XWA Upgrade

m0rgg wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:14 am

Is the new mode used as default or is the config switch still there?

The new mode is on by default now, but I left the switch so that we can turn it off just in case.

Thank s for the new update blue_max and m0rgg.
However, it seems there is something wrong with it (EffectsByBlueMax_beta_v2021-12-18.zip).

I have just tried playing some skirmish missions.
It seems there are something wrong with the menu and the mouse., when I click single player, it takes very long to load.
and also when I click to change the skirmish mission parameter: the fighter type, the ai or the location, the process takes very very long (more than a minute)
I will test again tonight.
iirc, this does not happen with the previous update.

a1adin wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 21, 2021 8:53 am

I have just tried playing some skirmish missions.
It seems there are something wrong with the menu and the mouse., when I click single player, it takes very long to load.
and also when I click to change the skirmish mission parameter: the fighter type, the ai or the location, the process takes very very long (more than a minute)

Does this happen in SteamVR mode? Do I have to set up the skirmish mission in some specific way? Things seem to be fine on my end. Did you check what was the process usage in Windows while this is happening? (There might be some other process that is causing Windows to be slow)

a1adin wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 21, 2021 8:53 am

Thank s for the new update blue_max and m0rgg.
However, it seems there is something wrong with it (EffectsByBlueMax_beta_v2021-12-18.zip).

I have just tried playing some skirmish missions.
It seems there are something wrong with the menu and the mouse., when I click single player, it takes very long to load.
and also when I click to change the skirmish mission parameter: the fighter type, the ai or the location, the process takes very very long (more than a minute)
I will test again tonight.
iirc, this does not happen with the previous update.

Probably not the issue, but make sure XWA is the app in focus, through Alt+tab or clicking the icon in the taskbar.

>Does this happen in SteamVR mode?
Yes

>Do I have to set up the skirmish mission in some specific way?
No, it does not matter what you change, but when you click "Done", the game hangs (sort of), since there is a little window XWA waiting forever for the process to be done.
but if you press RMB, you go back to the quick skirmish page, there is no error.

also the mouse movement is strange, it always stop midway before I can reach the 'done" area,
so I have to approach it from different direction.

I have tried this several times and the result is always the same.

>Did you check what was the process usage in Windows while this is happening?
I have looked at the task manager, there are 3 biggest cpu processes:
OVRServer_x64.exe
OculusDash.exe
X wing alliance 32 bit

the otherprocesses are less than 1%

Please let me know what is wrong here.

it seems your latest update is not the culprit.
I have copied the previous update v2021.11.30
but the same problems still happen.

Can you do a fresh install of XWAU? Make a backup copy of your pilots and then install XWAU 2020 + Update 5 + latest ddraw beta. I'm not sure what's going on yet, but maybe you have multiple versions of the same DLL and they might be causing conflicts. A clean install will rule that out.

that's exactlu what I did.
however, there is another problem, now I get instalation error: this is very strange, I never get that error before.
I have tried 2 times and get that same error.

blue_max do you know what is wrong here?

silly me, I forgot to install the main XWAU2020.exe and straight to install update 5.0.

ok, now everything is good with the new install.
thanks blue_max for all the help.

a1adin wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:26 pm

ok, now everything is good with the new install.
thanks blue_max for all the help.

I don't think I helped that much here, but I'm glad you got your stuff working again

Hi Blue Max and every pilot here. Could someone please help me with my issue. I only see the holographic panel in one lens. I have described my problem here :

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14044

Thank you very much.

Just put a 3070 in and gave this a whirl. I'm not expecting a solid 90FPS 100% of the time but I also figure I shouldn't be getting 40FPS with spikes up to 50 when I go into hyperspace. Is this to be expected?

Luke_Skywalker wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 08, 2023 6:55 am

Just put a 3070 in and gave this a whirl. I'm not expecting a solid 90FPS 100% of the time but I also figure I shouldn't be getting 40FPS with spikes up to 50 when I go into hyperspace. Is this to be expected?

Depending on how you configured your display and the effects, this is to be expected. Take a look at this thread to see some tips that may help you improve your FPS:

https://forums.xwaupgrade.com/viewtopic ... 43#p164943

I've actually gone through that to see if that would help and... it didn't.

It's not possible to use the Oculus runtime instead of SteamVR, is it? One of the things I've noticed is that if you're modding a game to add VR, SteamVR is kind of shit because the freelook is all kinds of jittery. I noticed this while playing MechWarrior 5, for instance.

You can try OpenComposite, but not sure it will work or be any better perfomance wise

m0rgg wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:56 pm

You can try OpenComposite, but not sure it will work or be any better perfomance wise

I don't suppose OpenXR is a thing yet here, is it?

Luke_Skywalker wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:35 pm

I don't suppose OpenXR is a thing yet here, is it?

I started an implementation, got it to display 2D stuff in the headset, but never got to finish it.
It's still in my to do, but I didn't have much time for XWA in quite some time.

But for me openxr was more for compatibility and future proofing than performance. There are other rendering optimizations with a much higher impact, like instanced stereo rendering or draw call batching.

Fair, I suppose. I'd just like to try going through the Oculus app instead of SteamVR to mitigate the performance hit of using both runtimes.

Hello all!

@blue_max has just published a new Effects ddraw.dll beta version which, among other improvements, should significantly increase SteamVR performance when CPU limited.

This version implements instanced stereo rendering. This means that the rendering for both eyes is done in a single draw call (one command to the GPU). This reduction only applies to VR mode.

The latest hook_32bpp version (released May 19th) also includes a change to reduce the number of draw calls. Before, one call was issued every 384 vertices in a model. Now, all the vertices using a single texture are drawn in a single call. This improvement applies both to VR and pancake mode.

The total number of draw calls per frame is one of the current biggest bottlenecks of the engine, since each call has a CPU overhead. I am pretty confident that this is the main cause of the FPS drops with many objects, and/or many polygons to draw.

Both changes mentioned above together, should help reduce the slow-downs that appear even for the best GPU and with a good CPU.. Note that this will not improve the max/average FPS, or when the bottleneck is the GPU. Other optimizations will be necessary for that. But who cares about high max FPS when you have 15fps drops? That's why most benchmarks and reviews focus on the "lowest 1%" performance.

Please download it and give it a go! And don't forget to update your hooks with XwaHooksSetup tool. I'm eager to know if it has a noticeable benefit to everybody else.

I believe these versions should be compatible with TFTC but make a backup of your folder just in case!

https://www.xwaupgrade.com/download/bet ... -06-16.zip

Just took it for a spin - the hyperspace renderings appear to be a bit bugged, because the Active Cockpit displays persist in one eye but not the other.

Jorrel wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 17, 2023 6:15 pm

Just took it for a spin - the hyperspace renderings appear to be a bit bugged, because the Active Cockpit displays persist in one eye but not the other.

Thanks for testing! I will take a look

I think I found the issue and implemented a fix.

Can you please download it here and test?
https://github.com/morallo/xwa_ddraw_d3 ... otfix_beta

m0rgg wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 17, 2023 11:06 pm

I think I found the issue and implemented a fix.

Can you please download it here and test?
https://github.com/morallo/xwa_ddraw_d3 ... otfix_beta

Yep, that fixed it! Nice job!

The fix has been merged into the official beta. Please download it again. Thanks for reporting the bug and thanks to @m0rgg for the quick turnaround!

Versions after 04-28-2023 do not work on Windows 7 64. The error is ( Error initializing resource devices). It does not enter the game.

Thank you..