Messages

1

Graphics / Re: [GIF Included] Bizare flickering when drawing small minimap?

« on: July 26, 2014, 05:14:20 pm »

Funnily enough, it IS a driver problem! I was trying out the PCSX2 emulator and was experiencing flickering problems just like I was with SFML 1.6. The problem is with Nvidia drivers after 314.22. I rolled back my drivers to 314.22 and the problem went away with both PCSX2 AND SFML 1.6!!!

So, this is solved thankfully. I knew it was the drivers when I noticed it was fine on my laptop, which I knew had older drivers. Even though it works as expected now I'm still going to switch to SFML 2.1, as should anyone at this point. Thanks for the help, I hope someone Goggling that finds this can get some resolution from this.

2

Graphics / Re: [GIF Included] Bizare flickering when drawing small minimap?

« on: July 07, 2014, 10:17:34 am »

No I am using a nVidia GTX 570, the laptop I tested on that works fine is also a nVidia card but much older. I just updated to the absolute latest drivers and I know the laptop is using much older ones. Is it possible I'm actually using much newer drivers and it's causing problems with 1.6 and the laptop is using much older drivers so it's more compatable?

I'm just trying to make sense of this whole thing, I can't recreate this problem on my other computer but it's been stopping my progress the whole night.

I'm assuming the only way to properly fix my problems will be updating to 2.0 and i'm soooo not looking forward to that. I've been working on this project for years and the source code is quite large, its going to be a hell of a mission.

3

Graphics / Re: [GIF Included] Bizare flickering when drawing small minimap?

« on: July 07, 2014, 10:03:39 am »

I tried the program on a different computer and there was no problem at all so it seems to be an issue with my hardware. I just did a clean install of the latest drivers for my graphics card but that didnt change anything. Is there a standalone opengl download I need or does it come included with the graphics card drivers?

4

Graphics / Re: [GIF Included] Bizare flickering when drawing small minimap?

« on: July 07, 2014, 09:23:10 am »

Is SFML 2.0 considered the main version now? I'm working on a networked game and require the use of the Graphics and Networking libraries, is SFML 2.0 missing any features if I were to upgrade?

I've been under the impression that updating my project from 1.6 to 2.0 would be a long and time consuming process so I have been reluctant to do so, but if it is stable and worth while I can dedicate the time to do so.

By commenting out other functions that produce draw calls I have nearly eliminated the problem. Could this be the result of too many draw calls? I've gotten the best results by moving the the minimaps draw function before another where I draw a lot of text onto the screen, probably 30-40 text calls, and the problem pratically goes away. If I comment out every drawing function besides the minimaps draw function it doesnt happen at all. It seems like I might be hitting a threshold of draw calls, yet I'm still getting 200+FPS on the project. Setting vsync, a frame limit of 60, or both doesnt change a thing.

5

Graphics / [RESOLVED][GIF Included] Bizare flickering when drawing small minimap?

« on: July 07, 2014, 08:35:52 am »

Hello,

I'm using SFML 1.6 and this is the weirdest issue I can't figure out. In my project I'm drawing two tile maps currently, a large one that works fine and this new small one that has this weird flickering issue.

I load a large image then use Image.Copy to create the tiles from a large sheet. No matter what I've changed I can't seem to figure out what the hell is going on here.

Do you have any idea what would cause this? I've been working on this project for years and have never seen this before until I just added this map, which is a carbon copy of the current map from how its created to how its drawn.

Which tiles flicker is completely random, if I walk around the same tile that was flickering no longer is, but a different one does. I can't predict where or which ones have the issue. I am using std::map<std::string, sf::Image> images; to store the images, there is currently probably over a hundred images already stored inside which don't have this issue. The images that are drawing were created with Image.Copy and not loaded using SFMLs loading functions.

EDIT: Could this be caused by too many draw calls? I commented out some other functions that produce draw calls and the problem stops almost entirely, with one or two flickers very very rarely. I'll continue to see what I can do but I feel like it may be the result of too many draw calls or slow iteration.

6

Graphics / Re: SFML 1.6 - Downscaling and smoothing border issues

« on: April 22, 2013, 02:12:27 am »

Thanks for the great reply.

I agree, although adding a pixel border around the tiles would fix the problem it is rather hackish. I've put off upgrading to SFML 2.0 simply because the workload for the project is so high I haven't wanted to take the time.

For RenderTexture I was referencing this post:

http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=7407.0

I haven't found any news about better compatibility.

7

Graphics / SFML 1.6 - Downscaling and smoothing border issues

« on: April 21, 2013, 06:21:01 am »

Hello there,

I've run into an issue I am not sure how to fix and figured I should ask for some input. I am currently working on a 2D tile based game. Everything is designed and coded for 1920x1080 resolution and I use a View to adjust to different resolutions. I load tileset images and create the tiles from subrects. I had an issue previously with ugly borders on transparent images which I fixed by using a nearly black color as the alpha channel.

When I run the game in 1920x1080 everything looks great, as expected. The problem comes when I use lower resolutions. For example, my monitor is 1440x900, which would result in a downscale. With smoothing on the everything looks great, except I get black borders on some tiles:



I have researched this and from what I have found the issue has to do with smoothing. If I disable it, the lines are no longer there but the tiles look awful:



What exactly can I do in this situation? I have considered upgrading to SFML 2.0 and using RenderTexture to draw everything to an off screen buffer then applying smoothing to that, but from what I read nearly all Intel GPUs don't support that. I have also read I could potentially scale and cache the tiles at run time but I am unsure exactly how that would work. I also read something about the view potentially using floating point numbers, and I could remove the lines by down scaling and maintaining aspect ratio.

8

Network / Server keeps droping idle clients?

« on: June 28, 2012, 05:45:29 pm »

Hello,

I'm relatively new to network programming. So far I have created a server program and a client program. Everything has been going well since I've started. Multiple clients can connect to the server and send packets back and forth.

Everything has been going fine until last night. During testing I had a client connect to my server. I let the client program sit idle for about five minutes. When I attempted a ping command I ended up getting 300+ms ping, and this was on a local connection. Another ping command right after resulted in the typical 0ms ping. If I let the client idle for ten minutes and attempt again the packet never reaches the server.

At this point there isnt a continuous back and forth, no "keep-alive" packets or anything. I would send a packet when needed, no making sure a client is still around.


Now my question is, why do you think this would be the case? If I continuously talk on the client I never lose a connection, only when I idle. I am thinking this is how it should be, dropping a connection if nothing is heard for awhile. I am at work and can't post any code now but it is essentially what you see in the tutorials.

I am using 1.6 and TCP packets through a Selector, if that matters. Any theories or suggestions would be great.