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[$300] #182 | OpenGL Run Without Focus
#1
Price: $300

Description: Some background. The bulk of the game's users uses Windows. Because of shenanigans at Microsoft in the 90s, they dropped OpenGL support in favor of DirectX. DirectX had some benefits, but it also had some major issues when a window didn't have focus. This is a major reason why GC crashes now and then when players alt-tab out or do other things in the game while playing. Newer versions of DirectX have solved this issue, but GearCity's engine is 12-13 years old.

OpenGL does not have this problem. But because Microsoft ditched it, GPU vendors have to implement OpenGL themselves. Over the years, they haven't done a very good job at it.

So that brings us to this bounty. When the game loses focus in Windows or the mouse isn't over top of the window in Linux/macOS, the game will stop rendering. When the game stops rendering, turns stop processing.

This bounty would add a setting that will allow OpenGL users to process turn when the window is not in focus or the mouse is not over the window. Enabling this setting might lead to instability issues for some Windows users, so it is a "pick your poison" option. But there should be no reason to hold Linux users back because of Windows issues.

If/When the community funds the OpenGL 3 and DirectX 11 bounties, this bounty will probably become more stable for everyone.

Requirements: None

Required By: None

Concerns: The reason we don't process turn times when the window is unfocused is because of crash issues that some Windows users report. I never had this issue with my hardware, but my hardware is obscure, selected specifically, and old. I have no reason to believe that the situation has improved over the years on Windows. So there is a chance this bounty helps 15% of the player base and leads to crashes for the remaining 85% that enable it.

Eric's Opinion: This is an often requested bounty and one that is fairly doable. It's unknown if your hardware will work fine with it though. And that will mean an uptick in customer support emails for me. Oh well. Anyway, we should add this in the game as an opt-in setting.

Links: It doesn't happen unless you contribute!
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good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
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