Serious Sam 3 Update 182970 - public beta

[Robert]

Build 182970 for Serious Sam 3 is now available in beta "publicbeta", which does not require a password.

To install the beta, do this:
- locate the game (Serious Sam 3 in this case) in the Steam's "Library" panel
- right click and invoke "Properties"
- select the "Betas" tab
- choose "publicbeta"

Here are the changes:

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a rare crash in physics solver.
- Fixed a rare issue causing the game to freeze in certain circumstances.
- Fixed an issue preventing players from respawning in CoinOp games if they became spectators.
- When changing "Prefer 3rd person view" option in Game Options menu, this change now immediately takes effect.

Optimizations:
- Greatly optimized performance of menu rendering in Linux.

Scripting:
- Legged puppets can now have a model mover stretch specified via new macro function: SetModelMoverStretch(). There is an accompanying getter function, as well.
- Exposed GetArmor() and SetArmor() macro functions on puppet.

[RayHawk]

Yay Linux optimization!

[Rasta]

Would be interesting to see any performance test Linux vs Windows.
Under pressure penetrable walls have been fixed.

[Captain Todger]

I've thought about seeing how the game would fare under Linux. I have a modest setup that nets me a solid 30 - 40 FPS with reasonably high settings. I just went through the process of fixing and cleaning the fan and heatsink on my GPU so that plan kinda got put on the shelf for a bit.

[Firepaw]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από ctRobert:

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a rare issue causing the game to freeze in certain circumstances.

The game still freezes for me!
After a freeze for about 10 seconds the AMD Driver will be "restored" and i can play for a few seconds. Then it will freeze again. Problem was solved with AMD 13.3 and with 13.5 its back.
For further informations read Steam forum please.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3037750

[AlenL]

That particular freeze we fixed there doesn't necessarily have to do something with your problem. Our freeze was something in the game code, (otherwise we would have noted it concerns some GPU types). What you have is a driver bug, or possibly even a hardware malfunction.

[Firepaw]

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately its not a hardware malfanction and SS3 is the only game of my 260 steam games that produce this behavior. I will check AMD 13.6 when its out of beta and post again. Besides this why cant you as game developer report this issue to AMD?
I am clearly not alone with this problem.
Thanks and keep up the good work

[AlenL]

While I'm not stating for certain that its a hardware malfunction, I wouldn't discount it just on the basis that it works on other games. We often get the situation where our games stress the hardware more than others - because they use it differently. (Probably happens to other games as well - but on different hardware.)

We report to AMD (and other vendors) all bugs we can quantify and respond to their questions. Since this one doesn't appear on any of our test machines (and we have quite a few GPUs for testing), it is hard to know what to report.

If there is really a larger number of users with the same problem, then I suggest you open a thread about it, have everyone post their logs and we can try to triangulate the source of it, and even possibly try to reproduce it.

[Firepaw]

Again it is not a hardware malfunction!
Regarding to open a thread: I linked a thread to steam forums where users describ the problem over and over again > http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3037750
In this thread we were posting logs to you AlenL but never got an answer on the issue.
Its clearly an AMD HD 7870 driver issue with Serious Sam 3 - and only Serious Sam 3!
Thanks again for your attention.

Edit: The stated thread has 2,058 views and 29 replies. Is that enough to investigate the problem?

[AlenL]

I said I suspect a HW problem because you said "driver was restored". A similar message is shown when the driver resets hardware after a hardware deadlock is detected.

But, yeah, if you note that it works with some driver and not with others, that is definitely most likely a driver problem. I can only offer to have us contact ATI about it. Can also try to repro here if we have that exact same card.

[DEN [CT]]

Does 'sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=0' and then 'shaReloadShaders()' fixes the problem?

[Firepaw]

Hey guys thanks for your reply again!
After the first freeze i tried the fix DEN [CT] mentioned and i think it did the trick. I was able to play for 2 hours and finaly finished the game. Thank you very much DEN. While i am waiting for SS4 i will play your dlc "jewel of the nile" now. Keep up the good work.

p.s. a lot of AlanL in the credits =)

[DEN [CT]]

Glad that helped! :)

Anyway, just for testing and pinpointing things further, can you please try
'sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=3' and then 'shaReloadShaders()' ?

Does this provoke the issue or everything still runs fine?

[Serious Leon]

I've got the same problem as 0ktai ™ ツ? I have a AMD RADEON HD 7870 and the game freeze sometimes for about 10 seconds, after that, the screen goes black, and the game resume.
as 0ktai ™ ツ, it's the only game which have this problem on my PC. The version of the display driver is 13.4.
@DEN [CT] : how can i test the parameters you given ?

[Firepaw]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Aure-ly:

how can i test the parameters you given ?

- start the game
- play until it freezes for the first time (optional)
- press tilde key (~) to get the console up
- paste "sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=0" (without the " " ) and press enter
- paste "shaReloadShaders()" (without the " " ) and press enter <<< this will reload your shaders and will take about 20 seconds
- be happy and enjoy a freezeless game

[Firepaw]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DEN CT:

Glad that helped! :)

Anyway, just for testing and pinpointing things further, can you please try
'sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=3' and then 'shaReloadShaders()' ?

Does this provoke the issue or everything still runs fine?

After playing for about an hour today without a freezing problem I used "sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=3' and then 'shaReloadShaders()" and it starts freezing again. BUT if i change the value to "0" and reload shaders it still freezes! Yesterday the reload command took about 20 seconds. The reload time from the value "3" to "0 " is only 2,5 seconds today! I deleted the shader cache (some files were from yesterday and some from today) and tried the "0" command plus reload with no success. The game keeps on freezing and its impossible to play *sigh*

@ Aure-ly: Did 'sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=0' and then 'shaReloadShaders()' fixed the problem for you?