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1.24 Progress Thread
#31
SP6 is ready for release! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get on my computer much over the last week to finish up the release. Hopefully external factors preventing me from working will stop so I can get what I need to do done. I'm about 2 weeks behind where I want to be at this time.

Anyway, I just a have bit more writing, such as this post, then SP6 will be released.

So what else is in SP6?
-Gameplay: 12 Additional Achievements
-Bugfix: Fixed some lawsuits turning negative due to high vehicle sales revenues.
-Gameplay: Merged CarReports and CityReports into 40 or so files, thus reducing the amount of reports the game generates in large save games.
-Gameplay: Removed historical Car Reports and City Reports. You only have the latest month now.
-Gameplay: Optimized car reports generation, thus reducing turn times significantly on large save games.
-Engine: Moved some historical vehicle data to the vehicle data table, thus allowing the engine to purge historical records and reduce save game size significantly for large save games.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing matured bonds not to clear out of company's meta information.
-Bugfix: Fixed mega menu crash when clicking arrows with no factories/branches.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#32
The final supplemental patch for 1.24 is finished! If I can stay awake (already 6am) a little longer, I'll have it released to everyone before I doze off for the afternoon. Smile

So what's in v1.24 SP7? Quite a bit.

Primary focus of SP7 was to fix overlapping and resizing issues with the GUI. I believe I have fixed most of these problem areas, but some may still exist. That being said, I have figured out a way to improve window resizing with side by side lists. This will require a bit of code change in the engine, so it will be taken care of with the Engine Updates.

Beyond that, the regular assortment of bug fixes as normal with a Supplemental Patch.

-GUI: Fixed text overlapping issues in several locations.
-GUI: Fixed resize issues in several locations.
-Artwork: Added more user made predesigns! Thanks everyone who submitted!
-GUI: If music player is open and the song changes, the new song will be selected in the list.
-Gameplay: Buying AI companies with outsourced components will now discontinue any designs with bending outsourced contracts. This will prevent orphaned designs.
-Engine: Added placeholders for SaveGames and SavedCars folders so Steam will make sure you have them if you verify files.
-GUI: Components now have a total production report located in the Showroom. In the future I may break this down into vehicles.
-GUI: Up and Down Arrow Keys will now select the next item in lists if the list was the last item clicked.
-GUI: List should no longer return to the top after doing an action on a selected item.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue that was allowing players to license in development components.
-Gameplay: Increased the frequency of a dividend stripping lawsuit.
-Gameplay: Reduced the maximum amount of dividends to prevent financing the dividend.
-GUI: Adjust dividend based on EPS is checked by default now.
-GUI: Bottom bar now refreshes after purchasing a company.
-GUI: Fixed a place or two where vehicle names were missing the year.
-Engine: Updated OpenAL in Linux. Sound should now be working on Pulse Audio distros.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue which was causing militaries to use city names.
-Bugfix: Fixed taxes being off set by a month in the Expense Reports.
-GUI: Fixed Gearbox Overall rating being miss labeled as Performance.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible crash when resizing some windows too small.
-Bugfix: Project Profits values always positive.
-Gameplay: Adjusted AI's build branch behavior for when the company is not making money, has a less than 7% of the world map in branches, and has a boat load of cash.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with the component modification system that caused the new price not to be displayed.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with several predesigned vehicles with negative aerodynamic drag calculations. Thus causing bad data in the prototyping system.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with factory upgrades that caused the player not to be charged for a month.
-Bugfix: Fixed factory workers striking during the middle of major wars when they're no longer producing anything.

There were probably several more bug fixes and GUI tweaks that were unrecorded or buried in emails/forum posts. I have been pretty bad at keeping up with the change long this month. Sorry about that!

OK, time to type up the announcement, then I can release this stuff and go to bed.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#33
Always forget to post stuff here. Can't blame me with how inactive these forums are now... Should pick up again someday though...

After completing Supplemental Patch #7, I switched over to updating the game's engine. The engine updates went rather well. However, during that time, some major issues with SP7 was reported. So when I reached a stopping point with the updated engine, I merged the code base with the old engine and worked on what was to become v1.24 SP 8.

SP8 mainly fixed several bugs reported to me since November 15th. It also our first wide release of the 64-bit Engine. The 64-bit Engine will be the default for all users. However, a new Branch will be launched so that you can access the 32-bit build from a 64-bit computer if you have any issues with the 64-bit version of the game. Currently, v1.23 Stable Build and v1.22 Legacy Build are 32-bit as well. As more updates come out, those will cycle over to the 64-bit engine.

Since I was unable to finish all the features I wanted to implement in the 64-bit build, there will be a v1.24 SP9. However, it should be a small release and mostly focused on 64-bit engine features, such as resizeable reports windows.

I am currently in the process of building and testing all the updates. It will take some time, as there are now 6 builds to test and verify, 4 of which are on virtual machines running on an old computer.

So what's in the SP8 update?

-Bugfix: Fixed top speeds of finished vehicles not matching top speed in ratings windows.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative weight modifiers if weight to hp ratio was rounded to 15 or 38 kg per hp.
-Bugfix: Fixed global demand randomization values not being tied to administration skills. Now missed demand for global shipping should be the same as shipping range demand estimations.
-Bugfix: Changed ambiguous wording in "contracts can't be bid on" memos.
-Bugfix: FIxed several issues with awards and race championships in the Showroom vehicle report.
-Bugfix: Fixed marketing funds not being cleared when spinning off or selling a marque and including branches.
-Gameplay: Now generating first turn contracts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Auto-production restriction lists which was causing the lists not to refresh.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing discontinued parts which were being licensed to AI companies not to clear out their licensing revenues during the end turn phase. This fixed an issue with the licensing revenues report having more income than listed in other reports.
-Gameplay: Increased image growth rates dynamically if the target skill is much higher than the current skill.
-Gameplay: Linked marque's researching skills with parent companies'.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative loan situations.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with branch wear reports not having the correct wear amounts for every branch.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Chassis RnD View name sort.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with holdings list not showing after taking your own company private.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game possibility to go bankrupt if playing on infinite cash mode.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with year interpolation system that caused nation and flag changes not to register if starting in a later game year.
-Engine: Merged GearCity Beardgine 1 and Beardgine 2 code bases together.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract crashes in respect to not having a component selected in the contracting lists whilst bidding or canceling a submission.
-Bugfix Fixed sliders loading crash in 64-bit build due to VS2013 code optimization system.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash related to hitting + or - while RnD is loading or doesn't have keyboard focus.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash in tutorials on Linux 32-bit build, 64-bit build, and possibly other systems.
-X64 Engine Implemented a popup warning for OpenGL players on 64-Bit windows build, letting them know that the DirectX9 system is probably better now.
-X64 Engine Implemented non-character keys for web browser Linux and Mac 64-bit builds.
-Bugfix: Fixed HR help button not having proper text.
-Bugfix: Fixed WW1 and WW2 achievements triggering a year too late.

And as always, a few more minor fixes here and there that I failed to document or remember.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#34
Finally got around to building a new machine to handle compiling duties. Hopefully this will make release days a little less time consuming. I have released several hotfixes to address crash issues only found in the 64-bit build for Windows. Everyone should already have those.

Beyond that, I have implemented GUI scaling for all builds of the game. It will be in the SP9 update. This should help out folks with HiDPI monitors and/or poor eye site. You can adjust the size of the UI up to 100%. (And if you're savvy enough you can edit the settings files for more.)

There are also a couple of bug fixes which I will mark down in the next post. (I have to go through some forum posts for tickets and what have you, good time to make a list then.)

Next I'll be moving on to attempt to implement resizeable browser windows (reports) for all 64-bit builds. With any luck, that will go smoothly as well. Smile
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#35
So we have some good news, some bad news, and some OK-ish news.

Good first,
I was able to get user controlled resizeable reports working in the 64 bit build with the OpenGL!

Now the bad news,
The user controlled resizeable reports did not work in DirectX!

You see, DirectX9 is so old, it comes from an era where some video cards could not handle non-power of two textures. So DX9 support of anything that wasn't 2^n is sketchy at best. On top of this, we have to create a real time texture and apply it to a 2d space. DirectX9 has some nit-picks with that. The browser in the 32-bit build only used windows that were 1024x512 or 1024x1024 because of this.

In addition to all this, our GUI library was screwing up stuff anytime it caused a resize of any part of the GUI window the browser sits in. Messy stuff (not my code!)


Now the OK-ish news.
There is a sliver lining to all this. The DirectX9 render can still support NPOT textures, but they have to be a certain size, a certain ratio, and could not be molested in anyway by the GUI. So instead of allowing the player to adjust the size of the Reports windows, I have hard coded sizes based upon the player's resolution. This means common issues, such as having a 1024x512 reports window while running the game in window mode, on a 1080p monitor, with Window 10's chunky taskbar, is gone. You'll have a nice 1024x880 reports window. If you have a 4k monitor. You'll no longer have a 1024x1024 reports window. You'll have a 2048x2048 window. (Although early tests with a friend's nVidia 1060 in a KVM showed that the FPS rate is a bit low due to CEF). And so forth. I believe there are 6 different sizes.

With all that in mind, power of two textures are still significantly faster than non-power of two textures. They're also less error prone due to drivers issues. And the 32-bit browser does not support NPOT. So with all that in mind, I have introduced a new settings checkbox to enable dynamic reports sizes. By default the game will use the old fixed values, so you will have to enable this setting yourself.

With the vast majority of players using the DirectX/Win64 combo. This configuration superseded the manual resizeable reports for OpenGL/Linux/OSX users. Sadly I lost a couple of days debugging all this crap. But it's working. I still have to test it on an Intel GPU to confirm there is no major driver architectural issues with the code. But it all seems to be working well on what I have ran it on.

I have a couple more 64-bit engine related stuff to take care of, then I will move on to bugs to finish up the SP9 release. Hopefully then I can get working on v1.24.1!

Bed time for now, night!
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#36
Missed a few more post on here sadly. If memory serves me, I was having connection problems or something, and the post was failing. Either way, here is what was missed:

SP9 is just around the corner. Assuming no hangups, it should be ready to go sometime this weekend. If it's a good release (in that there aren't a lot of issues) I should finally be able to jump to v1.24.1 and v1.25.

So here are a few things that are in SP9 as of right now:
-Engine Scale GUI Setting. This setting allows you to increase the size of the GUI. This is particularly helpful for HiDPI monitors.
-64-Bit Engine: Dynamic Report Size setting. This causes the reports windows size to be closer your vertical resolution. However, this requires a little more performance for 2k+ resolutions.
-64-Bit Engine: Removed unsupported resolutions from the in game settings drop down.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed incorrect resolution being displayed in the in game settings with fullscreen enabled.
-64-Bit MacOS Engine: Implemented Fullscreen mode.
-Engine: Hard frame limiter can now be adjusted via settings.xml file. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well.)
-64-Bit Windows Engine: Which Monitor the game will open on can now be set in the settings.xml file via an index number. This is only supported in Windows. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well, however it will not poll how many monitors you have. You'll have to enter the proper index number yourself.)
-GUI: Resize scaling to center implemented for side by side lists.
-Tutorials: Fixed some issues with the tutorial which allowed the player to return to RnD or did not popup a message when components designs were not finished.
-Tutorials: Disabled normal to nightmare modes for tutorial plays initiated from the Main Menu.
-Gameplay: Increased spec effects on racing and contract wins.
-Bugfix: Fixed the game not rewarding revenues for the last month of a contract in some cases.
-Engine Added weight and size modifiers to Car Type in the components.xml file. Both default to a normal value of 1. Currently size has no effect on anything in game.
-Gameplay Added weight values for all vehicle types in the game.
-Gameplay: Car Type's weight now effects the weight of the vehicle.
-Gameplay: Tweaks to vehicle's weight effect on fuel economy and maximum fuel economy achievable by an engine design in a vehicle.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed javascript error popup when viewing reports.
-64-Bit Engine: Automatic reports page zooming based on GUI scaling.
-Gameplay: Ordering more outsourced units will replace the previous order.
-GUI: Contracted outsourced units are now sorted by name.
-Gameplay: Vehicle Image growth rates have been increased by about 20%.
-Bugfix: Fixed a couple issues with new trim design times.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with competition charts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Factory Expense table.

SP9 release, and a couple more tickets knocked out:
-Gameplay: Minor tweaks to credit rating score calculation
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with component amounts not being shown in stock window.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract renewals having incorrect amounts in memos.
-Gameplay: Adjustments have been made to the bulk production discount values.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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