[neoterran]

Well, hopefully someone with this OS can take a look..

Looks like there are several problems, it can't see the sound properly and it is not working correctly with WDDM drivers, even the nvidia 96.33 one that has an OpenGL ICD. Since Vista is going to be released in about 6 weeks, It would be cool if someone can take a look into why it won't run in OpenGL mode.

It fared somewhat better in DirectX but it still crashed out completely at loading the mission

[Speeder]

Well, Vista is still beta and I'd guess the SCP developers prefer to use retail OSes mostly... But shouldn't this topic belong to the SCP thread?

[Colonol Dekker]

Microsoft strikes again.............At the heart of 's best offspring.

[neoterran]

Well, Vista is still beta and I'd guess the SCP developers prefer to use retail OSes mostly... But shouldn't this topic belong to the SCP thread?

Vista is not in beta anymore. It's in the Release Candidate phase and it's very close to release. I'm already using it full time and it would be nice if we could get Freespace Open compatible with it, like many other apps, prior to Vista's October RTM date.

[taylor]

There is still a lot that can change in both the OS and drivers between RC and final.  Until everything goes final I don't think that we'll bother with this.  Microsoft has a really bad habit of making large changes between the last major test build and final so everything just may work itself out, or we'll be left with an entirely different set of problems.

[ShivanSpS]

Personally, I Hate Vista, force me to use DX10 (Well I will need the DX10 soon, anyways, but I still hope that Windows made a DX10 vercion for XP), and even worse, i need more ram, Currenly I have 1GB, I have to buy another GB for the Vista, and if not enoght... DX9 and lower games will run slower in DX10!

And we have not even talk about OpenGL... Microsoft say that the DX10 will overrride OpenGL, and foce them to run  in Directx :S, but is still unconfirmed if this is only for Winmoded Apps, or for Full Screen apps too (like Games, and like SCP).

[neoterran]

That's not true, OpenGL works with full acceleration on Vista, just not in the same way as before because of the DWM.

[ShivanSpS]

That's not true, OpenGL works with full acceleration on Vista, just not in the same way as before because of the DWM.

That is what i mean... Windows dont have any problems which OGL... why their thouch them? not for anything good, that for sure.

[taylor]

With a full Vista ICD (like what NVIDIA and ATI will ship their drivers with) there will be absolutely no difference in OpenGL than there has been in the past, except that the final image in the front buffer (what gets shown on the screen) can be shared with DWM for composite use.  It would be handled at the driver/hardware level and have nothing to do with the DX interface that Microsoft came up with.

For lower end video cards that don't have the resources or time to make full OpenGL drivers, they can use the new interface.  Only in that case, and the normal software GL case, will the DX translation layer (MSOGL) be used.  The old style ICDs will still work as well, but don't work properly with Aero and you'll lose most of the UI effects.

It's in the best interest of the big video card makers to actually develop a Vista ICD though, that will let the full performance and capability of OpenGL shine, but still have full DWM support.

[neoterran]

However, why doesn't Freespace work ATM then ? Will you ever have a Vista test bed to fix it if it isn't resolved by October 16th ? Microsoft probably isn't going to delay it any more.

[taylor]

However, why doesn't Freespace work ATM then ?

Many possible reasons:
 - sound driver issues
 - OpenAL compatibility issues
 - video driver issues
 - simple OS bugs/problems
 - OS compatibility breakage

Most of those issues just aren't worth looking at right now though since all of the driver and OS issues are still subject to change.  I don't know about OpenAL and Vista, but I don't ever remember seeing a message on the dev list about that so the sound issues are likely just sound driver issues.

Will you ever have a Vista test bed to fix it if it isn't resolved by October 16th ? Microsoft probably isn't going to delay it any more.

Not me personally.  I don't spend money on anything strictly Microsoft related anymore.  Lots of people will be getting Vista though, and we will have to work out the issues, but I doubt that any of the devs will devote any time to that before Vista is actually a shipping product.

[neoterran]

Okay thanks Taylor.. looks like i'll be in for a long wait before I can play Freespace again then.

Anyway Vista is great, so it's worth it

[karajorma]

Just out of interest does retail FS2 work?

[neoterran]

Retail starts up fine, however there are some compatibility problems when it detects the video card with the DWM... no crashes but it enables aero and disables it rapidly several times which is kind of scary.

I could not play a game because it asked me for the disks and I don't have them. However, The models in the tech room all displayed normally.

I'm going to retest again with the 3.6.9 RC7 build of fs2open to make sure my problems aren't with redmenace's build.

BTW, an interesting feature of Vista is that if you manage to crash the display driver instead of getting a BSOD, it simply restarts itself quickly and gives you a balloon notification that the driver has recovered. That's a welcome improvement.

[neoterran]

Yeah no dice with RC7 build. The problems are : OpenAL reports it installs correctly and I can select the right device from the launcher but it cannot initialize directsound is the error I get back.

Then, OpenGL mode goes to blackscreen and then crashes or back to desktop. Direct X mode runs the game but there are many problems with missing textures on models (all white models) and also the performance is terrible. Loading a mission from here invariably crashes the game.

This is all on an install working perfectly in Windows XP.

[karajorma]

I could not play a game because it asked me for the disks and I don't have them.

There is a cracked FS2 exe available from my FAQ's download section. Feel free to give it a try if you want

At least that way you can play classic FS2 even if you can't play 3.6.9

[neoterran]

thanks kara. 

[Eishtmo]

The best solution to this problem:

Don't use Vista.

Of course, I'm still using 98SE, and I really, really don't plan on ever changing.

[neoterran]

well, i would hate to be you man. Vista is truly an awesome operating system. I'm not going to not use it because one game of many i play doesn't work on it.

[neoterran]

Update :

You can run the game fine inside of a window. The game will run. This is similar to other OpenGL games. I guess the method the games use to render fullscreen is no longer valid for windows vista due to the Desktop Window Manager. The issue with Sound not working correctly even with OpenAL installed is still there, although i can run generic hardware and software for sound with no problems. Another issue is that when you close down Freespace SCP, it will sometimes crash the nvidia WDDM drivers, which isnt' that bad because in Vista, if the drivers crash, they simply restart with a message, since they run in user space now instead of the kernel.

Obviously some handling code will need to be written for Windows Vista compatibility..even if that happens after final. The final should be here in a month or two anyway, so I hope Taylor can find someone with a Vista rig (i'll offer to be a test bed)

Also, the game will run in 1280x1024 mode with the DWM off (you can set this in compatibility mode) with no real performance loss, although you do have the titlebar at the top of the screen unfortunately. But hey, I can still run the game, AND have windows Vista's amazing improvements, at the same time, and it's pretty much the same ! unfortunately i have to go back to using a keyboard and mouse since my joystick no longer works. However, it's a hell of a lot easier to target with the keyboard