KQ2vga 3.0 introduction

[Spikey]

So. I've been trying to get KQ2vga 3.0 running correctly on my new Acer Aspire One 751.

The odd thing is that the AGDI 3d movie works fine, but the magic mirror 3d sequence in the introduction hangs after a few seconds. The music keeps on playing, and after I hear the door of destiny open, the 3d sequence kicks back in to where it should and runs the last part just fine.

It's not ffdshow, since I don't have it installed yet.

I would blame it on the extremely bad hardware, the Atom in combination with the not so very good Intel GMA 500 chip, with it's drivers being even worse than the chip itself, but I just tried out the old KQ2vga, where the 3D sequence in the intro movie runs just fine!

Already tried a few things (EDIT: like playing with the hardware acceleration and filter settings), but nothing seems to make it work correctly so far, and since the intro is kind of lengthy before the 3D sequence kicks in, I could use a suggestion.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

The older versions of the game used MPEG-1 video files. The new versions use Theora videos.

It may be worth checking to see if your system is capable of playing other Theora files by downloading some from the net (as well as a Theora video player) and seeing if you experience the same problem. If so, then maybe your particular system has an issue with Theora file playback. Otherwise, it may have something to do with the Theora player that AGS uses internally.

I presume that you have already tried installing the latest version of DirectX and your newest video card drivers? if you try running the game with a filter (such as the 2x-Nearest-Neighbour Filter) does that work?

[Spikey]

Thanks for the reply.

I have the latest version of DirectX 9.0c, my drivers are updated, and also tested all filters; they all do exactly the same thing. The only thing that makes me see slightly more of the video is when I use no filter and run in a window, but it still hangs horribly.

I will try the playback of other Theora files.

Btw, are the AGDI logo 3d sequences no Theora files? Because they run just fine. Also, the part after the door of destiny runs superb.

My compliments btw on the improvements! Only because I had to play the old and new versions of the introduction, I saw them back to back and the difference is astonishing.

[Spikey]

Well, I tried playing Theora files with VLC media player, and they run just fine.

I'm at a loss what I should try next, I think I've seen the introduction about a 100 times now in the last few days, lol.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

Strange! You might try posting about it on the AGS technical Forum, but I'm not sure if there's much that could be done about it. The freeze in the video stream seems like it might be an odd quirk that's unique to your system, since nobody else has mentioned having a similar problem with the playback of Theora movie files.

Yes, the AGDI logos are Theora video files too. The only difference is that the KQ2 Magic Mirror movie was rendered at 640x400 size (rather than 320x200, which is the native resolution of the game) in order to improve the quality. So, that particular movie actually gets scaled down 50% in size by AGS upon playback. I'm not sure whether or not that may have something to do with it.

Have you tried experimenting with some of the other options in the winsetup.exe program, such as increasing the sprite cache (under advanced) or the selecting the "Use 85Hz Display" option?

It seems like the video file must be freezing on a certain frame, and then picking up again on another frame after the Door of Destiny section begins. Have you been able to try it on another computer to see if the same thing happens?

[Spikey]

- I'm beginning to think it is really unique to my system, I will try messing around with the winsetup. Can I even try 85hz when I have only support for 60hz??
- The downscaling part sounds interesting, since it is the only difference between videos that run and don't run
- I will try playback of this particular download of the game on another computer, to see if I didn't get a faulty download
- the video hangs in different parts in a range of a second (just before reaching the grass), but not when I run in a window, I then see different frames that hang (again, sounds like a scaling issue)
- I will probably end up having both an old version and 3.0 installed on this baby; I'll always have to watch both introductions, because the 3D sequence is just too awesome to have it hanging, and the improvements in 3.0 are just TOO great to skip them, even in the intro

[Spikey]

Well, another 20 watches of the intro all with different settings makes me -- quite desperately -- give up.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

I'll be doing a recompile of KQ2VGA pretty soon to fix a few bugs that have been reported in v3.0.

Maybe I can re-encode the Theora cutscene and send you a pre-release version of the game, and you can let me know if that version of the movie is fixed on your end. I'll let you know when I have something for you to test.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

Spikey, check your PMs. I sent you a newly encoded Theora movie to test.

[Spikey]

To update, AGD2 fixed the problem for me, mainly caused by hardware limits in combination with the internal AGS video player, and it will most likely not occur anymore if the solution is implemented in a future update.