[chief1983]

RC5 here. Go there.


RC4!  Now with more bugs fixed!  And no energy draining sugar!
Previous 3.6.14 RC3 Release Thread

Important!!
As always, you need OpenAL installed.  Linux and OS X come with it but Windows users will need to get Creative's OpenAL installer.

Important!!
Also, since the internal code linking for TrackIR was revised, an external DLL is now required for FSO to use TrackIR functions.
The following DLL is simply unpacked in to you main FreeSpace2 root dir.
TrackIR is only supported on Windows.
TrackIR SCP DLL

Launchers, if you don't have one already:
Windows:  Launcher 5.5g (Mirror) (Mirror) (Mirror)
OS X:  Soulstorm's OS X Launcher 3.0
Linux:  YAL or by hand or whatever you can figure out.
All platforms:  wxLauncher (ongoing project for a unified launcher)

Known issues:

• The now-standard Inferno builds have trouble converting retail pilots.  You might experience crashes.  Post logs.
• See the list of Fix for next release bugs - mark a bug as an elevated priority (high, urgent, immediate) to get it included in that filter.
• Here is the filter for Target 3.6.14 bugs.
• Fades loop badly (#2538)
• Previous attempt at text display glitches caused some fonts to be skewed beyond legibility (fixed in 8417+8420)

Shaders
In order to leverage changes in the shader code since 3.6.12, these are to be used to over-ride the MediaVPs shaders or in use for any mods.
Includes the Animated/Cloakmap shaders as well as optimized pixel lighting fragment shaders.

Shaders-3.6.14_Jan-23.zip (Mirror) (Mirror) (Mirror)
MD5: 31b92c6a89fdf9fb490fca970e349932

WINDOWS Builds

Inferno Builds
If you don't know which one to get, get the third one (no SSE).  If you don't know what SSE means, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions
You can use freely available tools like CPU-Z to check which SSE capabilities your CPU has.

fs2_open_3_6_14_RC4.zip (Mirror) (Mirror)
This one is based on the SSE2 Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.
MD5: 6e70ae2d459961796770fff214007635

fs2_open_3_6_14_RC4_SSE.zip (Mirror) (Mirror)
This one is based on the SSE Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.
MD5: ed057610eae37701736a5f7c73607984

fs2_open_3_6_14_RC4_NO-SSE.zip (Mirror) (Mirror)
MD5: 862edc8c4fe7f0d97c95e703659a3935

What are those SSE and SSE2 builds I keep seeing everywhere?
Your answer is in this topic.


OS X Builds

Inferno Build
FS2_Open-3.6.14_RC4.dmg (Mirror) (Mirror)
MD5: f24f4477a114f71128c46582603d5bd6


LINUX Builds

Inferno Build
fs2_open_3.6.14_RC4.tar.bz2 (Mirror) (Mirror)
MD5: 74195b08e7f6593b0ba56894ce3b3942

Source Code Export
fs2_open_3_6_14_RC4_src.tgz (Mirror) (Mirror)
MD5: f0badbac45da1d6dd15654a5cdd30ca4


Changelog since the last RC:
( Additionally, see here: 3.6.13 Changelog (since 3.6.12) )

Code: [Select]

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r8331 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:47:28 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8254; Fixes #2571 - Changes a value in each config to match the config name.
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r8332 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:52:47 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8260; Fix for mantis #0002480: when emptying secondary banks use the standard function...
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r8333 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:53:43 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8261; Fix for Mantis 2572: Just dont render 0.0 Laser Length weapons
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r8334 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:54:20 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8262; need to use subsystem_stricmp for subsystems
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r8335 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:56:33 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8263 + 8271; Fix for Mantis 2573: Special Hitpoint settings get carried over when deleting and adding ships in FRED && update to revision 8263: one should probably reset the special shields if you reset special hitpoints
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r8336 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:57:30 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8265; Fix for Mantis 2553: Fix overdrawing subspace glows by changing them from thrusters to normal bitmaps therefore avoiding a render time problem with the thruster geometry batcher.
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r8337 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:58:29 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8266; Fix for Mantis 2574: Timestamps do not work that way, also fixed the rapid fire "Out of Energy" sound for fighter beams.
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r8338 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:59:07 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8269; These error messages need to be waay clearer
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r8339 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 22:59:41 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8270; Fix for Mantis 2461: Check to see if the reduced damp timestamp is valid so we don't get ridiculous acceleration values.
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r8340 | chief1983 | 2012-01-22 23:00:22 -0600 (Sun, 22 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8272; Fix for Mantis 2576: Use the beam direction as the applied force vector
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r8342 | Zacam | 2012-01-23 12:11:25 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8274-8286; LLVM Warnings Fixes from Echelon9.
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r8343 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 12:18:54 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8289 + 8310; Fix for Mantis 2522: Moved the calculation of the sprite rotation to get the updated orientation matrix after dock calculation. && Follow up to 8289: Change the rotation back to relative cause of flipping out billboards at certain viewing angles and fix the dock rotation another way.
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r8345 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:20:59 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8291; Fix a few unused variable warnings that popped up after recent commits by Echelon9
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r8346 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:21:49 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8293; Small scripting documentation fix: modeltextures -> modeltextures_h.
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r8347 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:22:33 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8294; Fix for Mantis 2575: Don't increment array indices without checking for the maximum.
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r8348 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:36:01 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8295; tie scramble-messages and unscramble-messages into the communications subsystem status so that they will affect all aspects of communications in a consistent way (squadmsg menu, dashed text, etc.)also make hud_communications_state() be a pure function, i.e. one without side effectsalso fixes Mantis #2577
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r8349 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:37:35 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8297; Purely aesthetic. I have no idea what a packlock is.
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r8351 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:53:33 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8298 + 8350; From Valathil: Adjusts view point rotation in 3rd Person/chase view. This is especially apparent in Nebula missions where rotating in Chase View is radically different from cockpit view. This fix corrects that, and has additionally been tested in Multiplayer. && Follow up to 8289 + 8310: Make the sprite rotation independent of the camera direction and revert the docking change and make it simpler
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r8352 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:56:02 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8299 + 8302; the proper way to fix Mantis #2441 is by modifying the team_visibility_update function && follow-up to 8299: we need to check visibility for our own team in case we have a friendly-stealth-invisible ship covered by AWACS, or something\nalso, clarify terminology: in-frustum/not-in-frustum replaces visible/invisible\nand do some minor rewrites for additional clarification
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r8353 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 16:59:19 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8300; don't remove the escort flag from invisible ships that aren't on the escort list (fixes Mantis #2057).  also, don't remove dead or dying ships from the escort list, because due to the design of the culling function, they were never removed previously
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r8354 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:00:04 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8301; Documentation: Missionweaponchoice.cpp and related changes. Removed a few redundant functions.
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r8355 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:00:34 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8304; Documentation: pedantic rename of this function to describe it better
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r8356 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:01:18 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8305; quash a warning
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r8357 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:04:12 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8326; Fixes #2578 - Change the < in these checks against NAME_LENGTH to <=.
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r8358 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:06:05 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8327 + 8341; Fix for Mantis 1997: 'Filename too long' warning for nonexistant textures. && Followup to 8327: Texture names from pofs are provided without extension, so we have to make sure to account for it.
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r8359 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:16:30 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8329; fix Mantis #2579
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r8360 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 17:16:58 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8344; Fix for Mantis 2580: Use the texture matrix in the vertex shader to support texture panning.
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r8364 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 18:14:49 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk r8361; upgrades to the docking system to incorporate docking animations -- incidentally, fixes Mantis #2581.  also, remove DOCK_BACKUP_RETURN_VAL which never did anything even in retail
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r8365 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 18:18:31 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk r8362; Makes a very strangely coded warning more readable and useful.
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r8366 | chief1983 | 2012-01-23 18:19:14 -0600 (Mon, 23 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8363; Fix for Mantis 2583: Reinitialize the timer right when changing selection modes.
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r8371 | chief1983 | 2012-01-25 15:19:10 -0600 (Wed, 25 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8368; Fix for Mantis 2556: Check if the mouse cursor is really there before drawing it.
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r8372 | chief1983 | 2012-01-25 15:37:25 -0600 (Wed, 25 Jan 2012) | 1 line

Backport: Trunk 8369; From Eli2: Mantis #2538: Fade-in time limitation.  Testing in Multiplayer as well, no drastic incompatibility found. (If the host is patched but the client is not, then the timing returns are a little funny, but it doesn't cause for any crashes)
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r8374 | chief1983 | 2012-01-25 23:27:06 -0600 (Wed, 25 Jan 2012) | 3 lines

Backport: Trunk 8373; partial fix for Mantis #2582:
--add Vasudan Admiral's fix for setting submodels to their initial positions
--add trigger for moving submodels to their docked positions when an initially-docked ship arrives
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r8375 | chief1983 | 2012-01-25 23:47:25 -0600 (Wed, 25 Jan 2012) | 1 line

RC4 BUILD STAGE COMMIT: Sets Revision and Version properties to this commit version.
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[chief1983]

From IssMneur's post in the RC3 thread:

There are two test missions for demoing the effect of the bugs that we are trying to address. The sound code test missions are courtesy Axem.  The archive contains two mission files that you should just place in your data/missions folder or mediavps/data/missions folder.

The two missions are of equal equal importance.  One is a progression of the different storm types (which varies the amount of possibly overlapping thunder sounds), the other is a wing of fighters warping in shortly after the mission starts.  In both cases the intent is to listen for cracking in the sounds.  The default settings of the RC should/do prevent any cracking, however the knobs that are mentioned such as -donotenforce do causing the audio to crack on my system when the fighters warp in or when lighting is very frequent.

See QuantumDelta's demo video of the problem.  Note that the -listenergain as mentioned is the video is not available any longer because there was no debate about its effects (see this old post if it is really bothers you to try listenergain yourself).

The two knobs that can be tweaked are below, note that these flags will not be in the final version of 3.6.14.

• -donotenforce = to turn off concurrent playback limit for sounds.
• -percent_flashtobang = sets the default percentage of nebula flashes get converted to bangs.  Default is 50, max 100, min 0.

A response template lifted from Zacam in the original discussion thread.

Code: [Select]

[list]
[li][b]FSO Sound Device Selection:[/b] <to be filled in, copy from the launcher>[/li]
[li][b]Sound Device:[/b] <to be filled in>[/li]
[li][b]Driver:[/b] <to be filled in>[/li]
[li][b]OpenAL version:[/b]  <to be filled in>[/li]
[li][b]OpenAL Soft (version and type):[/b] <to be filled in>[/li]
[li][b]Speaker Setup:[/b] <to be filled in>[/li]
[li][b]Settings found Acceptable:[/b] <to be filled in>[/li]
[/list]

Example values for the above template (again lifted and modified from Zacam's OP):

• FSO Sound Device Selection: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi) via DirectSound
• Sound Device: X-Fi Fatality XtremeGamer
• Driver: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series driver 2.18.0015
• OpenAL version:  2.0.7.0 Installer (OpenAL 1.1; OpenAL32.dll version 6.14.357.24; wrap_oal.dll version 2.2.0.5)
• OpenAL Soft (version and type): 1.13, soft_oal.dll
• Speaker Setup: 4.1 (Windows: Quadraphonic)
• Settings found Acceptable: -percent_flashtobang 55

EDIT: It wouldn't hurt to suggest initial values for the parameters that people can then tweak, i.e., suggest actual numbers in place of the ones I made up and then tell people to copy the entire resulting string into their custom flags. It'd hopefully make getting the test set up a bit easier, too.

The defaults are the suggested initial values, which is what we are trying to evaluate (that the defaults will be acceptable to most people).

If a modder wants to change the defaults, see this the 7814 commit message.

EDIT: maybe I am done adding stuff, now that people are done deleting stuff and making suggestions

[Cobra]

Any chance that r8337 also fixes the weapon energy bug?

[chief1983]

The weapon energy bug is fixed as indicated by the Mantis ticket that is linked to both the fix in trunk and the backport to 3.6.14.

[Alan Bolte]

I think -percent_flashtobang is bugged. If I set it to 0, it doesn't appear to work - I get plenty of bang with my flash. If I set it to 1, I very rarely hear any bangs, as expected. However, if I add an active nebula to clippingtest.fs2, then even though I hear no thunder I get lots of clipping. Without the nebula, clippingtest.fs2 sounds perfect, as does nebtest.fs2 without the warpout or engine noise of nearby fighters.

[Valathil]

Any chance that r8337 also fixes the weapon energy bug?

You think i've been sitting on my ass the whole time doing nothing.

[Alan Bolte]

I've verified that an outdated version of the OpenAL dll was what was crashing my launcher before. I thought I'd tested that, but whatev.

[Fury]

Was that the official OpenAL? It hasn't been updated since summer 2009.

[Alan Bolte]

It was from 2006.

[SypheDMar]

• FSO Sound Device Selection: Speakers (Conexant 20585 SmartAudio HD) via DirectSound
• Sound Device: Conexant 20585 SmartAudio HD
• Driver: Conexant 20585 SmartAudio HD 4.95.48.50
• OpenAL version: 2.0.7 Installer
• OpenAL Soft (version and type): 1.13, soft_al.dll
• Speaker Setup: Headphones Senheisser HD 650
• Settings found Acceptable: flashtobang 100

EDIT: Every time I load the testing sound clip mission and restart it, the game crashes for me. Is this an issue for anyone else? Here's my debug log:

http://pastebin.com/P5WeuhnM

[Alan Bolte]

Yes, I had the same crash, log is posted in the previous thread.

[niffiwan]

That crash is caused by the mission having 6 ships in Beta & Gamma wing, where you can (in theory) modify the loadouts for Beta and Gamma wing.  However, the code only expects you to have 4 ships in wings that you can modify.  If you look at the ship selection window you'll notice that the Gamma wing has two ships in it and that one is locked.  Those two ships are really Beta 5 & Beta 6.   

I haven't tried to fix this yet because fixing it would probably stop the mission from loading, and that would stop people from being able to give feedback on the sound code changes.  (yes yes, I should probably just modify the mission so that it doesn't have this issue!  i.e. remove Beta & Gamma from "Starting Wings", or add a Delta wing and make Beta/Gamma/Delta all 4 ships).   Anyway, the issue should be in mantis anyway, so thanks for reminding me about this, I'll go add it now 

Edit: I've modified the mission - could someone please update the 2nd post in this thread with this file?  After running some tests of course - just because it worked for me...

[attachment deleted by a ninja]

[Fury]

To enjoy clean audio in FSO with Asus Xonar, open the Xonar's audio center and enable Hi-Fi and GX modes. Then make sure you have official OpenAL installed, link is in the very beginning of the first post in this topic. Next, go to your FS2 folder and remove soft_oal.dll and openal32.dll if present. These files are more than likely from "OpenAL Soft".

Doing all of these steps will have two very noticeable benefits:
1) No more excessively loud sound effects, such as warp in and warp out.
2) Reduces or entirely removes distortion in audio effects.

Edit: ...Unfortunately enabling GX mode causes FSO to crash all the time.
Edit 2: Actually never mind, seems like the crashes were unrelated.

[Cyker]

I just want to double check; Is Launcher 5.5g compatible with 3.6.14?

If I select any of the .14's (including RC4) from Launcher it crashes out

I can see fs2_open_3_6_14_RC4.exe being loaded in the task manager once I pick it from the Launcher and it churns away a bit for ~30% CPU but then instead of the Launcher appearing they both die...

[Fury]

Rename Freespace2\data\cmdline_fso.cfg to cmdline_fso.cfg.old or something. See if that helps.

[The E]

You may have to update your OpenAL installation.

[Cyker]

Good call E!

OpenAL was technically up to date but there was an old OpenAL32.dll in my FS2 folder which I hadn't noticed.

Thanks for the hint; Would have taken me a lot longer to find that!

[Shivan Hunter]

Getting a problem on Post Meridian (and possibly other missions) on RC4 that doesn't happen in RC3. (also holy frak I forgot how awesome WiH was)

Here's the RC4 log where it happens.
Here's the error message it spews; this doesn't happen on the release build so it may be completely irrelevant.
and Here's the RC3 log, I get past the point where it usually happens but then I die because Tevs

It's normally shortly after I've killed Aquarius wing and the Vilnius has jumped in.

[Alan Bolte]

The Uriel does in fact have only 2 docking path points, so I'm gonna guess you've found a new feature rather than a bug - I think you could've kept playing the mission if you'd clicked No.

[Shivan Hunter]

The mission crashes. The Uriel thing may be relevant or irrelevant, but the release build simply crashes with no error. The debug build crashes the same way, but right after throwing up the error (which itself can be skipped past).