[SOLVED] GZDoom freezes since devbuild 257-g18213f377

[gwHero]

Hi,

this could be a bug as well as a technical issue. GZDoom freezes on my machine since devbuild 5pre-257-g18213f377 (July 20).
Also happens with devbuild 5pre-258-g57f65a937 (July 21).
Does NOT happen with the builds before.

OS: win 10, GL_VERSION: 4.5.0

It happens immediately after I start the game; just a fresh install, no ini file when starting the game, without mods or TC; just starting Doom2.
GZDoom only works on the title screen; I can go to through the menu's, but as soon as I start the game, it freezes. It's not a total hang; the music still plays, I can use the ESC key but no menu is shown anymore; the game does not react to the mouse or movement keys or anything.

Attached : logfile (extensions.txt), ini file (gzdoom-henkj.txt)

Edit:
1. also occurs with latest build 5pre-271-gd84497c85.7z.
2. normally only use 64b builds; tested 32bit too but same issue.

[gwHero]

Update since I had the time to do some more testing.
Test iwad Doom2: freeze immediately after starting first map. (tested about 30 times, each time same result)
Test iwad Hexen: freeze about 30 seconds after starting first map.
Test iwad PR (my own TC I'm working on): freeze after a few minutes.

[Graf Zahl]

You may have a heat problem here. Rachael knows more about it but Intel chipsets apparently stop rendering when they get too hot. Have you checked your system for dust?

[gwHero]

Did a test again with Hexen, again a freeze after about 30 seconds; checked temperature GPU: 53 degrees Celcius (max was 68). It only occurs with the latest builds, not the ones before. Can play with build 3.4.1 for hours without any problems.
The symptoms almost look the same as with this very specific issue: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=60712

Just a guess from my side: could it be that some specific opengl commands were introduced in recent code that my Intel driver has problems with?

[Graf Zahl]

Oh, you were the one with that thread.

I'm afraid, but that one combined with this one strongly hints at a hardware problem.

[AFADoomer]

Just for another data point - my machine does similar things, but it's been a problem on and off for a while now... I've been blaming it on the Intel chipset and heat, since it literally is just the rendering that stops; the console and menus still work, the game runs with no video, and logging still takes place. Plus, this only seems to happen after I've been playing and/or editing in GZDB for a while (hours).

[gwHero]

@AFADoomer: that really sounds as a heat problem.

For my machine, it could be a hardware or driver problem, but it's not heat. Other games and programs just work fine. I've played a heavy graphic game for an hour and the GPU temperature was still something about 54 degrees Celcius.

However, did some more testing and it's indeed related to the other topic viewtopic.php?f=50&t=60712, except that it now no longer occurs only with renderstyle NONE, but always. Interesting thing is: if I create a test wad with one square room,with the player and one enemy in it, GZDoom never freezes. If I add a second room, and the player is able to run away from the enemy, the game freezes as soon as the player and the enemy can no longer see each other.

Also did some testing on several previous builds, and this behaviour still never occurs with the older builds.

[gwHero]

Looks like the issue is solved when I specify -glversion 4 from the command line.
Must do some more intensive testing, but the first results are encouraging.

[Graf Zahl]

That sounds a bit too random to me.

[gwHero]

I did some more extensive testing (mostly doom2.wad and a custom doom testwad, a few times Hexen).

Result of starting GZDoom latest devbuild 65 times.
40 times without any parameters: 40 times a freeze (100%) within a few seconds.
25 times with emulating glversion 4: never experienced a freeze anymore. Each time played a few levels, one time a complete episode.
Statistically maybe still not 100% sure, but I think this is getting close.

After that I did some checks on the code to find the root cause. Apparently the problem is with the SHADER_STORAGE_BUFFER on my machine.
I created a custom build on the latest git code and changed line 211 in gl_interface.cpp, the part where gl_version >= 4.5:

Code: Select all

		// Assume that everything works without problems on GL 4.5 drivers where these things are core features.
		//gl.flags |= RFL_SHADER_STORAGE_BUFFER | RFL_BUFFER_STORAGE;
		gl.flags |= RFL_BUFFER_STORAGE; // <=== changed gwHero for testing Intel HD 620 (removed setting SHADER_STORAGE_BUFFER flag)

With this build I did some more tests; no freezes did occur anymore. Probably, although I have a pretty new Intel graphics which is officially gl 4.5 compliant, using the shader storage buffer is not working on my machine. It could well be that the Intel driver is broken since the Windows Spring update 1803, because in the months before that (I own this laptop since January of this year), I had no problems at all.

Anyway, to be 100% sure I will work with this custom build for the next coming days to see if never freezes again. If so, I think this can be closed, because after that I will use the official builds again with the glversion emulation command. Maybe I will raise a ticket with Intel , because in fact they should solve this in the end.

(btw before this I of course also tried to solve the issue with a previous driver and a new driver version, all without success)

[Graf Zahl]

Do you have shadowmaps enabled? Aside from dynamic lights which can optionally use shader storage buffers, it is the only feature which requires them - and it's also rather performance-heavy on the GPU. If yes, you should check if it's the shadowmap feature or the storage buffer which causes your problem.

[gwHero]

Do you have shadowmaps enabled? Aside from dynamic lights which can optionally use shader storage buffers, it is the only feature which requires them - and it's also rather performance-heavy on the GPU. If yes, you should check if it's the shadowmap feature or the storage buffer which causes your problem.

Actually, I never use them. Are they enabled by default? (I checked Light Shadowmaps setting; it says 'No'). Normally I play GZDoom with default settings; I only change some keyboard settings and MouseLook always on, and enable VSync, but that's about it.

[gwHero]

After 2 more days of testing still no freeze occurred with either of the 2 work arounds:
work around 1) custom build that does not set the RFL_SHADER_STORAGE_BUFFER flag;
work around 2) command line parameter -glversion 4

[Graf Zahl]

Considering that you are the only person to experience this problem I suspect some hardware problem. If it was a driver bug, others would also have and report it.

[gwHero]

Could be. But in that case, shouldn't it also occur with previous versions, and not only the latest dev builds?