AGS 3.3.0 Release Candidate

[Daniel Eakins]

Yeah it's only a problem with 320x200/320x240 games.

[Crimson Wizard]

Made a quick fix and re-uploaded beta 10. If you have already installed it, please consider to re-download.
The bug was related to paths containing unicode characters, engine appeared to fail working with them properly again (as it did back in the days of early 3.0), now fixed.

[AGD2]

I just found a new bug in beta 10 with the editor.

If you click on a room object, and then edit its x or y values, the object's position will not move. It still moves if you click and drag it or select it and nudge it with the arrow keys, though.

The above also applies to the characters section in rooms.

--EDIT--

I just tried to change an inventory item's sprite by typing a new number into its "Image" text field, and it also didn't update. It only showed a new image if I manually selected one from the Sprite Manager. It seems that anything you type into these fields (regardless of what the field is) isn't being properly updated.

[Crimson Wizard]

Oh dear... I somehow did not notice.

It appears that the change that fixed the panes flickering prevents the pane to update its visuals in time. You have to save the game / switch panes to make it update the view.

[tzachs]

It appears that the change that fixed the panes flickering prevents the pane to update its visuals in time. You have to save the game / switch panes to make it update the view.

Oops...
Fixed...

[Crimson Wizard]

A-and reuploaded beta 10 again.

[AGD2]

All right, confirmed that that's fixed now. Just came across another little quirk which seems to affect room objects only.

Select any room object by clicking on it (so the yellow border appears around its edges). Normally, you can use the arrow keys to nudge the object 1 pixel at a time in any direction. However, only the left and up arrows seem to work now. Attempting to nudge down or right doesn't do anything.

[David Ostman]

Select any room object by clicking on it (so the yellow border appears around its edges). Normally, you can use the arrow keys to nudge the object 1 pixel at a time in any direction. However, only the left and up arrows seem to work now. Attempting to nudge down or right doesn't do anything.

Hmm, I can't reproduce this on my Beta 10 install that I downloaded just before posting this. Selecting the object and the nudging it in all directions with the arrow keys works as far a I can tell.

[AGD2]

Very peculiar! I just tried making a new game in beta 10 and didn't have this problem. I also loaded the Mage's Initiation source into the editor and that worked as well. But when I load the Al Emmo source, none of the objects in any of the rooms will nudge right or down with the arrow keys. It happens consistently, every time a load that game into the editor.

And here's another crash and what I did to cause it after creating a new game with the 'default' template:

Created room 1, set object 0 and chose a sprite for it, made walkable area 1, made region 1. Did the same for rooms 2 and 3.

Created room 4 and 5. Didn't import a background or set any objects, masks for the screens.

Created room 6, and double-clicked on "Edit Room" to open it, the editor crashed with:

Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Version: AGS 3.3.0.1148

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.GetPreviousDockData()
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.LoadRoom(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.ItemCommandClick(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.BaseComponentWithFolders`2.CommandClick(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.ProjectTree.ProcessClickOnNode(String nodeID, MouseButtons button)
   at AGS.Editor.ProjectTree.projectTree_NodeMouseDoubleClick(Object sender, TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnNodeMouseDoubleClick(TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

[tzachs]

Very peculiar! I just tried making a new game in beta 10 and didn't have this problem. I also loaded the Mage's Initiation source into the editor and that worked as well. But when I load the Al Emmo source, none of the objects in any of the rooms will nudge right or down with the arrow keys. It happens consistently, every time a load that game into the editor.

Fixed.
The issue was only for high resolution games working with low resolution backwards compatibility in the script. For this impressive scenario  , it has to round the position to an even number to reflect how it will work in the engine, so when moving by 1 pixel downwards/right it didn't actually move you. So the fix is to move by 2 pixels in this particular scenario...

And here's another crash and what I did to cause it after creating a new game with the 'default' template:

Fixed.

[Crimson Wizard]

Reuploaded beta 10 again, it has three more bugs fixed.

[AGD2]

Thanks! The arrow key object nudging issue is resolved now.  And here's some feedback running 640x400 games with the Max Nearest Neighbor filter:

On my 4:3 monitor:

-The "Max Nearest Neighbor" filter doesn't detect for 640x400 games (Direct3d or DirectDraw5) in Full-screen mode if "Force alternate letterbox resolution" is unchecked. In this case, the game runs full-screen at 640x400, but stretches out vertically to fill the entire screen height, as if it were 640x480.

-If I run in a window with the exact same settings above, then the Max filter (which is the 2x NN filter in my case) will be used.

-If I run at full-screen with the same settings above, but check "Force alternate letterbox resolution" instead, then the Max filter (2x NN filter) will be used.

[Dirt McStain]

Hey Crimson Wizard!  Great work on the engine so far!  Radiant told me that this may be the best place to reach you regarding this issue:

Music and SFX skip when transitioning screens

When transitioning from one background to another, music and sfx will skip. It appears that the longer it takes to transition (longer due to memory, not longer by design) the longer the music and sfx skip.

I hope that this is something that you can take a look at!  Thank you in advance!

[Radiant]

I've done some tests, and it looks like there's still quite a lot of computers around that don't work with DirectX9; conversely, anything on Windows 8 doesn't run with DirectX5, and a casual game player could not be expected to know the difference. We would really appreciate it if you'd tweak the game startup code so that if the game is set up for DX9 and that fails, the game attempts to start up with DX5 instead, and only aborts if that also fails. This feels like a simple enough change; I really don't think it should be any game designer's job to educate the players about the difference between Dx5 and Dx9.

[Crimson Wizard]

New engine for testing:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6pe80o5bzkctcxg/acwin_1148plus_25nov2013.7z

1. Fallback to graphics software driver if hardware one could not be created.
2. Couple of overriding config options, to be added manually to config file:

Code: text

[override]
multitasking=0/1
os=dos/win/linux/mac

* Multitasking - overrides game's multitasking mode. Useful if game has lengthy unskippable sequences. Keep in mind that this will lock game in the given mode and make it ignore script commands that change it.
* Os - overrides System.OperatingSystem return value. Useful for ports when game disables some feature for the system because it thinks it's not supported.
To be frank, this property is not very useful for AGS at the moment anyway, and it enumerates platforms that are not really supported, such as DOS and MacOS. Android, iOS and PSP ports emulate Windows by internal means. So, this is mainly for running games on Linux.

[Radiant]

1. Fallback to software driver if hardware one could not be created.

Thank you. Is that related to Dx5/Dx9?

[Crimson Wizard]

1. Fallback to software driver if hardware one could not be created.

Thank you. Is that related to Dx5/Dx9?

I realized I dropped the word "graphics" in "software driver". Yes, it is about graphics drivers.

[Joseph DiPerla]

YAY!

[Radiant]

Sorry, that doesn't quite work.

Taking a laptop that doesn't support hardware acceleration, I get exception 0xc000005 at EIP=0, prog pointer -179, ACI 3.3.0.1148, gtags 0,0. Occurs both in windowed and fullscreen mode, but (predictably) not when selecting Dx5 from winsetup.
Also, during the process, the engine tries a few really weird resolutions, i.e. 341x200 and 409x240. I wouldn't expect any monitor to support those.

Log attached,

Spoiler

Adventure Game Studio v3.3 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 Chris Jones and 2011-2013 others
ACI version 3.3.0.1148

***** ENGINE STARTUP
Installing exception handler
Reading config file
Initializing allegro
Setting up window
Initializing game data
Game data file: d:/Prog/HQuest/Jukebox/Compiled/Jukebox.exe

Initializing TTF renderer
Initializing mouse
Checking memory
Initializing keyboard
Install timer
Initialize sound drivers
Install exit handler
Initialize path finder library
Load game data
Heroine's Jukebox
Checking for disk space
Initializing MOD/XM player
Init gfx driver
Created graphics driver: Direct3D 9
Initializing screen settings
Init gfx filters
Detecting maximal supported scaling
Applying scaling filter: StdScale2
Switching to graphics mode
Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 320 x 200; desktop resolution: 1024 x 600
Widescreen side borders: enabled, attempting resolution 320 x 200
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 200 (32-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 200 (32-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 320 x 240; desktop resolution: 1024 x 600
Widescreen side borders: enabled, attempting resolution 320 x 240
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 240 (32-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 240 (32-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 320 x 200; desktop resolution: 1024 x 600
Couldn't find acceptable supported resolution
Widescreen side borders: gfx card does not support suitable resolution. Will attempt 341 x 200 anyway
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 341 x 200 (24-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 200 (24-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 320 x 240; desktop resolution: 1024 x 600
Couldn't find acceptable supported resolution
Widescreen side borders: gfx card does not support suitable resolution. Will attempt 409 x 240 anyway
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 409 x 240 (24-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 240 (24-bit)
Failed, resolution not supported
320x200 not supported, trying with 2x filter
Applying scaling filter: StdScale2
Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 320 x 200; desktop resolution: 1024 x 600
Widescreen side borders: enabled, attempting resolution 320 x 200
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 320 x 200 (32-bit)

[close]

[Crimson Wizard]

Hmm, this is something different, I was expecting that it cannot create D3D9 interface at all, but it looks it could.

Do you have a crash dump?