GZdoom Very Fatal Error

GZdoom displayed the very fatal error screen after I changed video mode to OpenGL. I had been running it in the software renderer, and changed it to OpenGL. I restarted GZdoom and it got past the startup screen, but as soon as it got to the Doom title screen it went to the GZdoom very fatal error screen. This happened on my new Dell XPS 7100 with AMD Vision Premium graphics running Windows 7. OpenGL mode works on my older computer running XP. My new computer runs other OpenGL and hardware accelerated games. Any ideas whats wromg and how to make it work?

What's your video card like?

From the system specs:
> Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB GDDR5

GZDoom doesn't like ATI chipsets, it has been tested on and designed for nVidia only

You can run it on ATI hardware; but there are issues with some versions of the drivers. As far as I know, either Catalyst 1.1 or older, or 1.3 or newer, should work with the SVN builds of GZDoom.

http://svn.drdteam.org/gzdoom/

Catalyst 1.2 will simply not work, they completely broke support for OpenGL 2.X applications while adding support for OpenGL 3.2.

The latest official version of GZDoom will also not work with ATI, but this bug has been fixed in the development versions.

Never_Again said:

it has been tested on and designed for nVidia only

That's plain and simple bullshit!

That's good old Graf, so subtle and diplomatic, pure charisma.

Posting misinformation does not require a subtle or diplomatic response.

It isn't so much the fact that GZDoom (and by extension SkullTag) stopped working for a large proportion of ATi card users (though that said, I can't recall other ports ever having such an issue).

Rather, though GZDoom isn't the only port to ever neglect this, that a new official version of GZDoom hasn't been released since this major bug was fixed in the SVN.

People will probably continue to bring this major bug up until a new official version is released.

Sorry, Graf. If it's misinformation it wasn't intentional. I was under impression that you never tested on an ATI chipset, having no access to one. Is it the "designed for" you object to?

What about the Fastest OpenGL source port engine for WADS? thread, then?

Gez said:
A big issue with your hardware is that GZDoom is not optimized or even developed for ATI chipsets.

John Smith replied:
And for no other reason than the developer doesn't like them.

Graf Zahl replied:
... and for no other reason that I don't have one.

If GZDoom wasn't developed/designed for ATI chipsets, what is the target hardware platform?

I didn't want to make a negative statement about GZDoom, so I opted for a positive version. Now I'm puzzled why that provoked your disapproval.

GZDoom is developed for OpenGL.

The fact that GZDoom works better on NVidia does not change anything about the target hardware. But except from some recent driver oddities that are solely AMD's fault it does work on ATI.

Well, good thing none uses S3 and VooDoo chipsets anymore...

Is it the problem cause by driver, not ATi card itself?

Yes.

The most recent problem that's fixed in the SVN builds is caused by some strange driver bug. For unknown reasons it makes a writable code segment ZDoom's software renderer needs unwritable and older GZDoom versions tried to write into it anyway even though it wasn't necessary. Once that bit of code got restricted to the software renderer it worked again.

Never_Again said:

I didn't want to make a negative statement about GZDoom, so I opted for a positive version. Now I'm puzzled why that provoked your disapproval.

Saying it's not developed on an ATI is true. Saying it's not tested on an ATI is false, though. There's been several campaigns of tests and benchmarks, even going as far as prodding ATI-owners on the ZDoom and Skulltag forums to participate to make sure it would work correctly (without bugs and with decent performances) on their hardware. Just look at the SVN log for GZDoom during development of the 1.3.x branch (c. r550-r650) and you should find plenty of comments along the lines of "fixed so-or-so that didn't work on ATI".


The two most recent problems GZDoom has had with ATI were introduced by driver updates. One could be fixed on GZDoom's side by disabling entirely the affected code, the other could only be fixed by reverting to an older driver or waiting for a new driver update, which eventually happened.

As I said, the current SVN builds of GZDoom work with the current versions of Catalyst.

Gez said:

As I said, the current SVN builds of GZDoom work with the current versions of Catalyst.

Indeed, I can confirm that. The last official release doesn't work with my 1(0).3 drivers, but the latest SVN releases do.

Respectfully, may I ask why no new official release then?

It seems like a fairly large bug that I would have thought the GZDoom dev's would have wanted to put behind them rather than leave it lingering (i.e by not releasing an official version with it fixed).

Vermil said:

Indeed, I can confirm that. The last official release doesn't work with my 1(0).3 drivers, but the latest SVN releases do.

Respectfully, may I ask why no new official release then?

It seems like a fairly large bug that I would have thought the GZDoom dev's would have wanted to put behind them rather than leave it lingering (i.e by not releasing an official version with it fixed).

v1.4.8 is works fine if you don't use shitty 10.x driver and using the 9.x versions.

Ok, I'm just take bullshit...:X

Yeah, GZDooM needed to release a new official version, but this damned problem just make user slap GZDooM and Graf Zahl. Good job, AMD. :p

For me, it's enough by using SVN builds, because they're the newest versions of GZDooM.
(But Doomsday engine is other story for me... :p)

The latest SVN build does work, thanks.

Maes said:

Well, good thing none uses S3 and VooDoo chipsets anymore...

I do use a VooDoo III and GZDoom works well with it.

Gez said:

You can run it on ATI hardware; but there are issues with some versions of the drivers. As far as I know, either Catalyst 1.1 or older, or 1.3 or newer, should work with the SVN builds of GZDoom

As I've understood, QuakeLive and all quake3 based games do not work correctly with the latest Catalyst 10.5 and 10.6

http://www.quakelive.com/forum/announcement.php?f=27

ATI Catalyst drivers versions 10.5 & 10.6 are bugged & cause graphical anomalies; revert to 10.4

Since Catalyst 10.5 and now amazingly 10.6 (you would think they'd fix it in the next release.. sigh) are currently bugged with most if not ALL opengl games including QL

Maybe M$ slipped somebody a fat one to further ensure the eternal dominance of Direct3D.