Shelter from Magnus' Blaze 4 : III - Morrowind

» Sat May 28, 2011 11:40 am

Okay, I did some more testing. I skipped DL texture & mesh creation and only generated statics.

Min. size 0, skip 0 mipmap levels: fatal OutOfMemoryException error.
Min. size 150, skip 0 mipmap levels: fatal OutOfMemoryException error.
Min. size 0, skip 3 mipmap levels: success, 2 non-fatal warnings I mentioned above.

It seems that the workaround is setting "mipmap levels to skip" to something above zero.

BUT.

I remembered patching my morrowind.exe with http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php to avoid crashes in win7 x64. I decided to try the same patch on MGEXEgui.exe, and then regenerated DL three times in a row with my initial settings (min. size 0, skip 0) with NO errors whatsoever. That is, even the non-fatal warnings are now gone.

Hrnchamd, I surely hope this will be reproducible for you as well. I made sure not to change any other settings between tests.

If there is any more information I can give you, I'll be happy to help.

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:47 pm

I have twice attempted to regenerate the distant land meshes and textures using MGEXE 0.8.14, but received the following error message:

I tried again about half an hour ago. The same error message appeared. What might be useful for you to know, however, is that most of the distant land generation process works normally. It's only in the final stage, when MGE is 'Generating [the] distant textures set', that the message appears and everything comes to a halt.

The error does not coincide with the start of the texture set generation process; it occurs a few minutes later.

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:25 pm

0.8.15 released

Config

More error checking in texture generation phase. Single texture errors will log a warning instead of an error, out of memory exceptions may still be a problem.
MGEXEgui is compiled with 4GB large address awareness by default.

Still needs comment

Sunshaft sundisc colouring and sunset colour scattering.
SSAO Fast shader rewritten due to the temporal aliasing on grass. Please test it and compare the quality and fps to SSAO HQ.
New shadow map softening method. Designed to reduce pixelation of shadows cast at long distances, may look different at close range.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:39 pm

Sunshaft sundisc colouring and sunset colour scattering - looking awesome with the color transition on the sundisc while sunset, no more white sundisc on sunset/rise. for my taste i would like to have the sunshafts 100% stronger while sun gets close to horizon. it looks fantastic when sun moves behind a distant hill, where the sunshafts glare straight into the sky - i would like this effect to be stronger.
New shadow map softening method - the shadows realy look better with that, very clean even on different distances. but i sometimes have a line where no shadows are drawn on the lower half of my screen while looking on large shadow area from above.
auto fov - i realy like that feature, i never touched fov before but its much better with this activated. but now the ssao is sometimes not visible on the edges of my screen (1920x1200 @ 85,28)
interior caustics - looking great but are not visble from above water

i experience strong lag on mouseclicks often scince 0.8.14, sometimes the game just dont recognises that i clicked the mouse - very noticable in inventory and when selecting spells in spell menu.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:07 pm

I just updated from MGE 3.7.2 to MGE 3.8.2 rev178 and then MGE XE 0.8.15 on my testing install of Morrowind. I must say, I pretty blown away by the difference the new shaders, water effects and especially shadows make!

I've been testing different areas by recalling around to my various marks all over Vvardenfell, Mournhold, and land added by user made mods (multi-mark, of course) and so far everything looks and runs great. I have noticed a bit of drop in performance from my main installation that still is running MGE 3.7.2 (no shaders enabled in that game though so that may be the difference) in some places, but nothing that makes the game unplayable by any means ... the lowest fps I saw was around 30 with a couple dips into the 20s which in my opinion is perfectly fine for a game like Morrowind. I'm using the higher quality versions of the shaders that offer a choice, and a minimum static size of 100 ... distant static sizes of 400/400/600 and a draw distance of 13 cells.

Only slight bug I noticed was the mouse click lag mentioned above in inventory when selecting spells or inventory items. Outside of the inventory screen I didn't notice any mouse click lag at all. Not a big deal really, but a bit annoying when you think you've picked a new spell or inventory item only to get back into the game and realize your selection didn't take.

Otherwise, fantastic work! Thanks for making Morrowind more beautiful than ever ... I do believe this will be migrating to my main playing installation in very short order.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:09 am

You might find the stuff on dual-resolution ao http://www.slideshare.net/NVIDIA/multilayer-dualresolution-screenspace-ambient-occlusion useful

Thanks, this is pretty interesting. They want to do a different 3x3 or 5x5 sample kernel to check variance and then recalculate more samples again? That sounds almost as slow as doing the original thing, ha.

- When loading a game with Distand Land turned on on default, as soon as the load bar goes to the end, the music kicks in, but I have to wait a couple of seconds before I can actually play - when Distant Land is turned off on loading, the game starts normally. I remember that this started to occur to me in some first svn revision of the main MGE. What could possibly cause this?

MGE doesn't know when to start loading until Morrowind is finished loading and has drawn its first frame, started audio and stuff.

- Purely theoretical now - since there is some modifications to the sky dome since recent XE releases, is there a possibility of volumetric clouds?

I don't know. Most of the work on that is art assets and drawing alpha particles is heavy on any graphics card. It's pretty hard to get particle clouds that look better than a texture.

i experience strong lag on mouseclicks often scince 0.8.14, sometimes the game just dont recognises that i clicked the mouse - very noticable in inventory and when selecting spells in spell menu.

It's the menu caching, it has to trigger somehow to redraw changes. I could move it to the frame after the mouse is released, it may be better that way.

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:03 pm

In the new version, enabling HDR shader makes it impossible to double-click on the minimap and set a note. I'm certain it wasn't the case with the previous version.

Other than that, everything is perfect.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:18 am

Distant land generation no longer crashes on my machine - thank you for the fix. The problem was caused by a single texture, sized 4*4 pixels.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:27 am

Hey Hrnchamd,
I'm not able to get MGE XE to work.
I updated my directx as you recommended & use newest drivers (hd 5850, Win7 x64).
Distand land & statics are generated, but as soon as I try to load a save or start a new game it crashes instantly.
Both MGE rev 178 & 186 work without problems (just crash on exit with rev 186).
I installed your XE on top of rev 178.
My MGEXE.txt

Spoiler

MGE XE 0.8.13
MWSE dll injected
>> CreateD3DWrapper
-- CreateD3DWrapper calling Direct3DCreate9
<< CreateD3DWrapper
>> D3D Proxy CreateDevice
-- D3D Proxy Factory OK
<< D3D Proxy CreateDevice
>> CreateInputWrapper
<< CreateInputWrapper
-- Proxy Keyboard OK
-- Proxy Mouse OK

And that's it. So it seems there is no distant land init, I suppose.
Tried that with an unmodded game, too as well as with later XE versions 14, 15-but just no luck. :sad:

» Sat May 28, 2011 7:45 am

Hey Hrnchamd,
I'm not able to get MGE XE to work.
I updated my directx as you recommended & use newest drivers (hd 5850, Win7 x64).
Distand land & statics are generated, but as soon as I try to load a save or start a new game it crashes instantly.

Sorry about this, it is crashing early. Check the new shader files are installed correctly. Disable MWSE and turn off auto-crosshair and test it. If it's still crashing please send me the info from the more details link in the Windows crash report.

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:00 am

I'm not able to get MGE XE to work.
I updated my directx as you recommended & use newest drivers (hd 5850, Win7 x64).
Distand land & statics are generated, but as soon as I try to load a save or start a new game it crashes instantly.
Both MGE rev 178 & 186 work without problems (just crash on exit with rev 186).
I installed your XE on top of rev 178.

I had almost the exact problem for a few weeks, recently tried disabling Windows DEP for Morrowind.exe and now it works fine, might be an idea to give that a go.

Looking ridiculously pretty now, but having a bit of performance trouble than vanilla MGE, although running exponential/scattering and a bloom shader now. Going to play around with some settings to see if I can claw my way back towards a more playable FPS.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:31 am

Ok thanks. I give both of your advice a try & report back tomorrow. Haven't got the time right now.

ff:

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:04 am

Wow, I just got MGE XE working in game and it looks really nice! The macro functions for camera movement aren't working though, do I have to do anything specific to make them work?

» Sat May 28, 2011 11:49 am

Ya need to have the 3rd person camera option turned on, and switched to third person mode.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:09 pm

ok so i just dl'd this amazing piece of work, and i dig it! however, there's a few issues.

the SSAO high quality shader seems...broken? idk i cant see the effect on anything, really. also i have the recommended setup for shaders in the op.

i get very odd micro-studdering, with shadows both enabled and disabled. its like im not lagging, but my char takes a step and it seems like it takes a fraction of a second for the movement to complete. im not sure if its just my pc or not?

there is something AWFULLY wrong with the mge to mw view distance blender. i cant describe in words, so il take some pics soon. its like it doesnt even make sense to be honest...its so unnatural.

also, this may be user error, but i cant seem to get shadows on anything outside of morrowind's regular view distance? distant objects dont cast a shadow, but as i move forward i can see the shadows getting drawn.

it is a but more prone to crashing, which isnt a bad thing really. its beta i know.

these are my logs.

Spoiler

000000: Program Started 000000: Computer Name: Kenneth 000000: Creating Windows 000000: Begin loading of archive header and invalidation of archived files 000000: Finished with header loading and invalidation 000000: Initializing Main 000001: Video adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 (8.17.12.6658) 000612: Creating Scene 000612: Loading Master/Plugin 001225: Done Loading Master/Plugin 001225: Done Creating Scene 001225: Done Initalizing Main 001633: Loading...Loading Objects from file... 001837: Loading...Initializing Loaded Objects... 001938: Loading...Initializing Player 3D... 001938: Loading...Initializing Player Mob... 002040: Loading...Initializing Loaded References... 002142: Loading...Resetting projectiles... 002142: Loading...Resetting Spellmanager... 002142: Loading...Parsing Quests... 002142: Loading...Done. 013590: Loading...Unloading current state... 013896: Loading...Loading Objects from file... 014000: Loading...Initializing Loaded Objects... 014102: Loading...Initializing Player 3D... 014102: Loading...Initializing Player Mob... 014103: Loading...Initializing Loaded References... 014205: Loading...Resetting projectiles... 014205: Loading...Resetting Spellmanager... 014205: Loading...Parsing Quests... 014205: Loading...Done. 021163: Loading...Unloading current state... 021469: Loading...Loading Objects from file... 021673: Loading...Initializing Loaded Objects... 021774: Loading...Initializing Player 3D... 021774: Loading...Initializing Player Mob... 021775: Loading...Initializing Loaded References... 021877: Loading...Resetting projectiles... 021877: Loading...Resetting Spellmanager... 021877: Loading...Parsing Quests... 021877: Loading...Done. 233633: Begin Saving... 233633: ...Prepare files 233633: ...Create TES and Fill and Save header 233633: ...SAVE globals and classes 233633: ...SAVE factions 233633: ...SAVE scripts and regions 233633: ...SAVE the spells 233633: ...SAVE all objects 233735: ...SAVE all Cells and Refs 233735: ...SAVE dialogue 233837: ...Close TES and any masters 233837: SAVE COMPLETE.

>> D3D Proxy CreateDevice -- D3D Proxy Factory OK << D3D Proxy CreateDevice >> CreateInputWrapper << CreateInputWrapper -- Proxy Keyboard OK -- Proxy Mouse OK >> Distant Land init >> Distant Land init shader -- Shader compiled OK -- Shadow map shader compiled OK -- Depth shader compiled OK >> Distant Land init post shaders >> Post Process shader init -- Post shader Data Files\shaders\XEshaders\SSAO HQ.fx loaded -- Post shader Data Files\shaders\XEshaders\Depth of Field.fx loaded -- Post shader Data Files\shaders\XEshaders\Sunshafts.fx loaded -- Post shader Data Files\shaders\XEshaders\Underwater Effects.fx loaded -- Post shader Data Files\shaders\XEshaders\HDR.fx loaded -- Shader chain indicates HDR On << Post Process shader init >> Distant Land init depth >> Distant Land init shadow >> Distant Land init water >> Distant Land init world >> Landscape Load -- Landscape textures loaded << Landscape Load >> Distant Land init statics Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall14.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall13.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_metal_iron_rusty.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_trim03.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe10.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe00.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv12.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv11.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall14.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall13.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_metal_iron_rusty.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_trim03.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe10.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe00.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv12.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv11.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall14.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_wall13.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_metal_iron_rusty.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_trim03.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe10.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_rustpipe00.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv12.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures\tx_dwrv_obsrv11.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures/tx_dwrv_trim03.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures/tx_dwrv_rustpipe10.tga Cannot load texture data files\textures/tx_dwrv_rustpipe00.tga -- Distant Land finished loading distant statics >> Distant Land init fog << Distant Land init

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:18 am

0.8.16 released

XE

Menu caching moved to frame after mouse click, should improve click response.
Fixed distant land error reporting not to crash if an exceptional error occurs during initial loading, a warning should show up instead.

Config

Remap editor fixed and working.
Distant texture generator will ignore textures that would be reduced too much by mip skipping.

Assets

Includes modified muck pond and lava meshes for the distant land generator that avoids z-fighting with the water plane in the distance.
Modified ice lake mesh should not be required any more and is no longer included.

Still needs comment

SSAO Fast shader rewritten due to the temporal aliasing on grass. Please test it and compare the quality and fps to SSAO HQ.
Grass rendering modes from a couple releases back. Bind toggle grass and check for fps differences.

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:25 pm

Config

Remap editor fixed and working.

Testing, remapper is working without errors, I'm going to test it ingame and see if I can actually type properly next, will report results...

EDIT: Keys appear to be the same as before, typing the Dvorak keyboard's home row, "aoeuidhtns" appears as if I were using qwerty still displaying, "asdfghjkl;'". Am I doing something wrong? Or is this not how the remapper is meant to be used?

EDIT again: Wait, I need to test this again, it appears the remapper acts like Morrowind does, it thinks Dvorak keystrokes are Qwerty ones, I'll have to remap my keys as if I'm using qwerty. Will report back once I'm done.

EDIT yet again: Remapper works! I can finally type stuff in the game! It took me forever to remap the keys but I did it. Thanks for fixing that feature Hrnchamd!! :hugs:

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:50 pm

General comments on 0.8.16 (BTW I'm using Win7 x64 with ATI HD 5770):

Pros:
-This looks great overall!!!
-I love "crosshair autohide"
-Stability is greatly improved compared to MGE 3.8.2svn186

Cons:
-The grass animation during storms looks excessively large
-Raindrops abruptly vanish when I look up. (But I am using custom raindrop meshes).
-SSAO does not appear to work indoors, or maybe it's just that "SSAO Fast" is extremely subtle.
-HDR effect is not noticable compared to what I was seeing with MGE.
-"Ownership Indicator.esp" did not work, but it didn't really crash the game either
-I think I see shadows moving at nighttime. Are these from moonlight or from the sun underneath the horizon?
-Frame rate is a problem; I used to rely heavily on the "auto-adjust view distance based on FPS" feature in MGE. Now, I'm getting 8-13 FPS. Pelagiad is pretty slow with both Vality's and Vurt's trees.
-I also miss dynamic water

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:49 am

Since a few versions (.13 or .14), I keep on getting the same crash during Distant Land Generation. In the generation of distant textures, it halts saying "Fatal error occurred ... D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA: Invalid data (-2005529767)"

Although the errors for other people have been solved, this one persists for me, even with your latest .16 version. I tried changing a lot of variables during the process, but nothing seemed to help.

http://pastebin.com/vbSFJ2Rd is the crash report as produced by distant-land-crash-dump. Looks like there's some faulty texture somewhere, any way of finding out which one is causing this?

» Sat May 28, 2011 7:01 am

More notes on 0.8.16:
-SSAO HQ, like SSAO fast, doesn't seem to have any effect whatsoever
-There is a pure white circle if I look perfectly straight up while outside. I'm set up to view 4 cells of distant land with exponential "vertex range" fogging and I have the "high quality atmosphere" setting turned on.
-If I cast a fireball horizontally and a long distance while outside, entire random trees will light up and then turn back to normal.
-I was wrong about the rain, it seems sometimes it looks fine even if I look upwards. It doesn't always disappear off abruptly like I first thought.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:37 pm

Blouge do you have the 'enable shaders' option ticked? Because I'm able to use SSAO just fine.

I haven't checked for performance differences but SSAO fast looks much better on grass, and it hasn't been noticably worse elsewhere.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:00 pm

ok so i just dl'd this amazing piece of work, and i dig it! however, there's a few issues.

the SSAO high quality shader seems...broken? idk i cant see the effect on anything, really. also i have the recommended setup for shaders in the op.

i get very odd micro-studdering, with shadows both enabled and disabled. its like im not lagging, but my char takes a step and it seems like it takes a fraction of a second for the movement to complete. im not sure if its just my pc or not?

there is something AWFULLY wrong with the mge to mw view distance blender. i cant describe in words, so il take some pics soon. its like it doesnt even make sense to be honest...its so unnatural.

also, this may be user error, but i cant seem to get shadows on anything outside of morrowind's regular view distance? distant objects dont cast a shadow, but as i move forward i can see the shadows getting drawn.

it is a but more prone to crashing, which isnt a bad thing really. its beta i know.

As for the micro-stuttering, do You use a x2 card? HD 3850x2, GeForce 9800GX2? This is known issue with these dual cards, I have one and I have the same issue. The framerate seems to be high, but the are some stutter that is hard to describe. I don't know if this is a same case in CrossFireX or SLI, if is, try disabling one GPU.

» Sat May 28, 2011 11:35 am

I think the shadows on 2D planes needs to be tweaked, they're extremely harsh, it often looks like the leaves has been dipped in black ink. They don't keep any of their original colors it seems, e.g a green leaf should be dark green and not black.

http://piclair.com/data/4qa7w.jpg. I also tested a completely white texture on the leaves and even that texture got parts that were completely black, i tried flipping around the normals too, doesnt seem to make a difference.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:01 pm

.16

i also cant see AO in interiors, with HQ and fast, and the same fps, and on my fps spot i have now 3 fps less then with .14

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:06 pm

Ok, so I disabled Windows DEP for Morrowind.exe and XE is working now. Looking forward to future releases. Good Job, Hrnchamd.