Osmos Support

[plato]

Hey Plato,

I noticed you had Vsync on -- does turning it off help at all? If not, then I'm sorry to say that for know you'll have to play in a maximised window until we can sort this issue out. I'll be in touch with progress.

Thanks again,
Dave

Hi Dave, no vsync on/off doesn't alter the flicker at all.. the only reason I put it on was to see if it would fix it

Is it possible for you guys to have a command line switch that forces a 'N' hz frame rate in your game (rather than reading that stat from the available screen mode info)?..cos I'm thinking my refresh rate is being incorrectly reported to your game (only in HW fullscreen mode) and so you guys are actually rendering the screen at a speed > 60Hz causing the tearing.

I can't think what would create visible tears like that other than the frame rate of Osmos exceeding the refresh rate of my monitor ... If you can force Osmos to render at 60fps (and I enable vsync) I bet you it cures it for the record, Unreal Tournament 3 get's the wrong refresh rate reported by Windows on my desktop rig at high res. So this weirdness has been sighted elsewhere!

[Meal Worms]

@ sjsivak : VMware Fusion sadly doesn't support the graphics library Osmos uses (OpenGL). Sorry about the typo in the FAQ! Are you able to play the game comfortably on your Windows partition?

@ pcp03
@ paults
@ TheTourist314 : Windows 7 is still pre-release, and you can be certain there will be buggy drivers for specific hardware manufactures for a few months to come. Sorry about the lack of sound for you guys! I'd recommend getting in touch with your hardware manufacturer and work with them to get a bug-free driver that can support OpenAL. In the mean time, do you have a different machine to enjoy Osmos on?

@ pravo : Can you please verify that the drivers for your sound hardware are up to date? Also, if you run the ALCapsViewer from here, what does it report for you? And just to be sure, can you completely uninstall OpenAL, then reinstall it again?

Thanks guys!
Dave

[Meal Worms]

@ plato : Osmos contains a framerate clamp at 80Hz, but I've just exposed that value to a config variable called 'maxFramerate', which will allow you to set the max framerate yourself. This change will be appearing in the next update we push out (hopefully very soon). FYI, you'll want to be careful using that value in conjunction with Vsync because you may end up halving the framerate unless your machine is consistently hitting the framerate clamp.

Dave

ps -- I worked on UT3; check the credits

[Moulax]

hello all !
Nice to see the forum more and more active !

ok still having trouble using win 7 RTM Ultimate x64 and the steam version of the game.
I've tryed so far :
- install the updated OpenAL. the ALCapsViewer64.exe says :
> OpenAL32.dll : 6.14.357.24
> Sens_oal.dll : 2.2.20.3020
> wrap_oal.dll : 2.2.0.5

- install the non-steam demo
No change at all. both demo and full steam version crash at loading sound.

- tryed to run the non steam demo with the nosound argument, and it works.

Note: I have an X-Fi Xtrem Audio card. that is NOT supporting the EAX 5.0. Is OSMOS using that version of EAX and X-RAM as well ?
Note2: under the 'generic software' node, it supports EAX up to version 2.0.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Moulax.

[proctor]

Hi,
Has the slowdown on level S1-2 been resolved yet?

I am running the Steam version on a laptop running XP. I have an old ATI Radeon graphics card, and have downloaded and reinstalled OpenAL in the hope of fixing the problem, with no luck.
At someone's suggestion, I tried installing the demo from the site hoping that would somehow fix the problem, but the demo runs into the same problem.

edit: A complete uninstall and reinstall of both OpenAL and Osmos has achieved me no results.

[Soran]

@ Soran, patrick_leb : Are you running an app in the background that's doing any file sharing, FTP, etc? If so, try closing it -- does the framerate in Osmos improve?

If not, does it help when you disable the splash screen by starting the game with 'nosplash'? (To do this, right click on the launch shortcut, go to ‘Properties’ and change the ‘Target’ of the short cut by adding the word ‘nosplash’ (without quotes) after the executable. If you’re running a Steam version of the game, you can do this through the Steam client by right-clicking on Osmos in the ‘My Games’ tab, selecting ‘Properties’ then ‘Set Launch Options’ and add the word ‘ nosplash’.)

I am not running anything but antivirus (Avast) in the background...

When I start the game normaly the fps starts of at 29 and then falls steadily till the menu appears where it is at 11... When running nosplash it start around 27-29 and then falls even quicker so that when the menu is ready for use it is at 17 and it keeps falling till it again reaches around the 11... The game itself runs at 10... No more - no less...

[TheTourist314]

Dave,

Luckily I can play Osmos on my laptop just fine, but the weirdest thing is that it's also running Windows 7 x64 and it works just fine, no hangups anywhere whatsoever. If I had to guess anything though, it would be that I'm using a Sound Blaster Audigy PCI sound card rather than my integrated sound, because in the logfile I notice that OpenAL detects my Audigy (labeled as default) and this other option called "Generic Software" and then proceeds to use Generic Software instead of the Audigy. I dunno, just a thought?

[Moulax]

I agree with TheTourist, it seems the game always opens the "Generic device" which sometimes does not support all the required sound functions, even if other devices support it.

@TheTourist:
running the ALCapsViewer, is your "generic software" supporting more than just EAX 2.0 ?

@Dave:
can we specifiy a device to be used rather than "generic software" detected by the OpenaL ?

Cheers !

Moulax.

---EDIT ---
It SHOULD be possible to force openAL to use a specified device. The game should propose a launch option ?
from there: http://vrmlengine.sourceforge.net/openal_notes.php it says that:

Newer Creative's OpenAL implementation has two devices: Generic Hardware (uses DirectSound3D) and Generic Software (uses DirectSound).

When I launch ALCapsViewer, I can verify that thee is no Generic Hardware for my sound card (X-FI XTrem Audio), which is correct. But the game may absolutely want to use DirectSound3D mode ?

[Zarat]

Is it normal that the "achievements" section only has white squares (when unlocked, otherwise gray + "locked" text) ? I've got the preordered version from this site, not the steam version. I'm asking because they look a bit odd, those squares look to me like they should be icons or whatever. Here's a screenshot: http://imagebin.ca/view/416LgTA.html (I hope it works, just google'd for an image pastebin host)

[patrick_leb]

@ Soran, patrick_leb : Are you running an app in the background that's doing any file sharing, FTP, etc? If so, try closing it -- does the framerate in Osmos improve?

If not, does it help when you disable the splash screen by starting the game with 'nosplash'? (To do this, right click on the launch shortcut, go to ‘Properties’ and change the ‘Target’ of the short cut by adding the word ‘nosplash’ (without quotes) after the executable. If you’re running a Steam version of the game, you can do this through the Steam client by right-clicking on Osmos in the ‘My Games’ tab, selecting ‘Properties’ then ‘Set Launch Options’ and add the word ‘ nosplash’.)

I have nothing else running really. I've tried fullscreen, in a window, nosound, nosplash and I always get the same result: the game comes to a complete crawl just as I enter level S1-2 (Biophobe). I can also see Osmos eating up 95%+ of the CPU.

I also just realized that if I wait a few minutes for the level to start, once it starts the speed is normal again! I can play but if I die I press Space and it becomes slow again until the level actually starts.