I've been gone for sometime, and the engine has changed . .

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:11 am

. . .not for the better, from what I experienced. I have been absent for some time, and have had a system crash twice, so I d/l'd the new 072A version of the engine. RfEdit Pro and the engine both ran just awful. The engine crashed randomly and RFEdit Pro seemed totally out of whack. The screen would go white and having trouble regenerating itself after previewing a level.

I have recently upgraded to a geforce fx 5200 with 128 mb ddr, so things have looked sweet. It runs American McGee's Scrapland without batting an eyelash, but rf and it's editor were a wreck.

I wondered if my card was screwy in some way, so I found 070 on an old disc, uninstalled 072A, and re-installed 070. 070 runs like a champ!

i found no video configuration program in the new set-up and I'm hoping that I was just missing something in setting up the new system.

QOD - Please tells me it's so.

Thanks and sorry for the bellyaching,

Steve

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:39 pm

RF will crash if it detects you haven't visited our forum in a year or more..

Usual thing is to update video drivers, edit
the d3d24.ini, this is what mine looks like.

[d3d24]
Bpp = 32
ZBufferD = 16
BBufferCount = 1
CompressTextures = 0
FSAntiAliasing = 0
ExtraTextures = 0
NoVsync = 1
Async = 1
DoNotWait = 1

Set 'extra textures' to 1 if you want to see the EMBM bumpmaps on the brushes. I don't because they don't look so good and hurt
frame rate. There's also a 'stencils' in the
video option, toggle it. Most probs are because XP users aren't setting RF to 'windows 98 compatible I think.'

Also read the faq
http://terrymorgan.net/rffaq.zip

gekido · Post by **gekido** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 7:37 pm

Just saying 'random crashes' doesn't really help us try to figure out what might be going on.

What level are you running?

The editor is as stable as it has been for quite a while - I have been running classes using RF all summer and haven't seen any major / new issues with the editor or engine - in fact I think it's quite possibly more stable than it's been in a long time.

Video setup was removed because there have been alot of new features added to the video driver that weren't supported in the new setup file.

You will want to go through the usual culprits for figuring out what is going on:

1) make sure directx is installed and/or updated
2) updated video drivers

3) edit the d3d24.ini to match your video card's capabilities
4) check the realityfactory.log file to see what the issue is - the log spits out alot of info, look for any errors in the log.

These steps haven't changed for the life of RF, there's nothing really that different...

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:52 am

RF will crash if it detects you haven't visited our forum in a year or more..

Wow, I checked th log file, and the last line says:

Reality Factory has detetected that you have failed to visit the community forum within the last 12 months. Reality Factory Shutting Down.

You know, I suspected something like that.

Just saying 'random crashes' doesn't really help us try to figure out what might be going on

I know, but random is the only phrase which fits. I did not run the test level. I fired up the editor, made a skybox, a floor, sat a 256 tall x 1024 wide disk on it, made a ramp up to the middle of it with a ladder the rest of the way up, used a cutbrush to sink a hole into the middle of it, with a changelevel at the bottom, then made another level of just a box to go to.

The things is, that one time the level and change level would run right through, the next time I would take one step in the first level and the whole thing would shut down, another time I'd get halfway to the disk and it would crash, then it would run fine, then I'd get to the second level, take one step and it would crash. Then it would crash on attempting to changelevel. I call that random. If it always crashed at one point, or if I still had the GlideDrv2.dll on my system, I'd say otherwise.

I'm sure it has something to do with setting up my D3D24.ini file. I'll reinstall and give it a go. So, basically, I wasn't that far off. RF has changed to where it's more complicated.

Thanks.

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:03 am

lol hike!

i think... depending on which 5200 you have, it may not support extra textures. try setting that = 0 in the ini.

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:21 am

I'll give that a go, too. Thanks, Pete.

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:12 pm

Okay, from the rffaq on Terry's site:

Q. What is D3d24.ini and what should it say?

A. It tells Direct X to make certain video modes, right now it should
work with
16
16

That is the last d3d24.ini I am familiar with. Now, most of the settings seem to be just on/off:

CompressTextures = 0
FSAntiAliasing = 0
ExtraTextures = 0
NoVsync = 1
Async = 1
DoNotWait = 1

However, which settings are allowed for these:

Bpp = 32 (can we do 16, 24 or 32?)
ZBufferD = 16 (?)
BBufferCount = 1 (?)

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:41 pm

Hmm, I just looked and there are other, scattered references to settings in the faq's, but no complete list.

I see we can use 16 Bpp, but the other two confuse me. What are the allowed settings?

Also, I reinstalled 072A, and with no changes whatsoever, the tech demo runs just fine. I'll try to rebuild me little test level again and post the results.

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 4:30 am

Rebuilt my level and it runs good. Only crashed once, when I had a modelattributes entity in the level, trying make my ramp slippery by setting it to frozen. Ran once without crashing, but I didn't slip on the ramp. Then it crashed. I removed the entity and ran it several times without crashing.

Ladder works like a charm.

I like the demo level very much. Definitely the best one yet.

Are there a set of options for these settings?

ZBufferD = 16 (?)
BBufferCount = 1 (?)

Post by **QuestOfDreams** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 7:55 am

valid values for the d3d24.ini files:

Bpp: 16, 24, 32 (most video cards just support 16 and 32)
ZBufferD: 16, 24 (Bpp should be higher or equal to this value)
BBufferCount : 1, 2 (2 is tripple buffering)
CompressTextures: 0, 1 (1: compress textures on the fly)
FSAntiAliasing: 0, 1 (1: Fullscreen antialiasing softens pixel edges)
ExtraTextures: 0, 1 (1: bumpmapping)
NoVsync: 0, 1
Async: 0, 1
DoNotWait: 0, 1

I had a modelattributes entity in the level, trying make my ramp slippery by setting it to frozen.

The ModelAttributes entity is only for hollow models. If your brushes are not hollow, just use the Contents flags in the Brush Attributes dialog

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 2:55 pm

Thank you Quest. I want to apologize for my ranting in this post. I've just never experienced that kind of excessive issues with RF. It must have been a solar eclipse or something, because it runs fine now.

The main reason I wanted to know the settings was to complete the little utility I have attached. A GUI d3d24.ini Wizard for creating quick and easy ini files. ToolTips contain QOD's instructions for what the entries mean.

You will need the .net framework to run this.

I hope folks like it.

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 9:54 pm

Compress textures=1 will cut your frame rate by 90 percent.

I've been gone for sometime, and the engine has changed . .

I've been gone for sometime, and the engine has changed . .

Video Setup was removed quite a while ago