[Mark]

After hearing some news about Polymer updates I mentioned it online and someone was kind enough to compile a dev revision of eduke32 so I could see whats happening with framerates which have always been a big concern in my projects. Along the way I discovered 3 bugs.

Compared to older versions the glitches I found so far are
1. it can't handle TROR scissoring. The view just clips thru to the parallaxed skybox
2. the hud model starts to travel left and right when you move left and right anywhere a mirror is close by
3. this is a long standing issue that sometimes from outside the view clips to the interior

I wasn't sure if any extensive testing was being done on the WIP Polymer updates so I gave it a spin. I was told before that things will break as work progresses.

[Doom64hunter]

Can you provide screenshots/clips of these issues in action, or maybe a test map? That would help a lot.

[Mark]

The hud model/mirror issue you can see at any mirror including the bathroom in E1l1 using the HRP. Basically the hud weapon model tries to imitate the movement of the weapon in the mirror instead of staying in place as the player turns.

The other 2 issues I will have to take pics or video of. I was testing in the Decay TC and HHR from a few years ago. The long standing 3rd issue of seeing the interior from outside has already been reported before but it was a long time ago. I might be able to find again in a search which revision it started with.

[TerminX]

Yeah, there are still a bunch of issues in the dev branch. I haven't had time to work on the Polymer-specific changes very much lately but hope to be able to get back to them soon. I'm still spending all my time on improving the engine, but there are just so many things that need a lot of work heh. I have this whole mouse driven UI overhaul I'm working on for the editor that I haven't even shown publicly anywhere, the Polymer stuff, all the general work that needs to be done regarding the engine's asset management and map format, etc etc etc.

Is the framerate at least better?

[Mark]

I need to do a lot more A/B comparisons. But initial limited testing seems to be in less intensive areas framerate is noticably better in many cases but for the big slowdowns increase might be only a few fps difference. Today I'm going to load up specific areas in different projects and maps and take screenshots for direct comparisons.

[Mark]

Comparing to rev 9805 I found lots of variation in fps increases using dev version which I guess is to be expected as the number of sectors visible is always changing. In some cases framerate would jump from ( rounding off numbers here ) 30-33, 40-45, 40-60, 60-70, 70-110, 110-120. I have framerate capped at 120 so its possible that number was higher. In some places there was little to no difference. Like if fps dropped under 15 in some of my open area maps.

So it looks like you are on the right track here. I suppose to be thorough I should check against the original older versions that the projects released with because in many cases those older ones had better framerates than anything newer. Now that I think of it, why possibly spoil the good results of the latest. Maybe I woun't check against the old. We'll see.

[FRVIND]

Mark, on 31 December 2021 - 08:54 AM, said:

Comparing to rev 9805 I found lots of variation in fps increases using dev version which I guess is to be expected as the number of sectors visible is always changing. In some cases framerate would jump from ( rounding off numbers here ) 30-33, 40-45, 40-60, 60-70, 70-110, 110-120. I have framerate capped at 120 so its possible that number was higher. In some places there was little to no difference. Like if fps dropped under 15 in some of my open area maps.

So it looks like you are on the right track here. I suppose to be thorough I should check against the original older versions that the projects released with because in many cases those older ones had better framerates than anything newer. Now that I think of it, why possibly spoil the good results of the latest. Maybe I woun't check against the old. We'll see.

I can only add about the polymer that in the "master" version, which already contains several updates that were previously WIP (ex DEV), that is to say in the last 3 months, in a couple of very specific points and at certain angles I noticed a deterioration of 5 - 8 fps. Besides, I sent an email directly to Mr. Bollinger, who kindly listened to me in the past about other problems, in which I pointed out two other problems (particularly about bright spots and lighting); now I think he couldn't read this email ...

[FRVIND]

... I think that using libtess instead of libglu has created quite a few headaches ...

[Mark]

As I was going into projects to document the previous issues, I found more. Like in Graveyard footprints had bright spots, flame flickering is smoother, more a pulse instead of flicker. Flashlight mod not working. New warnings popping up I haven't seen before. In Decay the hud model's brightness pulsated slightly under Polymer lighting and as you turn in a circle the pulse rate changes. Then there are differences in brightness or gamma levels between revisions which can affect how things are rendering. The more projects I open to test the more issues I'm finding. Unfortunately this is going to turn into a major undertaking to either make test maps since the devs won't have all these projects installed or taking screenshots and videos of all these things. But test maps won't contain the code, models and textures, etc from their original projects and won't always be a proper representation of the issues.

And like you, I have previously submitted other bugs so its a large undertaking. I can see why Polymer is not a fun thing to dive into.

Bottom line for me though is if older projects have to remain using their older eduke32 versions, so be it. I don't want backwards compatibilty to hamstring future progress. Most people's hardware has gotten better since those projects were released so they will likely run better now even using the old versions.

[FRVIND]

I think that polymer had problems after the 9782 development, but already after 9607 there was a problem with the behavior of the recon-cars

[Mark]

After re-reading my last post I realized that many of the issues I found might still be present in a newly built map. So I guess I can't just ignore past issues and move forward.

[Mark]

I did a search thru old posts and found that issue number 3 was reported and started with revision 5294 way back in 2015. The best way to describe it is sometimes if the interior of a building is larger than the outside the player view clips into the interior when viewing from outside. This did not happen with earlier revisions.

[FRVIND]

Mark, on 06 January 2022 - 06:18 AM, said:

I did a search thru old posts and found that issue number 3 was reported and started with revision 5294 way back in 2015. The best way to describe it is sometimes if the interior of a building is larger than the outside the player view clips into the interior when viewing from outside. This did not happen with earlier revisions.

Is there a simple map of this issue number 3?

[Mark]

No. But if you happen to have the Decay TC installed you can see it happen in the first map outside the post office.

[Mark]

Doom64hunter, on 30 December 2021 - 06:54 PM, said:

Can you provide screenshots/clips of these issues in action, or maybe a test map? That would help a lot.

This is an example of the TROR scissoring bug. Outside looking in. The way it used to be on the left, the way it is presently on the right. The TROR interior does not render which leaves you seeing parallaxed floor and ceiling plus whatever was behind the building. But as soon as you walk into the interior it displays.

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