[Turambar]

 - reduced memory footprint (by about half)

how'd you pull that one off?

[Agent_Koopa]

And yes, that red-alert bug should be fixed.  But you can test that for sure as soon as the first RC build gets released in another week or two.

Yay! Now I can play Awakenings!

There are actually ways to work around the red alert issues even now, but the missions need to be designed with it in mind. It took a ton of work (and some very ugly hacks), but I got the red alert missions in PI working just before the release.

Oh, I see. Then does that mean that PI will be completely compatible with 3.6.10? (why isn't it 3.7? Are we using hexadecimal?)


Also, are we getting registry independence?

[blackhole]

Oh come on... DX10 is a joke....

You may not like it, but you have to admit that Shader Modal 4.0 is very impressive. I almost drool at the thought of being able to create geometry with a shader. What does make it a joke is the fact that almost no hardware supports it.

[taylor]

The 3.6.x series is still based off of a same stable code tree that 3.6.9 came from.  In other words, it's just a basic progression of the code.  Nothing big, nothing fancy, just a few neat little things and quite a few bug fixes.  There were also some things that were slated for 3.6.9 that didn't make it, and those are going into 3.6.10 instead.  There will also be a 3.6.11 at the end of the year, also from the stable tree.

These 3.6.x series of builds is our attempt to bring some stability to the project.  This makes it easier for mods to get new features and get bugs fixed, but without having to do a major overhaul of their data to make it all work.  3.6.10 is going to be data compatible with 3.6.9, so mods shouldn't have to change anything to make it work with the new build, unless they want to take advantage of some of the new features.

3.7 is going to be a HUGE break from the norm.  It will require some mod changes (for some mods anyway), it will move from the registry to ini files, it will be a new launcher, it will be new input and message handling code, it will be a completely rewritten pilot file core, it will be even more cross-platform friendly, it will a largely restructured graphics back-end ... and much more.  That is going to be a big deal and it's going to cause people (both us and you) to make some serious changes.  So, although it's going to be a pretty great thing (we hope), don't rush it.  Just rely on the relative stability from the 3.6.x builds for the next 8-10 months, then will start with some serious 3.7 builds.

- reduced memory footprint (by about half)

how'd you pull that one off?

I'm friggin awesome.  Obviously.   

[blackhole]

Or there was a gigantic memory leak that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

 

What?

*ducks under incoming projectile*

[karajorma]

The bug of player be able to use afterburners in AI control mode is also horrible

That one is fixed already. I noticed it just before BtRL shipped so I had to fix it quickly.

[jr2]

.. Where were you shipping it? 

[karajorma]

Beyond the Red Line of course.

[Mr_Maniac]

Oh come on... DX10 is a joke....

You may not like it, but you have to admit that Shader Modal 4.0 is very impressive. I almost drool at the thought of being able to create geometry with a shader. What does make it a joke is the fact that almost no hardware supports it.

Well... SM 4.0 != DX10!
It's also possible with OGL! DX10 is just an API and Microsoft just specifys what features the GFX-Card have to support to be a "DX10" Card.

[ShivanSpS]

The bug of player be able to use afterburners in AI control mode is also horrible

That one is fixed already. I noticed it just before BtRL shipped so I had to fix it quickly.

oh, but i think that my bug report in mantis is still open :O

[karajorma]

*closed bug*

Hmm. Haven't done that in far too long.

[IPAndrews]

I want to hear more about this sudden decrease in memory usage.  Please?

[taylor]

I want to hear more about this sudden decrease in memory usage.  Please?

Just removing a bunch of crap off of the stack, getting D3D compiled out, cleaning out a couple of structs which had useless data, dealing with textures in OpenGL differently, dealing with various memory fragmentation issues, etc.  And it will get even better post-3.6.10 as I start rewriting the old graphics code to work better with modern graphics APIs (which will make graphics faster and more efficient too).

[IPAndrews]

Strangely it's these kind of background developments that really get me excited. Needless to say I am very excited right now. 

[DaBrain]

I'm friggin awesome.  Obviously.   

I agree.


@Mr_Maniac SM 4.0 means either using lots of different extensions, or waiting OpenGL 2.1

Also I'm wondering... what exactly would you use SM4.0 for?

Look at Eve Online. It's using SM 1.1 and still looks neat.
You're pretty limited with that though...

[taylor]

Strangely it's these kind of background developments that really get me excited. Needless to say I am very excited right now. 

I'm making changes like those constantly though, so it's nothing new.  I run the game through Valgrind every couple of months looking for now memory leaks/errors, and I always compile my own builds with GProf support in order to identify and fix slow parts of the code.  I'm also constantly planning changes to increase graphics performance and phasing in the changes in stages to help prevent problems.  And now that I don't have to worry about keeping D3D working at the same time, it's a lot easier to make these sorts of changes quickly and efficiently.

[Kaine]

that's why we love you taylor <3

[Mustang19]

I agree. Ditch D3D. I actually have an Intel integrated card that won't support OpenGL, but what the hell. It's about time you guys moved on, there are few FSers who really need D3D support still.

[blackhole]

I prefer D3D over openGL, mostly because i hate openGL's API (i've used a bit of it before).

That said, there wouldn't be any problems going totally openGL. nVidia just fixed their Vista graphics drivers to fully support openGL, so as a player i wouldn't care.

[jr2]

OGL cards aren't that expensive... really.  Go check them out.