Bugged UI, no checkboxes

[Locus]

So I didn't even realize this was a bug until recently but when I create a new campaign, I can't see any checkboxes by any of the options such as disabling cloaking or enabling minor factions. I uninstalled and reinstalled with Steam but it didn't fix the issue. Also on occasion the different option menus sort of overlap as you can see in this picture: http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5345/aiwarui.jpg

Any ideas to help would be appreciated.

[x4000]

Oh wow, what a mess.  Sorry to see that, that's a new one on me.  Here's what is going on (although I'm not positive why):

- The lobby is a "GDI+" window, which is rendered using standard windows drawing methods, while the starfield in the background is full Direct3D so that it can be animated, etc.
- The Direct3D render targets the main game window, which actually has a different window handle from the lobby window panel, and is just supposed to render itself at 20fps to that overall window.
- The lobby itself is rendered only on update, again using the standard windows apis of GDI+.  What you're seeing is this not actually updating properly, and/or the Direct3D components bleeding through over top of the GDI components.
- Also, it looks like the GDI components are smearing in general, with the tooltips and such leaving permanent markings -- this is characteristic of a GDI window that is not redrawing when it should be, and tends to happen with an application that is hung.  I'm sure you've probably seen this at some point in windows in general.

So, what's the solution?  On this I am not entirely sure, it could be a few things, but I'm not certain what is causing this.  It could be some sort of problem with GDI+, in which case that might either be an issue with the underlying components, or with the .NET 3.5 wrappers of them.  If you are on vanilla Windows XP (no service packs, or just SP1), or on Windows 2000 (which I am not even sure AI War works with), then that might be your problem right there.  Windows XP SP2 added some fixes to some various windows glitches that could result in GDI errors of this sort, so that could be the issue.

It might be that you are on vanilla .NET 3.5 instead of .NET 3.5 SP1 -- the game installer will install 3.5 SP1, but if you already had 3.5 and canceled out of the 3.5 SP1 install, then you'd still be on vanilla 3.5.  This strikes me as the least likely problem.

The other thing that seems likely is that this might be some sort of strange graphics driver bug.  Graphics drivers have different components and modes for DirectX and GDI, and so perhaps the driver that you have is simply messed up for GDI.  If that's the case, simply updating your driver should hopefully fix it.  If you are already up to date on your graphics card driver, and are using nvidia drivers in the 19x range, you might actually consider trying a downgrade to the 18x series instead; there are a number of issues for some specific hardware devices with the 19x line. I'm able to run it fine with AI War, and many other people are also able to, but some folks have trouble with the 19x drivers in a wide variety of games.

Hope that helps!

[Locus]

Thanks for the prompt response! Upgrading to the newest drivers didn't change anything, I didn't have that weird mess in the picture above yet but it only happens rarely. The checkboxes by the options are still missing unfortunately. I'll try upgrading the .net framework and then downgrading the drivers. It's not a huge problem in any case, my friend hosts the campaigns anyway.

[x4000]

Gotcha -- well, I'm glad it is not too much of a trouble for you, at least.  Very odd, though.  At some point I want to exorcise all of the GDI components out of AI War, which would solve this problem, but that's quite a ways away.  For Arcen's next title I have been busy developing a DirectX-native control and window framework to replace GDI, though, so when that is done hopefully I will be able to back-port that to AI War as well.  Doesn't help you anytime soon, but that's my eventual goal for the next couple of years.  I imagine that if whatever is corrupt on your system gets updated properly, though, that this problem will be solved in any case.

Anyway, thanks for the update on it!

[RCIX]

Gotcha -- well, I'm glad it is not too much of a trouble for you, at least.  Very odd, though.  At some point I want to exorcise all of the GDI components out of AI War, which would solve this problem, but that's quite a ways away.  For Arcen's next title I have been busy developing a DirectX-native control and window framework to replace GDI, though, so when that is done hopefully I will be able to back-port that to AI War as well.  Doesn't help you anytime soon, but that's my eventual goal for the next couple of years.  I imagine that if whatever is corrupt on your system gets updated properly, though, that this problem will be solved in any case.

Anyway, thanks for the update on it!

I thought you didn't want to spend a few months reimplementing something that's already written...

[x4000]

Generally I aim not to reinvent the wheel, you are quite right. However, this is a component of a larger multi-game codebase that I'm developing out gradually.  What that addition of the new windowing system will add is the ability for Arcen titles to run in fullscreen mode, and/or to run on platforms other than Windows and WINE/Mono (not that WINE/Mono really works now, but they are the only non-Windows API that presently has any hope).

There are things that I'm not willing to do in the short term for one game that I am willing to do, on my own schedule, across multiple games in the long term.

[Locus]

No change sadly with the .net update but I seem to remember the checkboxes being there when I first played before the expansion came out. I don't suppose there were any changes to windows with the Zenith Remnant?

Edit: It works in versions 2.0 and earlier for some reason.

[Fiskbit]

Well, there was a change from .NET 3.5 SP1 to .NET 2.0 in version 2.001Q. That version isn't online anymore for testing this, but unless it was switched back at one point and I didn't notice, perhaps that's responsible for this?

It might be worth checking your .NET 2.0 installation.

[x4000]

Please do note that .NET 2.0 is a part of .NET 3.5.  .NET 3.5 adds some extra stuff that AI War does not use, but the core runtime is identical between the two of them.  However, if you have a copy of .NET 2.0 installed that is corrupt in some way, then that can definitely cause issues with AI War.  Simply uninstalling .NET 2.0 off your system would probably solve the problem in that case, since it could then just use the fully-functional .NET 3.5 and work fine.  Or, that's what is supposed to happen, anyway; sometimes the uninstaller for .NET 2.0 leaves a mess that causes an even bigger problem, which would then force you to reinstall that.