opengl issues

[Luke]

i submitted a bug about poison, but have since stumbled across new info and wanted to soundboard this before any bug report.

first the setup : exult 1.4.05 win32 on windows 7 pro / 64bit with nvidia 7600gs / drivers are from nvidia - ver 8.16.11.9107.

problem - if i use the opengl render, poisoned character do not have a green outline, the crystal ball in algernon's (new magincia) place will not show the previous day and the save/load game window does not correctly show a screen shot of a savegame. (It looks like the white-noise snow of an analog TV)

solution - use point render and all is well.

my question - anyone else experience the same thing, or is it a quirck with my setup?

[Malignant Manor]

Invisibility sprite color change and the sprite highlights don't show up. The crystal ball shows but cancels immediately. I get corrupt screenshot (498 bytes) when saving with OpenGL but screenshots show up fine otherwise.

Nvidia driver version 6.14.11.7519 is the one I tested. This is the latest 32 bit XP for my card.


Nvidia System Monitor also tells me:

Code: Select all

GPU does not support required OpenGL functionality

when trying to open Exult Studio through Exult (any scaler tested). It opens fine as a standalone. It has limited functionality after connecting them (no popups for editing in game objects).



I'll test an older driver in a minute since I believe highlights used to work fine in OpenGL before and I know Exult Studio did.

[Dominus]

It might also be a SDL 1.2.14 issue, meaning we do something wrong that didn't surface before but now does... So if you have it an Exult Snapshot from before Octobre 20th might be good to test against...

[Malignant Manor]

The "GPU does not support required OpenGL functionality" seems to be on my end so sorry for that.

I uninstalled all Nvidia software and reinstalled the latest Drivers (175.19_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe). It has the same control panel driver listing of 6.14.11.7519. The "GPU does not support required OpenGL functionality" message went away and ES seems to be working fine with Exult so I don't know what got screwed up before. All other problems persist.


93.71_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql.exe (oldest driver) and 169.21_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe (middle driver) have the same issues.


@Dom I just tried with an older version compiled with 1.2.13 and the same issues persist except I am getting the static/splash screen screenshot now.

[Malignant Manor]

My remembering highlight effects and invisibility sprite color change working before is likely due to Exult 3D, which was before major changes in OpenGl rendering code.

[Malignant Manor]

Latest and only Exult3D build I have also possesses the same issues.

[Dominus]

So... Exult always had these issues with Opengl Scaler?

[marzo]

Re: screenshots in OpenGL mode: these are technically not supported, as OpenGL mode renders directly to the screen -- the end result is "corrupted" because Exult saves the contents of the image buffers, which likely haven't been initialized and are "random".

[Malignant Manor]

Well, OpenGL was experimental and unfinished. Marzo fixed pretty much all known problems, and it was included into the official build. I'm not sure there are any advantages in the currently coded OpenGL (no texture and wrap options, etc.) to use it even if the bugs are fixed since it looks like point scaler but uses much more cpu (on my computer anyway).

Jeff seems to have intended for OpenGL to be used with 3D models, and unfortunately, getting Sam Matthew's version to work with current code hasn't been done. Of course, my attempts at getting any tool to create or edit the models for use with Exult3D has also been unsuccessful. Sam never answered the several times I asked and Andrea couldn't find what he previously had.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Yes I can't find the models yet I still think I may stumble upon the 3ds Max original file Sam sent me along with the models. I wrote a Sam's format -> to -> My format converter but then realized I needed stuff he didn't include, so I asked for the Max source, which he generously gave me.

Anyway, back on the Opengl topic... I thought the point in having an OpenGL layer was mostly HW scaling / transparency and more (lighting?). So why the point scaler likeness...ness (eww?) and even stranger, the high cpu usage?

[marzo]

The higher CPU usage is due to the fact that using the OpenGL scaler requires Exult to redraw the screen completely at each stage. For all other scalers, Exult only does a differential redraw in most cases. (also, the CPU usage is likely highly dependent on the video card)

[Malignant Manor]

Are they the models he released with Exult3D like the ones included here?

[drcode]

Was the OpenGL renderer ever working reliably? I haven't tried Marzo's fixes; but I never got it to work very well back when I was playing with it. And bugs seemed to come and go randomly, like seams showing between the chunks of terrain.

[marzo]

It is better with all the fixes I made, but there is apparently still a lot to fix. For what is worth, I made very few (if any) changes in the actual OpenGL part.

[Malignant Manor]

It's not that OpenGL is bad but I don't see any current advantages of using it with 2d Exult vs other scalers.


The only known OpenGL problems seem to be:

Fixable:

Invisibility sprite color change and the sprite highlights don't show up.
The crystal ball shows but cancels immediately.
I'm also getting white letter boxing on the game menus that allows mouse ghosts. (not important at all)

Limitations of OpenGL:
More processing power required due to constant need to redraw everything.
Screenshots don't work since there is no data for them to grab.

Not much testing has been done though.

[Malignant Manor]

Weather sprite effects (rain, snow, etc.) don't show.

[Wizardry Dragon]

The save issue can be remedied by doing two things:

[1] using memset or malloc on the area of memory to be used for the screenshot will remedy the random garbage screenshot.
[2] if opengl is enabled, have exult grab a screenshot normally and load the file to use as its screenshot for the save.

There's probably a more efficient way to do it, but that should work. I don't feel comfortable muddying around with the graphics end of Exult though, and will probably have enough cut out for me already with adding the usecode events.

Wizardry dragon