ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Discussion Thread

gazra, did the renamed Atari/Troika/WotC movies play? They come before the splash screen.

Interesting ... seems to suggest further correlation to the active window thing. I bet if you click with the mouse, ToEE will 'wake up' and your spacebar would become workable again. I wonder if the two (active window and mode switching) are related.

 

That's an interesting observation about the potential of the ToEE window (even when running "fullscreen") potentially not being the active one. I'll actually look into an option of somehow forcefully making that active from TFE-X once the game starts up in order to see if that changes anything, though I'm not sure at the moment if it is possible because under normal circumastances JRE has no control over the running process once it starts (by the way, in case you're wondering, .NET doesn't either, so currently the two front-ends are on the even ground). Anyhow, I'll keep you guys posted, I might post an experimental build if I come up with something.

- Agetian

 

UPDATE: Version 4.2 (stable) released. This version improves the game startup routine on Linux systems in order to avoid the potential of TFE-X hanging in case of a game crash.

- Agetian

 

@ gazra: Good luck with the testing, please let us know how it goes so that maybe we'll finally be able to reveal the reason behind this strange behavior and address it.

- Agetian

 

Just to document this, here is the typical event schedule in ToEE for starting a game with movies enabled (what would be considered 'normal,' even though most people disable intro movies eventually):

1. Play Atari movie (video mode)
2. Play Troika movie (stay in video mode)
3. Play WotC movie (stay in video mode)
4. Display splash screen and load assets (switch to game mode)
5. Play intro cinematic (switch to video mode) - PROBLEM
6. Display main menu (switch to game mode)
7. Start game and play vignette movie (switch to video mode)
8. Do vignette (switch to game mode)
9. Go to Hommlet (switch to video mode)
10. Play game (switch to game mode)
...

Obviously there are a lot of mode switches in there. Does anyone ever have any problems besides with step 5? For that matter, does anyone ever have any problems playing movies during the course of the rest of the game?

It should be noted that on subsequent game launches after the first following any computer session (e.g. you logged on for the day or just started your computer), the game assets are loaded much more rapidly (presumably because they're cached somewhere already), so what may appear to be a crash on the splash screen probably really is a crash preceding the intro cinematic. Errors with protos.tab etc. usually manifest differently than that and are absolute and universal. They will always crash without exception at the same time. (So what I'm saying is that experiences would not vary if there were some fatal issue with protos.tab or another critical file - it would fail for everybody all the time).

 

Ok here's an experimental build of TFE-X that erases the above-mentioned part of the movies_seen line in toee.cfg on every ToEE startup, please test and see if this helps resolve the issue for you.

- Agetian

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE: For those of you experiencing game crashes upon loading the game or while loading the game with the Co8 modpack v7.9.0, we're working on an official fix which is currently undergoing internal testing and which should reach the public testing stage within 24 hours if everything goes according to plan. An update will be posted here in this thread. We have localized the modeswitch crash issue to Aji'Tae's windowed mode reshack. Unfortunately, the reshack appears to introduce indirect, difficult to trace problems which, in addition to everything else, somehow introduce a lasting effect on the operating system until reboot (which causes the game to keep crashing even if the windowed mode reshack is completely removed from the DLL). Coincidentally, the issue manifests itself in fullscreen mode and not in the windowed mode the reshack was meant to alter. Simply turning off the reshack and thus removing its components from the DLL is not enough to ensure that the issues (and, thus, reports of something wrong with the game / the front-end) stop due to the previously mentioned caching. Due to the nature of the issue (different experience on different systems, complex dependencies on video mode because of the peculiar interaction with the driver video mode switching, etc.), the currently proposed solution that will be released for testing soon will include the following:

- An experimental update for TFE-X that completely eliminates the introduction of any bits of code into the DLL related to the windowed mode reshack according to patterns suggested by Aji'Tae. As you understand, this will mean that unfortunately, we'll have to revert the windowed mode game behavior to the old 800x600 only setting. As sad as it may be for those of you who liked this new functionality, it seems we don't have any other option right now. Experimental builds containing modifications of the reshack code that do not make the game crash will be considered later when the game is stabilized.
- A reworked Co8 v7.9.0 temple.dll library that is free of any possible Aji'Tae's alterations from the previous editions of his reshack that might have inadvertently made their way into the library during the v7.9.0 development period.

We thank you for your patience and we hope that your experience with this experimental testing build will be crash-free. Your testing reports are highly welcome as soon as the experimental build is released. If it proves to solve the problem for the testers, it will become a part of the next stable builds of both TFE-X and the Co8 Modpack.

- Agetian

 

UPDATE: Uploaded a new experimental TFE-X build called v4.3 Beta. This build implements certain experimental measures to prevent the game from crashing when loading up. Please read the information below very carefully before installing and trying this build.

It is important to know that:
1) This build contains a reworked version of temple.dll for the Circle of Eight Modpack v7.9.0. This means that this build is only meant to be used with the Co8 modpack v7.9.0 and NOT any older, newer, or customized version.
2) This build removes support for Aji'Tae's windowed mode reshack. Our internal testing on several systems indicated a correlation between this feature and the video mode switch crashes that many members of our community are experiencing. As such, this experimental build completely removes support for this feature both from the DLL and from the front-end so that we can ascertain that it is either indeed the source of the issue or not. Unfortunately, this means that this build will always run in the original 800x600 mode when windowed.

In order to install this build:
- Make sure you're already running a properly patched game with the Co8 Modpack v7.9.0 installed and activated. If not, perform all the necessary steps to install the game and the modpack. Activate the modpack if it's not already active.
- Download the v4.3 Beta package from the first post of this thread. Please note that it is not among the attachments because it is too large for an attachment. It is a little bit above under the "Latest Experimental Build", the link is called "Download Here".
- Extract the v4.3 Beta package archive into your ToEE folder. Overwrite all files when prompted.
- Reboot your PC.
- Launch the game normally via TFE-X.

Please post your experience with this build here (whether it prevents your game from crashing when switching modes on startup or not). If you still experience a crash, all the details about the circumstances under which the game crashes are welcome (please post what OS you're running, where your game is installed (the absolute path), the video mode you're running the game in, say whether the intros are enabled or disabled for you, post your TFE-X.log contents).

- Agetian