimes I move right through them.
The jumping and stopping in midair issue, the getting stuck in adjoins issue, and the night vision goggles issue I have experienced so far.
Oh, and no music in the cutscenes, and for some reason I get a Windows error beep noise from pressing alt while in game, I use alt for walking in all my FPSes.
Besides that though, everything else was near pitch perfect.
Keep up the amazing work Lucius. 
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 07:23 Post subject: |
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BlazingPhoenix, if you select all the files in your LFD directory how many files does it say are selected. It should be 44, if it is less then there are some missing files somehow. And just to verify, assuming Dark Forces is installed in C:\DARK, you should also have a directory called C:\DARK\LFD that contains 44 LFD files (or more if you've copied custom mission files in there or something).
You should also have the following LFD files in order to get to and play at least SecBase:
MENU.LFD
DFBRIEF.LFD
STANDARD.LFD
AGENTMNU.LFD
LOGO.LFD
JEDISFX.LFD
And, again assuming Dark Forces is in C:\DARK, your DXL_Settings file should have this line at the top:
DForces: C:\DARK
If you have the directories correct and all the files, can you post the path you have in DXL_Settings?
Thanks for you patience.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 08:05 Post subject: |
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darktrooper27 wrote:
Did anyone else find that the main menu MIDI was nearly double the speed at which it should be playing?
Also, when I try to punch an enemy, sometimes I move right through them.
The jumping and stopping in midair issue, the getting stuck in adjoins issue, and the night vision goggles issue I have experienced so far.
Oh, and no music in the cutscenes, and for some reason I get a Windows error beep noise from pressing alt while in game, I use alt for walking in all my FPSes.
Besides that though, everything else was near pitch perfect.
Keep up the amazing work Lucius.
Thanks darktrooper27, I totally missed your post when making my previous post earlier. The adjoin/collision issue is my top concern but feel free to add the night vision goggle issue to the Issue Tracker if it hasn't been already. You can add the issue with punching enemies as well but no need to add the adjoin/collision issues since I'm already working on them.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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BlazingPhoenix
Ree-Yees
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Feb 06, 2010 16:02 Post subject: |
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DXL_Settings.txt: DForces: C:\DARK
and I do get 44 items selected. As I said before, it was a full install. It was indeed installed in C:\DARK however my DarkXL folder is in I:\DarkXL, does that cause problems?
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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