Severe graphic errors in Unreal Tournament on Mali400 and Adreno 205

[skmp]

From @Elwood89 on January 27, 2014 8:8

I have a S3 international (Exynos/ Mali400) and a Sony Xperia Play (Qualcomm Snapdragon, Adreno 205). Both on Android 4.1.2.

Both display flickering black triangles in this game. I was going to make a video, but someone beat me to it ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yAo2l91Dl0s#t=123

Here we can se someone playing it on a S4(probably a PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU) with only minor flickering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j_AOT3_D3dY#t=101

it is also listed as playable on the Pandora Compatibility list, with only a "Sometimes single textures are flickering a bit" issue, so probably the big problem is not there as well.

I'm using a Reicast test build from 25.01.2014. (obbf33c from the Lounge Katt buildbot).

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[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 8:50

https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/103 https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/108 Merging these issues together, since they seem to be the same situation

[skmp]

From @sergioroprado on January 27, 2014 9:38

On my note 3 (adreno 330) sonic adventure 2 is running almost perfect, with only very very minor graphical glitches.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 9:45

That one shouldn't have been an issue. This seems to be more the 2XX series now.

[skmp]

From @hooby3dfx on January 27, 2014 15:23

There are other games with the same (or similar looking) gfx issue with flickering black triangles: Dynamite Cop (heavy flickering) Sega Bass Fishing (heavy flickering)

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 19:41

I'm not sure, but what about a build against GLES3, since it seems to be all 4.X.X devices with rendering issues?

[skmp]

From @hooby3dfx on January 27, 2014 20:21

adreno drivers have major issues with es3 (see https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-opengl-es-3-guide). worth a shot though.

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 2:41 PM, TwistedUmbrella notifications@github.comwrote:

I'm not sure, but what about a build against GLES3, since it seems to be all 4.X.X devices with rendering issues?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/164#issuecomment-33412481 .

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 20:45

Well I started a compost heap https://github.com/LoungeKatt/reicast-emulator/tree/gl3kk that may eventually turn into GLES3

[skmp]

From @Elwood89 on January 27, 2014 21:3

Gentlemen... you are not planning to make this a GLES3-only emu, are you? Are these issues too much to handle for GLES2? Not that I know anything about it, apart from the fact that I have no GLES3 devices, therefore I forbid such action! ;)

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 21:11

Relax. GLES3 is API 18+. That's application suicide as a sole release. It's like Antutu or any of the Tegra apps where you design it as a separate version. I can't really see skmp switching to a version I don't think his hardware would run either way. It's just research.

[skmp]

Software rendering is much more likely to be a viable solution that ES3 for quite some time ...

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 11:11 PM, TwistedUmbrella notifications@github.comwrote:

Relax. GLES3 is API 18+. That's application suicide as a sole release. It's like Antutu or any of the Tegra apps where you design it as a separate version. I can't really see skmp switching to a version I don't think his hardware would run either way. It's just research.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/164#issuecomment-33423257 .

~skmp

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 27, 2014 21:52

Yeah. It's amazing that 2 years after the big mess getting the Adreno 205 to even run with ICS, it hasn't improved at all. Now it just breaks quietly.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on January 29, 2014 19:31

https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/issues/5135

Seems related to the problems we are having. Not directly, but it seems the n5 is one of the ones with graphical "hiccups" so I was thinking it could be a result of refresh rate.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on February 2, 2014 20:26

Try the newest build. For Jet Set Radio, it seems to be completely resolved. Current: Before:

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on February 2, 2014 21:22

Closing this unless there are new reports. It's flawless on every device tested that previously had the issue.

[skmp]

From @hooby3dfx on February 3, 2014 5:21

unreal still has massive black flickering areas. sega bass fishing still has extreme triangle flickering, though it does look a little better now i think. dynamite cop also has nasty flickering (also might have gotten a little better). i think virtua tennis also got better (now has very minor flickering in players).

all on shield^

On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 4:22 PM, TwistedUmbrella notifications@github.comwrote:

Closing this unless there are new reports. It's flawless on every device tested that previously had the issue.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/164#issuecomment-33913172 .

[skmp]

try the zhack branch

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 7:21 AM, hooby3dfx notifications@github.com wrote:

unreal still has massive black flickering areas. sega bass fishing still has extreme triangle flickering, though it does look a little better now i think. dynamite cop also has nasty flickering (also might have gotten a little better). i think virtua tennis also got better (now has very minor flickering in players).

all on shield^

On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 4:22 PM, TwistedUmbrella <notifications@github.com

wrote:

Closing this unless there are new reports. It's flawless on every device tested that previously had the issue.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub< https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/164#issuecomment-33913172

.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator/issues/164#issuecomment-33925511 .

~skmp

[skmp]

From @hooby3dfx on February 4, 2014 3:48

ok, zhack branch has the greatest improvement of everything. unreal - way better (still a little glitchy but playable) dynamite cop - way better (still a little glitchy on first stage but playable, got better in next levels). screenshot attached. sega bass - still wicked glitchy, maybe this is a different issue. screenshot attached. virtua tennis - actually worse in this branch. screenshot attached. other player was invisible.

what do you think the plan will be for integrating a fix? i take it that you want to avoid game specific hacks.

edit: not sure why images arent showing up. oh well, links are there.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on February 4, 2014 4:18

Your gitfu is weak.

They got no legs! It's like pacman tennis...

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on February 4, 2014 16:12

I am terrible with C, but this is what I'm thinking is a good way to handle it: https://github.com/LoungeKatt/reicast-emulator/commit/c58b18bd3355156edfe8e5bcdb543aa7c19ad573

[skmp]

Z computation is a quite hot path, this will chop off perfomance. Ill merge to master the modvols edits that arent much of a hack, since we dont render modvols anyway. The rest needs to go.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on February 4, 2014 16:33

All i know is the original zhack commit made all my games 8 bit nightmares lol

[skmp]

Is this still an issue? It should be fixed in r6

[skmp]

From @hooby3dfx on March 24, 2014 13:44

the zhack branch has improvements in some games (UT, Dynamite Cop) but master still has heavy artifacts. havent testing in awhile though, ill check out latest.

[skmp]

This is a quite delicate matter, so moved for r8

[skmp]

From @ThEMarD on June 2, 2015 17:29

Heyyo,

My issue ( #659 ) got merged to this issue and I've read over this and mentions a "zhack branch" which should be working properly. I didn't see a zhack branch on the ci builds page... am I missing something??

I'd seriously love to play Unreal Tournament on my OnePlus One. The Qualcomm SnapDragon 801 should have this game running pretty good I'd think if only I could have it rendering properly. :)

Also, is there a way to donate to this project? I'd love to fund development of this project as it does show promise and has received lots of work over the time I've been watching it.

I'd love to contribute as well as a tester so if you could link me to any builds you'd like me to try I'd be more than enthusiastic to help make this project better if I can. I barely know code though so I can't contribute that way...

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on June 7, 2015 23:23

I believe the zhack branch has to be built locally. It isn't attached to the Travis builder.

@skmp would be the one to address the other portion. I believe he was doing hardware donations at one point, but I have no information on that stuff.

Testing is pretty open. Grab a build, post issues, etc. You're helping already :)

[skmp]

As far as I recall, zhack was (partially) merged to master a long time ago.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on June 28, 2015 15:35

a portion of zhack was merged a while back to resolve issues with Sonic Adventure or Shenmue, but there was some trade-off that prevented a complete merge. It was something like it fixed some games but caused black blobs in other games. The parts that had the most benefit with the least regression were merged. Building the branch could more or less completely fix some games, though, if the games it broke were not an issue for the specific user.

[skmp]

From @MrPowerGamerBR on September 24, 2015 21:46

This issue stills persists on the lastest Play Store release and in the lastest Dev Build.

Also, I can't find the zhack branch anywhere, I tried searching on the Dev Builds page, nothing; tried searching on the GitHub branches, also nothing.

[skmp]

From @petervirtual on June 11, 2017 18:8

How can I get my hands on a compiled version of the zhack branch for my device? I'd really like to try this fix.

[skmp]

From @LoungeKatt on June 11, 2017 18:31

The branch no longer exists. Parts have been merged, but it would have been outdated (and likely crash) as a separate branch now.

[skmp]

From @petervirtual on June 11, 2017 19:14

do you think there is a repository somewhere that would have the apk from 2014 when it was current?

[AbandonedCart]

A few remnant issues with random tearing on some of the billboards in JGR appear to have been recently resolved in the process of fixing other games. Did the additional issues posted here also get resolved along the way?