4.6 issues on Windows 10

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Onesimus
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4.6 issues on Windows 10

#1 Post by Onesimus »

First, GREAT EFFORT! Thanks for doing this game.

I am running W10, and had been running Free Orion 4.5 for about a week.

I downloaded and installed 4.6 (FreeOrion_v0.4.6_2016-09-16.49f9123_Win32_Setup).

Now, when I start the game, the mouse pointer goes away. Sometimes in certain dialogues, it shows up again, briefly, but usually the only only way you can tell where the mouse is pointed is when some of the buttons light up.

The Load Game dialog has this problem, but I managed to select the game I had been running, and click on 'OK' after moving the mouse around till the appropriate button flashed.

After loading the game, it never started. I just stared at a blank screen for several minutes.

I have other testing comments, but will post them as separate from this, since they occurred in 4.5, and are usability issues rather than "can't use it at all" issues.

O

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Vezzra
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#2 Post by Vezzra »

The mouse pointer problem could be a graphics driver issue. Try updating your graphics driver, and try to get the drivers provided by the graphics card vendor, not the ones provided by Windows Update.

To get any idea what might happen when you try loading a game we need the FO log files. See here for instructions where you can find them on your system. Try to load a game, wait a few minutes, abort and get the log files (to be save, all of them: freeorion.log, freeoriond.log, all AI_XX.log files) and attach them to a post here.

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adrian_broher
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#3 Post by adrian_broher »

Onesimus wrote:Now, when I start the game, the mouse pointer goes away. Sometimes in certain dialogues, it shows up again, briefly, but usually the only only way you can tell where the mouse is pointed is when some of the buttons light up.
Sounds like a variant of #676.
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Vezzra
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Hm, looks like FO is prone to graphical issues on Win10 systems. Assuming that graphic card vendors have adjusted their drivers to Win10 in the meantime (Win10 has been out for a while now), that's a bit unfortunate, as the share of Win10 systems is only going to increase. We need to get to the bottom of this, but I can't help with this at all - I have no Win10 system, and don't plan to have one anytime soon (if ever).

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MatGB
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#5 Post by MatGB »

adrian_broher wrote:
Onesimus wrote:Now, when I start the game, the mouse pointer goes away. Sometimes in certain dialogues, it shows up again, briefly, but usually the only only way you can tell where the mouse is pointed is when some of the buttons light up.
Sounds like a variant of #676.
Agreed, what's being described reminds me very much of the problems I had on my old (now dead) laptop but doesn't happen on my current Win10 laptop nor the kids.

So it's not an "all Win10" problem, it's a subset of some Win10 machines, at a guess it's graphics card related in some way.
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Ouaz
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#6 Post by Ouaz »

I confirm that it is more a graphic driver problem.

I'm on a W7 laptop, with switchable graphic cards (Intel HD 3000 and Radeon 7670).

For a long time, FO ran well with the Intel card, but a few months ago, the problem appeared: heavy screen flickering and hidden mouse pointer.

Switch to Radeon 7670 solved the problem (there's still some display glitches though, but it's OK).

Note: I can't update the drivers, as it requires a special driver for switchable graphic cards system (provided by the laptop manufacturer, but abandonned since many years now).

There's still the unofficial driver solution (Leshcat’s Catalyst), but it's a risky business, which requires to mess with Windows certification.
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roamingandy
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#7 Post by roamingandy »

also on Windows 7 and having the same issue.

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Num7
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#8 Post by Num7 »

roamingandy wrote:also on Windows 7 and having the same issue.
Same for me. Haven't played for ages, so I installed the latest stable.

I can't see the mouse pointer. When starting a game, the pointer is invisible, and most icons in the top menus are flickering.

I have Windows 7, and an Intel HD3000.

Hope this helps.
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Vezzra
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#9 Post by Vezzra »

MarcThibeault wrote:Hope this helps.
Unfortunately probably not much. It's just one more confirmation that there are serious issues with Intel Integrated Graphics, which apparently are caused by the abysmal OpenGL support. And there is nothing we can do about it, as far as I can tell.

Does 0.4.5 work on your system? If yes, and you're willing to put up with the tedious procedure, could you try to figure out which is the latest test build that still works on your system/which one is the first that introduces the change which triggers the issue?

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Num7
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#10 Post by Num7 »

Hi Vezzra,

Yes, 0.4.5 works fine on my system.

I'm willing to try a few test builds and see how it goes. I'll let you know in which one the issue appeared.

Update:

(build 2015-09-08.0868ed4) Works fine.
(build 2015-09-14.5507da9) Has the glitch.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#11 Post by Geoff the Medio »

That's right after or during I was doing a bunch of reimplementing rendering using vertex arrays, so it's quite plausible there's some rendering state not being properly set or restored by my code, or by unrelated code if the code I replaced was doing something to set the state that hid the issue.

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... KzI2OTQ%3D

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Vezzra
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#12 Post by Vezzra »

MarcThibeault wrote:I'll let you know in which one the issue appeared.
Thanks for the effort! That obviously helped Geoff to narrow down a possible cause. If he can further narrow it down, enough to fix it, is another question...

I guess you can't build FO yourself? Because if, you could try to narrow it down further, with git bisect.

defaultuser
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#13 Post by defaultuser »

I loaded 4.6 stable on a different machine, and had problems as described here: disappearing mouse pointer, flickering menu bar. This machine is Windows 10 with integrated graphics, which sounds like the setup that generates the problem.

I looked at #676 but I couldn't really tell if there has been a resolution.

If not, I have a graphics card in another (non-functioning machine) that I could try pulling and installing in this one.

Edit: I tried the 3/14 test build and had the same results. Disappointing.
Edit: I can confirm that 2015-09-08.0868ed4 works here.

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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#14 Post by defaultuser »

I've seen some similar instances of flickering with 4.5x but not nearly as consistent as with 4.6. No missing mouse pointer. It usually seems related to star system side window, although sometimes opening one causes it, sometimes it clears it. It usually doesn't continue for more than a turn or two.

No idea if this is a related issue or not.

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Vezzra
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Re: 4.6 issues on Windows 10

#15 Post by Vezzra »

Did you try using the graphics card from the other machine you mentioned? If yes, did that solve the issues?

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