[AD] Re: Something is wrong with my allegro video modes...

[Victor <vwss1984@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi.

 

Evert, I downloaded the freshly-made Allegro 4.2.0 release version on my Windows Server 2003 to test my video problems. It looks broken in older versions too (4.0.3 was broken). I'm using DirectX 8.1, and DxDiag says that everything is ok and the tests doesn't found any problem.

 

ex3buf worked on fullscreen in both 16 and 32 bits. Strangely the animation is smoother when mouse is moving. This program always gets a fullscreen mode.

 

ex3d, esxcn3d, exswitch and exzbuf:
--On 16 bits resolution:
----The Graphic Mode selection screen always shows ups windowed and drawed ok, but gets corrupted if the window is partially hidden by another window and showed again. Walking the mouse over corrupted areas fixes them.
----Auto Windowed 8, 24 and 32 bits gets the "draw only if partially outside the screen or the window is moving" bug. Frequently, Windows junk is drawed on the window in exswitch.
----Auto Windowed 15 bits got a error message: "Error setting graphic mode\nOverlays not supported".
----Auto Windowed 16 bits works.
----Auto Fullscreen 8 and 32 bits gets a black screen with the Windows titlebar, although the program still runs, it simply can't draw. In exupdate this mode works only if page flipping or triple buffering.
----Auto Fullscreen 15 and 24 bits gets a error message: "Error setting graphic mode\nCan not set video mode".
----Auto Fullscreen 16 bits freezes the Windows screen, comes back to normal when ESC key pressed. In exupdate this mode works only if page flipping or triple buffering.
--On 32 bits resolution:
----The Graphic Mode selection screen always shows ups windowed and drawed ok, but gets corrupted if the window is partially hidden by another window and showed again. Walking the mouse over corrupted areas fixes them.
----Auto Windowed 8, 15, 16 and 24 bits got the "draw only if partially outside the screen or the window is moving" bug. Frequently, Windows junk is drawed on the window in exswitch.
----Auto Windowed 32 bits works.
----Auto Fullscreen 8 and 16 bits gets a black screen with the Windows titlebar, although the program still runs, it simply can't draw. In exupdate this mode works only if page flipping or triple buffering.
----Auto Fullscreen 15 and 24 bits gets a error message: "Error setting graphic mode\nCan not set video mode".
----Auto Fullscreen 32 bits freezes the Windows screen, comes back to normal when ESC key pressed. In exupdate this mode works only if page flipping or triple buffering.
In exscn3d, the scene is more dark in 24 and 32 bits modes than what it is in 8, 15 and 16.
In exzbuf, the FPS rate halves when mouse is moving, however the animation is much smoother when mouse is moving (Windows skipping frames? vsync problem?). The FPS comes progressively better as more of the window goes outside the screen.
In exupdate, the FPS rate halves when mouse moves too, but in practice nothing changes to my human eyes.
A few times i've got a message "Error setting graphic mode\nOverlays not supported" where it was not expected, but couldn't reproduce this.

 

ex12bit, exaplha, exblend, exgui, exlights, exrgbhsv, exsprite, exunicod and exxfade got a black screen with the Windows titlebar. This happens in both 16 and 32 bits mode. These programs always gets a fullscreen mode.
This happened with excamera, exkeys, exquat and exspline too, with the difference that they gets a white screen instead of a black screen.

 

exaccel always go on a fullscreen mode and exited immediately with a error mesage: "Not enough video memory (need two 1024x768 pages and a 320x200 image)". This happens both in 16 and 32 bits. Strangely, even if I changed to 800x600 it still got the _EXACTLY SAME_ error message.

 

excolmap, exdbuf, exflip, expal, exscale, exshade, exstars and extrans gets the "draw only if partially outside the screen or the window is moving" bug in both 16 and 32 bits. These programs always gets a windowed mode.

In expal the mouse is always drawed ok, even if the rest of the window isn't.
In exshade its noticeable that the shading is different between 16 and 32 bits mode.

 

exbitmap, exconfig, exdata, exfont, exhello, exjoy, exmem, expat, exsample and exsyscur didn't draw anything into the window except some junk from Windows screen. Moving the window around the screen borders and inside the screen repeatdly and crazily could make something get drawed, but still very messed up. This happens in both 16 and 32 bits mode, these programs always gets a windowed mode.

In exsyscur the texts are redrawed if the window is partially outside the screen, and the mouse arrow are always as expected.

 

excustom, exmidi, exmouse, exstream and extimer draws their objects only if the window is moving or is partially outside the screen. The backscreen isn't cleared and the program objects are drawed over junk from the Windows screen. This happens in both 16 and 32 bits mode, these programs always gets a windowed mode.
In exmouse the mouse is always drawed ok, even if the rest of the window isn't.

 

exexedat always gets the error message "Unable to load the appended datafile".

 

exfixed always works as expected (doesn't use graphics modes).

 

exflame got the superior area drawed with Windows screen junk. The rest of the screen (the flame) got the "draw only if partially outside the screen or the window is moving" bug. This happens in both 16 and 32 bits. This program always gets a windowed mode.

 

expackf runs perfectly in 32 bits mode. However in 16 bits mode just Windows junk is drawed and i can get something drawed (very messed) only if crazily move the window through the screen border. This program always get a windowed mode.

 

exscroll always gets the error message "Unable to set a 320x240 mode with 640x240 virtual dimensions".

 

extruec changed beetween various modes, in fullscreen it gets a pink and a black screens with Windows titlebar. In windowed modes the draw was messy and got some junk from Windows screen too. This happens in both 16 and 32 bits modes.

 

The demo game always runs in windowed mode. The fli animation in the start (in a tiny window) is drawed only if the window is being moved or if the window is partially outside the screen. Some Windows junk shows too. And the Graphics Mode selection menu is messy.
The demo game, after selecting a graphic mode works (on a bigger window), but it must be partially outside the screen.
The demo game always crashes with page flipping. Something odd is that when i try to select Triple Buffering, the demo game exits with the message "The DirectDraw window driver does not support triple buffering", but the funny is that ex3buf and exupdate works with triple buffering.
Trying to run the demo game in fullscreen with double buffering gets a black screen with the Windows titlebar.
I noticed something wrong in the sound: When i'm not controlling the ship (after losing the last life or it the credits screen) the music and sound volume is lound. But when i'm controlling the ship, the sound and music is much quieter (but i can still hear them).
I got another weird bug too. In one of my tests the screen with the credits was "jumping", but i couldn't reproduce that.

 

Conclusion: Almost all test programs reproduce some problem. Maybe I should go back to XP...
And I fear that Windows Vista/Longhorn/Whatever will bring us some headache and bad surprises... Why Microsucks likes to produce so much bugs?

 

Victor Williams Stafusa da Silva

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