Installer test:
1. Download exe.
2. Start installer(will trigger uac, thats ok)
3. Start game -> failure
4. Start in compatibility mode(winxp) -> success
The game attemts to write(logs, savegame) into install directory. Win7 doesn't like this.
Ideally user data should go into C:\Users\{user}\Documents maybe?
User path C:\Users\{user} can be retrieved using char* path = getenv("USERPROFILE");
I could try to hack a patch, not sure what else needs to be checked though.
Anonymous
stderr
stdout
Graphical issues: Player ship is black.
About the compatibility mode: sounds reasonable, we would have to change the log location to be in USERPROFILE. Thanks for the tip :)
About the graphical issues, what are your settings?
config
Forgot the config. I've started with the default settings, haven't touched the setup.
You should try with simpler or no shader settings, GM45 is rather outdated, and the llama has some normal mapping issues that I've noticed too.
Yeah, just wanted a clean default test. Will play with the settings a bit to see how it performs.
Just scanned stderr.txt. It contains one glsl error:
ERROR: 0:7: 'precision' : Reserved word.
Just for the log:
extreme: precision error, black, center body transparent
nicest: precision error, black, center body transparent
average: no errors, black, center body transparent
simple: no errors, black, center body transparent
simplest: no errors, OK
onboard: no errors, OK
no shader: no errors, OK
Yes, it's in line with what I'd expect GM45 to support.
It's weird though that it's not falling back to simplest as it should. Can you attach stderr/out for average shader please? (with --debug=3).
stderr debug
stdout debug
OK. stderr3/out3.txt
Do planets (earth-like and gas giants) look right in average? Can I get some screenshots of the black llama?
rendering bug
It is not really playable but planets look fine. Navigation lights are draw too(not visible in the screen shot).
I've just noticed the skybox is missing, with all options.
The skybox missing is really weird.
Are your drivers up to date?
Yep, everything up to date. I use this notebook to test my own stuff too. Weird. that I haven't noticed the skybox before. I have to admit that I like the look though. Just like I think it should look like, hehe.
I'll try the Linux version later. I've noticed that their Linux driver has got much better(stable, more features) than the Windows one, upside-down world at Intel.
Thing is, planet shaders are very thoroughly tested and compatibilized against intel drivers, so it makes sense for planets to show up ok and the llama not - because ship shaders are less debugged.
However, skyboxes don't even use shaders. It's quite weird that they doen't show, then, and that fact throws the theory that it's some kind of shader incompatibility out the window.
I know, it's the zwrite prepass. You'll notice simplest and onboard don't have a zwrite prepass - and zbuffer inconsistencies would result in the kind of artifacts shown in the screenshot. Not sure yet about the skybox, but zbuffer issues would also mess the skybox.
Looks like a driver bug, because GLSL specs give specific guarantees about invariance, espcially for computed z-buffer coordinates.
How can we work around that bug is a tough proposition though...
Is it eventually possible to make the prepass optional? It is a pure acceleration method right?
It is possible, but many techniques require multiple passes anyway, and with z-buffering issues the various passes would fail to agree anyway.
You could easily try it out by going to the relevant technique files and removing the zwrite pass.
Sorry, you'd also have to remove the "zwrite="false"" bit of the other passes.
OK, will try it.