Update: I fixed the disappearing smoke and Z-buffer problems (I think) and replaced the original build since it's still December 13th here. :-D
New build:
Battlezone D3D9 Executable (http://www.bzuniverse.com/~betadudes/unprotected/bzone_d3d9_2009-12-13.7z)
For those who want to help track down crashes with Visual C++ 2008 Express:
Battlezone D3D9 Program Database (http://www.bzuniverse.com/~betadudes/unprotected/bzone_d3d9_2009-12-13.pdb.7z) (unpack to the same place as the executable)
Anet libraries (submitted by Dx)
Compatible (http://theoutcasts.us/dx/terrazone/ANET2.zip) (works with normal BZ executable)
Compiled with VC++ 2008 (http://www.bzuniverse.com/~betadudes/unprotected/anet2_vc2008.7z) (includes new winets2.dll)
Changes:
- Increased maximum number of smoke sources to 256 (submitted by Dx)
- Fix for getting 5 pilots when one jumps out out of Barracks (submitted by Dx)
- Send out player pings (submitted by Dx)
- Fix buffer overflow when joining a game (submitted by Dx)
- Automatic configuration of Z buffer setting (off for software, on for hardware)
- Switched all "shake" effects to Perlin noise and ensured "round down" float-to-integer conversion
- Fixed occasional floating-point invalid operation in the clipper when submitting a zero-vertex polygon (probably harmless, but still...)
- Linked with latest Anet headers and libraries (submitted by Dx)
- Fixed uninitialized member variables in Weapon, which could crash AI
- Possible fix for visual glitches in the shell
- Prevent camera view change after player dies (untested)
Usual reminders:
1. This build requires the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redstributable Package (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A5C84275-3B97-4AB7-A40D-3802B2AF5FC2&displaylang=en)
2. If using a retail install, rename the "splash" folder to "splash_" to disable Windows 7's compatibility layer
3. If running on Windows Vista or 7, make the install folder writable
4. If having trouble, try the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en)
•Switched all "shake" effects to Perlin noise and ensured "round down" float-to-integer conversion
What should I look for here?
Quote from: bb1 on December 13, 2009, 12:42:13 AM
What should I look for here?
For that particular change, just make sure the earthquake effect (last American mission), explosion shake, and seismic wave (Thumper shot) feel right. The big thing is that their strength should no longer depend on frame rate.
The shell comes up black for me. I literally have to alt-tab then restore to see anything. This will force it in windowed mode until I click on a button forcing the shell screen to change. Once this happens, it goes black again, forcing me to alt tab then restore again.
After going through the alt-tab on shell screen procedure, I loaded my savegame which didn't crash. I did notice two issues ingame.
1. The Construction Rig's large build square did not render. The one that turns red when you can't build, turns yellow when there is no power, and is green when you can build. Instead I got the small go to square. Basically there is no indication whether you can build somewhere or not.
2. The scavenger's texture is buggy at times. It turned green with what appeared to be smears until I got close to the unit then it looked fine.
3. The NSDF supply depot had some large holes in the model which I didn't notice in the last build.
These issues appear to be new to this build.
It's a shame you don't have the TRO soucecode. I had a 100% reproduceable crash that would occur if I tried to build gun towers at a specific spot.
I'm glad I could get one reproduceable bug to occur yesterday. I was able to get something accomplished. I guess testing 1.3 for 5 years put me in more of a testing mindset when it comes to games than a playing mindset.
This build turned out pretty sketchy, so I'll try to get it straightened out by tonight.
Yeah, even the Recycler Build effect and geyser steam effects fail to play.
They might be getting sorted behind other things, but I'll take a look.
I should probably wait until I finish this paper before doing any more testing :p
I found out what was going wrong with the smoke, and it was something that made me wonder how the renderer ever worked. I had bypassed some code in the rendering system that set some important control flags based on the Z-buffer state, so rendering ended up in a messed-up state.
That's good to hear that it was easy to track down. I'm surprised there isn't a changelog for the latest patch included. Has that weapon error been in bz1 since release, if so, I can't believe it hadn't been caught sooner.
The Weapon hardpoint matrix was only invalid for the brief interval between mission load and the first Control phase. AI is almost never in an active combat state the first frame after loading, so it almost never mattered. This was one of the few cases where it did. :)
I remember one of my savegames when I first purchased bz1 going bad because I made an ingame save. I bet it was due to the same issue. After that point, I learned to never save ingame, only trying ingame saves within the last year.
Sometimes I wonder if the code has developed a mind of its own after dealing with Fury biometal. :lol:
That would explain a lot... :-D
Out of curiosity, does bz1 and bz2 share very much code?
Battlezone 2 started with the game logic from Battlezone 1 transplanted from the Interstate 76 engine to the Dark Reign 2 engine, but changed drastically over the next year and a half. Little, if anything, carried forward unchanged.
I just updated the build to fix the smoke and z-buffer problems, so give it a try.
I will when I get home.
I couldn't go beyond the second screen. I clicked on SIngle, the screen went into windowed mode, and none of the buttons would respond from there. I'll try running in Windowed only mode.
Everything appeared to work just fine in Windowed mode.
Quote from: Ultraken on December 13, 2009, 12:26:12 AM
For those who want to help track down crashes with Visual C++ 2008 Express:
Battlezone D3D9 Program Database (http://www.bzuniverse.com/~betadudes/unprotected/bzone_d3d9_2009-12-13.pdb.7z) (unpack to the same place as the executable)
All right! Just to be anally clear, it's the same place as the bzone.exe, not the Visual C++ Express executable, right?
Correct. The bzone.exe.pdb goes with bzone.exe.
I notice that the text in the briefing screens is larger now.
Not deliberately :)
I screwed that up while trying to streamline the shell a bit, since it previously enumerated fonts every time it printed text. That's extraordinarily wasteful, so I pushed the enumeration to the initial set-up code where it only gets done once. The folks at battlezone1.net spotted that one too, among other things.
It's kinda nice when using higher res. :-)
It's nice and readable, but the text gets cut off in the lower left planet info.
I ran through the first couple of SP missions with the new build and everything looked good, no obvious problems, no crashes so far.
It's lookin' good!
Eddy
Thanks! This build was pretty wonky, but the problems have been straightened out for the most part. I have a few things to finish up before posting another build.
How hard would it be to add a building preview wireframe like bz2 has?
Quote from: Commando on December 14, 2009, 10:43:18 PM
How hard would it be to add a building preview wireframe like bz2 has?
Way too difficult (read as the bz1er inside me saying don't touch :mrgreen: )
Quote from: bb1 on December 14, 2009, 10:50:42 PM
Way too difficult (read as the bz1er inside me saying don't touch :mrgreen: )
Definitely your opinion since its just loading the building mesh and displaying it as a wire frame based on where the ground rectangle already is. (Though depending on how the square gets how big it has to be he might have to make it receive both the dimensions AND the model instead of just the dimensions depending on its set up.)
CLEARLY if he did that it would be some sort of option.
It's not impossible, but it would take a significant amount of work. Would it need to work in software mode too?
So I was half right.
I thought you were ditching software?
K, was just curious since bz2 had it to allow easy positioning of buildings.
Quote from: bb1 on December 15, 2009, 09:39:42 AMI thought you were ditching software?
Eventually. :)
I mean, that'd clearly be nice -- but it's not something to worry about now I'd say. That's one for the other patches, if the rumors have a hint of truth ;)
8-)
Hello, I'm ready to try and help out with the experimental patches now.
I'm running Windows Vista 64-bit (and XP visualized)
Intel Centrino 2 2.4 GHz
6.00 GB RAM
nVidia 9600M GT
So far I've had no problems with Vista save for one crash I haven't been able to replicate yet, which is a marked improvement over choppy software mode and not being able to run hardware whatsoever.
I did notice it looks like the Grizzly is missing a polygram behind it's longer cannon, but I think that's about all I've noticed for right now.
Is there anything else I need to look for other than that shaking effect?
I noticed the missing geometry as well, and it's been bugging me. :)
It's an issue with the 1.4 patch Grizzly model as far as I know. I think the NSDF APC model has issues too.
Looking at renders of the Grizzly, the barrel is misplaced in the 1.4 model. It should be directly below the smaller barrel.
Yeah, supposedly the fins were misplaced too. I liked the overall slimmed down look of the model, due to the removal of the fines, but from what I was told, that was an unintentional change like the barrel bug.
That model seems to be all kinds of screwed up. :|
(While the visibility isn't as good, I actually prefer the pre-1.4 cockpit geometry.)
The 1.3 model is probably more accurate than the 1.4 one. Not sure why they made the geometry change.
If it were up to me, I'd dump the 1.4 Grizzly model entirely. :)
Understandable due to its bugs.
It's pretty much wall-to-wall Fail... :-D
What I think happened is that its VDF didn't get included.
Some funky image stuffs.
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/803fb22433.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/b6cbcefcbc.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/5b1722a537.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/297ba4af34.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/659309e465.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/70166a8624.png) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
edit: yay, fix'd render.cfg. solved.
Just to be very clear ..
This is a patch for BZ1 and does not install BZ1 itself, or does it ?
(I lost my BZ1 disk years ago and as I couldnt get BZ1 to run on XP when borrowing an other disk I never bothered trying to get an other copy .. this might just change that .. ;))
Kudos to you Ken ;)
It's a patch. You'll need a full install to use it.
the messed up grizzly 'bug' can be quickly and easily fixed: simply delete all .geo files in the addon folder starting with agr, e.g. agr11bda.geo.
That's what I did locally. :-D
I'd like to find its vehicle definition file to see what it was supposed to look like. The version with all the thrust jets on the back might have been it.
Quote from: Ultraken on December 16, 2009, 11:04:38 AM
That's what I did locally. :-D
I'd like to find its vehicle definition file to see what it was supposed to look like. The version with all the thrust jets on the back might have been it.
Easy. Go to your unzfs folder for bzone.zfs(you
do have one, right?) and copy the avtank.vdf over to your addon. I had problems with it on one of the exe's, don't know if it was yours, or the old one.
I'll try breaking open the ZFS to look, but I'm pretty sure the avtank.vdf in there is what's currently in use. There isn't anything in addon to override it, at least.
Quote from: Ultraken
...I'm pretty sure the avtank.vdf in there is what's currently in use...
um, no it is not. I tested it, and it definitely is not the one being used. if it is, then it is not using the engines. look at the vdf, and see how many engines it has, and then go into bz and look how many are being used... if I knew how to post pics, I'd show you, but I don't. :-(
See, I learned something. :-D
The agr*.geo files don't belong in the addon, they was processed without the link file (I know this because the AGR1_COL.GEO is present). Someone probably tried to removed the engine flame emitters. The original grizzly has all engine flames working well.
I am curious about other things like the cockpit having a round barrel or a square one depending on some setting or version (it has been a long time since I have played BZ1).
The Czar?
My BZ1 install came with round barrels on the cockpits of both the Grizzly and the Czar. Note that this install is from my original CD.
That is what should be on them, the Czar had a problem with textures changing depending on your render.cfg settings IIRC.
No.
1.0 Grizzly looks like this:
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/Myrodin/bz1crown2.png)
Then 1.4 looks like this:
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/Myrodin/bz1crown.png)
Now, based on the outside of the tank, the ORIGINAL is supposed to be there.
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/Myrodin/bz1grizzlyminigunspot.jpg)
1.3/1.4 patch for BZ1 did some really goofy things with the grizzly.
In fact, when I first got it, I immediately uninstalled the 1.4 patch because it did those 2 things.
Also, my zcar cockpit never changed, but aparently the same model as the grizzly's round one was used for it on some people's pcs. Mine's always looked like this:
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m61/Myrodin/bz1marssun.png)
Which again, matches the exterior model.
Yeah, the original 1.0 cockpit was more accurate when you look at the grizzly model. I think some later editions of bz1 came with 1.4 preinstalled. Especially if you purchased it with the Explosive label.
Your 1.0 pic looks like it's rendering lod3 instead of lod2 for the cocpit.
*shrugs*
It's my BZ1 straight off CD. What I grew up with.
Now, in that particular pic, I don't know if zbuffer is on or off, but that only affects the texture.
GBD, you are usually so thorough, but you missed one little thing: If you have LA on, the tip cannon on the czar cockpit dissapears.
Not for me, I have LA on in that czar cockpit pic there.
Quote from: General BlackDragon on December 17, 2009, 11:39:30 AM
Not for me, I have LA on in that czar cockpit pic there.
:[ O ] Dude! no kidding, eh? <slips hand under table for gbd's disc...> Gotta check this out and make sure it's with LA
on, and not
off.
EDIT: had to 'fix' ascii 'face'
this is what I found:
1.0 czar has rounded barrel tip
1.4 czar has square barrel tip
1.0 grizzly has square barrel
1.4 grizzly has rounded barrel
can't find how to make the tip on the czar dissapear though, anybody know how to do this?
It looks like the 1.4 Grizzly cockpit geometry is using a cannon meant for the Czar. :)