Author Topic: Text Flickering Issue  (Read 11708 times)

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Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Just wanted to chime in that I use Intel Integrate Graphics 4600 and do not have the TFF issues listed, even though I use TFF in my mods.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Yes, we know about TTF causing issues on certain hardware. Reports started flowing in when new Wings of Dawn was released, its dev team made a patch (that you were asked to use) that forces the game to use the old way of handling fonts. From what I know, no such patch was made for Between The Ashes, but it should be quite easy to make.
Right now, you are the only person for who the patch didn't help. This means that either, again, something went wrong with installing the patch or this issue isn't related to TTF at all. Maybe some details on where did you place the patch file would be useful.

Also, wouldn't radar wonkyness mean the problem doesn't necessary have to be what we think it is?

Also yes, please completely ignore my point about driver auto-detect possibly being stupid and misinforming you (for example, thinking that the driver Lenovo used for the laptop is the only available while ignoring purely Intel's drivers). Also, thank you very much for totally ignoring my suggestion of purging installed drivers with DDU and installing fresh ones, which would definitely eliminate the possiblity of a broken driver installment.
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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Right now, you are the only person for who the patch didn't help. This means that either, again, something went wrong with installing the patch or this issue isn't related to TTF at all. Maybe some details on where did you place the patch file would be useful.

As per the instructions in the thread I was directed to, I dumped the fonts file in the \data\tables folder.   It didn't specify exactly where that was but the only place I found a data\tables folder was in the Retail Freespace area.   It that was wrong then some further clarification is needed.

Also, wouldn't radar wonkyness mean the problem doesn't necessary have to be what we think it is?

I tend to agree.  Or there could be 2 separate issues.

 

Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
As per the instructions in the thread I was directed to, I dumped the fonts file in the \data\tables folder.   It didn't specify exactly where that was but the only place I found a data\tables folder was in the Retail Freespace area.   It that was wrong then some further clarification is needed.

To clarify, the actual .tff files should go in a folder called 'fonts' within the the 'data' folder. The 'fonts.tbl' file goes in the 'data\tables' folder.  :)

 
Re: Text Flickering Issue
And none of that should be going in the retail freespace /data folder but the mod's own data/tables and data/fonts folders instead.
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Re: Text Flickering Issue
To clarify, the actual .tff files should go in a folder called 'fonts' within the the 'data' folder. The 'fonts.tbl' file goes in the 'data\tables' folder.  :)

The link that was highlighted by Spoon only provided a fonts.tbl file.   There were no TFF files. 

Note also that there were no sub folders in the Mod folder.   

I created a data/tables folder in the BtA folder and put the fonts.tbl file in there.

On running the Mod I then get the error:

"Bitmap fonts are not supported in the Unicode model"

Task Manager is then required to kill the FS session as the error message will not disappear
« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 06:27:39 pm by AcePilot »

 

Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Well, that file Spoon gave you for Wings of Dawn won't work for BtA, so that is probably what the error is coming from.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Yeah, that patch won't work for BtA. Also BtA is gonna be tough to run in integrated graphics in the first place. I suspect patching the font back to a .vf font would be the least of your concerns there.
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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Also BtA is gonna be tough to run in integrated graphics in the first place. I suspect patching the font back to a .vf font would be the least of your concerns there.

Disappointing to see people still harping on about system performance.  My laptop plays BTA just fine, at least the first opening mission was fine with the huge space station and cargo depot and various ships etc etc.  I don't get ANY performance issues with ANY freespace mission or mod mission I have ever played.  Nor do I get any issues with the Freespace 3 mod, which has 100s of ships and cap ships in its missions.

However BTA is unplayable for me simply because the text is unreadable.  Means in missions you can't target specific ships that you need to target to protect or chase them down.  Also means I can't set my pilot settings up because you can't see which option is which and so on.   Nothing wrong with the game itself, just the ****ing text. 


 

Offline Strygon

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Hardware does more than just affect overall performance of a game. Integrated graphics hate TTF fonts, so apply a patch that reverts it back to bitmaps. Of course it's gonna have to be specifically for the designated mod.
Also, FS3 is not a good benchmark for a PCs ability to run graphics well. Graphics are taken care of by a GPU, many ships mean many AI cycles running at the same time, meaning it puts the load on the CPU.
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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Understood Strygon

Nevertheless, I've managed to get through about 4-5 missions of BTA with no performance issues at all.   Still a royal PITA though not being able to see much of the text. 

 

Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
I'm not part of the BtA team, but I took a peek at their font table and made a quick patch for you. It should work to restore the fonts.

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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Maybe I'm crazy.. but I find it very hard to believe that an integrated graphics laptop has zero issues with any mod including BtA. My big fancy rig with a GTX1080 and a 4.2Ghz processor even has occasional hiccups.
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Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
You're not crazy... I have integrated graphics from 2014 and the only way I can get 25ish fps in any larger battle on most mods is ensuring all effects flags are disabled and the resolution is pretty low. Even then there are some hiccups when things explode or arrive.

 
Re: Text Flickering Issue
I'm not part of the BtA team, but I took a peek at their font table and made a quick patch for you. It should work to restore the fonts.

I appreciate the gesture WookieJedi

Unfortunately your files give me the following error message on running the Mod:

Error: fonts.tbl(line3)
Error: Bitmap fonts are not supported in Unicode text mode!
File: Parselo.cpp
Line: 303

Not sure if I installed correctly tho.

I went to the BtA-1.2.1 folder which contains a few vp files and a banner file etc.   There were no sub-folders in there.
So I created a data folder and fonts, tables folder beneath that and copied your files into the respective folders.

Was this correct?

 

Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
I'm not part of the BtA team, but I took a peek at their font table and made a quick patch for you. It should work to restore the fonts.

I appreciate the gesture WookieJedi

Unfortunately your files give me the following error message on running the Mod:

Error: fonts.tbl(line3)
Error: Bitmap fonts are not supported in Unicode text mode!
File: Parselo.cpp
Line: 303

Not sure if I installed correctly tho.

I went to the BtA-1.2.1 folder which contains a few vp files and a banner file etc.   There were no sub-folders in there.
So I created a data folder and fonts, tables folder beneath that and copied your files into the respective folders.

Was this correct?

Nah sounds like you did it correctly, I was just unaware BtA was using unicode text, so my fix won't work.

 
Re: Text Flickering Issue
OK some good news

I managed to get Wings Of Dawn working.   That fonts.tbl patch file worked.

Problem was that for some reason, this Mod does not install into the same place as every other mod that Knossos manages.

I don't know why, maybe WoD just need their stuff somewhere else.  Anyway finally got the fonts.tbl file into the right place (after creating folders etc) and now the text flickering issue is fixed.

That leaves me with radar issues (constant streaks from pilot icons top right to the radar)
I'm pretty sure I've read other posts where people have experienced the same issue so will google.

Here's a screen shot





So I guess I need a similar fonts patch file for BtA

 

Offline m!m

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Unfortunately, there is no "similar" patch for BtA since that requires the Unicode mode provided by the engine which only works if TrueType fonts are used since the "old" bitmap fonts do not support the extended glyph range provided by Unicode. I think the initial release did not use that through so you might be able to use an older version of BtA with which the fonts.tbl patch may work but I'm not sure if unicode mode may always have been required.

As far as I can tell, the artifacts are always related to stuff rendered by NanoVG (a small library for rendering vector graphics which also does the TTF rendering) so that might be a possible indication where the problem originates from. However, without being able to reproduce it, I can not do much else unfortunately.

 
Re: Text Flickering Issue
Can those wingman/pilot icons at top right be removed/disabled anywhere in settings?

  

Offline wookieejedi

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Re: Text Flickering Issue
Yes, under the HUD configuration settings. Though WoD uses my custom wingmen gauge script, which uses the fancy fonts. To disable that custom gauge, add this empty file to your data/tables folder:

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