v1.1 Game Bugs

Don't you hate it when you don't know where to go? Or the game keeps crashing? Post your questions here!
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

@tronman:

Right now, the only thing I can think to suggest is try installing the mod in Windows Safe Mode again. That's where you hit the F8 key after the BIOS info, but before the Windows logo appears, and select it from a menu.

What version of Win 7 are you using on that laptop? 32-bit or 64-bit? Is UAC turned on? Turning off UAC, at least temporarily, might also help.
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Restoring Prankster Bit explosion sound

Post by Stevedroid »

First, let me give a huge thanks to the Kill App team for sticking with the mod and breathing new life into one of my favorite games of all time.

My interest in the Killer App mod is essentially for the widescreen support for the single player game - I'm not much of a MP guy. I noticed in the mod notes that it said the explosion sound effect on the Prankster bit was lost in favor of a sound effect while travelling to benefit MP.

Apart from the widescreen support, I'd prefer to keep the game as true to the original as possible for my replay. Is there any way I can restore the explosion sound effect? If not, perhaps if you plan on doing an update, you can make it an option in the mod manager?
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

I'll look into it, to see if there's any way to restore the missing sound effect while still keeping the new traveling sound effect.

The problem with making it an option, is that the game checks certain files to see if they're identical for everyone in multiplayer. Making any change to the game's files to restore the sound effect, means that person's files will be different from everyone else's.

Every option in the Mod Manager was tested thoroughly to make sure it does not break multiplayer. Unfortunately, the change you're requesting would indeed break it.

As I said, I'll look into restoring the effect while keeping the new one. Which would avoid the multiplayer problem altogether: because everyone would have the exact same files if it's implemented as a fix, rather than an option.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

Awesome, thank you. Provided that I don't care about MP though, is there any change I can make now to restore the sound (just copying a file or something like that) or is it something you guys would need to handle?
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

After a lot of trial and error, I found a way to restore the missing sound effect while still keeping the new one. It will be implemented as a fix in the next version of the mod.

In the meantime, I'll send you a PM on how to implement this fix. I know you said you don't care about multiplayer, but I want to make you aware anyway of the fact that this fix will break MP for you.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

Just an update, I can verify that the Prankster Bit explosion is restored with the file you provided Tronfaq.

I do have a couple little bugs to report.

1. In widescreen mode, the cursor alignment seems to be off in the app manager/upgrade screen. Where the cursor appears is not where its actually pointing internally. E.g. to select something from the app ring on the right side, I have the move the cursor several dozen pixels further to the right of what I'm actually trying to select. The further from the center of the screen the greater the offset.

This screen displays 4:3 pillarboxed, but the cursor is kind of behaving like the screen was stretched. E.g. it seems like where I have to point, is where the icons would be if the screen was stretched to 16:9 instead of pilarboxed.

The widescreen resolution I'm using is 1920x1080.

2. I'm also getting a minor issue of some missing geometry or perhaps just textures. Most noticably, during the opening credit's sequence, some of the blocks that fly in, the ones that the cast names appear over, are not drawn or disappear. This is 100% repeatable (same blocks every time) and I verified that with the mod disabled, it does not occur.

Also, when playing light cycle maps (single player), sometimes the floor grid will be invisible/fail to draw when a map loads and will remain that way until the next map is loaded. This however, happens randomly and I have not had a chance to verify if it still occurs with the mod disabled.


These are easily ignorable peanuts compared to the vast improvement of being able to play the game in proper widescreen though.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

Stevedroid wrote:1. In widescreen mode, the cursor alignment seems to be off in the app manager/upgrade screen.
Yeah, this is something that's difficult to fix. I tried to minimize it, and it's not noticeable in 16:10 aspect ratio. But it is in 16:9.

It's something I want to improve for the next version of the mod.
2. I'm also getting a minor issue of some missing geometry or perhaps just textures.
Out of curiosity, what video card do you own and how much memory does it have?

Some people have been reporting graphical glitches, while others haven't. It could be a number of factors, but I suspect it either has to do with driver settings (such as anti-aliasing) or the amount of memory on the video card.

For example, on my ATI card I have to turn off adaptive anti-aliasing: or else, in some instances, parts of the geometry disappear.

I'm also wondering if turning off Precaching of assets in the game's Options menu might have an effect. Or vice-versa.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

tronfaq wrote: Out of curiosity, what video card do you own and how much memory does it have?
GeForce GTX 285, 1GB

I do have 8xAF, 4xAA, and Supersampling Transparency AA enabled at the video card level.

I have not verified whether the issues occurs with AA turned off. However, I have verified that with the same settings at both the video card and game level (except resolution of course), the issue does not occur when the KA mod is disabled.

I'll try changing that precaching option, as well as turning off AA.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

Ugh. So I tried checking it out - and of course I can't get the issue to happen tonight, regardless of video card settings or whether the mod was enabled. There goes my 100% repeatable claim. Last night if I started a new game it happened at the same spot every time. However, I should note that I was starting those new games during the same overall run session; I never exited and restarted the game - until I tried disabling the mod.

So I must retract what I said about this not happening with the mod disabled - it appears that was conincidental, and probably just related to it being a new run session. Looks like it might just be something that happens when the game is running for a while. Unlikely to be an overheating issue though, as this game barely stresses a GTX 285 and it's pretty obvious when my card is getting hot because the fan ramps up.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

It's odd that it's only happening for some and not others. But then even more odd to hear it only happens some of the time.

I was thinking that perhaps the mod was pushing the game engine to its limits, which might be another reason for the glitches. But then you just pointed out that the glitches aren't happening any more even with the mod enabled. So I guess we're back to square one. :???:

At this point, I can only guess that perhaps there's an issue with Tron 2.0 on recent nVidia (and possibly ATI, as well) drivers. Maybe future driver updates will eliminate the problems once more.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

After playing some more, I'm still getting quite a lot of graphical corruption - I just can't nail down the circumstances behind it. When it happens seems to be random, but it's pretty much guaranteed to show up after running the game for while - it doesn't take very long to occur, usually it will show up somewhere after 20-40 minutes of play. What exactly what triggers it, I can't even begin to guess.

Once it shows up though, it's persistent for that instance of the game. E.g. I can abort the level (but not quit the game) and if I reload it, the corruption is still there. If I go to a new level, the corruption will show up on something there. However, If I quit and restart the game, then load the level, it's correct.

In addition to missing textures and geometry I mentioned earlier, I'm also getting visible, but corrupted geometry. E.g certain models get distorted into a jumble of jagged polys.

So far I haven't done much to try and narrow down the cause further. I did turn pre-cache off, but that's had no effect. Because it's random and takes a few minutes of play to show up (and because I'm still primarily interested in playing the game at this point) narrowing it down is going to be a pain :(

---Update---
I went back to playing and found an area where it seems I can pretty consistently duplicate the corruption by playing through the level a bit and then quick loading back to an earlier area. I've done it about a dozen times so far (between distinct runs of the game) and the corruption occured every time thus far. So first I have found that the corruption is NOT related to AF or AA, I disabled them and it still occurs.

I was going to check whether it happened with the mod disabled then, but the samegame kept crashing - I forgot that savegames made with the mod enabled are incompatible with it turned off. I'll have to use some cheats to get to that level

Some other quick observations.
-Although the corruption persists while the game is running, I find that alt-tabbing clears the corruption and restores correct geometry, as though I had started a new instance of the game. I guess because the renderer is fully restarted.

-Loading/quick-loading may play some role as a cause. Successive quick loads seem to increase the severity of the corruption each time. Unfortunately, I've been dying and thus quick-loading so much throughout my playthrough that I can't recall whether the corruption ever occured without doing a quick-load while playing a level.

Also , here's a particularly good example of the type of geometry corruption I'm seeing:
(direct link)
Image

---Update 2---
I disabled the mod and used cheats to get to the same level, and got the following using my duplication proceedure:
Image

I guess that confirms it then, this is not an issue caused the mod, but is rather some issue with the game in general and either my video card or Vista or who knows.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

Thanks very much for going to all that trouble, I appreciate it. I suppose it's good news to find out the mod is not the cause of any issues like that. But unfortunate to hear that issues are present at all.

What's going on is just odd. Corrupted geometry like that is typically a sign of the graphics chip overheating. Not always, but often. I'm wondering if perhaps the automatic fan control in the video card driver isn't spinning up the fan enough because it's underestimating the load? Even though Tron 2.0 is an older game, it was one of the first to make extensive use of shaders for the glow effect. Nvidia had an issue a while back where the fan was not being sped up and it caused cards to overheat. I wonder if that's been completely solved.

Honestly, I'm just grasping at straws at the moment. I can't really think of a good reason for the cause. All of the more obvious possible causes seem to have been eliminated.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Stevedroid »

I'm now 99.9% sure the corruption is triggered by quick-loads (or just loads in general).

I had an inkling of this theory earlier, so I tried it out by turning on god mode so I wouldn't die (and thus wouldn't need to quick-load). I played a solid 3 hours without any quick-loading and saw not a single instance of corruption - which is way longer than I've ever gone before without seeing corruption. I then made a bad choice at an optimizer and quick-loaded without really thinking about it and BAM - corruption appears.

My very unqualified guess? For whatever reason, quick loads aren't properly clearing out the model cache or initializing the renderer properly or something like that. This is why alt-tabbing, which forces the renderer to flush and re-initialize, clears the corruption.

I don't think all quick-loads are guaranteed to trigger the corruption, but I'm pretty sure now that whenever the corruption does occur, it was a quick-load that triggered it. Loading a level and then just rattling off a bunch of successive quick-loads doesn't do it, but playing for a few minutes and then quick-loading, odds are I'll see minor corruption on something - and then successive quick loads make it worse.

Tron 2.0 can be a pretty tough game, and between the jumping puzzles and the strength of enemy attacks, quick-loading is common - at least for me. I do it so often that it certainly wasn't obvious that it was the trigger for the corruption and not just coincidental. I'm betting it's the same for others experiencing the issue. Now that I'm paying attention to it, it seems pretty clear it's the cause.

Any chance that changes to the game engine, even when the mod is disabled, could somehow be responsible for this?
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by TronFAQ »

There's a note in the readme for the final v1.042 patch stating that loading saved games caused a memory leak. But it was supposed to have been fixed with that patch.

I've noticed that while the game loads a saved game and/or map and you Alt-Tab out of it at that moment, when you come back the textures will be corrupted. I've never checked to see if the geometry is also corrupted, though. It's possible that anything interrupting the loading process (another process in the background using a lot of CPU cycles, like an anti-virus perhaps) might have an effect.
Stevedroid wrote:Any chance that changes to the game engine, even when the mod is disabled, could somehow be responsible for this?
There is very little change to the actual binary code of the game in the mod, and when you disable it you also disable those changes. With the mod disabled, you're playing the retail version again.
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Re: v1.1 Game Bugs

Post by Mor.Evil-1 »

@ Stevedroid

Duder I know exactly the error you are having.

Sadly, my main man Load suffers the same issue as you.
Seen that spike/droop/texture pop all to many times.

You will need to adjust the core clock settings on your video card.
More than likely you will need to under clock them.

For some reason this happens more often on the newer pc rigs rather than ones from say 5 years ago.

Take the settings down a few numbers at a time and keep track of how long it takes for your hands and other items to start spiking out around you. Continue to lower the settings until you are able to play for extended periods and have no issues.

Its a pain to figure out,
But once you do all will be tronrific!

G/L amigo

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