Xaphier

This is the feedback thread for the NEW_TEXTURES feature. Please post all questions, ideas and errors here. This are the main changes: The enhanced actor textures are now cached (at the moment 64 textures are cached). Item changes that need a texture rebuild get delayed till the the new texture is ready. The enhanced actor textures are now loaded and merged/masked in background threads (4 threads are used at the moment) DDS images that are compressed using DXT1/DXT3/DXT5 compression are now loaded compressed and given compressed to OpenGL if GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc is supported (avoid decompression and than compression) Mipmaps are loaded and used from images (DDS format) Poor Man now tries to use textures with reduced resolution if there are mipmaps in the source image. Nearly all (fonts not) texture source images can have the file extensions .dds, .jpeg, .jpg, .png and .bmp (this is the search order). That also means for map images now jpeg or even pngs can be used (Loading support was there anyway because of SDL_image) Support for unloading of textures. Not done at the moment, but now the cache functions from cache.h are used, so it could be added. Support for direct loading of some packed image formats (RGBA4, R5G6B5, RGB5_A1, L8, A8 and LA8). Only the DDS image loader use it at the moment. More checks to prevent client crash when actor item images have the wrong size Works with the new actor image sizes and new actor mesh, but don't look right with the old ones. To try that stuff, just add NEW_TEXTURES to the features in your make.conf

I will do it.

Hi everyone, el is now version controlled using git on berlios. The el client is in the master branch, map editor is in map_editor. The branches under feature are for trying new stuff. Currently there is only feature/new_engine. Feel free to ask question in this thread

Oki, great work btw I don't know much about opengl stuff, but is there a way to reduce the load the client produces ? I've tried to profile the client and ~75% of CPU load is produced by graphic driver. In console mode my CPU usage is around 20% and 40-50% otherwise (if i turn on poor man or switch off details etc. does not matter, or there is only a minor improvement - like 5%)... I am working at it, but it will take some time till it is finished, because a lot needs to get changes. Also, it will move the work from the CPU to the graphic card. Especial eye-candy can have a big impact on CPU work.

Hmm i tried it again - copied the data from the zip file that is referenced in the first post over the clean installation files, cloned the git repository - enabled NEW_TEXTURES and removed PLATFORM definition (i am on 64bit) and compiled the binary. After running it i got this: Now the black border i had around windows is gone, also the effects are as they should be. Just that ground thing is broken. That's because the the textures for the "2d objects" are not ready. When they are done, all should work

Looks like you don't have the right data. Current git versions with NEW_TEXTURES need the new textures. Yes Xaphier! All the option for best visually are on GPU : nvidia 9800M GTS (driver 260,19,06) OS : ubuntu 10,10 x86_64 Does disabling the "use animation program" has an effect on you shadows?

Are you using "use animation program"?

Thanks all for reporting, is hopefully fixed now in cvs

The wrong icons on bag window should be fixed now. The eye candy effects will be fixed with the dds files

After the feedback I got, it is very likely the bug is fixed in cvs. Thanks for the help littlestar, you can try cvs or please wait till next test release

Thanks all for the testing. Now about all the bugs: The glove-bug (File '././meshes/gloves_leather.dds' has wrong size <64, 64> instead of <156, 144>. ) was an old bug and the test client logged it. Is fixed in cvs The bugs bluap (quick spell icons), zalic (poison indicator) and Roja (sky clouds) found is because the way the texture load changed. When all items, clouds etc. are converted to dds, it should look like before The client had some old threading problems (race conditions that could produce buffer overruns). I hope I fix them, so there should be no crash under high system load now (cvs). The crash Raz had should be fixed now (cvs). Sir_Odie had it too and helped a lot finding the problem. Thanks again. The crash littlestar is something I was not able to locate, perhaps it was a combination of the other problems, so it could be fixed now in (cvs). The increased memory usage littlestar mentioned is something to look at. I am not sure if it's a bug in the client. The cache increase memory usage of course. Does the Small actor texture cache option under Adv options affect this? What happens if you change the value for poor man when the memory usage is so high? Changing poor man should clear the actor texture cache. The item problem Forgiven found is something I have to check, but thanks for reporting.

is in cvs now

Using dds files with DXT1 compression would help. At the moment, the images are loaded an have to get compressed at load time, so it's slower. Using the dds files with DXT1 compression would make the loading faster. And thanks to all who like this update. It was some work

NEW_TEXTURES now use the new actor texture sizes and meshs

I now made an #if for the older zlib versions. Can you compile now?

Sorry, should be fixed now.

Should now work with: NEW_NEW_CHAR_WINDOW & NEW_TEXTURES Cache size is now configurable.

Now I added the option "Actor texture compression". If enabled, texture compression is used for the actors (needs GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc). If disabled, actors should be faster loaded (using R5G6B5 for non alpha actors and RGBA4 for actors with alpha value). Changing the value unloads the texture cache, so no need to restart the client.

There is no way to avoid the invisible actors beside waiting till the texture is ready. When there is no information in the cache and no way to know the texture, well, than not much is possible. Only thin that could be done would be to speed up the texture uploading (no compression of the textures and/or pixel buffer objects or such a thing), but even that is no guarantee. After some testing, I could find out that the slowest part is the texture compression. It could get disabled, but that would increase memory usage. Compressed the textures use only 4 bit per pixel (if no alpha needed, that's the case for most actors) or 8 bit per pixel when an alpha channel is needed.

I was now able to reproduce the error and hopefully it is fixed. Thanks for the testing to all of you (also to the ones that only send in-game pm's )

Can you try current cvs with DEBUG also enabled? Perhaps than something shows in the logs. And when you have DEBUG enabled, you can unload the texture cache with F11 would be interesting if that has an effect.

I fixed the bug in the encyclopedia that made the items black. I also found and fixed a bug that could be the reason for the problems you had Alberich. Now the item changes of the actors are delayed till the texture is ready, so there should be no more flickering

anything in error_log.txt?

Does it also happen if you compile without NEW_TEXTURES from cvs?

the file image_loading.c should only get compiled if NEW_TEXTURES is enabled.