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This is honestly a great little feature in order to know if you installed TFix correctly, especially for newbies.Originally Posted by voodoo47
yes.
Hi there! New to the forums.
Just wanted to report a weird glitch that happens in T2Fix, specifically when playing in 2560x1600x32 resolution, where these white lines appear on the right and bottom of the screen.
This glitch seems to be tied to the gamma, anything above default gamma results in these borders appearing, and it seems to be triggered by certain areas of the game. This doesn't happen with any other resolution that I've tried. I've tried tinkering with the cam_ext.cfg options and it appears that turning off "d3d_disp_sw_cc" greatly reduces the effect to where the borders are only 1 or 2 pixels thick, but it's still annoying and immersion breaking, specially in very dark environments when you have this constant thin white outline flickering the whole time.
Hi Jax
Have you been keeping an eye on the Thief Buddy thread?
I made a post about TB screenshots being saved as standard Thief low brightness (ie almost impossible to see any detail) even though I play Thief with my gamma turned almost to the top, this default darkness of all screenshots regardless of gamma setting has been a minor bugbear of mine for years, as players regularly post screenshots on the forum without using a picture editor to brighten them beforehand, case in question is the recent 'post your most atmospheric screenshots' thread, in which almost every ones screenshots are so dark no one can see any detail.
Anyway VoiceActor pointed out a simple fix for saving screenshots with the gamma setting set as the player intended, namely uncommenting a line in cam_ext folder
According to Fen one of the things this does is improve gamma in the saved screenshots (and lets plays video, please all of you uncomment this line now), as well as what it says in brackets, and he suggests that this screenshot fix should be included in the next T2Fix as an optional extra (by default maybe not a good idea for authors, see screenshots below), which I think would be an excellent idea.Code:; enable software (ie. shader) based gamma and color processing (improves quality at the expense of performance, ; and also enables in-game gamma to be applied in windowed mode) ;d3d_disp_sw_cc
What do you think?
Do others think this would be a good default +/or optional addition to T2Fix?
Edit: Ha ha Just read the post above and bingo that post is also related to d3d_disp_sw_cc albeit for a completely different reason.
Last edited by fortuni; 22nd Feb 2023 at 08:24. Reason: Amended incorrect info + deleted by default idea
To be clear, it does do what it says, it does allow gamma to be applied in windowed mode. But it also allows gamma to be captured in screenshots/videos. I'd imagine these two things are just results of the same process, it probably puts the gamma correction somewhere in the pipeline where Windowed mode can "see" it, and consequently capturing apps can "see" it too.
I would further imagine that the NewDark author(s) simply intended to allow gamma in windowed mode and didn't realize it had this other beneficial side effect, so didn't document it.
Last edited by FenPhoenix; 21st Feb 2023 at 20:11.
@ Fen
Thanks for the correction.
anything that reduces performance significantly is not a good addition to the default config.
Do you know if it reduces performance in game? Fen has done extensive testing with this and had noticed no change in game play.
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthre...=1#post2498153
The word performance here specifically says in windowed mode, ie when using Dromed, but if it does not affect in game performance / in game gamma I don't see any issue, but further investigation would always be a good thing. But your comment about it not being a good idea for the default config stands, can't see any author appreciating having to work in Domed using the last screenshot below, have amended post above to reflect this.
Here are 4 screenshots showing the differences. You can clearly see the performance reduction in the final screenshot.
In Game Commented (Standard screenshot, even with my gamma turned up high)
In Game Uncommented (new look screenshot, with gamma setting high)
Dromed Commented
Dromed Uncommented
Last edited by fortuni; 22nd Feb 2023 at 08:25.
Ideally, I think, would be to enable it for the game, but then put a note in the release notes and any posts about it, that you might want to disable for when working in Dromed. I really don't see the downside here.
Some points:
- I don't think "windowed mode" is anything to do with DromEd. It means you have the game in windowed as opposed to full-screen mode. You can go into cam_ext.cfg and temporarily add the line "force_windowed 1" to run it in windowed mode. If the game resolution is already your monitor's resolution then the window will be the same size as the screen so it will look the same. You can lower the resolution for testing purposes to more clearly see when you're in a window vs. fullscreen.
- I wouldn't call my testing extensive, I just tried some FMs on my own system and didn't notice any framerate difference. I'm using a GTX 1070. Maybe there is a difference on something lesser, like integrated Intel graphics maybe. I don't know, I don't have a PC with that. I invite people who do have something slower than that, or just slower PCs in general, to test this out and report if the option affects game performance at all.
I don't see any performance stats, like fps or what have you, in those pics. Am I missing it?
Hi, fortuni. This particular configuration variable enables software color processing, as noted in the default configuration file, for both the game and the editor when in hardware mode. This does have the nice effect of allowing gamma to work in windowed mode and screenshots to display the proper gamma, along with providing the option for using custom shaders. All of this is just because this processing is done in software rather than hardware, making these effects visible to capture software or even the in-game screenshot system rather than being applied after the fact, so to speak.
As far as performance goes, there will probably be some degradation in general as a natural consequence of this processing being done in software. However, most will probably not see much noticeable difference on modern setups. That said, it is entirely possible that the effect could be more prominent on older ones. The default T2Fix configuration is what is provided with NewDark itself, which seems to be deliberately chosen to be the safest and most compatible combination of settings. As for possibly including it in T2Fix, this option is actually already implemented. If you view the "Configuration Options" menu on the tasks page, there is a checkbox for "Enable Software Gamma", which is just a toggle for this configuration variable. Further, as noted in the first post, selecting the non-default high video preset will enable this option along with a few others.
Thanks for the report. I haven't seen this effect before, though it does look quite distracting in that video. I am not immediately sure what the cause of this would be, but it is odd that it only occurs with a single resolution. Have you tried playing with the postprocessing options as well? Other than suggesting configuration changes, there is little that can reasonably be done to rectify this in T2Fix itself since this seems to be some sort of problem with the game's color processing at that resolution.
My bad...I should've looked over the installer options first!
I have now done some tests with this ;d3d_disp_sw_cc line activated (by removing the semicolon) or deactivated on some machines which have rather poor graphics hardware. Most of the time, the player will not notice any slowdowns or other drawbacks from the activated line. The FPS numbers also did not change noticeable. The only situation in which I sometimes noted lags or even the game freezing for a split second was when I turned Garrett around in areas where FPS dropped below 10 (!). Strangely, sometimes the activated setting gave more performance, and sometimes it was the other way round. FPS numbers did not reflect these lags, though; it was purely my subjective perception.
Bottom line: No significant change even on rather old machines.
Testing was done with three old machines:
1. An Asus P53E laptop using its Intel processor graphics (Intel HD 3000 of the Core i3-2350M CPU) running Thief 2 on Windows 7 (x64) or Linux (Debian 10.13 (x86) with X.Org and Wine). The CPU is a dual core notebook version of a 10-year old Core i3 processor running at 2.3 GHz.
2. An Acer Aspire X3910/WG43M computer using the built-in Intel graphics of its chipset (Intel G45/G43) running Thief 2 on Windows 10 or Debian 10.13. The CPU is a "Pentium Dual-Core CPU", a somewhat downgraded Intel Core2Duo (E6700) processor, running at 3.2 GHz.
3. A self-assembled "Frankenstein type" machine using an AMD Radeon R7 240 graphics card (a rebranded version of a 2013's "Oland" card of AMD's "Southern Island" series, slightly better than the Intel HD 3000) running Thief 2 on Debian 11.6 (x64). The CPU is an Intel Core2Duo (E6750) processor with two cores running at 2.6 GHz.
FPS numbers were displayed in-game after pressing CTRL-P and entering the "show_stats" command. Thief 2 version was 1.27, made with T2Fix v1.27e.
The spots in FM's I used were:
1. A view over the town of Meliae in the first "Breaking the Stone" mission. Garrett was standing at the main entrance of the mansion where Archmage Victus resides in. I turned around, and later even went down to the scarecrow below via the walls around the small pool near Meliae's center. FPS were down to about 7 at the starting point while looking across the town. Turning Garrett's head around produced horrible lags or even split-second freezes of the game up to a half second or more. The Acer Aspire machine did notably better with the software setting to off (line commented out; the default), the other computers didn't care much while choking on all that graphics.
2. The spot in "Raven's Nest" of the "Keeper of Infinity 2" (modified v1.7) missions where three guards are having a conversation before a barrier with lots of fog and an undead female behind. I stood just at the spot where Garrett was close to the chief of these guards, but still in darkness. Garrett's head was turned left and right with only minor effect on FPS. FPS were somewhere between 10 and 20.
3. The starting area in "Bad Venture" of the same campaign, including the foam-crested water below the bridge. I ran from the starting point towards the rocky hills to the left of the path to the bridge while turning my view right and left a bit, then dropped into the water and continued turning Garrett's head while swimming through the opening below the bridge. I stopped looking at the FPS now because it did not change whether the setting mentioned above was turned on or off.
4. The center of the field with the long grass-like plants in "FTM Life v1.3". Horrible lags when turning Garrett's head left and right.
5. The long straight street behind one of the borders of the field described above. Garrett was standing near one of the ends of that street which connects two tunnels of the town, and was looking towards the far end of the street.
The spots were selected because I found out that all except for the 5th one stressed my low-performance graphics chips a lot. The 5th one was selected for comparison; for my machines, CPU performance was more important than GPU performance in that spot.
Looks like the default setting can be changed without doing much harm even to rather poor excuses for a graphics card. Mentioning it in a readme or near the appropriate menu option in, e.g., AngelLoader should be enough. If people with pitchforks appear near your doors, you can still change the default back with the next update (unless the pitchfork people are faster than your ability to post an update).
Last edited by baeuchlein; 24th Feb 2023 at 21:43. Reason: typo
Thanks for suggesting that. I tried disabling "postprocessing (bloom)" entirely and it also reduced the effect, but it's as much effective as disabling "d3d_disp_sw_cc". Turning them both off does marginal improvement, though never fixing it entirely. Oh well, guess I will have to contend with playing Thief in 1900x1200 or get a new monitor...
I installed EP and the following line appeared in the config сam_mod.ini
The EP folder is located in the Mods folder. Why does the patch add a dot after mod_path? Why can't I just write:Code:mod_path .\MODS\EP
By the way, after installing the Tfix patch on the Thief Gold game, there was no dot in the configCode:mod_path MODS\EP
P.S. for developers
The program does not know how to work with high-resolution textures ( ERSGAN Texture Pack). performance drops in some places.
Last edited by Gadavre; 28th Feb 2023 at 09:27.
I'm a newbie. it is not necessary to consider newcomers as fools... Anyone can run the patch installer and install it in the game folder.... for the patch, it is enough to check the exe file of the game if the person specifies the folder of another game
It's normal to have some performance loss if textures are larger.
There are gamers who want to play the old Thief with normal graphics and without friezes, lags .. All this destroys the atmosphere of the game
Maybe we can optimize this patch so that it allocates more video memory for textures, loads textures faster at the beginning of levels and uses all the processor cores. I played Doom 3 bfg Edition. There the textures are much better than the textures for our game... and the textures for the Dark mod are also better... and there is no fps drop even on the Nvidia GT1030 2GB GDDR5...
Last edited by Gadavre; 1st Mar 2023 at 04:00.
this patch has an interesting option : Disable Training Scripts... Which files are changed . if we enable this option?
Last edited by Gadavre; 2nd Mar 2023 at 00:52.
hires textures and other enhanced resources are completely under the control of the mod/fan mission author. if done right (EP2), the impact on performance is very small - a decade year computer will display no noticeable frame drops.
Can anyone write more clearly what this variable in cam_ext.cfg does?
use_hi_res_timer
Should it be enabled on Windows 7-10 or not if we are playing with high resolution textures? If we enable it, then the possibility of friezes and lags with these textures is reduced?
P.S in T2Fix 1.27d this variable is enabled by default. In patch 1.27e this variable is disabled
explore the NewDark documentation, the new variables are fairly well explained, iirc.
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