support for old pcs suffers...

[Danfun64]

Hello. In my newer laptop 0.8 rc1 is doing well (except for some changes in the music which I don't particularly like...) however, my older pc doesn't seem to like it. Then again, supertuxkart didn't do that good on it in the first place. First in 0.7.3 it slowed down randomly (although recently it got worse for some reason, to the point where it slowed down to a crawl) then in 0.8 alpha I couldn't see the nitro particles and the minimap was "off" (players appear outside the minimap) then finally in 0.8 rc1, 3d doesn't work at all (question mark at "choose player" screen where kart should be, ctd when loading a level). I was wondering if you could do anything to make the game run better on older computers. This is the only foss super mario kart clone to exist (the only other open source clone [as in not free software] is Super SRB2 Kart Z, which has it's own problems), and I want to be able to run in on my old crappy pc.

I know that you want the game to be the best it can be, but I just want to ask if you can make the experience smoother for old computers without sacrificing quality for newer ones (if possible).

[Hero]

A download for slower computers (containing lower-polly tracks, some ram-super-users removed, etc.) might be good..?

[Auria]

First, just to make sure, you have tried reducing the graphical quality in the settings?

Next, could you clarify what you mean by "ctd when loading a level"?

[Arthur]

I don't really see the point in spending a lot of time getting it to sorta work on older computers where the experience is likely to be pretty abysmal even if everything worked. We're soon entering 2013. Did you expect games made in 2003 to run on a computer from 1993? No? I thought so. We don't deliberately aim for particularly new computers either, so if you got half-decent hardware from the last 6-7 years it will most likely run fine (unless drivers are crappy of course).

[charlie]

It would help if you listed specs. Terms "newer" and "older" are very ambiguous.

Regardless; this is an open source project - it is a volunteer effort. Arthur, Auria, all contributors do so in their own time unpaid for free. You are welcome to join the cast.

If you (or somebody else) is motivated to hunt down all bottlenecks in the code and make STK as efficient as it could be - or to go through the content and produce a version with trimmed down textures and triangles, then dig in.

However, you won't get very far just suggesting a major change in direction of effort out of nowhere because it suits your home setup.

[Auria]

I think there are two points here.

One is supporting less powerful hardware. Another is supporting poor/broken drivers.

In this case I am really trying to determine which case we are facing. Supporting hardware that is lower, but working correctly, is not a bad idea. For instance for an hypothetical port to mobile devices.

If this is just a case where the driver hits a bug and makes the application behave incorrectly, that's more difficult to support, we eventually need to draw a line of features that are required to work correctly, otherwise we could never move forward

In this case, I need more information to really know what's going on

[hiker]

It would help if you listed specs. Terms "newer" and "older" are very ambiguous.

Agreed - though then again it's hard to estimate, since we try to support older platforms as well (with reduced graphical effects).

...

If you (or somebody else) is motivated to hunt down all bottlenecks in the code and make STK as efficient as it could be - or to go through the content and produce a version with trimmed down textures and triangles, then dig in.

The main bottle neck on C/C++ code is caused by kart animations, which can be disabled in the settings. Otherwise it's all up to the graphics card, and the number of karts you are using (and which karts, esp. addon karts might not be optimised). Again this makes it hard to estimate requirements, since we limit the number of karts to 19 (for people with more powerful PCs).

Cheers,
Joerg

[Danfun64]

Windows XP SP3
Intel Celeron 2.40GHz
1024 Mb Memory
NVidia Geforce FX 5200 256 Mb.

If you need a more specific report you can look at http://pastebin.com/7HDn4USq
ctd=crash to desktop. Basically, I get to the loading screen, then the game crashes.

[Arthur]

Well that hardware should work fine with lowered STK settings in theory, so something must be wrong.

[Auria]

Well I still have the same question, I don't think it was answered : what do you mean by "ctd when loading a level" ?

[andrewj]

Well I still have the same question, I don't think it was answered : what do you mean by "ctd when loading a level" ?

ctd=crash to desktop. Basically, I get to the loading screen, then the game crashes.

[Auria]

ok sorry I missed it.

What would be needed would be to run stk in a debugger and find what happened. Unfortunately under windows this is not too easy

[hiker]

Can you just run it in a windows command terminal, to see if there are any messages or error printed?

Cheers,
Joerg

[Funto]

Maybe STK should redirect output to some text log file on Windows when not run from a terminal, even in its released version? (that can probably be determined at runtime). Just a suggestion ^^

[hiker]

Maybe STK should redirect output to some text log file on Windows when not run from a terminal, even in its released version? (that can probably be determined at runtime). Just a suggestion ^^

Actually, STK already can do this (start it with --log=file) - though it would indeed be a good idea to set this as a default option in the installer.

Cheers,
Joerg

[noname120]

Well that hardware should work fine with lowered STK settings in theory, so something must be wrong.

I could run supertuxkart on a 1ghz computer with 512mb of memory and no GPU. With the lowest settings, it runned great with barely any lag (except with opponents above 8).

I think the old computer support is quite great and we should now focus on new computer support. I mean it would be great to enhance the 3D models and textures to make them more realistic especially on newer computers.

What do you think of this?

[Auria]

noname120, yes in the future as years pass we expect to progressively raise the minimum requirements

[Danfun64]

0.8 was released recently. Same result. However, something odd happened that day. Apparently the game reset the story mode from where I was. The opening cutscene worked perfectly! This is odd. very odd. What do you make of this?

[hiker]

0.8 was released recently. Same result. However, something odd happened that day. Apparently the game reset the story mode from where I was. The opening cutscene worked perfectly! This is odd. very odd. What do you make of this?

I admit I don't understand this - the story mode shouldn't be started from scratch again (you might only lose highscores, esp. the ones from 0.7.3 - which makes sense since the physics have changed).

Perhaps (as samuncle wrote elsewhere) there is some other processes interfering - even watching youtube?

Cheers,
Joerg

[Danfun64]

0.8 was released recently. Same result. However, something odd happened that day. Apparently the game reset the story mode from where I was. The opening cutscene worked perfectly! This is odd. very odd. What do you make of this?

I admit I don't understand this - the story mode shouldn't be started from scratch again (you might only lose highscores, esp. the ones from 0.7.3 - which makes sense since the physics have changed).

Perhaps (as samuncle wrote elsewhere) there is some other processes interfering - even watching youtube?

Cheers,
Joerg

No offense, but you're missing the point.

Losing high scores was weird, but the real issure was the cutscene it self.

The cutscene works, but actual gameplay crashes the game. Why?

[Auria]

Weird crashes can be caused by almost anything, including bugs in drivers. Unfortunately, at this time, unless you are able to run STK in a debugger, I doubt we will be able to do much about it.

Joerg, I think you had started looking into crash report tools like breakpad. What was the status of this already? This is is the kind of situation where it would have been helpful to have such a tool. Of course integrating it may be too much work

[hiker]

I admit I don't understand this - the story mode shouldn't be started from scratch again (you might only lose highscores, esp. the ones from 0.7.3 - which makes sense since the physics have changed).

Perhaps (as samuncle wrote elsewhere) there is some other processes interfering - even watching youtube?

No offense, but you're missing the point.

Perhaps I am - wouldn't be the first time But perhaps you are missing a point, too: 0.8 should not reset story mode. So either you have deleted the old config files, or something really weird is happening (unless you started 0.7 in between, then all progress in 0.8 will be lost). So it might be that the changed behaviour you see was caused by some setting in your old config files.

Losing high scores was weird, but the real issure was the cutscene it self.

Not sure what's weird about this - main point is that the physics have changed, and so new results will not be comparable to old results anymore, so STK deletes old results if they are detected. Maybe I am missing something (again ), but did the cut scene work before? I only saw you mentioning that a crash happened when loading a level (and from the wording I assume that means loading a race track, not the overworld)?

But one point you most certainly missed: we do really need output on the terminal. So either start STK from the command prompt (probably something like:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

cd c:\Program Files\SuperTuxKart
supertuxkart.exe


) or add the "--log=file" to the shortcut (open STK folder in start menu, select supertuxkart with right mouse, select properties. Then add

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

--log=file


after the closing " in the target field. You will then find the output in %APPDATA%/supertuxkart/stdout and stderr. The first option would be preferred, since a few lines of output will be produced before --log=file is affective.

The cutscene works, but actual gameplay crashes the game. Why?

Once we see the output we might know more. I thought perhaps it might be memory (depending on what else is happening on the system) - perhaps look at the task manager when you start stk. Just to be sure: do you have any addons installed? Have you tried the lowest graphics settings, and loading a single kart?

Cheers,
Joerg

[Danfun64]

I think I found my problem.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

[Irrlicht Error] FBO format unsupported
[Irrlicht Error] FBO error

So the solution was to turn off FBO, and the game worked.
I don't remember turning off FBO being required in 0.7.3 and 0.8 alpha...

For those curious, this is what my "choose your kart" screen appears with FBO on.

note the ? mark where the kart should be.

[Hero]

Nice! I should enable that so I don't have to deal with the "Black Box".

[Danfun64]

Nice! I should enable that so I don't have to deal with the "Black Box".

There isn't supposed to be a question mark there. Usually, you see the kart in question rotating.