Trismegistus con mit cum Ex

[Holy_Diver]

Sorry to report that this doesnt work for me. I tried to run the trismegistus application and nothing happened other than getting two registry edit boxes, and a restart prompt.

There was alot of loading going on though. I couldnt really use any other apps until it was finished and when it was nothing happened when i tried to run trismegistus.

The dialog boxes are normal. It should be fine if you answer no to both. There shouldn't be any odd loading behavior. But you should check in task manager to see if there are not still two processes going called like Trismegistus.exe and Trismegistus.bin. The window doesn't manifest until after Som's drawn the first screen. If there is indeed something wrong then we need to get to the bottom of it. Make sure you don't have a window open that you missed. Something that often happens on Vista is the registry/restart window gets hidden from view. I've gone to considerable lengths to keep things from getting lost in the background. Ex even monitors the launcher in case it's closed via the taskmanager (causing the actual game to become an orphan process)

Anyway, I'll be uploading a patch for this tonight which no longer uses the registry/prompts. I think probably there should be some timeout on the window so the processes don't get stuck in the background because of some weird behavior that doesn't technically manifest as an error. I'll see if I can reproduce this behavior on another computer later tonight.

[Holy_Diver]

Holy, try John's custom sky out, it was a lot better than the sky that came with SOM and might have what you need.

www.swordofmoonlight.com/SOMTools/CustomModels/Map/NewSky.zip

I'm aware of this. But we don't need a custom sky, as much as one that is as close to Som's skies as possible. And anyway I only asked because I feel like I shouldn't have to do absolutely everything and it's something I know for a fact you all are way more comfortable with / better equipped for than I. I won't losea any sleep over the 8 sided sky dome being in place, but games would look better if the horizon line better approximated a spherical curve than an octagon.

In general I try to avoid doing custom modeling stuff. I see offers now and then to help contribute with new models but whenever something is fundamentally needed it's never sexy enough or whatever to warrant attention.

[Holy_Diver]

Here is a patch with some of the latest features etc. Please see if it magically works for you / let me know. After copying it over your files, it's best to open regedit (Start->Run) and search for IniFileMapping (local machine) and delete any keys there with familiar Som names.

This version uses what should be identical to Som's lights for objects afaik. I'm really not crazy about the lights (they really have so many problems) but they'll do until I can give them a proper/studied treatment here in the next few days.


I will test this release on a machine which is not my dev station asap. Hopefully tonight. If every release has new probs on other peoples machines I'll have to work out a logging system (do_log or whatever) for non-debug builds so we can get a better idea of where things went wrong.


FYI: Will edit patch attachment in...

[Holy_Diver]

I had no problem at all with this patched version playing and what have you. There are a few issues though if I can recount them all which are new to this computer for me / could use some work.

A) There are some sound issues which need investigation. I often hear a pop after some sound effects, though not always. And the volume seems unreliable. Might just be the USB soundcard (cheap FM transmitter) or my audio system.

B) My monitor actually went off while playing. Maybe because I was using a joypad

C) There is some z-fighting, especially where the square column tiles meet the outdoor wall tiles. I'm pretty sure the walls aren't flat against the columns, so that seems really weird. All I can think to do is try to get a better depth buffer. My performance was pretty good, but I kind of expected this newer computer to out perform my older portable machine, but it probably doesn't.

D) The vsync (off) setting I turned on in the patches config file was really intolerable. I don't recommend turning that on for your players in the Ex.ini file. I was kinda under the impression most everyone looking for peek performance turns that off these days, but that doesn't seem to be an option on this computer.

Anyway, I recommend game authors test Ex thoroughly while developing your games, otherwise you might mind yourself with a longer testing cycle.

I hope this build works for you guys, otherwise it's going to be a head ache to troubleshoot stuff.

So I can personally vouch for Windows7 and XP SP3.


UPDATE: The sound probs did go away when using the onboard sound card. Should maybe look into forcing software audio on (if what I was experiencing wasn't software)

The controls in the menu are also really shoddy. Should really try to figure out why that sometimes is. I hope it's correctable.

Also noticed on the big screen the New Game / Continue bitmaps overlap one another while making your choice.

EDITED: On two different keyboards I'm unable to hold down the dash key while moving say backward and turn say left at the same time. The left turn doesn't register. I seriously doubt that is the keyboard hardware. I hope it's not a bug in Som. I never noticed it before, but it might make using a controller to drive the keyboard input impossible / not be good in the keyboard dept period. Might end up in the odd situation of using a keyboard to drive a fake controller

UPDATE: I noticed one keyboard I can't turn right instead of left, but I'm pretty sure on the other I can. If it's a limitation in the keyboards, that seriously makes me wonder how PC gamers possibly manage to play games. My portables keyboard definitely should not be limited anyway. Will have to check the raw input sometime.

UPDATE: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_anti-ghosting

I looked at a ton of reviews for keyboards and the gaming keyboards had like at most 6 or 7 simultaneous keys allowed, where my keyboard bolted into my gaming portable only allows 2-3?? I wonder if it can be replaced. Still 6 or 7 is crap. We have 10 fingers... that should be the bare minimum?? And "gaming" boards should allow for at least 20 (I can hold down four keys with one finger)

EDITED: My computer/motherboard is as far as I know identical to this (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-Megabook-GX700-Extreme-Gaming-Notebook.7841.0.html) one (without any of the ridiculous decals etc) but the review does not mention sometimes you can only press two keys (including the spacebar and arrow keys) ,,, if those "extreme gaming" editions have a special keyboard I might look for a spare

...

This (http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=118686.0) is ridiculous... it's like we're living in the stone age. When's the last time you heard 8bit???? Apparently this is mainly a problem with the up arrow key -- presumably not the numpad up. I may try to at least re-map some of my keys (I had to pull half the keys off and shuffle them around / monkey with the key in the registry that lets you rewire you keyboard to be able to program proficiently after buying this thing)

The crappy USB keyboard I bought as is out of a rummage bin when Circuit City was going out of business (for my PS3) is probably hopeless (funny how saying "I bought for my" makes you sound really possessive, but afaik there's no other way to put it)

I just don't understand why every key doesn't have its own wire / channel on the bus... it's certainly doable. Back on topic...


Back offtopic: while looking back in that MSI forum keyboard thread for the model, I just noticed in the last post the guy said he fixed the problem by choosing some preset in the bios??? Will have to try that I guess...

[dmpdesign]

Gonna download this at work and see how it goes here.

[dmpdesign]

Loaded it at work, pc was missing a dll which i replaced.

tried relaunching and now the .exe does nothing when i double click it.

this is SP3 XP

[Holy_Diver]

^Did you apply the patch.zip attachment?

The XP SP3 machine I tested the patch on (worked fine) has practically nothing installed on it. I wonder what the hell the prob could be if there really is one.

It might be a driver related thing. Though the only thing I can think of is the driver rejecting textures with an alpha channel for GDI usage. My drivers just ignore the alpha channel, but the software renderer rejects them. Docs say that is undefined.

If you get in touch with me I can give you a debug build with extensive logging enabled that will generate a huge file / hopefully point to where things are going south (mainly by whatever the last log entry says)


PS: I setup Ex to promote the zbuffer as high as possible up to 32bits, and that pretty much fixed the z-fighting, though that machine still feels a little dirty... I'm guessing the hardware is just skimpy (ION chip)

Need to figure out how to keep the computer from shutting off the monitor (and probably eventually going into auto-sleep) while the joypad is the only input. I suspect that's just an XP thing. Only I can't get at the joypad interface last I tried... though I was able to overwrite individual entrypoints in the virtual function table!! So I can probably just keep doing that. I suspect I can also fix the jankiness of the menu press detection by switching over to buffered input. I hope so anyway, because that's the best idea I got. And that is a serious bug.

[dmpdesign]

I had applied everything, when you get a sec ill bug you for the version with the logging.

[Holy_Diver]

Here is an HD screenshot for everyone who is not having luck with this

[dmpdesign]

Looks really good, would love to have it working.