Axiom Verge 2

[austere spear]

Axiom Verge 2 is a metroidvania heavily focused on exploration and getting lost.
There are two PC versions. Epic Store and Steam. Steam version has some basic checks, that prevent the game from running without Steam. Epic Store version 1.0.20.23343 is not bothered by EOS stub confessing that nothing works. Therefore EPIC STORE VERSION IS REQUIRED. FMOD version 20206 build for arm64/aarch64 is required as well like the Celeste port. Legally available to individuals on https://fmod.com (reg). Achieved mainly by customizing MonoGame 3.7.1 to allow for transpiling of DXBC shaders with restored RDEF section using modified HLSLcc.

GOALS:
Initial testing. Mapping out handheld/cfw combos. Should be playable until breach dimension.

Game data and FMOD:
Copy all the files from Epic Store version of the game contained in the game's folder to AxiomVerge2/gamedata. The version can be checked on any platform in Log/logfile.txt and it should say Creating Game, version 1.0.20.23343.
Copy libfmod.so.13.6 and libfmodstudio.so.13.6 for arm64/aarch64 into the AxiomVerge2/libs directory naming them libfmod.so.13 and libfmodstudio.so.13 respectively.

Usage:
The package includes 4 scripts that all pretend to be a game in the ports menu of your CFW.
AxiomVerge2.sh is the "release" version, which is the most optimized and therefore fastest.
AxiomVerge2_Debug.sh is the "debug" version, which activates a debug build of MonoGame along with copious amounts of log in log.txt, gamedata/Debug.Listener.log.
AxiomVerge2_RDoc.sh is the "release" version, which preloads librenderdoc.so to display frame times at the top.
AxiomVerge2_ClearShaderCache.sh deletes all cached transpiled shaders from CachedShaders/0.0. Useful for testing as both cached and uncached runs should be validated.

[x] ArkOS/R36s - No audio
[x] Rocknix/R36s
[x] muOS/RG35XX H - No audio
[] Other, whatever you can provide 😄

Resolution:
[x] 640x480
[] Other, whatever you can provide 😄

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. This is a PREALPHA version of the port. The goal is to go through the combinations of handheld and CFWs, and categorize them based on bugs, performance, stability etc.
2. Use Panfrost gpu driver on Rocknix. Change in Emulation Station settings. May be applicable to other CFWs. Solves the obvious "tiling" bug in the main menu.
3. The performance allows for reasonable testing from the start until the player reaches the Breach dimension (shimmering red portals accessible with a drone).
4. Achievements should not crash the game. Entering the breach for the first time during a play session triggers one achievement.
5. The RenderDoc build may not work on your CFW. It is there just for convenience.
6. Loading takes a while. Company logos to MainMenu takes about 15s-20s. Loading into the game takes about 30s.
7. If you do not have right stick on your handheld. Please either bind your Fn button (best opt), or sacrfice one of the equipment buttons (least used) and bind use item to that. There are 6 equipment buttons and some of them are by default bound to very situational equipment, just like items are.
8. The package contains and end-game save. For convenience, there is and easily accessible breach portal 2 screens to the left. Use the breach detector item, then switch to drone to be able to enter.
9. TTS disabled.

KNOWN ISSUES:

1. None of the already tested handhelds/cfws run 60 fps. The best performance is on RG35XX H with muOS, followed by R36s with ArkOS and R36s with Rocknix.
2. Audio is missing on muOS and ArkOS. Ark can play with music, if ES is stopped and the port is launched via SSH.
3. The game technically crashes on quit. Does not affect anything, but is on the list of future fixes.
4. The UI bars for health etc. animate only R36s/ArkOS afaik.

Special thanks to:
JohnnyonFlame - for frequent guidance on handheld/cfw issues, XNA ports (MonoGame), RenderDoc support for libgbm, EOS stubs, libret0, FMOD fix and probably other stuff as well.

[jade yarrow]

Thanks for prealpha, will test it asap! 👍🔥

[robust vortex]

@austere spear do you want testers then?

[austere spear]

I dont think I need the full horde, yet. Just a couple interested people with a variety of handhelds and cfws would be enough for now.

Thank you.

[pallid bramble]

How does fmod work

[austere spear]

https://retrogamecorps.com/2022/04/30/guide-celeste-on-the-anbernic-rg552/ go into the Compile the data files section. There is already a good guide for that.

Basically: register at https://fmod.com download 20206 for linux. that has arm64 libs as well. take them, remove the .6 suffix and thats it. put them into the libs subdirectory

[pallid bramble]

Wait so we can port pizza tower then?

Or no?

[austere spear]

pizza tower is monogame?

thats game maker, what are you on about? 😄

[pallid bramble]

Someone said pizza tower cant be ported because of fmod

[austere spear]

fmod cannot be distributed with the port.

[pallid bramble]

So fmod can be downloaded separately and pizza tower can be ported?

[fair plinth]

You cant just implement fmod like that for gamemaker

Not the same 🙂

[austere spear]

The situation is the same as Celeste, afaik. Im not going to port Pizza Tower (altough it is a great game). But you might find someone else, I guess. It is GameMaker. GameMaker is a bit hit and miss though, because I dont think nativized GM games are supported even, yet.

like Hotline Miami, World of Horror.

[fair plinth]

You can use johnnys gmloader, which uses the android libs and a ton of hacks.

World of horror should work, hotline miami wont

[austere spear]

afaik Curse of Issyos, for example, and Hotline Miami are different, in that CoI is just unx, while HM is mostly in the binary.

REALLY? 😄

[fair plinth]

Hotline miami uses the yoyo compiler instead of bytecode

[austere spear]

I was looking forward to WoH on handheld. It feels great for shot sessions on a train or something.

yeh, so "nativized"

next step for PM. yoyo decompiler 🤣

[fair plinth]

Thats getting into dangerous territories, but would be cool😄

[austere spear]

I think WoH is not in unx only...

let me take a look.

ugh... there is data.win...

[fair plinth]

Woh is def bytecode

[austere spear]

Ok, then thats my next port, after AV2.

[fair plinth]

With bytecode is doesnt matter if the game is android, mac, linux, windows

[austere spear]

My personal, minimalistic, opengl, platforming engine heavily optimized for handhelds will come after that :D.

Of course.

I must have been blind last time.

yeh, no unx and no win in HM as expected. I really must have been blind with WoH.

[kind path]

I took the libs from Celeste but they didn't work

[austere spear]

Cool, thank you. Please elaborate.

How does your port tree structure look?

What steps did you take?

Also, please try running it with the AxiomVerge2_Debug, then extract log.txt from the AxiomVerge2 directory.

Also, are you sure you are talking about Celeste port, and not the original Celeste?

Please take a look at the size and modification time of your libraries, that might tell me something as well.

@kind path

[austere spear]

FNA?

are you sure that is a version from Epic?

I dont think it is:
Mono: Loading reference 8 of /mnt/sdcard/ports/AxiomVerge2/gamedata/AxiomVerge2.exe asmctx DEFAULT, looking for Steamworks.NET, Version=20.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null

sorry, steam version has what basically amounts to rudimentary copy protection. I cannot violate that without Thomas Happ's consent :D.

I know it sucks :(. Thank you for your interest anyway.

[kind path]

Ohhh this isn't really playable without analogs lol 💀

[austere spear]

it is very much playable. what are you talking about?

[austere spear]

https://www.axiomverge2.com/quickstart-manual

[kind path]

You need the right analog to aim tho and to use the flashlight unless I'm mistaken

In game I cannot activate the flashlight

[austere spear]

I think I did see aim in the controls, but I dont think that I have ever used that. Aiming controls are basically Super Metroid and I wouldnt say SM isnt really playable.

Ok, Ive just checked. Flashlight is irrelvant to gameplay. It is just a nice-to-have. Ranged weapons can be used Super Metroid style. The game is actually more focused on melee as well, unlike AV1. The only issue I have found is that "use item" is bound to press of the right stick.
HOWEVER, the game has rebindable gamepad controls (a rarity for sure), and you can sacrifice one of BXY, LT, RT, which you can assign at will with equipment to replace the functionality, while sacrificing one equip button. A worthy trade. Nevertheless, thank you for making me examine this a bit more.

[austere spear]

Ill add a note into the IMPORTANT NOTES section

[austere spear]

It also just occured to me that maybe the Function button of your handheld could, maybe, be bound. Tried on R36s Rocknix and failed. I remember that I could bind it on ArkOS previously, and alas that one works. So that might be an even better solution. (I guess Rocknix guys are not using the modded dtb for r36s)

[hexed marsh]

super thanks for the port
I need to try saves from the PC version, they should work, otherwise I’ve already started going through the Steam version, but at work I can do it in portable mode)

[austere spear]

🫀 Cool to see localization working. The save that is part of the package is my end game save from Epic store version. Is this RG353P? What CFW are you running please? Also, please report whether you get sound and hows the performance.

The savegame dir should be pretty obvious.

I suppose that you can even rename your PC save to show up in of the other slots, so you dont have to ditch the end game save for testing.

I suppose RK3566 (4x A55) is going to fare much better than RK3326 (4x A35). Double the RAM and likely faster is also not going to hurt.

[hexed marsh]

Last arcos 353P
The version is as in the instructions, but I'm not sure if it's epic. In my country you can't buy games from epic.

Performance is good, but needs more testing
The sound is also okay.

[austere spear]

Ok. Performance is likely going to drop, when you reach the breach. Thats going to be interesting. You may try running the game using AxiomVerge2_RDoc to see the frametimes. I would guess that that might work with your combination of handheld and cfw.

[hexed marsh]

Saves are suitable from my steam
works a little slower when there are a lot of objects on the screen, but the process is still very playable

[mystic granite]

trimuismartpro no audio
28xx muos no audio
arkos 3566. audio ok
last jelos rgbmax3 audio ok
amberelec 351v. no audio
720p device has a very low resolution. max3 has weird texture errors.

[austere spear]

Damn, thats nearly 60fps. The more powerful SoC really shows. I havent really reached the point, when I fully focus on optimization, yet. That will come soon. 353P might actually end up being full 60 fps afterwards. You know, with this, it may be even worth trying playing without vsync, depending how bad the tearing looks.

[austere spear]

Thank you! This is the exact kind of thing Im looking for.
muOS doesnt suprise me, same as my RG35XX H. Is it playable on the device? Remember that you might have to rebind Use Item to something else other than R3 to be able to use that. Either by sacrificing one equipment slot, or binding it to the F button of your 28XX, assuming it is labelled the same as 35xx.
Last jelos with rgbmax3 looks VERY much like what Im describing in the IMPORTANT NOTES section point 2). Happens in the main menu as well, doesnt it? Load Game was fine for me, though. I would presume that the last jelos does not have panfrost unlike rocknix (fork of jelos). TL;DR seems like mali drivers in that version are crap (they are generally). I might try figuring this one later on, because the way the mali driver is being "fixed" for rocknix interferes with renderdoc, so it might actually be a terrible pain to find a workaround :D.
720p is something I havent tested at all, yet. Im targetting 640x480 right now. The game has some hardcoded render target sizes already that seem to have been based on the assumption of fullhd. I have replaced those with values more appropriate for 640x480. Ill make it actually dynamic in the next version. Thank you. Could you please send me the log.txt file from a debug run? I might make use of some of the values there. Getting to company logos should be enough. I just need the game to initialize graphics.

[mystic granite]

Very happy to help😁

[austere spear]

Thank you very much. Ill gol through them once I have time.

I can already tell, that I see the part that I wanted. Seems like the game is launching in 1280x720 mode, not 640x480, that should mean that I should just make the RT size dynamic based on that (and some other things). How was the performance? This will impact it negatively for obvious reasons.

[mystic granite]

btw,both muos and arkos got a blackscreen here (yellow mark)like this.

[austere spear]

now thats an interesting one. thank you. where is it, exactly? antarctica interior?

[mystic granite]

seems appear randomly anywhere

[austere spear]

This is by design. The game is supposed to look like that. The issues youre posting are different. Could you please show the part to the left as well? That light blue triangle is bit more concerning.

[mystic granite]

a~ i see. just like axiom verge…

[austere spear]

https://youtu.be/dY3vQJnxJVA?t=3709

You can see it here.

Then that is looking fine. Ok. Looked like a snowy background, but thats actually ice crystals. And I know, it is to the left, then up twice from the save Ive provided. Ive just blanked on it :D.

So it seems like interiors might have a problem in general.

[mystic granite]

When I restart the game, it works fine here. Very strange.

[austere spear]

There are a couple of places that Id have to see to verify. There is a base pretty soon after the first water adventure. There is a save point, so you can visit it rather quickly with the end game save using fast travel. There is one on the top of the snowy mountain. The save point should be along the left side of the mountain. There should be another about in 1/3 from the left side, somewhere around the middle line vertically. Afaik.

[austere spear]

Thats actually really useful

I might have a change to test and see if thats related. The fact that its unpredictable points me in a couple of places.

[mystic granite]

play from the begining about 30 mins , so far so good, no texture issue. only low resolution and no audio. smart pro.

[austere spear]

Did a quick test on r36/rocknix/panfrost and rg35xx h/muos, both with the "release" script and neither of them exhibited the issue with flashlight or "textures" (this has to be verified, but lets just call it that for now) all the way from the start until I exit the hut after using the teleporter. It is a bit more specific, it seems.

[fair plinth]

The truimui smart pro is an interesting device to say the least😄 Is this stock-ex, crossmix or knulli? @mystic granite

[austere spear]

Out of a curiousity. Could you, please, try it with these two libraries? They should be overwriting the existing ones.

No changes to resolution, yet. I dont want to change two variables at the same time.

Rather use this one, please. I want to know if it crashes for you :D. This one should force crash, if fishy things happen here. EDIT: REMOVED TO AVOID CONFUSION

[austere spear]

I DO NOT RECOMMEND using this one to anyone who IS NOT experiencing this issue.

[mystic granite]

ok. will test it later~

[mystic granite]

stock. no ex and mix and knulli.😁

[fair plinth]

You need trimui_ex for stock os😄

From kloptops

[mystic granite]

I have been using kiwi since the end of last year. So actually I don't need ex😁

[fair plinth]

kiwi?

[mystic granite]

It s not important. They are doing the same thing. I'm lazy and I don't want to change the existing one if it works.

[fair plinth]

Just curious because ive never heard of kiwi and cant find it either, got a link? 🙂

[mystic granite]

seems no crash... did these log help?

[austere spear]

Can you try debug, please? Im really, really sorry. I need a little bit of log vomit. The file produced is going to be large also, so you may not be able to post it here :(.

[mystic granite]

smart pro got a black screen and can not exit. so i shutdown the device, I'm not sure if the log is accurate

[austere spear]

Well, the log vomit version can get into gigabytes 😄

Hm, Im not seeing the log vomit here.

Is the game slow, as expected?

[mystic granite]

Only the title appears then force close

[austere spear]

Title as in company logos or main menu? Sounds like what the original change was supposed to prevent.

[mystic granite]

company logos, then blackscreen, then crash

[austere spear]

Yes, thats it. That change fixed exactly that on r36s with panfrost.

Ok, I dont really have time now to work on it. Ill get back to it later. If you manage to make AxiomVerge2_Debug generate a BIG file, then please, share it. Maybe delete MonoGame.Framework.dll from the dlls directory, then launch again. It should be automatically replaced by the one with _DEBUG suffix for debug mode.

[mystic granite]

how BIG the BIG file you said. I want to make sure my card has enough space😂

[austere spear]

Couple gigabytes. Depending how quick you are going to be. Just, please, dont let it run for ten minutes :D.

[mystic granite]

i did what you said. del monogame.framework.dll, theres only a 20m log.txt. no BIG file.

[austere spear]

Hmmm. Thanks. I dont know if I can get to it today. But Ill keep that in mind.

I did check that it worked locally, of course, so Im perplexed.

[mystic granite]

btw both muos and arkos got a blackscreen here(yellow mark) like this :↓

[austere spear]

Wait, this looks like it is on the bezel. Is this coming from the game, or is it a reflection, or a cracked screen?

Is that a reflection from you laptop, maybe? 😄

[mystic granite]

yes , its my wallpaper, axiom verge 1

[austere spear]

All this time, I was thinking that something seriously broken was happening there :D.

I have also reproduced the black interior issue on my RG35XX H with muOS11, so you dont need to dig into that one anymore. I still have to reproduce it on my R36s with Rocknix, but thats another story.

The current list of issues that are obvious to users with priorities:

1. Debug build not doing log vomit. -> Quick check whats up with that first.
   2-3) Missing audio, which also disables the UI bars pulsing and probably some in game effects (in AV1 the red bubbles at the beginning also pulsed with music) -> Next step is to explore FMOD debug libraries, maybe I can force it to log something relevant.
   2-3) Black interiors. Interiors are rendered as a separate game layer, thats all I know for know -> Reproduce on something that I can use renderdoc with and see whats up.
2. Add dynamic scaling of render targets for 720p, even those that are inited with absolute values on PC -> Figure out a good calculation method to not break any effects, then apply where necessary.

Hidden issues:

1. Sometimes opengl programs (chained vertex and pixel shaders in this case) get unbound without any request from the code side. Might indicate something deeper. -> Add more logging, can reproduce locally.
2. Maybe replace the glFinish, when initing textures, which crashes in some case on same handhelds and cfw, with a glMemoryBarrier (have to learn about this more) -> Can reproduce locally.

Wont fix, yet:

1. Peformance
2. JELOS due to libmali with fixes messing with renderdoc and its age compared to rocknix.
3. Exitting the game ends with a crash.

Am I missing anything?

[shut gull]

i don't get axiom verge 2 running on rg353v/rocknix

are there any solution?

[austere spear]

Get the version from Epic, not Steam. Sorry, but thats the solution.

PSA: Please read the original post! There is important information that you need to know, before trying to run the AV2 port.

[austere spear]

1. cant seem to reproduce AxiomVerge2_Debug not doing log vomit on RG35XX H and R36s/Rocknix/ArkOS.
2. tried debug libraries for FMOD. ALSA tells me to "get bent, Im in use little man."

So, yeh. I guess Im running into the issue @graceful lagoon and @frank remnant ran into. So reading up on dmix is next on the table for this.

This is RG35XX H with muOS 11 (2405.2)

https://muos.dev/release/plush/2405.3 looking here, it seems like PipeWire support is incoming. That could help, maybe?

[frank remnant]

pipewire is going to solve a lot of issues with muOS

id wait a bit

[austere spear]

Just asked on muOS discord and xonglebongle seems to believe so.

[fair plinth]

Pipewire is in the latest test build

[austere spear]

Im considering giving the guys $6 to check.

[fair plinth]

Its still quite broken but seems to work well for mono games

[austere spear]

So that would leave amberelec/351v and trimuismartpro without audio.

and ArkOS

Christian does not seem to care: https://github.com/christianhaitian/arkos/issues/1095 (June 3)

[fair plinth]

Yup

I shared that i'm ok with that because my main focus has always been emulation for ArkOS. I may or may not update those components in the future.

[austere spear]

But ArkOS seems to work if I kill ES and launch from SSH. Maybe I can find a workaround there.

[fair plinth]

Quote from christian

This is about outdated parts of arkos. But you get the point😄

[austere spear]

I should try the fmod debug libraries there as well.

Yes.

[austere spear]

arkos, just fyi. you might be excused not to immediatelly see a difference compared to muOS :D. so yeh, supporting arkos will be fun.

[kind path]

Audio working on the SP but crashes on upon exit

For Cool Beans

[jade yarrow]

https://youtu.be/QNbqXTFBxNY

[austere spear]

You are getting way ahead of me :D.

X55 seems quite powerful, doesnt it?

[fair plinth]

RK3566, around 60% extra compared to the RK3326

[austere spear]

Anyway, your video reminded me, that there is a very good reason AV2 (and 1) use FMOD. There is a lot of nice audio features involved.

[austere spear]

Thats seems like a lot.

Good that Im developing mainly on RK3326. It is usually better to develop on the weakest platform, before starting to cut.

[fair plinth]

Definitely, we can also exclude lower end chips if its really required 🙂

[austere spear]

Also, damn, it is loading fast compared to R36s

I dont want to, yet. Im not alone in this. Ive bumped into some comments made by Johnny about porting AV1 and we are pretty much in the same boat there :D.

Breach performance on X55 still sucks. Good to know. Im going to have nightmares remembering that renderdoc capture and numbers from draw times for each pass Ive recorded already :D. I really want to get there, but the main issues, like audio and interiors need to come first.

[austere spear]

Would you be so kind to record a couple of sections with the AxiomVerge2_RDoc so I get the renderdoc overlay, please? Assuming it runs on X55. Looking at it filtered by YT might be misleading. To me it seems like you are getting almost 60 in early on, dropping to about 40 in the areas from the end game save.

[austere spear]

Also please note the FMOD requirement in the description. That is also necessary.

[jade yarrow]

Sure, will do 👌
Already played it with rdoc as well with overlay. Yes, it's about 60-40fps in game

[jade yarrow]

Noted👌

[austere spear]

🫀

[austere spear]

I forgot to mention that the value there is in ms, not fps, but I guess you have already figured that out. ~16.6ms == 60 fps, ~33.3ms == 30fps, ~25ms == 40fps

[austere spear]

I broke it on ArkOS!!!! That means easy renderdoc!

lets see if I can reproduce it at will

normal launch script keeps doing it again. I think it may have something to do with exiting the game through kill, instead of main menu.

Black interior with renderdoc running!

time to capture

Oooh, yes

and the capture loads!

and crashed the game. lol. I dont mind

btw, using a basic sprite renderer to copy a 3061x2018 texture into a 3061x2018 render target to use later is one of most daring moves I have seen.

and then another draw overwrite a couple dozen of pixels, probably to do animation.

I also now know, that there is a UBO - uniform buffer object (CB - constant buffer in DirectX terminology), which is improperly sized, assuming that my code for retrieving offsets is broken. so this might be actually fixable rather easily, with some time.

[austere spear]

One issue spotted. Hopefully fixed in the next build.

I think there is another, though

[austere spear]

And Ive tracked down the main issue. I wont have a fix today, but I know where Im at now.

[austere spear]

Ok, the issue is multifold. First, going down to GLSL 3.00 has made a couple of vert shaders identical, that originally were not, because 3.00 has a bit more limited feature set compared to 3.10. The issues were still there in the 3.10 code, but never relevant. This meant that a couple of shaders had same hashes, which confused the shader program cache (storage for already compiled programs == shaders linked together). What also didnt help was that I did a stupid mistake and failed to proprely increment clone counters, because those were meant to differentiate these shaders. OpenGL and shaders and cross dependencies between stages are the reason why this needs to be dealt with. Same vertex shaders were always possible, because different pixel shaders doenst mean different in/out parameters layout, even less so with 3.00, which I havent accounted for yet and gambled that this wont be a problem,... yet. Whats worse, it looks like I have hash collisions between shaders that are not even from the same effect (hash collisions CAN happen, thats normal). They do even have a different source, which is sad. So Ill have to deal with those. And then the interior should be fixed.

And oh yeh... I also forgot to change the data to make the hash from the compiled DX shaders (DXBC) to the transpiled GLSL shaders.... whooops. No wonder they have the same hash

Used the from parameter for that ts ts.

Maybe that could explain the issues with unexpectedly unbound shader program on Panfrost.

https://tenor.com/view/thats-the-lamest-thing-ive-ever-heard-eric-cartman-south-park-s2e12-clubhouses-gif-21551270

[austere spear]

And eh, this is funny. OpenGL ES 3.1 seems to be way more friendly with my AMD gpu. I can actually launch it on PC now. And debug it there. That will be incredible.

[graceful lagoon]

You’re doing a hard work here !

I have tasted the shader stuff recently and it’s brain killing

[austere spear]

Thats actually one of the reasons why Im doing this at all.

[graceful lagoon]

I learn from Johnny that Panfrost is less flexible with the shader code than libmali

At least panfrost is teaching you the right way to code shaders

[austere spear]

I still like to run the shaders through glslangvalidator.

[austere spear]

Oh wow, Ive found and awesome pair of vertex shaders one for sprite rendering, one for rendering tiles. The shaders coming from transpilation (conversion into GLSL ES) are noticeably different. They have different UBOs (CBs for DX) - those are basically parameters available to all vertices - and they make them look different at a cursory glance. BUT the code is identical, and it so happens that the way CBs are processed, they end up with same declaration of size in the chunk with shader instructions, because the names and types are kinda for show in the human readable code. Of course there is layout and sizes of each of the values, but in the end it is just a block of data with a size divisable by 16 and seen as a vector of 4 float values. That means that these shaders are IDENTICAL for DX, when stripped of unnecessary data for the final shader in order to optimize the size. That means, they have the same hashkey, if the shaderbytecode is used for hashing. Btw, restoration of the stripped data to shaders was one of the biggest steps in order to port AV2. I wouldnt ever know why that happens, if I havent had to dig that deep.

https://tenor.com/view/summer-summer-time-weekend-images-fun-vibes-enjoy-gif-6854052730454380296

this was actually really fun to figure out.

[austere spear]

IMPORTANT:

1. OK TO COPY OVER EXISTING BUILD. NEW INSTALLS SHOULD USE THIS PACKAGE INSTEAD OF THE ORIGINAL ONE.
   2) !!!!!!! CLEAN CACHED SHADERS !!!!!!!!! LAUNCH AxiomVerge2_CleanShaderCache.sh FIRST !!!!!!!!!!!!
   Possibly fixed black interiors (ok in my tests, but 🤷‍♀️) . Coincidentally, looks like it also fixes the the hidden issue #1.
   Repro:
2. AxiomVerge2_CleanShaderCache -- IMPORTANT
3. Launch game normally through AxiomVerge2.
4. Start new game.
5. Enter the shed to the left of the helipad.
6. Kill the game.
7. Launch game normally through AxiomVerge2.
8. Load the game created in step 3).
9. Enter the shed to the left of the helipad.
   ---> If everything went fine, you shouldnt crash in #3 and the shed interior is visible in #8.

@jade yarrow @kind path @mystic granite @hexed marsh new version!

[hexed marsh]

Doesn't load on a clean install.

[hexed marsh]

but if you copy the new build and replace it with the previous one, the game works correctly.

[kind path]

@austere spear works for me

Would be awesome to get a full 640x480

But other than that it seems to be perfect. Just have to reflash my card to see if sound works

[austere spear]

What does it do? Just sits there?

[austere spear]

Ive seen this one before. The lookup of libraries can get confused sometimes. Ill try and to a clean install again. Tomorrow. Thank you.

[austere spear]

Well, the game is designed for 16:9, it seems :\

[kind path]

Oh I see. All g

[austere spear]

I can try but much later.

[austere spear]

Are you sure that both fmod libraries in the libs dir?

[jade yarrow]

Ok, for me on x55 rocknix new version works, as it supposed to work, just from first start, without need to use option clear cache! 🎉👍

[austere spear]

Cool, but the shaders should have a slightly better memory management, because they use shared alignment instead of std140 alignment for uniform buffer objects.

[mystic granite]

arkos ✅. others no audio. 16:9 720P low resolution.

[kind path]

@austere spear is it possible to have the control settings menu work properly? On the SP, it appears as if the L3 button is always on. So when you try to change buttons, it always goes to L3. I couldn't find a file to edit either.

[austere spear]

Thats bizzare. Ive tried it on R36s with ArkOS and Rocknix and the controls settings were fine. I did that to check if it was possible to have reasonable controls with a dpad only device like SP. The only problem was that Rocknix couldnt use the Fn button, but that is a CFW issue and I cant do much about that. I wonder if SP has L3 bound to something like the open/close sensor. Is there anything that could trigger L3 on SP? I dont think so. So what I would do to test it is to force gptokeyb to unbind L3. As for the file to edit. It is possible, but Happ encrypted it :D. However, it is easy to get the key, so you can decrypt and reencrypt it. I have my settings file decrypted for reference. Still, Id check if other ports exhibit the same issue, as this would probably be best fixed on the gptokeyb or PM level.

Hm, still, if the L3 is triggered at all times, I wonder if youre getting your item activated every once in a while during gameplay. Or maybe it is activated only a single time per press.

[austere spear]

What arkos has sound? 🙃 I didnt do anything about that! What version do you have, please? As for 720p, I plan to address that with the next build.

[mystic granite]

the lastest arkos. The first version already had sound. Don't you know?

[austere spear]

Nope it is broken on my R36s with arkos. Im on 07042024. Ill try 07312024 and see how it goes. Thanks.

muos will have sound with the next muos update as it adds pipewire.

[mystic granite]

i dont know theres an update 0731. i am also on 07042024. they are all 3566. i dont have 3326 device with arkos.

[austere spear]

rg353p? ok. good to know.

[mystic granite]

rk2023 rg353vs rg353ps. update: 0731 audio ok.

[austere spear]

Hmm, r36s with arkos still not ok. What settings do you have, please in ES settings menu -> Sound Settings -> Audio Card and Audio Device?

[austere spear]

@robust vortex Do you know about any other port that has this issue, please? Sounds like something with gptokeyb or gamecontrollersdb.txt (I know thats interconnected)

[mystic granite]

no "audio card and audio device" setting you said

[austere spear]

It should be at the top, right under System Volume....hmm, arkos is fun.

[mystic granite]

all my 3566 devices have no that setting. may be different with 3326 devices.
yes, its a setting for 3326 devices. and yes, 351v arkos no audio.

[robust vortex]

Weird o_o

[kind path]

Sorry I dont

Tried everything I know

Thanks anyways

[austere spear]

Talking a bit about it with antikk on muos discord. Antikk seemed perplexed. Told me that its bound to "a2", but that should be unbound according to the snippet antikk provided a snippet from muos and explained to me that for each type of device they simlink a different gamecontrollersdb.txt

[mystic granite]

28xx same.

[austere spear]

Hey guys, please let me know if you bump into any other visual issues, especially the dark interiors, in the next couple of days. I intend to cross it out of the list of open issues.

@graceful lagoon Hey, have you seen ArkOS audio working on one type of device, and not on another, please?

[fair plinth]

Yes the r36 i have has issues with render96 while others were fine on arkos

Arkos is kind of notorious for alsa issues, i think theres some config you can change that sometimes fixes the issues

[austere spear]

Do tell, please :D.

[fair plinth]

I think it was this message from christian: "Do sudo touch /var/lib/alsa/asound.state then try the restart again."

This helped some people with alsa problems

Maybe theres other fixes too, but i rarely use arkos😄

[kind path]

@austere spear I managed to bind proper controls for the SP using a keyboard. What file would I have to give you so others could use it?

[graceful lagoon]

Render96ex works on ArkOS with my RG353vs but not on R36S according to a tester

[graceful lagoon]

oh Jan already said it

[fair plinth]

I am that tester

[graceful lagoon]

Lucky I didn't say a damn R36S user

[fair plinth]

Now im using an unofficial rg351mp arkos version with custom dtb files so thats why it was ignored

What exact version are you using for your r36 @austere spear

[austere spear]

31st July 2024

previous 7th

vanilla

Thanks I will go through this later today... I hope.

@kind path I will figure something out. I just need to diagnose it correctly first. Thank you.

[fair plinth]

But arkos doesnt support the r36 does it

Officially

[austere spear]

eh it works with rg351mp

[fair plinth]

Yeah thats the one i use

And it seems to have alsa issues

[austere spear]

Aaaaah! That would make sense :D.

[fair plinth]

Did anyone else using arkos confirm your problem?

https://github.com/AeolusUX/ArkOS-R3XS

If you have a spare sd card this could be worth a try

[austere spear]

At this point I would gladly ditch arkos on r36s. The boot time and shutdown time alone is worth doing it :D.

[fair plinth]

I think arkos is the quickest to boot for the r36, is it slow for you?

I would love muos on it lol

[austere spear]

compared to rocknix? yes it is very slow. muos is blazingly fast. shutdown is the most mindgoblin btw. like what is this shit? it shuts down immediately? no "loading"? what is this black magic?

[fair plinth]

Interesting rocknix takes over a minute to boot on my x55

Must be much better on the r36s then

[austere spear]

I can time it, if you wish 😄

[fair plinth]

Nah its fine haha

I dont use my r36 any more than required 😛

But anyway, hope another tester can confirm the problem. Or even better, it works for them.

But i can definitely tell you that that image youre using had alsa issues with render96 as well.

[austere spear]

nope still no sound on that one.

[austere spear]

Im trying this next time.

[austere spear]

This didnt work. So its time to learn about dmix and alsa a bit more, I guess :D. This is my alsa info. When Im in the game, I dont get the section describing .asoundrc. This section is there, when back in ES, that means that I should probably be able to play with that and I just need to learn how this works. On the side, I plan to create a simple test project using mono, that also loads fmod, or doesnt, based on parameters, in order to verify that speculation that since the game uses both openal output and fmod, they might be fighting over the device.

Out of curiousity. This is muOS without pipewire. The differences are curious.

[austere spear]

Lol, Ive just noticed. muOS already has pipewire in baked beans

[austere spear]

@graceful lagoon but, as you can see, it is not active

[austere spear]

New version. Standalone, but should easily replace your current instalation.
Release notes:

1. Optimized render target sizes for breach and scaled relative to screen width. 720p should be less blurry. Massive performance boost on 640x480 devices. It is almost playable now.
2. Optimized constant buffers/uniform buffer object updates.
3. Reduced number of draw calls in UI. More reduction in future versions
4. Black interiors are verified fixed.
5. OpenGL programs dont get unbound anymore.

TL;DR for optimization: on r36s a sizeable amount of gameplay is now 30fps+.

The bad:

1. No progress on audio. Get the prerelase version of muOS, if you want to have audio on muOS.
2. Exitting the game still ends with a crash.
3. No progress on JELOS.
4. muOS devices with no sticks have not been addressed yet. L3 might still be a problem when rebinding controls.
5. RenderDoc is broken, because it doesnt like Harmony too much

Minor change: Added license for Harmony.

[austere spear]

About audio: Got a couple more ideas to attempt fix on r36s with arkos. I do plan to do a small survey script for other platforms in the coming days, to see, if easy solutions can be found there.
Performance: Further optimizations incoming.

[fervent spindle]

Massive thanks for working on the port man. I'm playing through the first one now on my r36s and loving it and it got me excited to play the second one and I found this. I'll be happy to help play test and report bugs here too if needed

[austere spear]

If youre playing on r36s, then the best cfw so far is rocknix. I am still struggling to get audio running on arkos (including the AeUX variant)