Linux support thread

[timon37]

Sorry about the lack of updates / news, things never seem to calm down in the office.

Naturally that issue is not acceptable, I'm already working on it along with the alt+tab issue which is strongly related.
The good news is I hope to upload a new build soon, which should at the very least improve this.

The bad news is that currently the gpu memory usage is higher with the opengl render.
Coupled with a compositing window manager, this often means that 1gb of gpu memory really is the minimum.
Right now the only setting that really influences memory usage is shadows, so with 1gb of dedicated memory I suggest leaving them off (btw even with a beefy system they hit performance a lot, so personally I'd play without them).

[rmazurek]

Timon37

I have ALL graphical settings disabled/the lowest possible. Only radar is enabled. And problem is not memory usage but that memory usage is growing with time. I have 4 GB RAM so it should be not a problem.

Also please check if you could, if graphical settings are working. I think some messages suggest this settings to be turned on (even if I turn it off in the game).

[aspbazi]

timon37 The bad news is that currently the gpu memory usage is higher with the opengl render.
Coupled with a compositing window manager, this often means that 1gb of gpu memory really is the minimum.

***

Mmm

Xrender / Qt / KDE 4.14.6 = 90-98 VRAM.
X Rebirth = 500-690 VRAM (alt+tab).

X Rebirth 3.53 Build 6:

- openSUSE 13.2 x-86_64.
- Kernel 3.16
- Nvidia GTX-650 ddr5 1024 mb / 128 bit.
- Drivers 346.59
- Display resolution 1920x1080 (HDMI)

Before loading into the memory card the entire program first buffered in the DDR (VBO).
Increase the system requirements for DDR?

[timon37]

@rmazurek and others with similar issues

The leaks should be at least improved in build 6.
So when/if you have time please try it, and give me some feedback.

I added some additional garbage collection and reloading of data when alt+tabbing or changing resolution so you can give that a try as well to see if it helps any (it happens only on amd hardware and when low on gpu memory).

[rmazurek]

Not much time at the moment for testing but I played it a bit.

Hard to tell if it's better (more time needed to be sure) but I think there is some progress. Walked around in one station for longer time and there was no permanent performance drop. It stucked very often for a moment but later was working properly. In the other hand in another station there was total mess and only Shift+D helped for that.

So after about 2 hours I have done 1 restart but only because there was mission with timing (maybe it would get back to normal). And at the end there was serious slideshow for longer time in space. Not sure if I would go somewhere else or wait some time if it would get better.

After I closed game I have noticed one message in console that might be interesting:

\home\Projects\EgoSoft\XR\git\src\X4\ui\xanark\anarkviewbridge.cpp(141): Too many UIObject updates in the current frame. We already scheduled 120 updates. The update calls will be skipped in order to prevent potential crashes. Either locate the underlying issue causing so many updates, or increase the limit to be able to schedule more updates per frame. [ Stefan ]
(version: 3.53 - Code revision: 193580)

Not sure exactly what it means but I think it might be related with performance.

BTW I noticed that mouse scroll works already Great. It's much better with that.

[YorrickVander]

@timon - is there a list anywhere of particular points you want to have tested or get feedback on? I have rather limited time currently for playthroughs so specific cases to look at are easier to setup and look at though I would love to help to get this ready for public linux release

[timon37]

@YorrickVander

Honestly right now I'm busy doing a bunch of merging/refactoring/cleanup, a.k.a. source code repository damage control.

The main item on my "big worry list" is the general stability & performance, especially with amd drivers (both proprietary and foss).
All the more since that's a wrench in the gears for completely transitioning the engine to opengl.

The other stuff is mostly just "not enough time to write it" items, so they'll get done once I get to doing them.

In short, for the moment:
- any feedback about performance or stability issues is always welcome (with hardware driver details, savegames etc), preferably of the form: "I attached a savegame when I load it on windows I get 50fps, on linux I get 90fps"
- any bugreports which are easy & quick to reproduce (load savegame, click something, happens) that are not yet known are very welcome

[Gligli]

Hi,
This will halfway please you then

But I first want to know if we shall wait for a joystick support, or better not...
***
As a player, when I start a new game, I use the “possibles” until I found an issue, a difficult part or a fastidious one. When it occurs, I avoid it till it comes possible, easier or repair.
As a repair-man, I just can't watch or play something without a background eye on “how it does work (or not)”, “What are the minimum requirements” or “ What will ease it”. Its a “professional deformation”

After more than 200h of testing Rebirth, slowed by the first experience on a Windows dualcore laptop, I can start to tell what are my actual avoidance and observation regard of the performance issues. Because nothing really triggers the problem, it's not really due to a “graphical” saturation neither...

First thing, to have a relatively long experience without performance drop, is to stand still on an empty zone, preferably on a fresh loadgame.
Than you'll experience the issue after a long time of giving orders to your empire, as long as you don't quit the menu totally.
I have believed, for a long time, that the animation on comms was directly linked to the issue, but by quitting the menu the more often you can (and still stand on empty zone), you can avoid the problem. But...
Since you're IZ, where somethings “happen”... A simple “work complete” notification and the game can fall.
At this point, retuning to desktop and come back with alt-tab can purge the memory for good or crash the game.
The graphical issues in their side affect the problem, but materially only, no matter your graphics settings. So, optimization aside, you can fly through a heavy complicated station, suffering lag due to graphics and return to normal fps when you quit seeing it. The real issue comes, imo, when at this point, you're under attack(for ex. Its a question of maneuver and big mapping here) and any whatever cargo archive any whatever queued order. We have, at this moment, a maelstrom of information which shall be threated synchronously or lead to a queued pile of commands resulting to drops... The game shall theoretically return to normal state after the command pile resolved but it never, which make me think of a gap, an unresolvable hole. Probably in relation with the following:
When we think of trade queuing, a cargo picks the amount of Cr needed for the step one on your account. Then fly for the trade n°1 after having reserve the trade for the station remotely. Once arrived, the cargo deliver the money when loaded.
Sometimes an issue appear here. The cargo get stuck with no orders since the amounts in trade have change in between, probably due to concurrence in the mind of previous X, or simply a cargo-bay calculation? But the mechanics as it is should not allow it or time availability. Or clearly inject a “Someone comes before me” procedure for that case.
I'm not saying that the second issue is responsible of the first, but rather that they are bounded in a certain way that I'll call “Synchroish thing”, the unresolved gap, where Opcodes could effectively matters.

All my experiences are on a low Windows laptop(less use atm) and a below-average ubuntu14.04 i5 GTX9800.
And all my few experiences on programing were sadly never on X universe I still ask me why

"Sorry if there's a dosen tons of mistakes"

[YOYOMAN_MODDER]

Hi all! I'm running Ubuntu 15.04 LTS
PC specs:
Motherboard: Intel Starlake S5000PSLSAS
CPU: Dual Intel Xeon E5430 2.66 Ghz (4 cores 12 Mb cache) = 8 cores, 24 Mb cache 8 threads. Yes this is 2 cpu on one server board
RAM: 8 Gb FB-DIMM DDR2-667 (4 chanel mode) at summary speed 3.2 Ghz
Video: Nvidia Geforce 450 GTS 1 Gb VRAM GDDR5
HDD: WD Caviar 200 Gb 8 Mb cache( old disc)

Then i starting new plot game i get 30-40-50 fps. In "Favorable excavations" i have 15 fps. WTF this?

[timon37]

@YOYOMAN_MODDER

I'm guessing there's a lot of asteroids around?
Then it's because instancing is not yet fully implemented.
You can try lowering the view distance and/or lod, for now.

[YOYOMAN_MODDER]

@timon37
Thanks, for reply! No. Fps drops in the nebula. In Omicron Lyrae sectors a have 30 fps. Then i start new Free game or other start different of plot - fps high, but in Excavaition's zone 15-16.
And one more: The game instant 100% load only 1 core of 8 cores in my processors. i change the process priority to "Very high". Graphics settings - default -> medium

[Gligli]

Hi.
I'm making some test with off-line steam mode. As Updating itself or other games can slow my RB experience.

I wonder if you can tweak the actual Build of the game because it didn't change for a while and those two last week it seems that performance is rising. I ask it not to wrongly think that it's my steam offline who rise it.

[timon37]

Unfortunately we haven't made any releases/updates (other than what's mentioned in the first post):(
We're getting close to one, though it won't be particularly rich in fixes/improvements.
After that I hope to get the ball rollin' again;)

[Gligli]

thanks for precision
Offline steam mode could free some bits of performance then... I'll make further comparisons...
and on XR steam profile update. Its correctly functional, right?

[Santi]

Couple of people reporting issues in the Steam forums regarding the update.

FlaTLin3r
Hello,
Just wanted to let you know that since the update i received today the game wont start anymore for me (Ubuntu 15.04, Radeon HD 6950 with proprietary drivers). Nothing apears. After i press "Play Game" in Steam, it starts syncing the files with Steam cloud after 2 seconds or so.


huw
It's broken on Linux Mint too. I get a message saying "Error 0x10005: memory could not be found allocated from any of the memory manager heaps"

Link to the thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/2870/disc ... 1435150263

[kurush]

So, it only works on Nvidia and AMD graphics, no way to configure it for Intel graphics?

[Santi]

We got a couple more posts:

"FlaTLin3r
There was again a very small update. It still does not start, but at least there is a dedicated error message (same as in the other post):
Error 0x10005: Memory could not be found allocated from any of the memory managers heaps."

"worzel910
Error 0x10005: Memory could not be found allocated from any of the memory managers heaps.

Have this one too, 290x cat15.5 Mageia 5 64bit"

[timon37]

@santi

Thanks for the help:) I'll be watching that thread so you don't have to report what happens in it (unless I don't respond for too long).
Though if you notice any other interesting threads do give me a link, I generally don't have enough time to keep an eye on the forums, especially the steam ones.

[CulunTse]

I just discovered an interesting oddity.

I was drone-scanning the medium shipyards of the Teladi Outpost Overwatch station, and when I exited the drone, my ship was suddenly hovering a few kilometers away from the station.

I retried this a couple of times, entering and exiting drones, and it kept happening. It's also reproducible after exiting to desktop and reloading.
I have a savegame, before-after screenshots and a debug log uploaded here.

symptoms
- The Skunk warps to further away from the TU Overwatch when entering the scan drone
- this is visible because immediately after entering the drone the 'signal strength' bar is red, instead of the expected blue/green.
- sometimes the drone appears at the original coordinates, but there is no skunk that it exits. Other times it exits the skunk at the already-warped new location.
- it was reproducible by flying back to roughly the same spot and entering/exiting again.
- it was reproducible after exit-to-desktop and reload.

Steps to reproduce
1) load the attached quicksave.xml. You are hovering in front of the rearmost medium shipyard of the Teladi Overwatch.
2) hit T and enter one of the beholder-drones
3) immediately exit the drone again with ESC
4) Skunk is suddenly looking at the Overwatch from several kilometers further out. It could be that the facing-direction is unchanged, but I'm not sure.
5) simply flying around normally doesn't cause warps. (Neither in Skunk, nor in beholder drone)

suspicions / random layman rambling
I read somewhere that the in-game coordinates use floating-points.
Maybe the Teladi Sector is far enough away that floating-point rounding starts to become relevant?
I.e. if you have a single-precision float to buffer the skunk/camera position during drone-scan, but use doubles everywhere else?
(suspicion may be ignored if it's a 'smug report' )

Technical details
- X-rebirth 3.60, build lin9;
- Linux, Ubuntu 14.04
- Radeon FGLRX drivers, downloaded from AMD website (march version)
- AMD FX6300
- AMD Radeon HD 6950
- Multiple mods installed, (longish) list available if you think it may be relevant.
- I'll gladly experiment more if you have specific things you'd like tested.

[Alan Phipps]

@ CulunTse: Your post moved to Linux support thread, but since it is a beta version of the game I have linked it here too.