The v1.34 bug report thread!

[Qon]

I'll start with:
The game does not work correctly with GUI scaling in windows. I can only see 1/4 of the screen, the center piece. Everything else is cut off, which means that the settings menu is unusable in some cases and so on...
When I alt-tabbed out and back in again I could only see the top left qorner instead. If I try to change GUI scaling while the game is running the graphics driver crashes and restarts and the game stops working and has to be restarted too.
I need GUI scaling on my laptop to be able to use it since my resolution is 3200x1800, having scaling turned off while BV is running means I will not be able to use it for other things at the same time. And BV is a game that you often minimize while waiting for mining robots or computers to complete their work.

[olive]

I'll start with:
The game does not work correctly with GUI scaling in windows. I can only see 1/4 of the screen, the center piece. Everything else is cut off, which means that the settings menu is unusable in some cases and so on...
When I alt-tabbed out and back in again I could only see the top left qorner instead. If I try to change GUI scaling while the game is running the graphics driver crashes and restarts and the game stops working and has to be restarted too.
I need GUI scaling on my laptop to be able to use it since my resolution is 3200x1800, having scaling turned off while BV is running means I will not be able to use it for other things at the same time. And BV is a game that you often minimize while waiting for mining robots or computers to complete their work.

Hi Qon,

We have tried to reproduce the issue, but unfortunately, it didn't show on our hardware (nVidia). Maybe we didn't put the correct settings, maybe it's related to some manufacturer hardware. So we need to investigate deeper to reproduce it and understand why it's working bad.

Can you post :

• The content of the Settings_Hardware.dat file : it's in the Document/Blackvoxel folder. It's a text file.
• The content of the Log.txt file : it's in the same directory you have the Blackvoxel executable. Also a text file.
• What's the brand and type of the Graphic Circuit used in the computer (AMD, nVidia or Intel ?). What's it's type (Radeon xxxx or Geforce xxxx)
• What is your screen setup ? How many screen ?
• You say you use "GUI scalling", can you tell me in which part of your driver do you set what setting to reproduce the problem.
• Why can't you use your laptop for other tasks when scalling is off ? Is this because of GPU usage at this resolution ? So you use lower resolution upscalled by GPU ?
  
• Your Windows version ?

Actually, Blackvoxel display resolution (and parameters for scaling) are set only once: at program start. That's here : https://github.com/Blackvoxel/Blackvoxel/blob/master/src/ZGame.cpp in ZGame::Init_GraphicMode(). The resolution or scaling is never changed during program execution.

There is two way Blackvoxel can use to set the resolution and ratio. The first way is the "automatic" setting : in this case Blackvoxel use the resolution of your desktop. The second way is the "Manual" mode, if you set a particular resolution in the Blackvoxel's GUI or in the Settings_Hardware.dat file. In this mode, Blackvoxel will use only the parameters you set.

The Blackvoxel Team

[Qon]

Can you post :

• The content of the Settings_Hardware.dat file : it's in the Document/Blackvoxel folder. It's a text file.
• The content of the Log.txt file : it's in the same directory you have the Blackvoxel executable. Also a text file.
• What's the brand and type of the Graphic Circuit used in the computer (AMD, nVidia or Intel ?). What's it's type (Radeon xxxx or Geforce xxxx)
• What is your screen setup ? How many screen ?
• You say you use "GUI scalling", can you tell me in which part of your driver do you set what setting to reproduce the problem.
• Why can't you use your laptop for other tasks when scalling is off ? Is this because of GPU usage at this resolution ? So you use lower resolution upscalled by GPU ?
  
• Your Windows version ?

Answers to your Questions in the same order.

Settings_Hardware.dat
Setting_Resolution_h      = 0
Setting_Resolution_v      = 0
Setting_FullScreen        = 1
Setting_ViewPort_Offset_x = 0
Setting_ViewPort_Offset_y = 0
Setting_ViewPort_Size_x   = 0
Setting_ViewPort_Size_y   = 0
Setting_Sound_Enabled     = 1
Setting_Sound_Volume      = 100.000000
Setting_Mouse_Factor      = 2.500000
Setting_Key_MoveForward   = 119
Setting_Key_MoveBackward  = 115
Setting_Key_MoveLeft      = 97
Setting_Key_MoveRight     = 100
Setting_Key_MoveUp        = 113
Setting_Key_MoveDown      = 122
Setting_Key_Jump          = 32
Setting_Key_Inventory     = 105
RenderingDistance_Horizontal = 8
RenderingDistance_Vertical = 3
Opt_SectCFactor = 1.000000
PixelAspectRatio= 1.000000

Log.txt
[1000.1]
[1000.2]
[1010.1]
[1010.3]
[1010.2]
[1020.1]
[1020.2]
[1030.1]
[1030.3] Info : SDL Infos [current_w:3200][current_h:1800][BitsPerPixel:32]
[1030.2]
[1040.1]
[1040.0]
[1050.1]
[1050.6]
[1050.2]
[1060.1]
[1060.2]
[1070.1]
[1070.2]
[1080.1]
[1080.2]
[1090.1]
[1090.2]
[1100.1]
[1100.2]
[1110.1]
[1110.2]
[1120.1]
[1120.3]
[1120.2]

Intel HD graphics 4400

1 display, 13" with 3200x1800 resolution

GUI scaling is a windows settings, reached from the display settings panel.
This:

Its kind of unusable because with a screen that small and with a resolution that high and no GUI scaling, everything becomes so small that I cant click it accuratly and text is so small that it is hard to read.

Windows 8.1

[olive]

Hi Qon,

Thanks for these precise informations. This has allowed us to reproduce the problem successfully.

Unfortunately, it's a total mess in Windows 8 with this option enabled. With 7, it works successfully, only upscaling GUI, not the OpenGL Games.

The configuration file tell us you are in "automatic" mode. The log has shown that Blackvoxel successfully detected the resolution of your screen and tried to set it. All should have worked ok and the system should have set the asked resolution. That's what the system seems to do as the response was "ok"... but our test shown that the display is zoomed by the factor of the "GUI scaling factor". It does that even if Blackvoxel asked the native resolution of the screen. That's even worse: it does that whatever resolution we set. And whatever resolution we choose, it display it fullscreen... then upscale over the screen limits So it simply doesn't work in fullscreen.

At this time, we don't know exactly from where come the problem. So, for the time we'll try to figure out how to fix it, we found a workaround : use windowed mode with a specially computed resolution.

You can modify directly Settings_Hardware.dat and set in it whatever resolution you want.

As Windows 8 is also scaling in windowed mode(but not making it fullscreen before upscaling), you'll have to compute according to the ratio set in the "scaling GUI interface". For 200%, you'll have to divide resolution by 2 and substract some pixels for GUI toolbars and windows borders.

So, this is what you could modify in your Setting_hardware.dat for 200% scaling:

Setting_FullScreen       = 0
Setting_Resolution_h   = 1500
Setting_Resolution_v   = 800

So, Windows 8 will upscale it on 3000x1600.

Tell us if this works...

The Blackvoxel Team

[Qon]

1600x820 in windowed mode seems to work quite well :>

[olive]

1600x820 in windowed mode seems to work quite well :>

Ok, good news

[Genius_At_Work]

If optical fiber is broken while transfering resources, they're still disappearing from source. Is it intentional or bug?

[olive]

Hi Genius,

Welcome to the forum

Thanks for reporting your problem.

No, the optical fiber isn't supposed to lose resources. If it does so, it's a bug that we'll have to fix.

Can you say more about which elements are combined for reproducing the bug ? And which elements are you transmitting ?

We tried with a simple chain :

Voxel-Dematerializer,
Optical-Voxel-Transmitter,
Optical Fiber x5,
Optical Voxel Receiver,
Atomic Compressor

But it didn't seem to lose resources (at last with very simple try).

So, it would be useful to know which elements are used in your setup : the faulty element have a big chance to be one of these.

The Blackvoxel Team

[Genius_At_Work]

Configuration was:
Atomic Compressor - Materializer - Dematerializer - Transmitter - 3x Fiber - Receiver - Atomic Compressor. I was transfering Blue BlackRocks. After breaking middle fiber, they're disappearing from 1st Compressor, but nothing appeared in 2nd.

[Genius_At_Work]

Found 2 other bugs:
1. Conveyor belts make water disappear somehow - conveyor belt surrounded by water transports it to the end and then it sometimes vanish - water level can't rise above conveyor (only few blocks can be above before they get transported and destroyed).
2. Connection T1 Pump - Transmitter - many fibers & deflectors - Receiver - Compressor - Materializer; water is normally transfered to Compressor, but it 'sticks' to Materializer - there's one water block sticked to Materializer on output, but no more water is emitted, although it is removed from Compressor. Network is not splitted, and without Materializer it works fine (water is collected). After relaunching game network stops working and water placed manually in Compressor is materialized fine. Network is about 1/3 central flat cube long, if it matters. After walking along it and replacing some random elements it starts working as described above.

[olive]

Hi Genius,

Thanks for all the details you provided. It helped us to reproduce all these problems successfully.

We added these on the Todo list for bug fix and improvement. So, it should be fixed in the next version.

In the meantime, here are some workarounds :

Make one blank voxel between Materializer and Dematerializer, so it will work in "non coupled" mode which is not affected by the bug.

For using Voxel Materializer with liquids, make some room under the materialization area : the liquid must flow down, so it won't be replaced with other appearing liquid voxels.

Have fun!

The Blackvoxel Team

[Chirno]

When moving in water it seems that I am slowed in one cardinal direction but not the other.
Reproduction: Go in water, look somewhere between N/NE/E/SE/SW/W/NW and pay attention to your movement. Kinda annoying.

[olive]

When moving in water it seems that I am slowed in one cardinal direction but not the other.
Reproduction: Go in water, look somewhere between N/NE/E/SE/SW/W/NW and pay attention to your movement. Kinda annoying.

Hi Chirno,

Thanks a lot for your report.

We've made a quick try on our development machines but it doesn't show up on these. That's not surprising : we already fixed some issues that show up only on some situations/environments/hardware. So we'll need to make investigation and test on other hardware/environnments for catching this bug.

As some areas with a lot of moving water require a lot of processing power on CPU and a lot of refresh on GPU, so it may be related to this. You can try lowering viewing distance in Settings_Hardware.dat and see if you have improvements.

Can you give us some informations on the machine used to run Blackvoxel : Operating System, processor type, number of cores and GPU used. Also, the number of FPS you get (use F12 key to show FPS) when you are in the water area and experiencing the issue.

Thanks again...
The Blackvoxel Team