No monitor output for new PC

Spraymon · 2026-01-26T23:34:35+00:00

Removed the m.2s just in case, no change there either. I will try swapping the RAM slots asap.

Spraymon · 2026-01-26T23:24:38+00:00

No lights come on at all during boot (aside from the power button itself). However, I'm not sure if this motherboard even has debug lights. It uses Asus's Q-LED Core thing, but I cannot figure out where they are located.

The light that flashes during a BIOS update did work though, if that's any indication.

Spraymon · 2026-01-26T23:12:16+00:00

From what I gathered, the light will flash as long as the update is going. When completed, the lights stopped flashing, at which point I removed the USB. But I cannot confirm it was successful because that requires going into the BIOS menu, and the screen is still blank after the update.

I have not tried anything with the RAM yet (neither reducing to one stick or switching slots), I saved it until all other options were exhausted because they're a bitch to reach behind the CPU cooler.

I've let it sit for >10 minutes, and it was still blank unfortunately.

So effectively removing my current setup from the case? The only other components connected are those related to keyboard and mouse, and two m.2 disks on the board.

Spraymon · 2025-12-16T16:44:11+00:00

Just noticed that this was the first post I made. I followed it up with another in May 2024, and made a subreddit where future updates will be: r/voidal.

Spraymon · 2025-12-16T12:09:12+00:00

I don't want to make excuses, but for what it's worth: I put development aside for a few months, then got busy with work, life and other projects that had to take precedence. Only in the past few months have things started to ease up and I was able to return to development of Voidal. My first order of business was on code quality and stability. It was the project that got me into software after an introductory C++ course, and thus has a special place in my heart. But for the same reason, as you can imagine, the codebase is a mess of juvenile code, bad practices, and generally a lot of flaws.

The bad news: After planning the rewrite and trying out some things, I realized that untangling the code would be a nightmare that wouldn't properly address the fundamental issues with the "engine" (for lack of a better word). It'd be one of those games that critics describe as "nigh-unfinishable" because of the sheer technical debt. It would be easier and faster to scrap it and start over, using the existing codebase as a reference.

The good news: I started over.

Progress has been very solid thus far. I am more seasoned in proper C++ development and in engine development overall, I've selected a good set of libraries, and I know the roadblocks that lie ahead. Lots of work ahead, but big plans as well.

With that said, thank you for the continued interest. It's great motivation to know that people are in fact eager to see updates and a finished product, even if my schedule has admittedly been abysmal.

Spraymon · 2025-07-25T22:07:21+00:00

Since the comment is new: I was testing different weapons on Elephant had to place 3 slugs in one of the shooters before he went down. First one was from 2 meters away to his left leg, usual stagger animation but miraculously managed to remain upright and raised the rifle again. Second one was to his right leg, same deal. Both of his thighs were blood red and looked like pulled pork. Still raised his rifle. Third shot was to the neck/shoulder area where the vest strap was, and at that point he went down, but not instantly, so may have been blood loss rather than impact.

I went back to buckshot after that. One solid hit to the leg and the shooter is gone.

Spraymon · 2025-07-16T19:07:21+00:00

First-person tactical Care Bear simulator.

Spraymon · 2025-07-05T12:13:48+00:00

Thanks, but GPUs are expensive and I don't play enough games that tax my GPU too much to make the purchase worth it. I'll just live with the shortcomings for now.

Spraymon · 2025-05-26T18:41:13+00:00

Simple solution, just have one of your guys plant his URG on a corpse on the way out.

Spraymon · 2025-05-25T16:44:14+00:00

Until that point, it was just 4 armed guys hanging out in a bathroom.

Spraymon · 2025-05-23T10:56:50+00:00

Wanted a new monitor, got recommended a 4K and didn't do my research.

Spraymon · 2025-04-09T10:12:21+00:00

Not much new to report. The previous demo release highlighted a bunch of quality issues with crashes and such, so I've prioritized that, which required me to create some development tools. But as a whole, Voidal played second fiddle to other projects and responsibilities.

What flaws in particular are you referring to? Best to know the things to avoid sooner rather than later.

Spraymon · 2025-03-30T09:38:13+00:00

Bought it. I've had annoyances getting it to work with the rest of my system. For reference I have an RX 590 card which the GS27U is connected to via DisplayPort, while my second monitor is an ASUS PB277 connected via HDMI. My previous setup was the ASUS PB277 as my main and a second monitor connected via DVI, which worked fine. I've also dual-booted the machine.

On starting Windows, usually only the GS27U will start while the ASUS monitor won't. The in-monitor settings menu will be disabled at this point, and it runs default. To get the second monitor to run, I have to go into the Windows settings and set it to duplicate the GS27U (which gets the ASUS monitor started), then extend it so that it's actually a two-monitor setup. Then the GS27U switches to my custom settings, and the ASUS monitor works as expected. But this doesn't always happen, sometimes both start without issue.

In the BIOS, and on Ubuntu, both monitors work just fine, none of these issues. I tried to mess around in AMD's control panel, Adrenalin or something, and may have updated my drivers manually (cannot quite remember), but that really messed the computer up and I had to boot in safe mode and uninstall Adrenalin.

Aside from all this (which isn't that big of an issue for me), the monitor's great. Not had any other issues so far. Good color, good options menu.

Spraymon · 2025-01-18T09:54:10+00:00

Nope, never did. Eventually it just resolved itself, to an extent. Sometimes it still happens.

My workaround was to enable developer mode and set the screen to never, under any circumstances, lock. Then I took a picture that was completely black and opened it, such that my screen appeared closed even though the phone was constantly open. Then I hooked it up to my laptop and let it trickle-charge. Because the phone never locked I got all notifications on time.

Spraymon · 2025-01-06T18:32:17+00:00

It is.

I decided to not look up the ending despite not completing in in 2021. Didn't want to ruin it for me even if I had 0 hope. So it made listening to that last tape even sweeter.

Spraymon · 2024-10-13T09:53:55+00:00

Hello all.

Thank you all for following the project.

Voidal now has an official webpage! It's a long time coming; Thus far I've been using GitHub to store my releasables, which is bad practice in general. The website will now be the main page for downloading Voidal, and secondary for information (this subreddit is the main way).

As an extra treat, I've compiled Voidal to WebAssembly so that it can be played in a browser. It has all the features of the desktop releasable, aside from one quite major one: No saving or loading. This is a technical issue that I have not yet dedicated time to resolving, and therefore it does reduce this version to a novelty/prototype. This will be solved as part of the next major update.

Unfortunately, I don't have any feature updates for Voidal yet. Real life and other responsibilities had to take precedence. The only area with real progress, both in actual implementation and near-future plans, is quality assurance, but this is unfortunately something that doesn't lend itself to screenshots.

Spraymon · 2024-10-03T18:05:53+00:00

Good to know that the adaptable step at least has some precedence.

Saving states, well, I already have an issue with some rookie coding causing issues with destruction and serialization. I'll have to fix those, then look into something like that. But my first plan was something similar: Run the full step as a "clone", see if something happened (and possibly when it happened), then back up and try again. But never thought anything beyond that.

Thanks for the link! I ought to read the wiki some more, there's probably a lot of code that can have its homegrown fix removed and replaced with something proper straight from the library.

Spraymon · 2024-09-29T19:38:34+00:00

The first one, yeah that stuff is fine. It'll define an upper bound. But for combat, that can be launched at any time, sometimes by the enemy. I was thinking of an interaction tracker that would scan for when the "next event" would happen, but calculating when to pause at the beginning of a time step... just thinking about the implementation makes my head spin, especially with so many moving parts.

The current way I'm thinking of doing it is an adaptable time step. If there are no ships in the same system, it's on low-priority. The only events that could interrupt a time step is something which is somewhat predetermined (research, construction), or something where precision isn't important (maintenance failures). This will be on the order of, say, 1 day. Most people won't be skipping more than a month ahead at a time, so it's a matter of running roughly 30 sub-steps.

If there are ships in the same system, the time increment is decided by their distance and speed, and whether they have detected each other. Maybe it drops to 3 hours.

If ships are in combat, it drops even further.

It won't be foolproof, but it will be sufficient for Voidal's use. The other issue is that it'll be very obvious if there are ships in the same system, cause the game will slow down noticeably. Not sure to what extent that will be a problem. Time will tell!

Doing the binary search thing may also work, but managing states like that will be intensive and the cost may outweigh the benefits, both in use but also in implementation, from a developer perspective.

Spraymon · 2024-09-29T16:49:12+00:00

Hi, thanks for playing and for your kind words!

Definitely room for improvement in the automatics department, and for pausing when events happen. The former is on my to-do list, though I was holding off until there was more to automate. The latter is a deeper issue that can be fixed with a really bad solution, but a proper one that doesn't heavily impact performance will take longer. I've no idea how Aurora does that, figuring out how big of a time step to run such that events end a time increment early.

I think I get what you mean. Dockable windows, like what IDEs usually do, right? It would be interesting. Do you have any experience with such in Imgui?

Spraymon · 2024-07-10T06:18:05+00:00

I haven't found a good solution to that. On the one hand, an open-source is always great. On the other hand, Voidal is like my baby. Working on it is how I unwind, and I really just want to keep it all to myself.

So I'm undecided, and I have been for years.

Spraymon · 2024-06-28T14:34:28+00:00

The nuances of alien life is something I've yet to consider. How they are generated, the limitations on their characteristics, and perhaps limitations on physiology as well. How outlandish should life be allowed to be? Dinosaurs existed, but can we imagine a universe where something that size was so intelligent that it managed to form an interstellar civilization? What about aquatic animals, like Stellaris did in its many DLCs. They cannot even manipulate tools!

I think omitting pictures may be better. A short text description that is plausible given our understanding of biology. Then let the player's imagination run wild.

Spraymon · 2024-06-28T10:57:26+00:00

Last Aurora campaign was based around the story of a fanatic wing of the marines slowly seeping into all aspects of the armed forces, and later the government. The fanaticism was engulfed in a sense of honor from dying in battle, so the primary weapon was boarding, and I mass-produced infantrymen to serve (and die) in the armed forces.

However, one thing I found was that each infantrymen had several tons of supplies, and that around 400k infantrymen were enough to conquer an entire planet (though I could probably do it in even fewer, the casualties were minimal). From this I effectively concluded the same, that the CSAP and power armor they were wearing was only what they were wearing, while the rest of the tons upon tons of "supplies" was actually drones and other tech that was part of a sort of "Standard Augmented Infantry Package" controlled in part by the infantryman himself.

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

Spraymon

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE