Good evening everyone, I began investigating compatibility issues with the WA games on my new computer, First thing I noticed was this save lag spike every time you try to save. I tried this in few games and it so happened it doesn't happen in WA1, and only on games after that 0.95 have that bug. I dug around and it so happened it's an issue with the save image bmp that gets generated for the save icon. I began wondering why this happens, tweaked around the NVIDIA control panel but nothing fixed it. Then I tried going in the rabbit hole with the D3D wrappers and that was... something.
My first test was dgvoodoo2, which on the surface it seemed that it fixed the issue, but it gave back other issues in return... Let me explain. When I switched computers and loaded one of my WA3 saves something was different, Take a look (Exibit A ). And after the save has loaded (Exibit B ).
You see this right? The suction tube became brighter, and this isn't an optical illusion. It's a bug that has been happening to some GPUs throughout the years, it so happens my new PC has the bright suctube variant. That's weird because both of my PCs the old and the new one are Nvidia, so i'm still not sure what's causing it. So back to dgvoodoo, applying that it completely reverted the effect of bright sucture and the suctubes became darker just like on my old pc. But it brought an issue that I've never seen before, The lighting became darker and more reddish Before: (Exibit C ), After: (Exibit D ). I tried dgvoodoo on my old pc for the sake of testing and it does cause the reddish issue there, I tweaked like all of it's settings and couldn't find an issue fix.
I decided to try some other D3D wrappers on the internet, and I found one that kind of suits a fix I seeked, https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat This one fixes the saving lag issue but it doesn't fix other issues.
This is the time where I contacted Jutomi, because I've seen him having the saving issue on his videos, He also uses NVIDIA albeit not RTX. He told me about different issue, about thing called Metatexture and a level made by samuel that uses these. Apparently on some computers they render normal but on others they completely jitter
Exibit E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMHkfLhX0jg (Check after 4:00) - Jutomi's gameplay of the forementioned adventure
(Exibit F ) - My new pc
(Exibit G ) - My old PC
None of the wrappers seemed to fix that issue as well, and on top of that both of my computers have this pulsating issue on some textures where when game is unpaused they slightly pulse with bright colors if you zoom (with numpad0) from close every 1 second or so
Back to saving, with the DDrawCompat wrapper, I retained instant .bmp image saving, Overall the save loading bar should begin immediately when you click on a save, thats indicating that you DONT have that issue. I originally wanted to fix it because my new SSD is very fast, and in WA1 it saves as instantly as Garirry saves on Linux. Now that I think about it, maybe Linux wraps D3D differently which causes instant saving, but I think i'll need more info for this. MOFI Beta1 also uses the old saving system and it saves instantly as well with this wrapper now.
Exibit H: https://youtu.be/tEwd7ppYyzU
Oh yes this wrapper has the negative side effect of making the border of the window look like Windows 7 without Aero but what can you do
I'd be glad if some of you make tests and if we can figure out why all these graphical and technical differences happen, It's good to note those things down because maybe one day we wont be able to play the WA games because of compatibility issues...
Compatibility Troubleshooting (2024 Edition!)
Moderators: ~xpr'd~, tyteen4a03, Stinky, Emerald141, Qloof234, jdl
Re: Compatibility Troubleshooting (2024 Edition!)
On top of this, there's another issue that was plaguing both of my computers, and even as far as I remember, The borders of a chunk blinking. For the longest time I thought it's just WA being WA, but Jutomi told me it doesn't happen on his end. We noticed this behavior in the Metatextures, where the blinking was really intense.
https://youtu.be/FbQSN4C_bsk
But it doesn't stop here, the pulsating happens on bright textures and it's slightly noticable.
New pc: https://youtu.be/YSQirdhsvTo
Old pc: https://youtu.be/zWuAO14jkm0
The borders of the cages also happen
I was curious to see it in my old vids and speedrun but there's nothing to be seen, I'm thinking whether it's youtube compression or I'm blitzing way too fast through the game and you can't notice it BUT I AM CERTAIN it happened on my old and older pc, that's why I thought its a common WA thing
Update: I found it, on my WR WA1 speedrun, (link below in my forum bio) check 9:24, the tiles in the front yard of the house below
It's also noticable in Morklin temple, I think Billy Bob also has this in his runs
It pulsates in the area I marked as red
https://youtu.be/FbQSN4C_bsk
But it doesn't stop here, the pulsating happens on bright textures and it's slightly noticable.
New pc: https://youtu.be/YSQirdhsvTo
Old pc: https://youtu.be/zWuAO14jkm0
The borders of the cages also happen
I was curious to see it in my old vids and speedrun but there's nothing to be seen, I'm thinking whether it's youtube compression or I'm blitzing way too fast through the game and you can't notice it BUT I AM CERTAIN it happened on my old and older pc, that's why I thought its a common WA thing
Update: I found it, on my WR WA1 speedrun, (link below in my forum bio) check 9:24, the tiles in the front yard of the house below
It's also noticable in Morklin temple, I think Billy Bob also has this in his runs
It pulsates in the area I marked as red
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Re: Compatibility Troubleshooting (2024 Edition!)
This issue seems very similar to Z-Fighting.
Re: Compatibility Troubleshooting (2024 Edition!)
I have seen z fighting but I dont think its that
I think its something to do with the internal render world tweening that WA uses, if you pause the game it still happens you can see it behind the pause menu
Re: Compatibility Troubleshooting (2024 Edition!)
With that said, whoever wants to help, please test all the issues listed (Without dgvoodoo or any D3D wrappers) and provide them in a text like the following
OS: Windows/Linux
GPU: Nvidia/AMD/Intel
Suction tube: Bright/Dark
Lighting: Brigher(Yellowish)/Darker(Reddish)
Metatextures: Fine/Jittery
Bitmap saving lag (WA2+): Yes/No
Chunk borders pulsating: Yes/No
and here are mine
New PC:
OS: Windows 10
GPU: Nvidia
Suction tube: Bright
Lighting: Brighter(Yellowish)
Metatextures: Jittery
Bitmap Saving lag: Yes
Chunk borders puslating: Yes
Old PC:
OS: Windows 10
GPU: Nvidia + Intel (Laptop integrated)
Suction tube: Dark
Lighting: Brigher(Yellowish)
Metatextures: Fine
Bitmap saving lag: No
Chunk borders puslating: Yes
OS: Windows/Linux
GPU: Nvidia/AMD/Intel
Suction tube: Bright/Dark
Lighting: Brigher(Yellowish)/Darker(Reddish)
Metatextures: Fine/Jittery
Bitmap saving lag (WA2+): Yes/No
Chunk borders pulsating: Yes/No
and here are mine
New PC:
OS: Windows 10
GPU: Nvidia
Suction tube: Bright
Lighting: Brighter(Yellowish)
Metatextures: Jittery
Bitmap Saving lag: Yes
Chunk borders puslating: Yes
Old PC:
OS: Windows 10
GPU: Nvidia + Intel (Laptop integrated)
Suction tube: Dark
Lighting: Brigher(Yellowish)
Metatextures: Fine
Bitmap saving lag: No
Chunk borders puslating: Yes