Strange Bugs

[Michael H]

I am unable to start a new game because of this. I have verified the files on my GOG copy of Ultima VII, and even reinstalled Exult from the snapshot 1.5 about several times, and when attempting to change the audio or video settings, the boxes do not register as a click when I click on them until I move the cursor away from the box, and when I click on start new game for the Black Gate and Forge of Virtue, the colors change, and the option I selected looks as if it is not there, and the only way to make it register while it is in that position is the enter key, and the keyboard does not register any typing unless I press the said key twice, and pressing any of the letter keys erases the letters of the name I am trying to input, but when I try to run the DOS version of the game via DosBox, I don't have any of those problems. I have heard a lot of very positive things about Exult, and it would be a shame to not be able to use the engine you guys made. Any help here is appreciated.

[Michael H]

A few things I have forgotten to add is that I am using Windows 10 64-bit, paired with a GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB with 16 GB of RAM, and I have found out that the game does not glitch like that on windowed mode, but I want to play this on full screen, as I was able to with an older versions of Exult.

[Dominus]

So no glitches at all in windowed mode?
What is your Window Size in the video options set to? This might need to be higher or lower (with 4k screens we might have some kind of problem - but this does not sound like that problem).

[Michael H]

I tried multiple different resolutions from 640x480 to 1920x1080, and various scalers, but the problem still persists. I have never had this happen on an older version of Exult I used back in 2013. I don't know what the problem could be. Will I need to send you a dxdiag of my machine?

[Michael H]

Oh... Those were the display resolutions I tried, but for window size I used 1280x720, but I still would like to play this on full screen.

[Dominus]

I‘m puzzled, for now you are the first with such a problem.

Can you try this?
- delete your exult.cfg (see http://exult.info/docs.php#exult_config_location)
- download the old rc1 https://sourceforge.net/projects/exult/ ... /1.4.9rc1/ (the win32.exe)
- install and run it, test how that behaves in fullscreen
But don’t actually play with that even if it works, it has serious bugs that have been squished.

[Michael H]

I deleted the exult.cfg file, installed the old rc1, and it works better than the latest snapshot; the keyboard responds to typing in full screen and the mouse responds to clicks normally, however, like you have mentioned there are a plethora of bugs. In fact, the mouse cursor jumps all over the place, rendering the game unplayable.

[galneon]

I stay on Windows 10 "business" update branch so that I get the "feature updates" (new builds) as late as possible, so while I can't test, I think I know what the mouse problem is. Fall Creators Update, in addition to lots of other legacy-related stuff, broke mouse input for a lot of SDL applications.

The FTL developers just released an update to fix it for their (SDL-dependent) game. In FTL it only affected fullscreen.

Things new builds of Windows 10 break generally get fixed over time, but it's often a matter of waiting for individual application developers to work around the problems--MS rarely fixes the garbage they do to break legacy compatibility. I always recommend people switch to the Business update branch (an option not available to Home users sadly). The standard update branch is in fact the beta branch. MS doesn't care about regular users--only business users--so they use regular users as unwitting testers by pushing new builds before they're actually ready. I quite miss the days of rare service packs.

I'm not 100% sure if this is the same problem or another mouse input problem resulting from FCU, but here's some technical info: https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/win10-fa ... ng/23526/2

[Michael H]

I am already fully aware of this, but thought I would mention other than the mouse jumping around, the older version could have worked, although the mouse problem has been fixed in the latest snapshot, I am having the troubles that I have mentioned in posts above, and do not know why the buttons do not register unless I move the cursor, and when inputting a name for Avatar the keyboard refuses to register any characters at all, accompanied by a very strange color flash of orange on the title screen, along with the removal of "START NEW GAME" when attempting to play on full screen. I hope someone will be able to fix this.

[Dominus]

Because of the creator update problemwe switched from the old SDL to SDL2 for the Windows snapshots, it's been a while since we switched to SDL2 in general.
Your problem seems to be tied to your graphics drivers and SDL2, there is no other way I can see it behaving this badly otherwise.
I'd suggest seeing to it that you have the latest drivers installed and if you can find anything in the nvidia settings that may have an effect (play with everything).
I have to look up which environment settings you can pass to SDL2 that controls the video backend.

[Dominus]

Another thing to test is ScummVM. The latest version (2.0) is also using SDL2 and just downloading it and then selecting and applying fullscreen in the startup screen settings could shed some light on it.

[Michael H]

Updated my graphics driver to version 390.65 released on Jan. 08, 2018, and even when I turn all the graphics enhancements off through the NVidia control panel for Exult.exe, the title screen color still flashes orange with the same elimination of "START NEW GAME" from the main menu with an extreme lack of responsiveness in keyboard and mouse inputs.

[Dominus]

This is really really puzzling.
Please try the above mentioned ScummVM. The result of this test might give me some insight.
And sorry for not being able to help you right away, it's not a known issue and we are fishing for the culprit...

[Michael H]

Installed ScummVM, put it in full screen mode, and it seems to be respnding to mouse clicks just fine.

[galneon]

Could you reboot with selective startup enabled and 'load startup items' unchecked just to rule out something hooking input?

[Michael H]

Did that, and am still getting the orange color with the unresponsive keyboard outputs, however, when I disabled full screen, it stayed fullscreen oddly. I'm wondering why. I can show you guys what exactly has been going on, including what I posted. Hope this helps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AODTltgYVZE

[Dominus]

I might have an idea what the culprit might be. Bear with me for a few days, I need to prepare a Windows binary and since I am on OS X I need to relearn Windows skills

[Michael H]

Thank you very much! I really do appreciate you taking the time to help!

[Dominus]

Ok, here we go with a test suite for you
https://www.dropbox.com/s/35y1g0s5rv13p ... t.zip?dl=0
In there you will find a couple of numbered Exult exe files for you.

Please test them, starting with Exult1.exe, like this:
- start a game in windowed mode
- in the video settings use different settings for windowed and fullscreen mode (e.g. 800x600 for windowed and something higher but not an even multiple of the windowed mode for fullscreen)
- toggle fullscreen/windowed mode

If it finally helps your problem please try
- going as big as possible for the fullscreen mode and test if you can move the mouse all the way to the lower screen (could be a problem with Exult1.exe but should work for the others)
- stay as high as possible in fullscreen and toggle to windowed mode and then to fullscreen again (I need to know if it is playable on the toggle back to fullscreen)

If your fullscreen problem is solved and you happen to have a very high definition monitor (4k) please try it a bit different for Exult4.exe :
- start Exult in fullscreen mode and then see if it offers you a higher resolution as it normally does.

I really hope this solves your problem, I'm out of ideas otherwise...

[Michael H]

Exult1 solved the problem!! Tried windowed mode, and then enabled fullscreen, and tried multiple resolutions, and is much more responsive! And I can even just continue from where I left off, thank you! I currently do not own a 4K tv; I have a Samsung 1080p, so I did not use Exult4 because of that, but now I can toggle to fullscreen and back without problems!

[Dominus]

*THAT* is a huge relief!
Can you try one last thing for me with the Exult1.exe? Please go as big as possible for the fullscreen mode and test if you can move the mouse all the way to the lower part of the screen.

Please keep a lookout for a proper updated snapshot in the next few days, as my compiled version might have hidden problems. As soon as I have done some tests on my Windows install I'll commit this and then Kirben pushes out a new snapshot soon after that.

Technical explanation for anyone who caress:
To toggle fullscreen we were using SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN on Windows but it seems that SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN_DESKTOP is the right way to go. I was already using it for OS X because the other way was problematic with more than one monitor.
Seems all should be using that!

[Michael H]

The mouse does work! I have a video to demonstrate the steps I have taken just to make sure this is what you guys need! Thank you!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9dyAbd ... e=youtu.be

[Dominus]

Thanks for testing it all. Kirben uploaded a new snapshot, please use that rather than my test versions.

[Michael H]

Thank you for uploading the latest snapshot guys! Very much improved from the last one!!