Windows 7 compliance

#21 I don't have all of my fixes right now (and I'll summarize them later), but the surprising crash on Vista came in winWindow.cc, around line 986:

case WM_PAINT:
      //if(winState.renderThreadBlocked)
      //   Canvas->renderFrame(false);
      break;

This combined with the fix from the forums made all the Vista problems go away. I'm hoping the same fix works for Windows 7, and if not, I'm already set up to debug this like I did for Vista.

This does cause a noticable skip in the rendering when coming back from minimizing, etc., but it's less than a second.

#22 I just tested the following on Windows 7 with NO crashes:

1) Run program in windowed mode.
2) Minimize.
3) Maximize.
4) Minimize.
5) Click on Program Icon to restore.
6) Alt-Tab to another program.
7) Alt-Tab back.
8) Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, Run Task Manager.
9) Change program to fullscreen.
10) Minimize.
11) Maximize.
12) Alt-Tab to another program.
13) Alt-Tab back.
14) Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, Run Task Manager again.

I also did this testing on Windows XP. I no longer have a Vista machine to test on.

I implemented the following:
* www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/94201/1#comment-635065 (Comments 5, 6, AND 7 were all implemented.)
* Post #21 above.

Let me know if this does or does not work for you. I really want to make sure that my code is as robust as possible against operating system actions.

#23 I tested putting the machine to sleep while the game is in progress and it came back fine when the computer woke back up.

Once again, if anybody else implements all of this, I'd be curious to hear if your game is more stable and what (if any) actions still cause your program to crash.

#24

Quote:Well we could stop selling TGB if that would make things better for you? *cheap sarcasm*

It's too late now, but we certainly wouldn't have bought the engine if we'd known what state it was in. Discontinuing support but not sales isn't the most honest way to go about selling software.

#25 So we stop the latest engine development, spend months working on a release to fix OS problems. Then can we start work on the new engine? What about new OS issues or other bugs that are then found? We should stop again and fix those right?

I personally would like to get a new release of TGB out that fixes some of these Vista/Windows 7 issues but that stops development of the new engine. With only a few developers available, the choice is clear even if it's not my choice to make.

It's not dishonest, it's business. Wanting is easy, doing is a different story. I wouldn't be saying this if there were half a dozen developers working on T2D. The plain fact is there isn't.

#26 It's too bad you didn't buy the engine 4 years ago. Then you would have gotten 4 years of support for free!

#27 You asked if stopping selling TGB would make things better for us. A few months ago, it would have. Even just stating that it was only designed to work with Windows versions up to XP would be nice. The minimum requirements currently list "Windows XP/Vista". All I'm saying is that we wouldn't have chosen TGB if GarageGames had made it clear that it wasn't compatible with the last two versions of Windows.

I fully approve of focusing on T2D and getting it out as soon as possible. You don't need developers to make the situation better for prospective TGB buyers, though.

#28 Please note that TGB has been used to make a LOT of games, all of which have worked on Vista. Granted that in some cases this has meant the developer has had to patch the source but it's hardly "not compatible with the last two versions of Windows", it ain't so black and white.

Granted, it would be extremely nice if we had resources to put out the many fixes/patches on the forums in an official build.

#29 I completely understand your vigorous defence of TGB but it really isn't compatible with Vista out-of-the-box which as touted on the website. I've made engine changes for Vista compatibility but it's not something I should /have/ to do.

#30 No argument from me. I wish it were not so and those handful of Vista compatibility fixes were in there already.

#31 To a novice it looks like William Lee Simms has made a valid fix for the problem. Any chance we could get his fix implemeted somehow, so we non-pro users also could use it ?

#32 Thomas,

Perhaps you need to read the thread.

Melv.

#33 As a quick note, I found that on Windows XP in fullscreen, that [Alt]-[Esc] will cause the game to crash. I'll be fixing this in the next few days, and I'll make sure to post the change here.

A question to any employee: Could I compile a new binary and offer it to non-pro users? If so, how could I post it to ensure that they had a valid license?

My plan is to follow all of the steps in this checklist for my game. Since I've made no changes to the platformWin32 directory except this, it would be fairly easy for me to make a new 1.7.4 binary.

#34 I'm not sure of the answer here but I'll make some enquiries shortly.

Thanks for all your help!

#35 I've just sent an email internally regarding your help. I'll get back to you ASAP and chase it up.

#36 I found the fix I was missing here: www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/98155.

I've got a clean 1.7.4 with all of these changes in. I'll get as much testing as I can get done tonight (it *is* 3am here :). I have Windows 7 and XP, but I don't have Windows Vista anymore.

Thanks for checking on this!

#37 This was what I was trying to say Melv.
It's an exciting development, a step towards community driven maintenance of TGB - Great work William :D

#38 That went surprisingly well!

I did every Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Ctrl-Shift-Esc, Screen Saver, and Hibernate/Sleep tests on Windows 7. They all ran without problems.

I did the same tests on Windows XP. While the game was running, I couldn't put the machine to sleep (and hibernate wasn't an option). If I stopped the game, I could put the machine to sleep just fine. I guess having the machine not go to sleep is better than a crashing application.

Both machines have NVidia video cards.

Those are all of the issues I've had with the engine. Are there any others I should check for? Speak now!

#39 I just remembered somebody saying that DPI didn't work. Sure enough, if you run the application full screen, it doesn't account for the DPI change. I'll look into this right away.

#40 I always find the DPI thing funny, there are SO many commercial apps that don't work well with DPI changes. :)