[solved]Screwed graphics

[Gert]

Well, I don't have anything like compiz running.
In addition: I can run Alienarena, UT2004, Doom3 (and games based on it's engine) without problems.

Out of curiosity since CG is essentially a NVidia creation, is it really supposed to create proper code for an ATI card?

I forgot to mention about the Intel Graphics: Here the walls were there, but the lightning looked somewhat strange. And, of course. as soon as I went to a bigger level, the frame rate dropped to nearly unplayable, but I would guess that's to be expected.

BTW: If you feel it could help, I'd happily run a special executable compiled to do more logging or something like this.

[Urkle]

Actually the nvidia's CG is intended to be a cross-card portable shader library (we have, however dropped Cg in favor of the official OpenGL GLSL for the new game). You can try upgrading the Cg library to the latest from nvidia to see if it works better.. Just replace the libCg and LibCgGL that is distributed with the game in the "lib" subdirectory.

[Gert]

Oh, I already did - see above.

[jaom7]

I just installed the Penumbra collection in Linux using the radeon driver for my ATI mobility radeon X1400 which is no longer supported by the propietary driver. While trying to run the game I get low performance: The movements are very slow, the textures look bad and some objects change colors .

I had the same result when using Mesa 7.6 and Mesa 7.7 (which is supposed to do the 3D acceleration for this my graphics card).

More details about my system can be found here

Any help on this is very welcome

jaom7

[Urkle]

Have you installed the libtxc_dxtn library from here http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/S3TC ?

Unfortunately because software patents the open source Mesa can not completely implement all the functionality needed for current games "legally". Though you should "drop a line" with ATI/AMD that outright discontinuing support for older cards is not a good move. Especially considering Nvidia is still supporting older cards in newer distributions (they actually update their legacy drivers)

Basically there isn't much I can do to remedy this situation at all unfortunately. I'm still fighting with Apple to update their nvidia 7300 drivers in Leopard and Snow leopard as they are horribly out of date and cause HUGE performance problems with current games (ie.. BioShock and the upcoming Amnesia)

[jaom7]

Have you installed the libtxc_dxtn library from here http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/S3TC ?

Thanks for the hint, I just tried installing the library you suggested me, but no effect :S maybe because it was against a MESA installation that came from repos and was not compiled by myself. I will try a fresh Penumbra reinstall. One question, what is the right procedure to uninstall it on gnu/linux?

One more question, I got this question by the people at the phoronix forum, can you give me some data about that so I can let them know and see if the problem is indeed with my graphics card or maybe with my installation of the game.

[Urkle]

Currently I do not provide an "uninstaller", simply it's removing the game installation directory and the ".desktop" entries that are created. (which you'll have to search for.. PenumbraOverture.desktop and PenumbraBlackPlauge.desktop and PenumbraRequiem.desktop)

Penumbra uses Nvidia's CG library which compiles the shaders into various targets depending on the card. (several nvidia specific targets, ARB target, and even a GLSL target).. so if the Mesa driver doesn't have descent shader support that could be a slow down cause. You can Force the shader backend by looking in the hpl.log (which lists which shader profiles are supported) and then setting the profile name in the settings.cfg (there are two options, one for Vertex and one for Fragment) Both of these files can be found in your ~/.frictionalgames/Penumbra/Overture folder.

I know someone else who has the same issue you are having, but with Regnum Online. He has the older ATI cards and is fighting with the Mesa installs to get the game running. right now he's at the point of waiting for some $$ and then he's upgrading his system and using an nvidia card.

[jaom7]

I just installed the Penumbra collection in Linux using the radeon driver for my ATI mobility radeon X1400 which is no longer supported by the propietary driver. While trying to run the game I get low performance: The movements are very slow, the textures look bad and some objects change colors .

I had the same result when using Mesa 7.6 and Mesa 7.7 (which is supposed to do the 3D acceleration for this my graphics card).

More details about my system can be found here

Any help on this is very welcome

jaom7

Just a brief update about this problem,
I updated my kernel to 2.6.34-x and with Mesa 7.8.1 and the radeon driver, Penumbra Overture works again.
Unfortunately, BlackPlague and Requiem don't run, I got the following messages when I execture Requiem or BlackPlague from the console

Code: (Select All)

jaom7@Armisael:~> /opt/PenumbraCollection/BlackPlague/blackplague
./blackplague.bin: /usr/lib/libCgGL.so: no version information available (required by ./blackplague.bin)                                
./blackplague.bin: /usr/lib/libCg.so: no version information available (required by ./blackplague.bin)
/opt/PenumbraCollection/BlackPlague/blackplague: line 9:  3270 Segmentation fault      ./blackplague.bin "$@"
Penumbra: Black Plague exited unexpectedly, please check
/home/jaom7/.frictionalgames/Penumbra/Black Plague/hpl.log
for any error messages
Also try running
ulimit -c unlimited
And re-running Penumbra and try and recreate the error
then submit the generated core file or stack trace

I checked and I have installed libCg packages on my system.
The referenced log file hpl.log shows this:

Code: (Select All)

-------- THE HPL ENGINE LOG ------------

Creating Engine Modules
--------------------------------------------------------
Creating graphics module
Creating system module
Creating resource module
Creating input module
Creating sound module
Creating physics module
Creating ai module
Creating gui module
Creating haptic module
Creating scene module
--------------------------------------------------------

Initializing Resources Module
--------------------------------------------------------
Creating resource managers
Misc Creation
--------------------------------------------------------

Initializing Graphics Module
--------------------------------------------------------
Init low level graphics
Setting video mode: 800 x 600 - 32 bpp
Init Glee...OK
Setting up OpenGL
  Max texture image units: 8
  Max texture coord units: 8
  Two sided stencil: 1
  Vertex Buffer Object: 1
  Anisotropic filtering: 1
  Max Anisotropic degree: 16
  Multisampling: 1
  Vertex Program: 1
  Fragment Program: 1
  NV Register Combiners: 0
  NV Register Combiners Stages: 142236296
  ATI Fragment Shader: 0
Creating graphic systems
  Creating Renderer2D
  Renderer2D created
  Creating Renderer3D
   Load Renderer3D gpu programs:
    Extrude
    Diffuse Vertex
    Diffuse Fragment
    Fog
   Creating fog textures: Solid Additive Alpha
   init sky box
  Renderer3D created
Creating screen buffers size 800.000000 : 600.000000
Creating programs
CG ERROR : "The compile returned an error."
-----------------------------------
core/programs/PostEffect_Motion_fp.cg(28) : error C5013: profile does not support "for" statements and "for" could not be unrolled.
-----------------------------------
CG: Error loading: 'core/programs/PostEffect_Motion_fp.cg'!
ERROR: Couldn't create program 'PostEffect_Motion_fp.cg'
Dynamic loops in motion blur fp not supported, loading static instead.
  RendererPostEffects created
Adding engine materials
--------------------------------------------------------

Initializing Sound Module
--------------------------------------------------------
Initializing OpenAL.
  Trying to open audio device... Success!
  Device name: PulseAudio Software
  Number of mono sources: 32
--------------------------------------------------------

Initializing Game Modulea
--------------------------------------------------------
Adding engine updates
Initializing script functions
--------------------------------------------------------

User Initialization
--------------------------------------------------------
Initializing Penumbra: Black Plague
  Version    $Rev: 2595 $
  Date    $Date: 2008-05-03 09:09:49 -0400 (Sat, 03 May 2008) $
Checking Supported Profiles
  Profile CG_PROFILE_VP20 is supported
  Profile CG_PROFILE_ARBVP1 is supported
  Profile CG_PROFILE_ARBFP1 is supported
Trying to load vertex program!
Success!
ERROR: Couldn't create font 'font_menu_small.fnt'

Any hints why this happens? or maybe is it due to radeon driver not yet 100% operational?

regards,

jaom7

[Urkle]

It is most likely due to the radeon driver. Possibly removing the provided libCg and libCgGL in the black plague lib folder to force it to use your system version *might* help.

[jaom7]

Possibly removing the provided libCg and libCgGL in the black plague lib folder to force it to use your system version *might* help.

I was looking for that for that lib folder you told me at /opt/PenumbraCollection/Black Plague, but there is none. I checked in the Overture folder and I did find a lib folder. I got the series from the Penumbra Collection Special you offered last year, so I was wondering if maybe Black Plague was using the same lib folder in the Overture directory. If not, where should I look for it?

---

I was looking for that for that lib folder you told me at /opt/PenumbraCollection/Black Plague, but there is none. I checked in the Overture folder and I did find a lib folder. I got the series from the Penumbra Collection Special you offered last year, so I was wondering if maybe Black Plague was using the same lib folder in the Overture directory. If not, where should I look for it?

UPDATE: I just got it work... it was very strange the reason.. here a summary.

Today I did 2 fresh installs of the Penumbra Collection in the same computer running gnu/linux. Specifically, in the directory /opt/PenumbraCollection proposed by the installer.

First clicking on the installer icon as a regular user. Followed the installation procedure. I introduced my root password when required. As mentioned in the previous mail, only Overture was running. Black Plague and Requiem didn't start at all, showing the error message related to libCg.

Then, I erased directories /opt/PenumbraCollection and ~./frictional games. I reinstalled the game, but this time from the command line as root. Followed the installation procedure and this time I see there are some folders (like the lib folder) was not in the previous installation.

Now both Black Plague and Requiem run. Since I haven't play so much, I can not tell how good it is with the update to the 2.6.34 kernel and latest Mesa, which fixed the low frame rate problem.

Hope to have some good news for the next weekend. Time to play and finish the series with Requiem before Amnesia is here

thanks for the fast reply... Frictional games has an awesome support!!!