[2.3.1] Slow screen wiping

[Rick]

My current PC is a fairly old P4 3GHz machine with 1GB of ram running on XP SP2.

As the title says, using ZDoom 2.3.1, the screen wipe effects are really slow, and I like the melting wipe. Reverting back to version 2.2.0 has wipes in proper speed, but going to the new version it seems like the game chugs down to 10FPS during the wipe. Not a dire problem or anything, but I figured I'd post and see if anything could be done about it.

[wildweasel]

What screen resolution are you running? Fullscreen or windowed? If windowed, what color depth is your desktop running?

[Rick]

I use both depending on if I want to multitask or not. When I fullscreen, I play at 1280x960, when I use windowed I go 1024x768 and my desktop is set at 32-bit color depth.

[Graf Zahl]

What graphics card are you using?

[Rick]

Currently an ATi 4850 with latest drivers. I would get the same results with my previous card, an nVidia 6800 GT with its up to date drivers.

[Dark-Assassin]

i only get slow screenfades with both intel and geforce 6200 when changing the map using console

[Rick]

I was just trying out 2.3.1 on my uncle's laptop, and while I don't know the exact specs it's in the ballpark of a 2.5GHz dual core processor with 2-3 GBs of ram and an integrated graphics card, and the screen wipe was still slow. At this point I think I might just have a more sensitive threshold as to what dictates sluggishness and it might be working as intended for all I know, so I made a comparison video to show you guys exactly what I mean and tell me if you agree or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvAE8N9JPpY

[Bashe]

I'm having the same issue. Skulltag wipes at the normal rate and the gun rises up to the HUD like it should. On the current Zdoom, the wipe is a bit jumpy and the weapon just suddenly appears at the HUD instead of rising.

Geforce 8800 Ultra
1680x1050
Intel Core Duo E8400
32-bit color depth

[HotWax]

Confirmed. I do not believe this is system specific, but rather related to resolution.

I usually play with the screen transitions off, so I haven't noticed this before. I went ahead and tried each of the different options (wipe, burn, cross-fade) with my normal playing resolution of 1024x768. Wipe was very choppy, akin to what is seen in that YouTube video. Burn and crossfade seemed better, but I didn't have a basis for comparison since I'd never used them before.

Next I tried changing the resolution all the way down to 320x200. Wipe at this resolution is quick and smooth -- the way I remember it being from vanilla. Crossfade and burn were equally snappy, taking a few seconds if that to transition to the new screen.

The final test, I set it up as high as ZDoom would let me go -- 2048x1536 -- and tried again. Oh man... The screen wipe is extremely choppy, looking about like it's pulling a few frames a second. It takes several seconds to finish the wipe. Burn and crossfade are even worse, taking up to 10 seconds to transition all the way through.

Even at this resolution, ZDoom runs perfectly fine on my computer playing through the standard levels (Though I didn't have any burning desire to try any stress-testing levels ), but as soon as you hit that exit switch or start a new level, I might as well be playing on a 286...

[Enjay]

Hmmm, I can't say that any wipe style give me any problems. I just tried them all on my machine at my monitor's native 1920x1200. Melt seems to be the one causing people the most difficulty but it was just as smooth as previous versions of Zdoom have been.

[randi]

Should be fixed now. If not, do reply here.

[Bashe]

The wipe is now the correct speed. However, there is still a bit of a short delay between what triggers the wipe (say, choosing a difficulty) and the wipe itself. The player's weapon also still jumps up to the HUD instead of rising from the bottom.

[phi108]

With 1210 SVN
I think there is a delay between selecting difficulty and the start of the wipe for me, and the weapon also appears raised when the wipe is over istead of starting to raise once the wipe is over, so monsters get a bit of a head start if they can see you.

Now I'll go try 1212...

[NeuralStunner]

I think you mean 2010/2012...

OH NO! The last revision of ZDoom is upon us!

---

Couldn't resist.

Anyways, I haven't noticed any lag/wipe/snapping problems in either of these latest revisions.

[randi]

Er, yes, I just tried it out in fullscreen to check if letterboxed modes still work with the new code (they don't), and noticed that getting a copy of the front buffer is apparently extremely expensive, even more so than a normal video memory to system memory copy is. In windowed mode, I render to a texture and splat that onto the window in one single operation, since it's the only way to get a copy of the screen data without having to worry about some of it being clipped away. I could do the same thing for fullscreen mode so that wipes can get their image data quickly. That would simplify some of the code, too, since I could render to the texture unconditionally, but it does seem a shame I can't draw directly to the screen just because of the wipes.