And more than 1 year after 0.96.0 : raine 0.97.0 !!!

[mer-curious]

14 hours ago, Tux said:

Ok, fixed. The autodetection is totally different now, it can't rely on opening the device as it did before, so it might work better for you now. Tested in many configurations, it should be ok everywhere.

Thank you so much for this fast fix!

I hurried to test it here and finally Raine auto-detects my TV speakers when they are set as default in the Windows desktop!

But I think I have found a final issue related to that:

I play normally on my TV and then quit Raine through the "Quit" option to save the configuration. Then I disconnect the computer/laptop from the TV and return to playing in the monitor/built-in laptop display. Raine again can auto-detect the sound device in the Windows desktop and the sound works normally, which is the expected behavior. But if you happen to visit the Sound options menu, the sound device is filled with a "None" value and then the sound won't work anymore. See:

So, the emulator is working correctly now, the issue is that if you visit the Sound options menu, it will screw the working sound output configuration.

Hopefully you'll find a way to reproduce and fix this when you have some free time.

 

Now I would like to report what I think is the final bug related to the window manager:

If you play in a bigger resolution display, save your configuration file in full-screen mode, then run the emulator in a smaller resolution display, the game picture will preserve the bigger resolution size and be out of bounds.

I came across this issue only now because of the recent tests with the sound output between the TV and the computer monitor. I finally saved a configuration file because everything seemed to be working perfectly in Windows at last, but then I found this issue when I returned to the computer monitor. I've recorded a short video to illustrate the problem, take a look:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xvpE7JnLcP7kBtZuM-upbcEkItSgxBUY/

So, to reproduce this you need to find a way to run Raine in a bigger resolution display, go to full-screen mode, save a configuration file and then open Raine again now in a smaller resolution display.

You'll also notice in my video that when you leave full-screen mode the Raine window will not be very well centralized in the new monitor desktop resolution. I don't know if this could be also fixed, but it is either way a much minor issue in this report.

 

14 hours ago, Tux said:

For the neocd bios, yes it looks for neocd.zip in the raine directory, it can't look anywhere else since there are no roms directory in neocd. It's always been like that.

You mean in Raine's root folder, right? In my case I keep the bios file named as "neocdz.zip" to differentiate it from the first NeoGeo CD bios. But I don't have it placed in the root of the emulator, I have it within my arcade games folder. But anyway, I guess I can live with that. I don't need to set the bios path every time, I just happen to do it frequently because I erase my config file to see if the program is working fine in a new fresh installation of the program, which is what a new Raine user would mostly experience.

Thank you so much again for your time and work in the recent bug-fix releases. I am glad that the Windows version of Raine if becoming as functional and operational as the Linux one.

[Tux]

Of course it was never thought to be used on a machine which changes its setup like that, it's supposed to be stable.

Well you can always install in 2 directories, 1 for your tv and the other one for the laptop, that's clearly the fastest solution because raine has worked like that for something like 20 years so I don't think I'll change that now, and I am not even sure how I would do it anyway.

For your sound option which disappears after you remove the tv, well same thing I guess, delete your config file if you want to keep just 1 install to allow it to reset its settings for the new setup. That's an idea for later eventually to allow it to detect such radical configuration changes, but I won't make a hotfix for that.

[mer-curious]

Thanks for the fast reply Tux!

Yes, I agree with you that most of these issues would probably be solved by having two installations of the program. But I think one installation is fine for most cases, it's just these minor issues that I come accross in my user experience that happen to bother me and then I report them here to see if they could be fixed.

By the way, I tested Raine for a little longer with the configuration file created in my TV and found out that the sound is not working correctly, contrary to what I said in the previous post. Hearing it more attentively I noticed the sound effects sound poorer in quality, and the NeoGeo logo is sounding weirdly too, check here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PaQeQY5JEXnEhkfjk8JTkl-57_Fj09Pr/

So even before visiting the Sound options menu the sound seems already broken unfortunately...

Interestingly, if you visit the Sound options menu before loading KOF2000 you will have this in the screen:

And if you visit the Sound options menu when the game is already loaded the Unibios may show you this after the game attract demo:

Maybe this could help you find the solution for this problem...?

You can see this error happening in my video capture shared above.

Anyway, hopefully you will grow some motivation to test theses issues eventually...

Thank you so much again for your continuing support.

[Tux]

Not for me, and really I get more and more tired of this... !

[mer-curious]

56 minutes ago, Tux said:

Not for me, and really I get more and more tired of this... !

You are correct! I'm so sorry for that. The issue was with my earphones, one of the channels wasn't working correctly, and so the NeoGeo logo was sounding weirdly here. I suppose this logo may use the left and right channel to produce different sounds, and so if one is not working correctly the music will sound incorrectly.

As for the error message in KOF2000, I think it only happens when you have the "None" in the Sound options menu. I couldn't reproduce it in a normal installation, I mean, an installation that is created in the computer using the computer monitor and the Windows desktop is set to use the computer built-in sound output. If you would like to reproduce this issue you would need a TV or monitor with built-in speakers or a second sound output device to create a configuration file based on that setup and then disconnect the TV/monitor/second sound card to see if Raine shows the "None" there for you too.

Perhaps you could try my configuration file? I'm not sure if that would work, but here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1szTZAjTJbct1E0dtKA6YSDtsgwviCWXl/

If you happen to have "None" in the Sound options menu then you may finally see this error in the game. You have to visit the Sound options menu before loading the game, or if you are using Unibios visit the Sound options menu when the game is already loaded. The error message may appear after the game attract demo. You can see the procedure I do in my capture in the previous post.

I really apologize again for the mistake in my previous report.

Thank you so much for your time.

Edited Tuesday at 01:26 AM by mer-curious

[Tux]

I won't try to recreate a rare bug, it's rare so just avoid it that's all. There are known issues in sound like changing the sample rate in a game which use fm music after the game has started will produce bad sound, the known workaround is just to quit when you change the sample rate. Yeah I know it's not super ideal, now if someone wants to send patches to improve all this, I'll accept them !

It's assumed people can setup their sound once and then keep the settings for normal play.

A program which works in all conditions is a crazy thing, that's something you learn quickly when you learn how to program, even if you try to do it with some sample code it can quickly become crazy. Now for some safe environments where it's a necessity, people try to keep programs small to avoid that things become too crazy. For raine it's already very big, you have to be a minimum reasonable about what to do in this case, it's already working as well as possible with some pitfalls which can be easily avoided.

[Tux]

After some thinking, it's not so hard to add a small test for the video info to keep the window within the screen boundaries in case the physical screen has changed since the config was recorded, so I did just that.

And in case the recorded soundcard is not available to just force a re-detection of it.

2 small workarounds for people who change their config all the time on their laptops while still keeping things easy, it should work...

But I won't track the z80 error, yeah it can report an error like that if sound config is messed up when booting the game, even if I can't seem able to reproduce it for now no matter what.

[mer-curious]

7 hours ago, Tux said:

After some thinking, it's not so hard to add a small test for the video info to keep the window within the screen boundaries in case the physical screen has changed since the config was recorded, so I did just that.

And in case the recorded soundcard is not available to just force a re-detection of it.

2 small workarounds for people who change their config all the time on their laptops while still keeping things easy, it should work...

Hello Tux! This is really good news! I should be testing these workarounds as soon as a new version is released.

Thank you so much for that. Hopefully those were the last issues related to the sound device detection and the window management feature...

 

7 hours ago, Tux said:

But I won't track the z80 error, yeah it can report an error like that if sound config is messed up when booting the game, even if I can't seem able to reproduce it for now no matter what.

No problem, I cannot reproduce this issue in a normal installation either. It only happens when I have the configuration file created in my TV with my laptop or desktop computer and then try to use it with the monitor, that is, when you have the "None" value in the Sound options menu. If you have set the Unibios, it will show the "MVS slot check" error. If you have set the default Europe bios, it will show the "Z80 error".

Just out of curiosity, I took the configuration file created in my laptop and tested it in my desktop computer and could consistently reproduce the error. Here's a capture showing the procedure I make, if you would like to try it once more:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AhpKDgOwk9YeR_LdLURSosRSIqzbQCla/

As you see in the video, you need to visit the Sound options menu before loading the game to trigger the error. I have provided above the configuration file created in my desktop connected to the TV. Now I provide the configuration file created in my laptop when it was connected to the TV:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AXfBp2K1VwRDILBorzrpnzZsNsdcXwxA/

I'm not sure it will make a difference in your testing, but since you couldn't reproduce it at all, maybe you could try it with this one too...?

Anyway, I am already glad the other two issues have been fixed.

Thank you so much again for your continuing work in Raine.

[Tux]

19 minutes ago, mer-curious said:

Hello Tux! This is really good news! I should be testing these workarounds as soon as a new version is released.

Thank you so much for that. Hopefully those were the last issues related to the sound device detection and the window management feature...

 

Oh well you can always test this binary, since normally it can now work around the issue of soundcard not present you shouldn't be able to reproduce this error with it.

https://raine.1emulation.com/archive/tux/raine.7z

[mer-curious]

12 hours ago, Tux said:

Oh well you can always test this binary, since normally it can now work around the issue of soundcard not present you shouldn't be able to reproduce this error with it.

https://raine.1emulation.com/archive/tux/raine.7z

Thank you so much for providing a test build! This may be useful to avoid several hot-fix releases in a short time.

I made a quick test here with this test version using my current configuration file in Raine, that is, the one created with the desktop computer/laptop computer hooked to the TV to check if the problems have been solved. Here are the results:

- the issue with the game picture not resizing appropriately for a smaller resolution display is still present in this test version. I no longer have a game picture out of bounds though, it is just a black screen now, take a look:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQ2OyXaRyxgjJy2nRgrpZk5R4uM0AKCM/

So the change you implemented did change something in this regard, but it is not perfect yet. Hopefully you'll be able to understand what is going on with this issue...

- the issue with Raine not detecting the current sound output device and showing a "None" value in the Sound options menu has been partially fixed. This is what is happening now:

1) if you load a game before visiting the Sound options menu, the sound device setting will be normally filled with the current sound output device found in Windows, take a look:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ly7fQTWlOnHFJwD27v0Yat66gf-X_0h3/

The sound seems to work normally in this case as far as I've tested.

2) if you visit the Sound options menu before loading a game, then the "None" value will remain set as the sound output device and there will be no sound during the game play. This will also trigger the "Z80 error/MVS slot check" error in KOF2000 as mentioned before. See here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jJInRBM7Z0bxba7P0vc2_sgxxN743pNk/

So, the change you have implemented did fix the issue with the sound device detection, at least partially. There is only the case that if you visit the Sound options menu before loading a game, it will trigger the issue and then the sound will be broken. In case of KOF2000 and possibly other NeoGeo games, it will also produce the "Z80 error/MVS slot check error". The Z80 error does not allow you to play the game, as you see here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o05mq-RM6tg0leivib5vXm4e9v9q7o4Z/

Hopefully this test will be useful for you somehow when checking those issues again.

Thank you so much for your time and work.

Edited yesterday at 07:57 AM by mer-curious

[Tux]

Ok, I'll take a look later, but there's no need to make a video all the time, just saying

1 load a game while being in fullscreen, the game starts normally while in the gui
2 go fullscreen -> the screen becomes blank

It's shorter, takes less time, and is more efficient for everyone. I have tested this too fast, seeing that the gui seemed ok in fullscreen I assumed it was a windowed problem only. Later, then...

edit : well sorry for my mistakes, I was half awaken when I did that and it shows, I went way too fast especially for the video resizing part. For the sound I didn't think just opening the sound options would make such a mess in such a case ! Anyway it's fixed again, you can have your test which was indeed useful here : http://raine.1emulation.com/archive/tux/raine.7z