OpenGL problems
Hi everyone! One hundred new testers have been invited, hurray! Like last week, most of the things seem to go fine for most of the people, but I also still keep getting a report every now and then of someone who can't start the game. What was in particular terrible to read is that Kaytavo, currently the [nr. 1 player], can't start the game anymore. Apparently, my new OpenGL code really does not work with all machines/video cards/drivers. Problem is, however, that it all works perfectly for me, and as you can imagine, it is quite hard to fix a problem you can't see. I mean, I can of course make some changes here and there based on the crashlog, but I would have to do a whole new release after each change and rely on the feedback of strangers of the internet to see whether they helped... which of course is not a very efficient way of working. An easier solution could be that I find another pc where the game doesn't work, and that I try to fix it there, so that's what I'm going to try first. I have to admit I'm starting to panic a little bit, so I really hope I quickly find one.
Finishing little projects
In happier news, I'm making good progres on the next update! Last week I have been mainly focussed on finishing all the little projects I described the last few weeks. For example, [the fire animation] is now working for all colors, and [the letters that appear when you enter a new area] now not only show up but also dissappear after a few seconds. And because I was having so much fun with them, they now also nicely fade in and out.
Another little project I finished are the town signs; last week I told you that, although the town signs worked, they slowed down a bit when in view. I investigated where this was coming from, and it turned out that the text to image conversion (so, calculating how how the letters will look) was done 50 times a second, which took just a little bit too much time. The solution was, of course, to do the text->image conversion only once and remember the result. This is me, in the progress of fixing the problem (but something went really wrong here):
A new video
And finally, a new Olvand video has arrived!
If you want more development, see [twitter] or [facebook]. If you want to be a tester, you can subscribe on [olvand.com].
Maybe run checks before the game starts to see what version of OpenGL they have installed if any? That was a reocurring problem I was having not too long ago. Maybe switch to something more cross-platform nowadays might be a good thing since so much variation between systems is around.
Hi, thanks for your tips, o pre-check or something might be a good idea! But then still I need to find out which versions OpenGL won't work ;/.
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The thing is you won't be able to accommodate all systems. Run the check and if it fails prompt them to install the needed components. If they don't then they don't play the game lol. That's the reason that AAA games have machine specifications, so they can bypass these difficulties: "It's the user's fault for not having a good enough machine, not ours for programming it that way". Kind of shady but it bypasses the problem. :)
-Gabriel follow me @adventureco2