The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release => General UQM Discussion => Topic started by: Michael Martin on December 07, 2020, 02:50:10 am



Title: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on December 07, 2020, 02:50:10 am
It's been nine years, but the stars have aligned and in some cases our hands have been forced:

On and off over the past year or two I've been working on modernizing bits of the UQM build process and infrastructure. It's almost ready to release, but I'd like to see some more testing on it before I actually pull the trigger. So:

UQM 0.8 Release Candidate 1 is available for download from the project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/files/UQM/0.8/

This is not yet a fully announced release -- there isn't an official source package, for instance. (Linux testers have been using the v0.8.0 branch on the Git repository).

I'd love to hear some reports from the field about how these work for you.

What's New Here?

The installations include WHATSNEW documents, but the highlights are:

  • Namable savegames
  • As part of that, a new uncompressed, chunk-based save format that should make it easier for mods to coexist and should make it much easier to edit save files
  • A new graphics, sound, and input backend based on SDL2, which means Metal and DX support on Mac and Windows, or VC4 support on a properly configured Raspberry Pi -- fullscreen mode should work much more cleanly on modern computers with this change. Also, Mac builds should stop self-destructing.
  • Nine years of sporadic bugfixes from the community post-0.7
  • The Windows installer now supports TLS and is thus capable of performing proper net installs again
Overall, it's part "years of deferred maintenance" and part "actually release the unpublished work that still fits in with the popular mods".

What's Missing?

  • The "master" branch of the Git repository still has some work that isn't merged with 0.8, but that work changed the code structure drastically enough that we decided to hold off on this.
  • There isn't a traditional source release yet -- the source code lives in the v0.8.0 branch on Git and won't be exported until we advance from "release candidate" to "proper release".
  • We do not support Apple Silicon yet. SDL2 still has some sharp corners there.
  • Binary support for the oldest operating systems has been dropped. The net installer doesn't work on XP (no OS-level support for TLS!) and SDL2 doesn't officially support 10.5 or 10.6 anymore either. Vista and 10.6 might work -- we've already heard reports of success on Win7 and macOS 10.7.
Most of this work has already been integrated into the MegaMod, since they were following Vanilla development.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Elestan on December 07, 2020, 10:19:03 am
Testing on Win7:

Installer:
  • The first content download site failed to connect (the second mirror worked).  It would be nice to have "Abort Install" and "Retry" options if a network operation fails.
  • If the content download fails, the installer continues running, trying to install other packages and ending up with a non-working game.  Failure to install the content should probably be fatal.
  • The download initially failed because I had an outbound firewall.  It would be nice if the installer could diagnose this.
  • It would also be nice if there was a non-net installer.

Game:
  • If you try to rename your captain while in orbit around a planet, the flashing rectangle appears in the wrong place.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on December 07, 2020, 10:16:54 pm
Offline installation is possible in the same way as before: predownloading the content packs and putting them in the same directory as the net installer will prefer the local versions if they pass a size and MD5-sum check.

Note though that Remix Pack 4 received an update in 0.8 thanks in part to some new material from remixers, so a 0.7 install won't keep that pack.

Speaking of which:
  • The uninstaller, if told to entirely clean house, doesn't clean up the updated Remix Pack 4, treating it like a user file.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Elestan on December 12, 2020, 07:09:22 am
I'm doing a playthrough, and a few times now, I've gotten "stuck" keys, where the thrust and turn behave as though I'm holding them down, even when I'm not.  I'm not sure on the exact trigger for the glitch, or if it's something specific to my machine.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: dixius99 on December 13, 2020, 10:02:05 pm
Downloaded and installed on macOS Big Sur, and so far it's working great.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on December 13, 2020, 10:08:37 pm
Stuck keys could be two things, one of which is definitely OS-based and another of which was an SDL2-sepecific bug that was supposed to be squashed.

The one that's OS-based is that if something takes control or focus away from the main window -- a popup, or Alt-Tab, or something like that -- UQM doesn't always get told about the key-up event. This can usually be repaired by pushing and releasing the button again after focus is regained. Recent Macs may be subject to this if you do not grant UQM the new permission to "receive keystrokes from any application", but I haven't experimented thoroughly with this.

The one unique to SDL2 is that SDL2 simulates keyrepeat on its own and this interferes with UQM's own keyrepeat and keychord detection systems. This should have been disabled in the code at this point, but it could be reliably triggered just by, say, thrusting continuously for ten seconds.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Elestan on December 14, 2020, 07:03:01 am
I'm testing on Win7.  Clearing the condition did not happen as easily as releasing and tapping the button, but it did eventually clear - although it cost me the fight.  If it happens again, I'll try to do a more rigorous dissection of the cause and clear conditions.

BTW, is there any chance of getting the bugzilla (https://bugs.uqm.stack.nl/) back online?

Stuck keys could be two things, one of which is definitely OS-based and another of which was an SDL2-sepecific bug that was supposed to be squashed.

The one that's OS-based is that if something takes control or focus away from the main window -- a popup, or Alt-Tab, or something like that -- UQM doesn't always get told about the key-up event. This can usually be repaired by pushing and releasing the button again after focus is regained. Recent Macs may be subject to this if you do not grant UQM the new permission to "receive keystrokes from any application", but I haven't experimented thoroughly with this.

The one unique to SDL2 is that SDL2 simulates keyrepeat on its own and this interferes with UQM's own keyrepeat and keychord detection systems. This should have been disabled in the code at this point, but it could be reliably triggered just by, say, thrusting continuously for ten seconds.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: TG on December 15, 2020, 02:18:08 pm
Hi! I tested 0.8 on macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, and unfortunately the game crashes every time I try to save. It doesn't matter if I enter a save name or not, it's a 100% crash.

The crash report can be downloaded at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AbX4hZg-3ixfGPYpvorEBtiNbTc3mD5I/view?usp=sharing.
It seems to die on "BUG IN CLIENT OF LIBDISPATCH: Assertion failed: Block was expected to execute on queue [com.apple.main-thread]".


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Elestan on December 17, 2020, 12:58:40 am
I'm not sure whether this was prior behavior, but there doesn't seem to be any way to interrupt the victory credits and get back to the main menu.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on December 19, 2020, 10:27:47 pm
Hi! I tested 0.8 on macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, and unfortunately the game crashes every time I try to save. It doesn't matter if I enter a save name or not, it's a 100% crash.

The crash report can be downloaded at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AbX4hZg-3ixfGPYpvorEBtiNbTc3mD5I/view?usp=sharing.
It seems to die on "BUG IN CLIENT OF LIBDISPATCH: Assertion failed: Block was expected to execute on queue [com.apple.main-thread]".

I can't repro this on my own Big Sur machine, but my current theory on this is on certain kinds of input configurations at the OS level, SDL2 requires you to be on the graphics/UI thread when you toggle into and out of text entry mode. If that's true, you should *also* crash on any other free-text entry mode, such as renaming the captain, the ship, or any Super Melee team.

I'm not sure whether this was prior behavior, but there doesn't seem to be any way to interrupt the victory credits and get back to the main menu.

This does indeed appear to be prior behavior, at least to 2005 and possibly all the way back to 3DO; the end credits may at the very least be accelerated by repeatedly pressing MENU-DOWN.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: dixius99 on December 21, 2020, 09:24:26 pm

I can't repro this on my own Big Sur machine


Saving seems to be fine for me on 11.1, what what it's worth.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: TG on December 26, 2020, 09:47:45 am
I can't repro this on my own Big Sur machine, but my current theory on this is on certain kinds of input configurations at the OS level, SDL2 requires you to be on the graphics/UI thread when you toggle into and out of text entry mode. If that's true, you should *also* crash on any other free-text entry mode, such as renaming the captain, the ship, or any Super Melee team.

I tried renaming my captain and sure enough it crashes there as well. So safe to say your theory is correct and any text input crashes once confirmed.

I have a Finnish keyboard layout (with all other settings set to English), and am on a 2019 16" MacBook Pro (with a multi-touch touchpad). Maybe it's the Finnish keyboard? I am also playing in full-screen mode for what it's worth.

Of note is that the crash only occurs when I press Enter to confirm the save game's name or the captain's name - I can enter the actual text without issue.

Thanks!


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on December 28, 2020, 03:15:01 am
I have now uploaded Release Candidate 2 to https://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/files/UQM/0.8/ based on the feedback here and elsewhere. It may take a little while for SourceForge to get it out to all its mirrors.

  • When telling SDL2 about entering/leaving text mode, make sure that this only happens on the same thread responsible for drawing OS windows. (This is expected to address a crash seen on some Mac OS machines.)
  • Attempting to enter text from beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane will now insert the Unicode Replacement Character instead of nothing or hanging
  • The first time you edit the Captain or Flagship name while in orbit around a planet, the flashing rectangle will no longer be in the wrong place.
  • Win32 uninstaller will now correctly uninstall Remix Pack 4


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: TheVidmaster on January 02, 2021, 03:59:51 pm
Nameable save-games, how could I ever life without those!

RC2 looks good on my Windows here thus far...    Note that I lack the time to do a full playthough right now  ::)


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: TG on January 03, 2021, 04:05:13 pm
I have now uploaded Release Candidate 2 to https://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/files/UQM/0.8/ based on the feedback here and elsewhere. It may take a little while for SourceForge to get it out to all its mirrors.

  • When telling SDL2 about entering/leaving text mode, make sure that this only happens on the same thread responsible for drawing OS windows. (This is expected to address a crash seen on some Mac OS machines.)
  • Attempting to enter text from beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane will now insert the Unicode Replacement Character instead of nothing or hanging
  • The first time you edit the Captain or Flagship name while in orbit around a planet, the flashing rectangle will no longer be in the wrong place.
  • Win32 uninstaller will now correctly uninstall Remix Pack 4

Thank you for the update. I can now enter text and press enter without it crashing, but unfortunately I can no longer control the ship at all. Everything else works including the in-game menus, star map, conversations etc. except I can't steer the ship or fire.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on January 04, 2021, 02:19:06 am
The menu and the flight controls use the same control logic, so if only one is breaking, this implies that the config file has been corrupted somehow. If you edit your flight controls in the configure menu you should be able to get somewhere, and deleting the uqm.cfg file should also reset all settings.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: cjfp on January 11, 2021, 09:49:52 pm
I have a 1920x1200 display.  The ideal 4:3 part of my screen is 1600x1200, which is 5x 320x200.  With uqm-0.8-rc2-win32 I'm able to get a fullscreen 4:3 aspect ratio at 1280x960 whereas I wasn't able to with 0.7, even when specifying -f -k command line switches.  This is just great!  Thank you!

In terms of requests, a setting for 1600x1200 would be nice.  There's a spot for it in the menu, and it's the next multiple up from 1280x960 which is 4x.  I can't say what difference it would make, but I'll test it if you like.

I recently managed to get DOSBox to play the original at 1600x1200 with hq3x scaling.  However now that 0.8 works correctly for me I'm pretty sure it'll be preferable, since the sound is better, there's voices, and to my eyes your HQ scaler works better.

Also, I don't really know, but the gamma correction slider might have a problem.  The slider starts in the middle position, but when I move it then my only choices are hard left and hard right.  Furthermore, the value of 1.0000 stays constant.  I have an AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 series card.

Edit: I just found out that 0.8 was released yesterday.  I tested it, and there are no changes with respect to what I wrote.

Edit 2: Apparently uqm-0.8-win32.exe is the same as uqm-0.8-rc2-win32.exe so of course there's no difference.  I did find another problem though that doesn't happen with 0.7: every time I quit the game, Windows 7 pops up the following dialog box:

(https://i.imgur.com/lP108gl.png)


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on January 16, 2021, 02:54:06 am
When running fullscreen, you'll actually be getting 1920x1200 -- one of SDL2's features is that its "fullscreen mode" is actually an undecorated window that covers the entire screen and that the GPU upscales as needed. So if you're playing fullscreen, you're getting the thing you asked for. You're right that there's room for a 1600x1200 windowed mode, though.

The gamma correction slider is bugged and tbh should just be removed. It might sort of do something if built with SDL1 options but SDL2 doesn't interoperate with gamma ramps the way SDL1 does and it's not really sensible to mess with it with a slider like that.

0.8 is indeed RC2.

The crash on exit is interesting and I don't get it on my Win10  machine, nor do all Win7 machines do it. If you can collect a MiniDump from it at that point I might be able to do something with it; other than that this might be some quirk with SDL2 itself or some interaction between SDL2 and your graphics drivers. (One fun thing that came up pre-RC1 was that some Intel chips' DX9 drivers made the game crash instantly deep inside the graphics driver).


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: cjfp on January 18, 2021, 03:41:02 am
Oh I see, yes 320 x 240 produces the same results as 1280 x 960 in fullscreen.  That's great, thanks.  I thought the scaler might behave differently depending on the chosen resolution.

I made sure my settings for minidumps matched https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce6e4a0b-cb56-4df7-877d-8e38440fe85d/how-to-enable-minidump (https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce6e4a0b-cb56-4df7-877d-8e38440fe85d/how-to-enable-minidump) but I don't get any created for UQM, even though I do have some from other applications.

I have Radeon Adrenalin 2019 19.9.2 drivers, at least according to the AMD Settings app.

If you would like me to test some builds I can do that, but I'm also happy to leave this alone.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Michael Martin on January 18, 2021, 11:16:12 pm
This doesn't sound like a blocker and I'm not in a tearing hurry to start work on a 0.8.1 or anything, so this is definitely just a matter of "take the opportunity if it comes up"... especially since I suspect this problem is upstream somehow.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: metamorphosis on March 07, 2021, 10:30:35 am
When running fullscreen, you'll actually be getting 1920x1200 -- one of SDL2's features is that its "fullscreen mode" is actually an undecorated window that covers the entire screen and that the GPU upscales as needed.

You can run fullscreen desktop - you can also run fullscreen. The cost of running fullscreen desktop is lowered performance, in my testing.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: psydev on March 25, 2021, 12:56:04 pm
So, Shiver's balance mod won't work with 0.8?

Is it incompatible? Or would be a trivial matter for him to upgrade his mod for the latest version?


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: JHGuitarFreak on March 25, 2021, 11:16:53 pm
So, Shiver's balance mod won't work with 0.8?

Is it incompatible? Or would be a trivial matter for him to upgrade his mod for the latest version?

I believe it's currently in testing.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: GBAura on April 13, 2021, 10:41:32 pm
Hey, I know I'm about 4 months late but it's been years since I've been on here. It's great to know that UQM is still being updated and supported.

I remember that I wanted to add in the 3DO font for the game, though the current version of UQM made it hard to look at. I'm hoping that the new update can implement this.

I still have the files with me, I'll hand them out if you want them.

I'll try out the beta and give my feedback.

Oh, I didn't realize it was released. My bad.


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: cheefzboy on April 18, 2021, 08:21:38 pm
Will there be controller support soon?


Title: Re: Call For Testers: UQM 0.8 Release Candidate, Windows/Mac
Post by: Defender on April 29, 2021, 06:15:03 pm
How do I get a "stretched: fullscreen? I don't want the black bars on the sides...the only way I can get it is to manually set my resolution to match the one I'm using in the game. Version 7.0 had no problem stretching the image filling the whole screen in fullscreen.