black screen with Intel and latest Mesa

[heisenbug]

Hello,
I'm writing to report a very bad problem that involves UFOAI in Linux with the latest Mesa.

The bug: the game is just a completely black screen, apart from the green bar during the first loading screen. The buttons in the main menu work, if you remember their position, but the screen is simply a black rectangle.

The cause: with the release of version 9.1 of the Mesa OpenGL at the beginning of the year there have been changes in order to extend the support for textures compression with the algorithm S3TC. Unfortunately none of the distributions out there support on-line compression and decompression out of the box because of patent issues in the US, so it is required to manually install an external, optional, library that implement the algorithm.

The solution: I can play again after executing one of these two actions:
a. set to "0" the entries r_intel_hack and r_ext_s3tc_compression in config.cfg
b. install the libtxc_dxtn library

Notice that libtxc_dxtn is available in Fedora and in Ubuntu, while Debian provides a (somewhat) compatible patent-free implementation called S2TC with the library libtxc-dxtn-s2tc. I'm currently running Fedora 18, and UFOAI v2.5-dev from git, but since the cause is external to the game the bug probably happens with version 2.4 too.

I'm attaching as reference the logs from a buggy execution, with compression disabled (playable) and with s3tc enabled (playable). You can imagine for sure how a black screen appears .

[Mattn]

Thanks a lot for the detailed report.

I would be interested in whether the r_intel_hack cvar is still needed. It was for very early intel-mesa drivers. They have evolved quite a lot since that.

And now it even breaks stuff. So maybe we should disable it by default and see whether bug reports pops in.

What do you guys think?

[DarkRain]

Seems to have popped in the tracker as well
This might become a problem, disabling it by default looks like a good idea, if some people still need it they can enable it.

[Sandro]

What do you guys think?

My opinion: disable texture compression (it's a relic), but keep disabling shaders. Intel hardware got a serious problems with them.

[Mattn]

ok it's more or less disabled now (followed sandros advice)

feedback on this stuff is more than welcome - i don't have any intel hardware

[heisenbug]

I tried again with the latest commit, the library libtxc_dxtn NOT installed and after moving away the configuration file to simulate a clean installation. Now I see the intro video, the menu and I could even enter a skirmish. So, at least for my configuration, the new defaults are much better than before.

But in the bug trucker v4hn says that he cannot play on he's netbook with texture compression disabled, so the last word on the topic is on him.

[pearlprice22]

very educational content and written well for a change. It's nice to see that some people still understand how to write a quality post.

plagiarism-checker.me

[Battlescared]

I am having a similar problem that I believe might be related to moving to a multiple monitor configuration, though I can't even seem to run in a window.  I just get a black screen.  I looked into the above suggestions.  Here is the results:

1. Setting the intel hack to zero... I have an Nvidia card with nvidia driver, so it's not applicable.
2. Setting the compression flag to zero had no effect.
3. I'm using Mint 15 and the libtxc_dxtn library was already installed.  I installed the development packages, recompiled ufo, but nothing changed.

I do have a couple issues in the compilation with SDL sound, primarily the mixer and ttf, but I can hear sound when I startup ufo, just a black screen is all I can see.  This works this way in windowed or fullscreen mode.  This happens on both the 2.5 dev version, though it may be a little old, still need to update it, and the latest 2.6-dev branch, which I've compiled both from scratch.  Both startup to a black screen.

I'm running Mint 15.2, 64-bit.
AMD Athlon 64-bit, 3500+
NVidia Geforce 550GTX
2MB Memory

To be honest, I'm not sure of the last time I played.  The dates on my 2.5 dev save files are from July, so that is probably it.  I believe I had shifted over to 64-bit Mint by then, but could it be the shift to 64 bit?  Anyone else having issues on a 64 bit Ubuntu based  system?  I've had a few issues since switching to 64 bit so that might be the main culprit here, but I seem to recall this working at least once, and I have shifted to two monitors with two independent xservers.  Also, I removed  the config.cfg  file from the directory hoping ufo would create a new one or use it's default settings.  I noticed there was never one in the 2.6 branch, so that was why I did that.  Nothing seems to have any effect.

Any ideas?

Here is the dump of the config.log file:
014/03/02 18:25:17
----- network initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:17 libcurl/7.29.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1c zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.25 librtmp/2.3 initialized.
2014/03/02 18:25:17
------ server initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:17 Could not set check function for cvar 'sv_maxsoldiersperplayer'
2014/03/02 18:25:17 added 11 maps to the mapcycle
2014/03/02 18:25:17
----- console initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:17 Console initialized.
2014/03/02 18:25:17
------- video initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:17 SDL version: 1.2.15
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: desktop depth: 32bpp
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: video memory: 0
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: video driver: x11
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: Available resolutions: 1920x1440 1920x1200 1920x1080 1856x1392 1792x1344 1680x1050 1600x1200 1440x900 1400x1050 1360x768 1280x1024 1280x960 1152x864 1024x768 1024x576 960x600 960x540 840x525 832x624 800x600 720x450 720x400 700x525 680x384 640x480 640x400 640x360 640x350 512x384 400x300 320x240 320x175 (32)
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: setting mode -1
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: set multisample buffers to 0
2014/03/02 18:25:17 I: set swap control to 0
2014/03/02 18:25:21 I: 1024x768 (fullscreen: yes)
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 8 bits of stencil
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 24 bits of depth buffer
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got double buffer
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 8 bits for red
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 8 bits for green
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 8 bits for blue
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 0 bits for alpha
2014/03/02 18:25:22 I: got 0 multisample buffers
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation2014/03/02 18:25:22
GL_RENDERER: GeForce GTX 550 Ti/PCIe/SSE22014/03/02 18:25:22
GL_VERSION: 1.4 (2.1.2 NVIDIA 319.60)2014/03/02 18:25:22
GL_EXTENSIONS: GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_framebuffer_object GL_ARB_imaging GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_texture_rg GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_lod GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_ATI_texture_float GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_INGR_blend_func_separate GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_fog_distance GL_NV_fragment_program GL_NV_fragment_program_option GL_NV_fragment_program2 GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil GL_NV_point_sprite GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_NV_vertex_program GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 GL_NV_vertex_program2 GL_NV_vertex_program2_option GL_NV_vertex_program3 GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SGIX_depth_texture GL_SGIX_shadow GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays GL_SUN_slice_accum 2014/03/02 18:25:22
OpenGL version detected: 1.42014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_ARB_multitexture
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_ARB_texture_compression
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
2014/03/02 18:25:22 using GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
2014/03/02 18:25:22 GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object not found
2014/03/02 18:25:22 GL_ARB_fragment_shader not found
2014/03/02 18:25:22 GL_ARB_shading_language_100 not found
2014/03/02 18:25:22 GLSL shaders unsupported by OpenGL implementation.
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_###_framebuffer_object
2014/03/02 18:25:22 using GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max draw buffers: 8
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max render buffer size: 16384
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max color attachments: 8
2014/03/02 18:25:22 found GL_###_draw_buffers
2014/03/02 18:25:22 using GL_ARB_draw_buffers
2014/03/02 18:25:22 Invalid value for cvar r_programs
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max supported vertex texture units: 32
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max supported lights: 8
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max texture units: 4
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max texture coords: 8
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max vertex attributes: 16
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max varying floats: 124
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max fragment uniform components: 2048
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max vertex uniform components: 4096
2014/03/02 18:25:22 max texture size: detected 16384
2014/03/02 18:25:22 ...but using 2048 as requested
2014/03/02 18:25:22 Using low resolution globe textures as requested.
2014/03/02 18:25:22 not using GLSL shaders
2014/03/02 18:25:25 SDL_ttf version 2.0.11 - we need at least 2.0.7
2014/03/02 18:25:25 Modified render related cvars
2014/03/02 18:25:25 glsl shutdown
2014/03/02 18:25:25 not using GLSL shaders
2014/03/02 18:25:25
------- sound initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:28 SDL_mixer version: 1.2.12
2014/03/02 18:25:28 ... requested audio rate: 44100
2014/03/02 18:25:28 ... driver: 'pulse'
2014/03/02 18:25:28 ... audio rate: 44100
2014/03/02 18:25:28 ... audio channels: 2
2014/03/02 18:25:28 ... loaded ogg vorbis support
2014/03/02 18:25:29
------- input initialization -------
2014/03/02 18:25:29 0 possible joysticks
2014/03/02 18:25:29 no joystick found.
2014/03/02 18:25:29 Allocate 3 megabytes for the ui hunk
2014/03/02 18:25:29
------- web initialization ---------
2014/03/02 18:25:29 ... web access not yet configured
2014/03/02 18:25:29
----------- parse scripts ----------
2014/03/02 18:25:29 57 script files
2014/03/02 18:25:33 55 ui script files
2014/03/02 18:25:37 Shared Client/Server Info loaded
2014/03/02 18:25:37 ...121 items parsed
2014/03/02 18:25:37 ... 32 damage types parsed
2014/03/02 18:25:37 ... 32 equipment definitions parsed
2014/03/02 18:25:37 ... 10 inventory definitions parsed
2014/03/02 18:25:37 ... 25 team definitions parsed
2014/03/02 18:25:37 executing keys.cfg
2014/03/02 18:25:37 Music: track changed from  to van_theme.
2014/03/02 18:25:37 s_language has no value
2014/03/02 18:25:37 executing autoexec.cfg
2014/03/02 18:25:37 "version" is "UFO: Alien Invasion 2.5-dev AMD64 Mar  2 2014 Linux DEBUG"
2014/03/02 18:25:44 79 static models loaded
2014/03/02 18:25:44 ...using language: en_ZW.utf8
2014/03/02 18:25:45 SDL_ttf version 2.0.11 - we need at least 2.0.7
2014/03/02 18:25:45 ...registering 13 fonts

.... there is a large number of "no translation for xxxxxx.txt" messages here, but I'm editing them out.

2014/03/02 18:25:45 ----------- game modes -------------
2014/03/02 18:25:45 added _Multiplayer
2014/03/02 18:25:45 added _Full Campaign
2014/03/02 18:25:45 added _Simple Campaign
2014/03/02 18:25:45 added _Skirmish
2014/03/02 18:25:45 added 4 game modes
2014/03/02 18:25:45 ====== UFO Initialized ======
2014/03/02 18:25:45 =============================
2014/03/02 18:25:45 Switch grab input off