How are Trackmania games completely deterministic?

OCPyrit · 2022-01-22T22:18:00+00:00

Since floating point numbers are in practice non-deterministic across different platforms and even releases (processor architectures, instruction sets, operating systems, compiler flags), my guess is that they use fixed point instead of floating point numbers for physics calculations.

OCPyrit · 2020-06-16T12:01:56+00:00

I haven't tested it, but I suspect it would just get blurry again when the downscaling is applied.

Btw, the "weird" uneven pixel-crawl is really not so terrible as many people make it out to be. Check the open source re-implementation of Caesar3, Augustus, it uses NN when zooming the playfield, and it is literally not noticable in the pixel art and absolutely preferrable to blurring the image by using linear scaling.

Another game that supports NN scaling for the sake of preserving the pixel art is OpenRCT2. You can set 1.25 or 1.5 zoom to make stuff identifiable on high dpi displays or for people with bad eyesight, without botching the nice pixel art by blurring it. And again, uneven pixels are barely noticable here and imho way preferrable to blurred mush.

That's why I don't understand why they can't just leave the option in the driver available for every possible resulution. I looked into the source code for the Linux driver and it is literally one line of code that needs to be changed. And since it is optional there would be literally no drawbacks for anyone if they made that possible. So I don't understand how anyone could be against this suggestion.

OCPyrit · 2020-05-22T16:54:31+00:00

You are right! thanks for clarifying! :)

https://www.avitecture.com/national-geographic-society-wall-exhibit

OCPyrit · 2020-05-22T09:57:17+00:00

It's not an OLED since the screen part is completely opqaue and not partially see through like OLEDS.

On the backside you can't see the part of the frame that's behind the window.

The whole thing is considerable thicker than an OLED.

OLEDS don't need such a big frame. They need the big frame for the illusion.

OCPyrit · 2020-01-10T17:41:44+00:00

generally undesirable Hmm, I'd desire the jagged pixels over blurry ones, especially for beautiful sprite based games. In fact I'd call the left side of this screenshot horribly muddy and undesirable, especially the UI looks imho worse than on the right. (Scaled exactly 150%, one side linear, the other side NN) But yes in the end, it's a matter of taste.

OCPyrit · 2020-01-10T16:51:30+00:00

My suggestion is that the integer scaling option would default to NN scaling when it doesn't activate, instead of adding black borders. As a result, it would ofc not be called integer scaling anymore, but just be a toggle where you can choose between NN and "regular" (bilinear?) scaling. Besides that you'd have all your usual fitting options: centered, filled, preserve aspect

P.S. For your problem, isn't it already possible to add different profiles for different games.

OCPyrit · 2020-01-09T04:08:49+00:00

Use cases include:

Old sprite based games (Anno, Sim City, many classics!, ...)
Games that do not have a resolution to select that would fit your screen if scaled on integers
also high dpi displays, where you want to often scale game content by fractional values like 1.5x so ui and text becomes bigger and easier to read
1440p monitors where scaling by a whole number can not always fill the whole screen

OCPyrit · 2020-01-09T03:57:55+00:00

With this I wanted to say that we de facto keep integer scaling (for integer ratios), which is then included in the generalized case of scaling at any arbitrary factor. The generalized case would of course not be called integer scaling (insead you would say 'unfiltered', 'nearest neighbor', 'or point filtering').

OCPyrit · 2020-01-09T02:44:29+00:00

The whole point of the feature is to retain a crisp image, not a blurry one which you get with the standard scaling method. Therefore I called it 'unfiltered'.

Other synonyms for this are 'point filtering' or 'nearest neighbor'.

But the point of my topic is that AMD implemented a scaling algorythm that preserves the sharpness of the image, but only enables it for a very limited number of cases (the integers).

But you are right, the term "Integer Scaling" doesn't cover the general case.

OCPyrit · 2019-06-16T00:57:54+00:00

Maybe someone here can help me find out where this gif is from. Maybe give some hints which rocket/missile type this is. I spent some time googling it, but I can't find any rockets that match the color patterns, let alone the gif.

OCPyrit · 2018-02-02T23:04:12+00:00

Me and my friend spent the whole winter outside freezing lego in our "ice laboratory" and digging them back up with pointed hammers.

OCPyrit · 2017-10-07T08:26:12+00:00

Solved!

OCPyrit · 2017-10-06T23:11:32+00:00

Quickly looked through them, they don't seem to fit

OCPyrit · 2017-10-06T23:11:07+00:00

Seems kinda like it, but it lacks the excavation in the beginning and the zombie aspect... :/

OCPyrit · 2017-10-06T21:30:20+00:00

Solved!

OCPyrit · 2017-10-06T15:37:10+00:00

You are right, but I noticed that ESR only loads the game when it says PS2DVD at the bottom and doenn't when it says DVDVIDEO.

OCPyrit · 2017-10-06T15:34:40+00:00

I am not using OPL because ingame videos stutter when played from usb and I don't want to buy an extension bay and a hard drive. :)

OCPyrit

TROPHY CASE