[jg18]

I'm working on wxLauncher and was wondering what some of the options in the standard Windows launcher mean.

(1) What are the "general settings" (is that level of detail?) and maybe more importantly, what impact does changing them have on gameplay and performance on machines made since, say, 2004?

(2) same as question (1), except about "large textures" (that is, using them vs. not using them) instead of "general settings"

(3) what is the "font distortion problem", and how common is it on machines made since, say, 2004? Is it Windows-only, or is it also found on other platforms?

Tolwyn's posted readme (section 1.5) from four and a half years ago on Wing Commander Saga Prologue was helpful, but it'd be good to know a little more.

Thanks for your help.

[The E]

"Use large textures" is a leftover bit from the days of Direct3D support, it doesn't do anything ATM. Same for "Fix font distortion".

The "General Settings" thing is there to give quick access to the in-game detail settings. The setting there maps directly to the presets found in the detail options menu.

[jg18]

Thanks for your answers. A few more questions about the standard launcher:

(1) Are Texture Filter, Anisotropic Filter, and Anti-Aliasing features that most users would know how to set up? Are there reasonable default values for these settings? I for one have no idea what those settings mean (I could look them up of course), but since I'm not much of a gamer, I'm probably not representative of most users.

(2) How often, if ever, do users need to force a local port or IP address to play multiplayer?

(3) What effect does defining your Internet connection and connection speed have on multiplayer gameplay?

(4) Are Force Feedback and Directional Hit supported on all 3 platforms? If not, which platform supports what, and is it planned for all 3 platforms to support both features eventually, even if not necessarily in the near future?

(5) Is there a reason for why users would need to view the FS2 registry entries? I didn't see a way to copy or export the contents to e.g., the clipboard or a file.

Thanks for your help.

[MatthTheGeek]

(1) Those settings in the launcher don't work, so don't worry about them.

(2) Port forwarding is required to host multiplayer games. It isn't required for connecting to someone else's host and playing.

(3) Nowadays, unless you have a weird sort of connec, the settings should be LAN/Direct Connection and T1, ADSL, T3, etc.

[jg18]

Thanks, MatthTheGeek.

Just to clarify, I'm working on wxLauncher and trying to figure out what needs to be brought over from the standard launcher and which features can be considered to be "advanced" features (that is, hidden from view, because either they're rarely used or few people use them).

A couple follow-up questions:

(1) Those settings in the launcher don't work, so don't worry about them.

...oh. Is there expected to be support for them eventually, even if not necessarily in the near future?

[It's funny, because Andy Mahood mentioned support for those features in his PC Gamer article...]

(3) Nowadays, unless you have a weird sort of connec, the settings should be LAN/Direct Connection and T1, ADSL, T3, etc.

Good to know, but what effect does your making those settings have on gameplay?

Again, thanks.

[The E]

Thanks for your answers. A few more questions about the standard launcher:

(1) Are Texture Filter, Anisotropic Filter, and Anti-Aliasing features that most users would know how to set up? Are there reasonable default values for these settings? I for one have no idea what those settings mean (I could look them up of course), but since I'm not much of a gamer, I'm probably not representative of most users.

Though they do not work on Windows, they do work on Linux and MacOS. And yes, they need to be present, and yes, most gamers do know what they mean.

(2) How often, if ever, do users need to force a local port or IP address to play multiplayer?

Often enough.

(3) What effect does defining your Internet connection and connection speed have on multiplayer gameplay?

This is more for information purposes for other players than anything else. Note that dialup uses a slightly different code path.

(4) Are Force Feedback and Directional Hit supported on all 3 platforms? If not, which platform supports what, and is it planned for all 3 platforms to support both features eventually, even if not necessarily in the near future?

It should be supported everywhere. If it isn't, we need to fix that, but I do not actually know.

(5) Is there a reason for why users would need to view the FS2 registry entries? I didn't see a way to copy or export the contents to e.g., the clipboard or a file.

Advanced users may want to verify that all settings have been written correctly.

[jg18]

(1) Are Texture Filter, Anisotropic Filter, and Anti-Aliasing features that most users would know how to set up? Are there reasonable default values for these settings? I for one have no idea what those settings mean (I could look them up of course), but since I'm not much of a gamer, I'm probably not representative of most users.

Though they do not work on Windows, they do work on Linux and MacOS. And yes, they need to be present, and yes, most gamers do know what they mean.

Just to clarify, this question was about whether those settings should be visible at all times or hidden (e.g., by clicked on an Advanced... button), not whether they should be kept or removed. Are there reasonable default settings other than (Bilinear, off, off) ?

(2) How often, if ever, do users need to force a local port or IP address to play multiplayer?

Often enough.

As above, the question was to clarify whether they should be hidden or visible at all times. I was particularly interested because the multiplayer setup instructions (step 5) say "DO NOT TOUCH THE BOTTOM BOXES! [sic]"

(4) Are Force Feedback and Directional Hit supported on all 3 platforms? If not, which platform supports what, and is it planned for all 3 platforms to support both features eventually, even if not necessarily in the near future?

It should be supported everywhere. If it isn't, we need to fix that, but I do not actually know.

Iss Mneur has told me that neither joystick option is implemented in SDL at this time, which is why I asked.

Thanks.

[The E]

Oh, these are definitely all "advanced" options.

[chief1983]

Yeah we haven't gotten around to finishing what Taylor started and getting the SDL updated to use the haptic support on the *nix platforms yet, so force feedback is currently Windows only because it still uses DirectInput.  We need to move Windows to SDL input and get the haptic stuff that Taylor worked on implemented at some point.

With the recent FXAA addition to the shaders, I think it'd be nice to have the AA slider adjust its setting instead, but that's just me.  Post processing doesn't work with anti-aliasing if I recall anyway, so the only users really benefitting from the driver level AA are those that can't run shaders, and they probably don't have the extra power to spare for AA anyway.

I wouldn't worry about the registry display much.  I'd really rather see the engine move away from using the registry on Windows as part of the move to wxLauncher.  We also need to stop writing files outside of %APPDATA%.  I'd also like to crap gold bricks though, so we'll see if any of my hopes and dreams come true.

[jg18]

With the recent FXAA addition to the shaders, I think it'd be nice to have the AA slider adjust its setting instead, but that's just me.  Post processing doesn't work with anti-aliasing if I recall anyway, so the only users really benefitting from the driver level AA are those that can't run shaders, and they probably don't have the extra power to spare for AA anyway.

Hmm. Does that mean that (1) people who can use shaders don't need to use AA and (2) people who can't use shaders don't need to use AA?

I wouldn't worry about the registry display much.

Does that mean "the registry view doesn't need to appear in the launcher for the benefit of the vanishingly few Windows users who might want it" or "enough Windows users might benefit from it that it's worth including it on Windows, but it could/should be buried in the UI behind an 'Advanced Users Only! Scary Registry Stuff in Here!' barrier of some kind (e.g., Advanced... button?)"

Just because a non-zero number of users might potentially benefit from a feature doesn't IMO necessarily mean it should appear in the launcher.

Also consider that that feature currently isn't in wxLauncher, although *nix users have it easy in that they can just look at fs2_open.ini if they want to know these things.

[The E]

Hmm. Does that mean that (1) people who can use shaders don't need to use AA and (2) people who can't use shaders don't need to use AA?

Uhh. No. And no. There are two antialiasing methods available. One is driver/hardware side AA. This is available on all modern graphics hardware, but (for some reason) won't work when post-processing is active. You can use it, even without shaders, but if your card isn't able to run shaders, you probably won't have the power necessary to use AA.
The other method, FXAA, is designed to overcome the problem of hardware AA not working with post-processing, by using a shader to do edge detection and smoothing in a post-processing stage.

Also note that as far as I am aware, Hardware AA always works on Linux/MacOS, regardless of post-processing being active.

[chief1983]

I'm just saying, I think FXAA could phase out hardware AA, because anyone running the shaders can probably handle it, and anyone not capable of running shaders probably can't do hardware AA either.

[Kolgena]

Real anti-aliasing (when it works) still looks loads better in many cases, as it doesn't do massive screen blur, and is much better at handling sub-pixel detail. I don't see why you would want FXAA to be used to replace it.

[MatthTheGeek]

I have stopped using FXAA after a few minutes simply because it's unplayably blurry.

[Iss Mneur]

I wouldn't worry about the registry display much.  I'd really rather see the engine move away from using the registry on Windows as part of the move to wxLauncher.  We also need to stop writing files outside of %APPDATA%.  I'd also like to crap gold bricks though, so we'll see if any of my hopes and dreams come true.

You can think of the registry as a euphemism for fs2_open.ini on the SCP_UNIX platforms because even if they don't have "the registry" they still use a text replacement for it.

I would also like to note, the registry is the standard windows way of storing most of the settings that we store there, the engine even writes to some them to store in game settings that are not stored in the pilot files, which is why we currently cannot remove support for the registry (or its equivalent).  The primary problem with the registry and FSO is specifically our use of the registry nothing inherent to the registry itself.

On that note, I plan on fixing our incorrect use of the registry and our writing to places outside of %APPDATA% by the end of the year, because I understand that Windows 8 will not include the compatibility shims that we rely on.

[chief1983]

Honestly, I'd rather use the ini on all platforms instead of the registry, but if you're referring to switching to HKCU instead of HKLM at some point, that at least needs to be done, yes.

[Zacam]

Honestly, I'd rather use the ini on all platforms instead of the registry..

This. A thousand times yes, this. Please.