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[Meph]

Looks really like DF in agony now.TWBT is dead, DFHack is probably too, utilites and tilesets too. Terrifying.

What?

It's the same as any other large DF update. Utilities just need time to be updated too.

Tilesets are getting better. A lot.

[mifki]

This is how it works in the currently released version people play now.  I'm not sure how the SDL blits work down where they hit OpenGL, and yeah, I'd anticipate them to be slow (given how texture binds have worked in my own side projects not in SDL), but I'm not changing it too much from how it currently works, and it's pretty fast there?  Or has 44.12 been having trouble on some cards?

Oh, right... you're doing it all via SDL, so you're working with 2D renderer/print_mode... In that case currently there's no OpenGL involved at all, it's all purely software rendering. Which has problems of 1. high CPU usage (on my system DF uses 70% of one core in that mode when paused compared to 14% in opengl mode) - you may not notice it especially if you're developing on desktop, but people won't be happy with their laptops getting hot because of an extra CPU core being 100% busy doing software rendering, or it will just become a bottleneck later as there will be significantly more rendering operations than currently is; 2. it's pretty limited so any effects are either not possible or again must be done manually in software. SDL2 supposedly can use hardware acceleration for certain things, but I don't know any details.

I just don't know how to set up a DLL properly on windows...  I'm really tired right now (sorry! no sleep!) but there was some part of that which was quite irritating to get hooked up.  On OSX I know absolutely nothing.  For the process of the original ports, just getting it working on one OS was sufficient for everybody to work without having to see the rest of the code.

What if we find a way to solve the problem with Windows build lethosor mentioned that doesn't require too much of your time, is there a chance you would make libgraphics a separate binary on all platforms (on OSX it shouldn't be a problem)? This would make life of DFHack and related projects much easier in general, and would also make my concerns above not so important as you'd be able to continue coding rendering the way you prefer and we'd be able to make an optimised version of the library which can be just used in place of the original one if needed.

[Toady One]

Software render:  Mostly it's not drawing to the page buffers, it's just flipping the full screens back and forth unaltered, which I imagine is the same cost as it has always been since there's no new code there.  So there'll only be an increased rendering cost if there are a lot of changing layered tiles, is my current impression, and most stuff doesn't move most frames, which is slightly hopeful.  Should be easier to stress test this when I'm a little further along, and as soon as I get my hands on an actual monitor.  (I've been doing all my work on laptops to this point.)  I could also set aside a block of time for an SDL2 update attempt, since better 2D hardware support sounds wholesome, unless that's ill-advised; it's not backwards compatible, but it depends on how not backwards compatible.

Going further would require something more dedicated, which we can't afford in advance if we go with the model we've used for the artists/music this time; up until now I've been relying on volunteers, but it doesn't seem proper to do that this time for any significant conversion for a Steam sale (naturally, my views on this are still forming; it's not an easy mental shift after so many years.)  We'll see what we're up against; our minimum requirements are so similar to the current rendering code that I don't feel uncomfortable promising that.  If certain possibilities (e.g. the minor animations mentioned in here etc.) increase the rendering cost too much, we'll have to shelve them for now, and then if the Steam sale works out, there should be less of an issue kicking it up a gear.

If the issue is that the current code is viewed as simply unfit for sale due to possible backlash, well, that's true of the entire game - it's a weird critter and people will have plenty of time to set their expectations based on what we've done for the last many years; we're going to improve it as well as we can with our resources before launch.

Yeah, I'm fine with doing a DLL if it works and isn't a long project, though the words "circular dependencies" fill me with some dread, ha ha ha.

[FantasticDorf]

If the issue is that the current code is viewed as simply unfit for sale due to possible backlash, well, that's true of the entire game - it's a weird critter and people will have plenty of time to set their expectations based on what we've done for the last many years; we're going to improve it as well as we can with our resources before launch.

Yeah, I'm fine with doing a DLL if it works and isn't a long project, though the words "circular dependencies" fill me with some dread, ha ha ha.

(Forgive me if I misunderstood anything regarding your statements) Naturally if you take other development titles like Minecraft for instance which have had a long amount of time in active development and a standard product release, the direct price of the title has inflated from 5€ during the early alpha relevant to the amount of content that has been added to it, given at the start of the product release it was a €20 price tag wheras since then it has rose to €23 at a stable present.

• Expected 20$ // 17€ price is positive estimation of where it would stand competitively in the open market at the moment from Kitfox's discord discussion and a signpost to what Steam views it *this all yet being decided however and may fluctuate i believe unless they've all sorted it out*.

• Other implications though that the scope of the game's plan might undermine the price if conservatively Steam views it as unfinishable or not even started which can undercut sales and the funding drive you required without far more people opening wallets (no shortage of those but still quantity doesn't trump quality in the long run).

• Its important to remember that DF is held in high regard and i think you should definitely be confident that it will be well recieved, yet open minded that big business might have other ideals contrary to your own to make it profitable for them as well and maximise the cut.

The current problems that have prompted this move may have eclipsed (with a positive outcome we can optimistically hope), and down the line when DF becomes more content laden it might actually get overpriced relevant to the game content either on active participation of Steam or Kitfox, so its easy for people to worry that this might create a backlash if you are seen to be "profiting" or the game drifts out of reach as a 50$ title a long time down the line.

Sorry if this post was a bit doom and gloom Toady, but I just wanted to share some brief fiscal talk while you were on the topic, not that im a expert or anything but i guess next time you meet up it'll give you some points to raise and check over.

[clinodev]

Sorry if this post was a bit doom and gloom Toady, but I just wanted to share some brief fiscal talk while you were on the topic, not that im a expert or anything but i guess next time you meet up it'll give you some points to raise and check over.

Maybe not the optimal place for it given we're getting an open conversation between the dev who wants to add features we all want and the utility modder who's actually made those feature possible currently.

[treehugger]

Hello everyone!
About a week ago I started having this strange issue while playing dwarf fortress. Suddenly every time I pressed escape to exit menus, especially the Z menu, I get a black screen. The game is not frozen but the playing window turns pitch black. I can still see the rest of the game like the menu on the right, and the borders and such. And the game is running.

To me it looks like the game is zoomed out so I barely see a few pixels of color in the middle of the screen but often times its just black. This happens almost every time after exiting the Z menu. and from time to time other menus.

I suspect it must be something happening with TWBT or the tileset or a combination. I use TWBT print mode in lazy newb pack and truetype fonts set to NO. If I start the game with standard printmode then the problem goes away. I have also tried "twbt redraw_all  set to 0 and 1" No difference. 

It sort of started happening in the middle of a playsession and then progressively getting worse. In the beginning it just happened occasionally, but after a while I had to go in and out of the menu 3-4 times, before I figured out I could press F12 to redraw the screen.

Has anyone any idea what might be causing this?

[Pvt. Pirate]

treehugger, i have the same issue.
it happens on z menu and trademenu.

[treehugger]

I see Pvt. pirate. If you figure out how to fix it I would very much appreciate to hear from you. I will post back here if I figure something out aswell. Since there has been no other replies I guess not many are experiencing this thing. It still hasnt kept me from playing for hours and hours these last days. This game is truly amazing.

[mifki]

I've published an update with code cleanup and some fixes mostly related to multilevel and multilayer rendering. They may or may not fix any of the issues people were having. People experiencing crashes or rendering issues please post again, specifying what tileset and if possible save I should use to reproduce the problem.

Also, it fixes map not being visible in couple of performance-related menus in adventure mode.

[Pvt. Pirate]

any chance to get a version with the fixes for 44.09?

[Rose]

There's no reason not to upgrade to 44.12

[Pvt. Pirate]

so the mousequery edge bug has been fixed finally after 2 years?

edit:
now with a 16:9 monitor, i can say the mousequery bug is not dependant on resolution.

[Fleeting Frames]

One open_gl call per tile being viewed unfavourably, where have I heard that before *jogs memory* This old thing, PRINT_MODE:SHADER. Aimed to offload rendering to GPU.

Now, onto Just TWBT Things....

While doing another update of DragonMaster's set + TWBT for 43.03, I ran into an odd bit (and an issue with backporting unit transparency): My wall/floor grates weren't transparent, ...as they shouldn't have been, looking at buildings.hpp. However, adding the OVER1 and OVER1_ENABLE line for the two made it seem to work fine (saw the ground/water underneath, at least).

However, I recall mifki mentioned in TWBT next thread that transparency isn't supported for all buildings. Would I assume correctly there's a good reason why I should not to add a transparency override for each of the third of 54 building imports that are not added, other than trade depot?

E: I tried and discovered why it's generally bad idea for like half of them.

Bridge: Any item/building using transparency, below another item using transparency, is not rendered. So you'd have items have black background on top of bridges.
Civzone: Only displayed when one wants to see them. (Though there's argument for seeing what they cover.)
Constructions: Only used briefly, so using up cycles.
Nest, Dirt road, shop, plain window: rare/see above
Floodgate: Covers whole tile

Grates, farm plots, paved roads, water wheels, windmills, gem and glass windows though: Okay, sure, but YMMV: For example, if there's an item on top of windmill's southmost tile, it renders the un-overridden windmill tile (NS wall) if not using transparency, and the ground below if it is.

PS: Regarding map export, made easier with optional name shotname.png parameters for it - Can then do the export with a small script to run it on each/desired z-levels.

@Japa: Feelings, or linux instability Pirate mentions often.

[mifki]

Some buildings, like roads, civzones and bridges I consider to be "ground" tiles and are not transparent intentionally. While some others may be left out because I forgot about them, so let me know if there are buildings that need to be added to the list.

[waterphage13]

Some buildings, like roads, civzones and bridges I consider to be "ground" tiles and are not transparent intentionally. While some others may be left out because I forgot about them, so let me know if there are buildings that need to be added to the list.

Pls make everything may be transparent. The same glass and ice walls and floors, grates, grass would look much better with transparent and translucent areas.