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[martinsh]

Hi,
This is my first post in Outerra forums.
I will start it with good news - love the Outerra engine! I`ve been following the development for few years already and around a year ago I finally bought it to support further development .

Unfortunately the reason I am writing this is because of a crash I am having lately.

Outerra worked without a crash since the purchase, but after the last update it is constantly crashing..

It is a crash not caught by a crash reporter, no post crash logs etc..
The only info I can provide is the Windows crash report one:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   BEX
  Application Name:   outerra.exe
  Application Version:   0.7.15.3673
  Application Timestamp:   518385b4
  Fault Module Name:   StackHash_e8ad
  Fault Module Version:   0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:   00000000
  Exception Offset:   74bfc9f1
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Data:   00000008
  OS Version:   6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1062
  Additional Information 1:   e8ad
  Additional Information 2:   e8adce1c2b9e7be834b4063ac3c53863
  Additional Information 3:   e8ad
  Additional Information 4:   e8adce1c2b9e7be834b4063ac3c53863

Doing a little more research for the "StackHash_e8ad" I found out that it is a Windows protection thing called "Data Execution Prevention" or DEP. I tried to disable it for "Outerra.exe" but it shows that "I cannot turn off DEP for Outerra.exe"

My laptop specs:

OS: Win7 64bit
CPU: Intel i7-3840QM (Ivy Bridge, switchable HD 4000 graphics)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX680M 4GB GDDR5 (Outerra runs on this GPU)
RAM: 16GB 1600/PC3 12800 (2x8GB)

Any Ideas?

[cameni]

Can you get us the eng.log? Might have some useful info. Also, when does it crash?

[martinsh]

It crashes usually while showing the UI, for example during the login screen while moving the mouse over the UI (I can move the mouse over stars and it never crashes
Also in the game I can play around just fine unless I touch any user interface stuff - open up menu etc.

I attached the eng.log.

[cameni]

Try shutting down some of these programs that are listed in the eng.log as injecting into OT:

Code: [Select]

INFO: Some foreign modules were found injected into outerra.exe. Note that these modules can interfere with the rendering, causing black screen or rendering artifacts. It's advised either to stop the programs or unload them.
The following potentially problematic modules were found:
C:\Program Files\Bitdefender\Bitdefender 2013\Active Virus Control\Avc3_00191_013\avcuf32.dll (BitDefender S.R.L. Bucharest, ROMANIA, BitDefender® AntiVirus), version 3.10.7556.4361
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\nvinit.dll (NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA D3D shim drivers), version 9.18.13.1422
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\CoProcManager\detoured.dll (Unknown Company, Unknown Product), version unknown
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\CoProcManager\nvd3d9wrap.dll (NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA D3D shim drivers), version 8.17.13.1422
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\CoProcManager\nvdxgiwrap.dll (NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA D3D shim drivers), version 8.17.13.1422
C:\Windows\system32\BfLLR.dll (Bigfoot Networks, Inc., (TM) Killer PCI-E), version 8.8.8.8
Particularly Bitdefender. That detoured.dll sounds like messing up with events kind of thing, too.

[martinsh]

I assume "detoured.dll" is connected to nVidia Optimus GPU switching because disabling it game fails to launch at all, saying that I need better GPU (OpenGL 3.3 graphics card). But there should not be the problem because I managed to run Outerra on dedicated GPU just fine before.

I also disabled Bitdefender antivirus - same crash. And Outerra ran fine with antivirus enabled before aswell.

Same goes for Bigfoot networks WiFi card. And disabling it I cannot run Outerra as I need internet

[cameni]

If it crashes without the crash handler catching it, usually means a crash somewhere in the driver code. Although, in case of DEP it might not allow it to be caught anyway.

This seems to be related to the built-in Chromium browser. Hmm, it might help us to get the crash dump manually, from the Task Manager.

[martinsh]

Sorry for not returning earlier, was busy with job. Now after the last updates the crashes are gone.
Thanks!
Great work on the updates.
I have one question not related to this issue:
Will you add real time reflections and refraction to the water surface? I really love the water rendering technique you have developed (coast line behaviors especially) and reflections would add even more realism to the whole thing.

In my spare time I am developing a real-time water rendering system on my own and I might use some of your ideas regarding the shoreline and breaking waves.
If you have a moment, check it out.


Cheers

[ZeosPantera]

I like it.. You are hired.

Cameni, make go!

[Jagerbomber]

I like it.. You are hired.

Cameni, make go!

Cameni: "It's coming out of your paycheck."

XD

[necro]

hy martinsh. I know you from blenderartists and i just want to say, that i love your researches. Implementing all that enjoyable stuff in the blender game engine is very impressive.

[cameni]

In my spare time I am developing a real-time water rendering system on my own and I might use some of your ideas regarding the shoreline and breaking waves.
If you have a moment, check it out.

This really looks great, I like the water colors and the reflections (those from the sun are a bit uniform though). What techniques did you use there?

Will you add real time reflections and refraction to the water surface? I really love the water rendering technique you have developed (coast line behaviors especially) and reflections would add even more realism to the whole thing.

Yes, it can add a lot there. We have been thinking to test screen-space reflections, complemented with an environment map as it will be needed elsewhere as well. Right now our ocean rendering code contains pieces of experimental code that need some tidying up, but it will have to wait for the update of the lighting pipeline. Also the waves are missing the small details and there's a visible pattern too ... so lots of stuff in the todo list, as usual

[martinsh]

thank you, guys

cameni,
well my approach is actually very primitive, it consists of the water plane and a water volume made by plane intersection.
For now the water surface is just a simple plane and waves are done by 6 layers of scaled tileable 128px normal map, so they are not even generated procedurally . To reduce the tiling I added a little offset to the orientation of each normal map layer. But yea this is as good as it gets using plane for the water with pre-generated normal map. Next step would be generating waves with simplex noise or perhaps fft and finally implement a vertex displacement (either using projected grid or other Lod technique).

as for the color of the water - there are several variables that contribute to it like visibility factor, color extinction in the water volume(I believe much like in the water in Outerra) from view and light source rays, light scattering in water volume, also the ground illumination by the rays traveled through the water volume and projected caustics from water surface.

screen-space local reflections is a really cool thing. I also tried combining it with environment map to mask out the discontinuities. The technique really shines applied on complex objects where planar reflection mapping would not be possible. In your case for the water or actually any other reflective materials you could use the existing sky shader instead of envmap.