X³: TC and AP - Linux support thread

[Skrigger]

X3R works fine.
Nvidia 313.30
X3TC white screen and segfault

[timon37]

Guys I already know it doesn't work on nvidia, report only if it also doesn't work on something else or it somehow works for you on nvidia. Also can someone check the nouveau driver?

[fallenwizard]

Yes, it starts on Nouveau but there are several issues:

1. Abysmal performance: Game stops every second, not sure if it's nouveaus fault.
2. A lot of "ERROR: Unable to load texture" lines in the console; output here: http://nopaste.info/9872f50e86.html - libtxc_dxtn is installed (both, 64 bit and 32 bit version)
3. Name is still set to "X3 - Reunion" in the title bar.

[ezra-r]

In X3R we started getting the white screen, at least it shows up for me since one of the last updates but the game runs fine.

X3TC dies after the white screen though, while it seems to be trying to load the videos according to the terminal I pasted earlier.

[rictec]

Guys I already know it doesn't work on nvidia, report only if it also doesn't work on something else or it somehow works for you on nvidia. Also can someone check the nouveau driver?

Hi Timon37
can you please do a doc module to post info that is better for you to analyze?
this way is kinda chaos i think

i don't know how a bug track system or something like this

cpu:
kernel:
Graphics:
well you know better then me and you can pinpoint what need testing

Thanks

[CoastlandCork]

Hey , I guess you could stop including all the various windows executables & dlls, vcredist, directx? makes up more than 100MiB. Thanks in advance timon.

[etonbears]

Hello Timon37,

My system :

Intel X79 Based
AMD HD5000 series GPU
Catalyst 13.3 Beta Driver

I get the segmentation fault trying to reset defaults on the graphical setup screen as well, but otherwise the game loads and starts correctly.

I have tried all of the different starts, and flown around a little. Everything seems to work ( and looks very nice ) , but there are a couple of performance issues.

1. It takes in excess of a minute to load any sector ( and the initial game )
2. There are pauses of 1-5 seconds where the audio and graphics do not update ( i.e. it seems to freeze ).

Is this what you expect of the code at present?

[timon37]

Hey , I guess you could stop including all the various windows executables & dlls, vcredist, directx? makes up more than 100MiB. Thanks in advance timon.

Unfortunately it's not possible at this moment:( But we'll probably look into it at some point.

Hello Timon37,
I have tried all of the different starts, and flown around a little. Everything seems to work ( and looks very nice ) , but there are a couple of performance issues.

1. It takes in excess of a minute to load any sector ( and the initial game )
2. There are pauses of 1-5 seconds where the audio and graphics do not update ( i.e. it seems to freeze ).

Is this what you expect of the code at present?

For me 13.1 tends to work much better, 13.2 doesn't show extra lights, 13.3 can have terrible latency.
In general as far as I've tested amd drivers have horrible upload to the graphics card and the only solution they seem to have come up with is deferring it until it's necessary... which makes it even worse:(

I'm trying to do something about it but it's not progressing well:(
I didn't do a direct apples to apples test but mesa seemed better in this regard, so if the lower performance of mesa is still good enough to be playable you can try those, in the mean time.

[fallenwizard]

I can start the game on NVIDIA cards. Nice job

2 issues:

1. Intro (When starting a new game): Music is too loud and I am barely able to listen to the voice.

2. Click 2 times on a station, gate or whatever and choose a menu point. The selected menu point disappears after a second, while the menu disappears immediately. It looks like this: http://ompldr.org/vaTQ3OA/x3screen00001.png

EDIT:
Another issue, this is not related to the Linux port but maybe you are still able to do something about it: The sunglare goes through opened windows. This is very annoying imho:

http://ompldr.org/vaTQ3YQ/x3screen00006.png

[scratch42069]

Can confirm that Build 1 fixes the issues with Nvidia cards. Great work timon37

[etonbears]

Hello Timon37,
I have tried all of the different starts, and flown around a little. Everything seems to work ( and looks very nice ) , but there are a couple of performance issues.

1. It takes in excess of a minute to load any sector ( and the initial game )
2. There are pauses of 1-5 seconds where the audio and graphics do not update ( i.e. it seems to freeze ).

Is this what you expect of the code at present?

For me 13.1 tends to work much better, 13.2 doesn't show extra lights, 13.3 can have terrible latency.
In general as far as I've tested amd drivers have horrible upload to the graphics card and the only solution they seem to have come up with is deferring it until it's necessary... which makes it even worse:(

I'm trying to do something about it but it's not progressing well:(
I didn't do a direct apples to apples test but mesa seemed better in this regard, so if the lower performance of mesa is still good enough to be playable you can try those, in the mean time.

Hmm, obviously you have no real hope with any GL version prior to 3.0, as the fixed function nature of the pipeline data loading means that you get whatever the driver gives you, and the driver doesn't really know anything about your code.

I guess with GL 3.0+, there ought to be more control through the ability to specify and update buffers, even though you can still only hint at how buffered data is used by the driver.

Unfortunately, GPUs in general don't seem to provide much help in resource management, but I would assume that you might need to split vertex data loading over multiple frames to minimise stuttering. I suppose this could be achieved through incrementally loading data to a non-display buffer, then copy that to the active display buffer when loading is complete.

If texture data is the problem, that could be managed by implementing a texture atlas, if you don't already have one. If your models have significant LODs, you might even be able to produce a "vertex atlas", though I suspect that might just lead to multiple graphical artifacts.

Not that I would know really! My use of OpenGL so far has all been for event-driven/static interfaces; real-time is much more challenging, which is why I haven't tackled it yet...

BTW Mesa is akin to watching paint dry. Even 5 sec freezes are less disruptive

[proggy3456]

You have done an Impressive work on porting TC on Linux! It both looks and performs quite nicely.

Just tried to get through the Terran Mission as far as I could. The game abruptly terminates with SIGABRT upon entering Neptune. I suspect the little cut scene that is supposted to play does not work yet, hence the abort?

[d10sfan]

New version works on nvidia now nice!

Noticed there's random freezing every once in a while

[rictec]

where is that new version?
on steam on download?

[fallenwizard]

Bugs:

Starting a new game and choosing one of the starts doesn't play the fade out animation. After pressing enter the game immediately switches to the loading screen.

Flying through a gate or transorbital accelerator doesn't play the "accelerating and flying through gate"-animation. (I don't mean the warp tunnel)

[Ernie.]

How good to see there's a port of X3TC to Linux. So far I'm happy to see such good performance. This is smooth really

However, I'm running into a crash ( http://pastebin.com/LE3Xwsxh ). What I'm doing is basically trying to start the first mission, and I've come to the point where we go to Neptune. I jump, get out into Neptune, everything seems okay, and I guess there suppose to be a cut scene because the HUD is removed, everything halts and then after a while no more running X3TC

Please let me know if there's anything I can provide to help debug this.

Edit:
I've tried doing it multiple times now, and it crashed. Also, I'm running a nVidia card.

Edit2: This is definitely due to a cut scene or some special event. No mission and jumping to Neptune results in no crash.

[_JD_]

However, I'm running into a crash ( http://pastebin.com/LE3Xwsxh ). What I'm doing is basically trying to start the first mission, and I've come to the point where we go to Neptune. I jump, get out into Neptune, everything seems okay, and I guess there suppose to be a cut scene because the HUD is removed, everything halts and then after a while no more running X3TC

Same here.

[ezra-r]

However, I'm running into a crash ( http://pastebin.com/LE3Xwsxh ). What I'm doing is basically trying to start the first mission, and I've come to the point where we go to Neptune. I jump, get out into Neptune, everything seems okay, and I guess there suppose to be a cut scene because the HUD is removed, everything halts and then after a while no more running X3TC

Same here.

Re-confirmed!

Entering neptune takes about 15-20secs for me, and then when the cutscene is supposed to happen... CTD!

Cheers.

[fallenwizard]

Another one: I am unable to rotate the camera with the numpad keys while I press and hold the TAB key.

EDIT: Also the mouse wheel doesn't work in menus

EDIT2: Universe map and sector map have a strange tint:
http://ompldr.org/vaTRmeQ/x3screen00007.jpg

EDIT3: I am also not able to press multiple numpad keys at once. (For example 4 and 8 or 6 and 8 )

[kampav]

Game (build 2) segfaults soon after start. Even intro or menu doesn't show up.