Linux support thread

[UniTrader]

suspicions / random layman rambling
I read somewhere that the in-game coordinates use floating-points.
Maybe the Teladi Sector is far enough away that floating-point rounding starts to become relevant?
I.e. if you have a single-precision float to buffer the skunk/camera position during drone-scan, but use doubles everywhere else?
(suspicion may be ignored if it's a 'smug report' )

definietly not. Positions are calculated from the Zone center, and Zones are limited in Size for exactly that reason. If it were about the float point errors the Ship would startto jitter when moving, eg you can only move in steps of several meters, and your movement will look like a zig-zag line instead of a straight line (you can see what i mean in the previous Games when you fly far out of the Sector - should be noticeable at about 1000km, and gets worse from there)

My guess would be that some kind of collision avoidance kics in which places the Playership in a safe Position at the same moment the drone is created (and where your drone starts depends on wheter the Playership was re-positioned first or the drone was created first)

[CulunTse]

OK, so I'll abandon the float-idea.
However, I use drones a lot, but this is the first time I noticed it.
Good luck on this Timon!

Edit 2015-06-28: after reading the other post Phipps mentioned, I believe that topic covers my problem more.
Probably not linux-specific then, but I'll do some more testing to confirm.

[CulunTse]

Hi, I'm back with more exciting oddities

First of: Timon huge thanks for getting the shaders (I think that's what they're called) to work in the Lin10/lin11 builds. The visuals of the game are much improved with the shockwave of exploding turrets and the speed-distortion of highways and boosting!

In the interest of polishing that work, on my system the turbo-boost distorting has some side-effects which I believe are unintentional.

1) the screen edges 'wrap around', showing an undistorted edge that seems to originate from the other side of the screen. i.e. the turbo-boost distortion effect doesn't reach all the way to the screen edge. Where it doesn't reach, I see a thin band that shows stuff from the opposite side (bottom shows edge of top, top shows strip of bottom, left shows strip of right and vice versa)
Screenshot here on steam cloud

2) the distortion seems to be on the wrong z-layer.
If I fly through highways on autopilot, I tend to use the side-monitor a lot to order my trade-fleet around.
The trade monitor is also distorted by the turbo-effect, but only where the monitor is over cockpit-window. Parts of the monitor that are drawn of cockpit strutts or the side walls are not distorted.
Screenshot here on steam cloud
Obvious example in the "by" of "wares sold by stations": you can effectively see where the support-strut of the cockpit 'occludes' the turbo-boost, even though the strut is hidden behind the trade-monitor.

Technical details:
- AMD HD6950 running AMD catalyst drivers from ~may 2015
- AMD FX 6300
- Ubuntu 14.04.02 LTS
- XR linux alpha build 3.60 lin10 and lin11 (not sure about the numbering,
the effect was there since the first time the turbo-boost distortion was there. I think that was introduced in lin10, but it could also be lin9, not sure)
- Using the combat-cockpit, didn't test with other cockpits.
- Game heavily modded, possibly relevant mods affecting graphics:
* remove scan-lines (no longer necessary, I believe)
* desexualised clubs
* exploration light
* long-range-scanner update
* show me your faction please.

If you need more details, just ask! I don't know what you need to know (and I was wildly of last time, so please help me help you! )

Again, awesome improvement that greatly improved my enjoyment. This is just the fine-tuning

[timon37]

@CulunTse

Hi, thanks for the detailed info. I should have a few of these issues fixed soon(ish).

[fallenwizard]

Bug report (3.60 b3) Build 11

I am unable to switch to the offers menu because of this error:

Error while executing onEvent script for event: onClick.
Errormessage: H:\P\temp\r197729\menu_trading_offers.lua:298: attempt to index a nil value

How to reproduce:
Load the following savegame
Open the trade menu with "Shift+T"
Try to click on the "To Offers" button.


Save game:
http://www.2shared.com/file/WVK8ElX2/quicksavetar.html

I completely switched to Linux, so I can't test this in the Windows version of XR.

EDIT: Same happens if you open the trade menu after using the "Empire Builder" gamestart.

[timon37]

@fallenwizard Apparently Florian fixed this, so it should be fine in the next version.

[CulunTse]

Hi Timon,

Update: the wrap-around issue seems to be mostly gone with the new build.
Most of the times in highways it's completely gone, though I have seen a few wrap-arounds in only one or two edges.
I haven't pinned down the factors to trigger it though

Thanks in any case!


Another oddity: sometimes the sound just cuts out.
If I then look under "settings > sound settings", sound is switched to "off".
If I then toggle it back on, sound immediately works again.
I'll try to pay attention to the debug-log next time it happens, but I thought I'd give you a heads-up.



On the topic of debug-log:
Whenever I open the drone-dialog (T) or start a small-talk, my debug-log is spammed with messages like these:

Code: Select all

[General] ShaderD3D::SetTexture(shadergl\high_spec\xu_ui_unlit) GetIdxBySemantic(EIdx -1 Sema 3 SubSema 0) returned -1, @Timon
[General] ShaderD3D::SetTexture(shadergl\high_spec\xu_ui_unlit) GetIdxBySemantic(EIdx -1 Sema 3 SubSema 0) returned -1, @Timon
....

And immediately hundreds of them.
I suspect these are leftovers from your debugging of the smalltalk misaligned textures?
What would be the best way to switch them of? (Aside from running the log through "tail -f | grep -v", which is ugly..)

[ezra-r]

I also noticed a small 1-2 secs delay for the npc dialog when I start personal trade/conversation.

Is the long range scanner sound going to be fixed soon?™

Stations are laggy too compared to space flight!

[timon37]

@CulunTse

Those are actually errors, though they're not particularly harmful.
I'll probably disable them in the Master version.

Stations are laggy too compared to space flight!

It's because of the humans, it's always their fault. Fortunately we've got a nice fix for this.
Unfortunately there are some prerequisites before I can release it, and I'm stuck doing other (quite crucial) opengl work.

[Gligli]

Hi,
Docs and logs are 2 things I never find easily in my Linux arch's...
Once Log active, is there an output file?
(Ubuntu 14.04)

[timon37]

@Gligli

Hmm which log exactly and where did you enable it?
If you're interested in the "error log" of XRebirth the easiest is to just run "steam -console" from a terminal/console.

[Gligli]

Sorry, it was about Debug log
I have a few, probably minor, ones.

[ezra-r]

@timon37 no hurries, as long as you are aware of the issues and they'll get fixed, all fine!

Also for everyone.

Do you guys have some total discrepancies in volumes? I hear npcs talking to me in stations realy low volume, while Ren in contrast sounds normal, problem is you rise volume to hear the npc's well and then Ren is like shouting.

Apologies if this has been mentioned before.

Keep up the good work timon37!

[Gligli]

Do you guys have some total discrepancies in volumes? I hear npcs talking to me in stations realy low volume, while Ren in contrast sounds normal, problem is you rise volume to hear the npc's well and then Ren is like shouting.

Apologies if this has been mentioned before.

I got it too... if you go closer to the commander for ex his voice rise. This "feature" is more a bad point since information can not be rightly understood.
But, this problem exists with isha too, with the particularity to only be rendered on the right channel... a bit irritating.

Can't remember if it happens on Windows too.

[Gligli]

Sorry, it was about Debug log

I have a problem with it.
If I "copy to clipboard" the game crash.

I'll try error log soon

[ezra-r]

Do you guys have some total discrepancies in volumes? I hear npcs talking to me in stations realy low volume, while Ren in contrast sounds normal, problem is you rise volume to hear the npc's well and then Ren is like shouting.

Apologies if this has been mentioned before.

I got it too... if you go closer to the commander for ex his voice rise. This "feature" is more a bad point since information can not be rightly understood.
But, this problem exists with isha too, with the particularity to only be rendered on the right channel... a bit irritating.

Can't remember if it happens on Windows too.

It never happened to me under Windows, so it's a linux issue, I'm sure.

Now that we mention sound, I also hear some little distorted noise or mix of sounds when coming out of a highway too, not too annoying, but odd nevertheless.

[timon37]

The highway noise is the doppler shift, seems like there's a cap on it in XAudio2 and in openal it's much higher.
I don't think there was an easy way to change it, so I'll probably have to mess with openal-soft).
The voices being too loud are probably a similar issue just with distance.

The problem of a sound/voice being played only in one headphone means openal thinks you're using speakers instead of headphones.
Honestly I'm not sure how openal checks that. Could be simply assuming based on whether it's the back or front jack. It's likely you can override that somewhere (if you find a way please post it here).

[ezra-r]

btw, timon, after playing for a long while under Linux, you could really switch the tag to Beta, it works quite well, no crashes, not HUGE issues either.

Congrats are in order!

Ps: I think I'm definetly ditching the windows version as a matter of fact.

[timon37]

Depends on the choosen definitions of alpha/beta;p
Imho way too many features are missing/broken to call it beta.
Stability is mostly fine because the engine issues have been solved on windows, and I didn't introduce too many new ones.

[ezra-r]

I propably considered alpha something that needs stuff added to make it work in most cases, while beta just needs polishing, since I can play the game just fine, I consider the alpha is well behind, just my perception though.

Like I said anyways, my cheers to your work!