[Tea Monster]

Awesomebob, on Nov 16 2010, 08:09 AM, said:

My ATI run everything just fine and dandy, even WoW (and blizzard is VERY bias toward nVidia). The only thing I can't play on this card is polymer eduke with filtering higher than liner. Every other game I play run fantastic on max settings with no overheat and no crashes or glitches.

All this and roughly $200 cheaper than a comparable nVidia card.

Yes, but the Nvidia card works!

You say that everything else you have works great, but if you check the Blender/Maya forums, and other places where software and hardware are discussed, 99.9% of the time it's the ATI guys who are bemoaning problems.

I've had about 5 or 6 ATI cards, from 1997 - 2 months ago, and each time I've had to spend a day or two hunting down driver fixes for various problems. If it works for you, that's great, but I wouldn't have one thrown at me.

[TerminX]

The reason ATI cards work fine with a lot of commercial games is because game developers spend hundreds of man hours programming specific workarounds for their malfunctioning drivers. A lot of open source software is simply written to adhere to the OpenGL spec and therefore has problems on ATI because developers of free software rarely have thousands of dollars to spend on all sorts of random hardware to do QA with.

[Plagman]

Wait, so 9.11 gives the white boxes with a X1650 but not with new cards where it starts at 10.5 or something? Weird.

Also, Blender/Maya/EDuke32 use OpenGL whereas pretty much all modern games use Direct3D these days. And Blizzard is not at all biased towards NV, in fact they're an AMD partner since a few years.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah, nothing works for me on the latest official ATI drivers for my card (legacy). I can't stand ATI. I really want to migrate to NVidia on my next PC upgrade purchase.

[Mr.Deviance]

Awesomebob, on Nov 16 2010, 09:09 AM, said:

All this and roughly $200 cheaper than a comparable nVidia card.

$200 cheaper is exaggerated, but even if nvidia was 200 bucks more it would still be worth it, especially when when for those extra $200 Nvidia had 3d vision for any 3d app and hardware physx acceleration that makes lots of difference in visual quality for games that support it plus drivers that work perfectly for absolutely any game and app ever made up to this day.
Ati sucks and it has been bought by amd which also sucks. 2 lame companies got fused together so they don't die alone. Amd cpu's have always been the worst POS when compared with Intel. Both AMD and ATI were 2 separate companies that went for the much cheaper approach but also releasing crap hardware for those cheap prices.
The ATI brand was so BAD that not even AMD could save it. Ati brought shame to amd and caused AMD to lose sales just beause their cards were named ATI, which is exactly why amd killed the ATI brand completely.
So have fun with your future AMD cards, they are still the same ati shit, but they are just missing the ati name.
The only great ATI card that ever existed was their top of the line ati 9800, either xt or pro I don't remember exactly which was better but that card was awesome.
Ever since that ancient card, ati hasn't produced even one decent vid card that would compensate with the lack of proper drivers...

[TerminX]

Hey, no need to slam AMD... they make good budget processors, and back in the Pentium 4 days AMD wiped their ass with Intel.

I have a couple of quad core Phenom II rigs at the moment and the price/performance ratio is pretty awesome if you're into overclocking (I am).

[SwissCm]

RAWRRRR AMD
Their cards are fine, the drivers are OK. I'm not saying they are without problems but to the consumer they work reasonably well particularly when it comes to Direct3D support. AMD are also somewhat more friendly to the open source community compared to Nvidia too due to their support of the open source driver.

Also, AMD has always made excellent processors, even the K6 series were good back in the day and their 386 and 486 clones were excellent, better than the Intel equivalents.

Besides, even if you don't like AMD, having them around means competition and competition means lower prices and increased R&D. If we didn't have AMD around you can bet that Intel would still be using terrible P4-derived stuff.

[Lord Misfit]

An interesting note on this is I'm planning to upgrade from this 5 year old hand-me-down laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 card [which I know according to notebookcheck.net is one of the weakest of ATI's cards still on the market (a low-bottom class 4, the lower the class number being a more powerful card category on the site). I'll be bumping up to at least a Class 2 (probably not a 1 since I want to keep a 15-16" laptop and save some money)]. The card I seem to be most poised to end up with (at least according to the system I got on my Dell wishlist) is a Nvidia GeForce GT 420M w/ Optimus [or possibly the 435M if I decide to add more money by getting a Core i7 instead of a Core i5 processor), and according to plagman it should help a lot with EDuke32 at least, but I do want to do this to actually be able to play games from this recent decade with competence too. XD

I won't be attempting to get an upgrade though for a month or maybe two and I feel it might be best to see other people's thoughts on this even though I consider plagman's advice to be pretty good so far since he's one of those who I feel would know the engine specs pretty well. [maybe terminx can shed his opinions on this as well? o.o]

Thanks.

[Awesomebob]

Mr.Deviance, on Nov 16 2010, 10:51 PM, said:

$200 cheaper is exaggerated.

No, it was not exaggerated at the time I bought the card. According to tom's hardware my $199 ATI was just slightly worse (the biggest difference I could see was the memory channels) than the $399 nVidia card. So I went with the ATI seeing as I'm on a budget and all.

Did an ATI card touch you in a bad spot or something? Such rage, you should see a therapist.

[Mblackwell]

SwissCm, on Nov 17 2010, 04:18 AM, said:

RAWRRRR AMD
Their cards are fine, the drivers are OK. I'm not saying they are without problems but to the consumer they work reasonably well particularly when it comes to Direct3D support. AMD are also somewhat more friendly to the open source community compared to Nvidia too due to their support of the open source driver.

I don't personally consider someone saying, "Fine whiners figure this shit out yourself" to be particularly supportive. They could have just released decent drivers in the first place like certain other companies, which only receive comments to open their source from diehard FOSS people. Especially when that company also contributes patches and manpower to upstream support.

[Tea Monster]

Awesomebob, on Nov 17 2010, 06:49 AM, said:

...
Did an ATI card touch you in a bad spot or something? Such rage, you should see a therapist.

Stop being a silly fanboy. ATI cards have loads of driver problems and don't run OpenGL programs correctly. This isn't something we all conspired to make up because we liked Nvidia. If you actually read this thread, you'd have seen that multiple ATI cards have annoyed me, which is why - and is in fact the ONLY reason why - I like Nvidia.

[Tetsuo]

They run most OpenGL programs in other operating systems (where OpenGL is the only choice) correctly.

[Tea Monster]

Tetsuo, on Nov 17 2010, 10:54 AM, said:

They run most OpenGL programs in other operating systems (where OpenGL is the only choice) correctly.

Oh, I see, so you are saying that they can write OpenGL drivers, they just choose not to?

[Tetsuo]

Just relating my experience with their (non-windows) OpenGL drivers that's all. Of course in OS X (for example) the drivers aren't just by them but by Apple as well.... and they need work... however it's not like all applications render incorrectly on there.

[High Treason]

I personally think there are communication issues in ATi - one team seems to go out of it's way to get the chip running OpenGL and another seems to screw the drivers as if they know nothing about the chip they are writing for... I dunno, it's hard to explain, but I studied Business at college and it just feels like communication problems within the company.


I'm an nVidia & Intel user myself, but in the old days I was not, the first rig I built was an AMD Duron 950 which at some point had it's SiS 6326 card pulled out and replaced with a GeForce 4 MX420, this was a good card but it artifacted in Flight Sim 2002 so I bought fantastic ATi 7500 (With the old Hercules 3D Prophet brand on it) - that card was AWESOME! As time went by the 7500 died in a watercooling accident and I upgraded to an ATi 9200SE which was also good, but it had some problems with OpenGL and could be out-performed by the nVidia GeForce 4 in 2D Acceleration and even in FS2002/CFS2 which is what I was doing a lot back then.

As time wore on I built several AMD/ATi systems that all failed to live long at all and I have three cupboards filled with dead AMD/ATi products and I amassed 14 working Intel/nVidia machines.

Eventually I ended up on a FireGL V300 when I built my current system in 2005 - that FireGL name is misleading as it never managed to run a single GL app, it would merely give me a black or white screen and display no image - though the program would still run making it difficult to close unless I knew the name of the .exe - I had to blindly hit Windows + R and type "taskkill /f /im:executable.exe" to kill the app. Eventually I bought a GeForce 7300GS and never had any problems and I have used nVidia since then also due to the fact that this system is still running I also chose to use Intel processors if I build any other systems.

And believe me, I know reliability, my machine is about to clock up 6 years of service and I still expect it to do next-gen things - amazingly it actually does acheive them too, wether I'm lucky or I just happen to know how to make a good system and tweak the right settings I do not know. I never Overclock so it must be good.

Edit: ATi non-Windows? I tried Kubuntu on my system - works fine if I take the RAID controllers out. Tried it on my friends system (AMD Phenom / ATi 3870 at the time) and got nothing but corrupted screens and a Wine installation that would not run.

[Awesomebob]

Tea Monster, on Nov 17 2010, 10:16 AM, said:

Stop being a silly fanboy. ATI cards have loads of driver problems and don't run OpenGL programs correctly. This isn't something we all conspired to make up because we liked Nvidia. If you actually read this thread, you'd have seen that multiple ATI cards have annoyed me, which is why - and is in fact the ONLY reason why - I like Nvidia.

Sorry for flying off the handle. I just don't like being called a "fanboy" (trust me, I'd rather have an nVidia, but DX11 support is only affordable to me with ATI at the moment), a liar or an idiot.

[Mr.Deviance]

Awesomebob, on Nov 17 2010, 06:49 AM, said:

Did an ATI card touch you in a bad spot or something? Such rage, you should see a therapist.

Dude, that's a very lame assumption based on nothing.
I'm a tech expert in an old OC club from my city and I test and burn, bench and oc lots and Lots and LOTS of hardware since geforce titanium days and pentium III days.
I was not touched by anything in a bad way, It's just that knowing everything about new and old hardware is both my job and hobby.

[SwissCm]

From experience I've found people who overclock as a hobby are fanboys and never look at hardware objectively, instead preferring to judge it purely on hearsay and personal experience.

[Mr.Deviance]

SwissCm, on Nov 19 2010, 12:54 AM, said:

From experience I've found people who overclock as a hobby are fanboys and never look at hardware objectively

Because generalizing makes your E-pen bigger...

[SwissCm]

Considering you just blatantly generalized about AMD/ATI I'm guessing your "E-Pen" elongated by a rather substantial amount?

[Mr.Deviance]

SwissCm, on Nov 19 2010, 04:34 PM, said:

Considering you just blatantly generalized about AMD/ATI I'm guessing your "E-Pen" elongated by a rather substantial amount?

Calling out a bad brand isn't generalizing, especially when both your job and your hobby is to test and bench their products like I said mine is.
I don't see how that's generalizing.
Though, when you come to a forum and say that all oc fans "are fanboys and never look at hardware objectively" then you are generalizing bad!
How can you possibly know me or all the oc fans?
Did you see a few oc fans that were wrong about many things and you suddenly decided to turn that into a stereotype and live with it?
Does your life revolve around stereotypes and ignorant assumptions?
I hate assumptions and I never assume anything, I only state personal opinions and factual stuff accepted by majorities.
If it's better, I will reiterate and say that it's my strong and insurmountable opinion that amd and ati were 2 incompetent, cheap, low end hardware oriented, companies that fused together so they don't die alone.

Now that I've mentioned that IT'S MY OPINION based on years of experience in the field, maybe you can sleep better at night, knowing that I haven't completely destroyed the brands that you are OBVIOUSLY in love with(yet you call me a fanboy)

[Plagman]

Let's stop the off-topic discussion; the guys over at ATI (now AMD) make great hardware when they feel like it, no doubt. Sure, there are some driver issues: they don't have the same end goal.

[Jblade]

The last few snapshots seem to crash consistantly on the AMC TC test map I've made - I used the debug exe included in the latest synthesis zip and in the crash log it says this:

0x5a92bb : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : codebook.c 
0x59ecb8 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : info.c 
0x5971d9 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x598e95 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x599ae9 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x588efe : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (341) : in function (MV_PlayLoopedVorbis) 
0x588e15 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (287) : in function (MV_PlayVorbis) 
0x588dbb : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (258) : in function (MV_PlayVorbis3D) 
0x585894 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/fx_man.c (1042) : in function (FX_PlayAuto3D) 
0x4defc3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/sounds.c (520) : in function (S_PlaySound3D) 
0x4df4ad : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/sounds.c (616) : in function (A_PlaySound) 
0x46a865 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (1019) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x4696d3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (668) : in function (VM_DoConditional) 
0x477302 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (4710) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x46bc73 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (1386) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x4696d3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (668) : in function (VM_DoConditional) 
0x4711e7 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (2790) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x47792b : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (4862) : in function (A_Execute) 
0x43e3b2 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/actors.c (4809) : in function (G_MoveActors) 
0x449fcf : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/actors.c (7950) : in function (G_MoveWorld) 
0x427015 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10256) : in function (G_DoMoveThings) 
0x4268b8 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10122) : in function (G_MoveLoop) 
0x4265dc : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10042) : in function (app_main) 
0x55af94 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\build/src/
winlayer.c (494) : in function (WinMain@16) 
0x5b2a16 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : main.c 
0x4010db : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : crt1.c 
0x401158 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : crt1.c 
Failed to init bfd from (C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll)
0x7c816fe7 : C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll : RegisterWaitForInputIdle

I don't know C or anything like that so can anybody reveal what all that means, and if it's relevant to a problem in the CON code or something in Eduke?

edit: or maybe even my PC - There was OGG sounds playing and the vorbis stuff seems to suggest it might be related to that so I've just updated the OGG codecs on my PC since it seems they were pretty old.

[Mblackwell]

What's the last good commit/revision and the first bad one?

[Tetsuo]

Good news for people who run eDuke32 in OS X like me. The reverse ambient lighting problem has been fixed in Snow Leopard 10.6.5. The other problem where sectors outside the one you are in stop rendering after a while still is present but I was happy to see the former fixed. Everything works proper on there other than the latter. Marcus Herbert hasn't compiled the latest SVN yet though. Does anyone on Windows experience that problem?

Issuing a restartvid command when the sector problem happens seems to work for now.

[Jblade]

Mblackwell, on Nov 21 2010, 05:59 AM, said:

What's the last good commit/revision and the first bad one?

I'll start jumping back versions and see which one doesn't crash. So far I've tried the October 18th debug version and it crashes on that with pretty much the same thing:

0x5a92bb : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : codebook.c 
0x59ecb8 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : info.c 
0x5971d9 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x598e95 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x599ae9 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : vorbisfile.c 
0x588efe : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (341) : in function (MV_PlayLoopedVorbis) 
0x588e15 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (287) : in function (MV_PlayVorbis) 
0x588dbb : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/vorbis.c (258) : in function (MV_PlayVorbis3D) 
0x585894 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\source\
jaudiolib/src/fx_man.c (1042) : in function (FX_PlayAuto3D) 
0x4defc3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/sounds.c (520) : in function (S_PlaySound3D) 
0x4df4ad : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/sounds.c (616) : in function (A_PlaySound) 
0x46a865 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (1019) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x4696d3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (668) : in function (VM_DoConditional) 
0x477302 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (4710) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x46bc73 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (1386) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x4696d3 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (668) : in function (VM_DoConditional) 
0x4711e7 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (2790) : in function (VM_Execute) 
0x47792b : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/gameexec.
c (4862) : in function (A_Execute) 
0x43e3b2 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/actors.c (4809) : in function (G_MoveActors) 
0x449fcf : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/actors.c (7950) : in function (G_MoveWorld) 
0x427015 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10256) : in function (G_DoMoveThings) 
0x4268b8 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10122) : in function (G_MoveLoop) 
0x4265dc : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32/source/game.c (10042) : in function (app_main) 
0x55af94 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : Z:\var\www\synthesis\eduke32\eduke32\build/src/
winlayer.c (494) : in function (WinMain@16) 
0x5b2a16 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : main.c 
0x4010db : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : crt1.c 
0x401158 : D:\AMCTHETC\eduke32.debug.exe : crt1.c 
Failed to init bfd from (C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll)
0x7c816fe7 : C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll : RegisterWaitForInputIdle

It also did the same on the 30th of September and 31st of August snapshot, but they didn't come with a debug version. From what I just saw it seems to be caused by an actor using findnearspritez. This is the code I'm using snipped from the actor:

	findnearspritez CHOPPER_WAYPOINT 1024 16000 WAYPOINT
		ifvarn WAYPOINT -1
		{
			getactor[WAYPOINT].pal TEMP4 
			ifvare TEMP4 4 ifvare OWNERSAVED 0 break // If it has no troops, don't take this path
			ifvare TEMP4 3 { getactor[WAYPOINT].z TEMP7 setactor[THISACTOR].z TEMP7 }
				ifvare TEMP9 0
					{
					getactor[WAYPOINT].ang TEMP6
					setactor[THISACTOR].ang TEMP6
					getactorvar[WAYPOINT].ZVELSAVED TEMP2 ifvarn TEMP2 0 setvarvar ZVELSAVED TEMP2 // Set it's troop type
					getactorvar[WAYPOINT].HITAGSAVED HITAGSAVED // Set it's ascend rate
					getactorvar[WAYPOINT].LOTAGSAVED LOTAGSAVED // Set it's descend rate
					getactorvar[WAYPOINT].XVELSAVED XVELSAVED // Set it's stopping time
					getactorvar[WAYPOINT].YVELSAVED YVELSAVED // Set it's movement rate
					ifvarl OWNERSAVED 1 getactorvar[WAYPOINT].OWNERSAVED OWNERSAVED // Set the number of troops!
					setvar TEMP9 1
					}
		}
		else ifvare WAYPOINT -1 setvar TEMP9 0

I'm gonna see if using just findnearsprite crashes it (or maybe findnearactor)

EDIT: Nope, it still crashes with findnearsprite - I'll try findnearactor3d next.

EDIT2: And that caused it to crash as well.

[TerminX]

Since the actual crash is occurring somewhere in libvorbis, I suspect you have a corrupt ogg somewhere.

[Jblade]

The Chopper does use an ogg sound, so you're most likely right - I'll see what I can do to fix it. Thanks

[LeoD]

There are new versions btw., libogg 1.2.1 and libvorbis 1.3.2.

[Jblade]

Well I replaced the ogg sound with a completely different one, and it still crashes - I did update my ogg drivers from Vorbis.com yesterday so I'm unsure if the problem is on my side or something else.