Darwinia Beta Update Announcement

[John]

We would like to announce that, thanks to the hard effort of Darwinia fan, volunteer and skilled developer, Steven Noonan, we have a new build of Darwinia to test!

The core experience remains pure Darwinia, but under the hood much has changed. There is a new graphics and sound subsystem, hundreds of performance enhancements and bug fixes, and not least, support for running on Apple's M1 ARM64 architecture.

We have put up a build for testing on the "beta" branch. You can switch to it by right clicking Darwinia in your Steam Library, Properties, and then selecting the "Beta" branch from the Beta tab.

Please try it out and post any issues in the Steam Forum. Please include the word 'BETA' in your topic subject.

More detailed technical notes:

- For at least the duration of the Beta, automatic crash reporting will be enabled

- System requirements changes:

- On Intel/AMD hardware, you now need a processor capable of at least SSE 4.2 (Intel Westmere or later, AMD Bulldozer or later).

- Your graphics card needs to support at least one of: OpenGL 3.3+, Direct3D11, or Vulkan

- Linux users may want to note that while we are providing a Linux-native build of the game, the Windows builds of the game are Proton-compatible, in case the Linux-native build breaks for any reason. If needed, to force enable Proton, right click on the game in your Steam library, click Properties > General > Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool, and select the desired version.

- Cross-platform Steam cloud save support

- Enhanced game controller support, thanks to SDL’s Game Controller API. Note that every recognized game controller is remapped to behave like an Xbox 360 controller – unfortunately given the number of possible controller combinations, the on-screen control help for this just shows the Xbox 360 buttons.

- Support for surround sound in 5.1 and 7.1 channel configurations, with spatialized audio to match. This also supports headphone surround sound virtualization through technologies like Dolby Atmos or hardware DACs with virtual surround sound options. Huge thanks to the MiniAudio library and its principal developer David Reid, who devoted a lot of time to make this possible.

- Improved DPI scaling for high DPI screens

- For older hardware or OSes that don’t meet the system requirements, the old version of the game is still available on the “legacy” branch in Steam. That branch will remain after the beta ends and the new code enters the release branch.

[Hatlábú Farkas [LINUX]]

hi JOHN, i just want giving U a headsup, some Directsdound apps wont work.

..\..\code\sound\sound_library_3d_dsound.cpp line 1166

Direct Sound couldn't set fx
Error code : DSERR_CONTROLUNAVAIL
The control (vol,pan, etc.) requested by the caller is not available

I have reinstalled.
All cards sound/graphics are upto date including windows and direct X,
I do have this xonar installed but dont know how to turn this ds3d off???
It did work fine previously a few months ago???

Any help will be much appreciated!!!


same error on UBUNTU 20.04, and Windows 10

[Steven]

Originally posted by LINUX Hatlábú Farkas:

hi JOHN, i just want giving U a headsup, some Directsdound apps wont work.

..\..\code\sound\sound_library_3d_dsound.cpp line 1166

Direct Sound couldn't set fx
Error code : DSERR_CONTROLUNAVAIL
The control (vol,pan, etc.) requested by the caller is not available

I have reinstalled.
All cards sound/graphics are upto date including windows and direct X,
I do have this xonar installed but dont know how to turn this ds3d off???
It did work fine previously a few months ago???

Any help will be much appreciated!!!


same error on UBUNTU 20.04, and Windows 10

Two things:

- You aren't running the beta build, because that source code file it mentions does not exist in the beta version.
- How are you getting the DirectSound error on Linux? Are you running under Wine?

[Hatlábú Farkas [LINUX]]

wine ? NO . i hate wine. it is rarely working.
I am running the game UNDER proton .
( its a WINE based STEAM app. )

[Hatlábú Farkas [LINUX]]

i am TESTED the brand NEW BETA version under VULKAN ( proton version 6.3-7 it is important ) , and it is works FLAWLESSLY !!!! AWESOME WORK MASTER !!!!
( shortly u can see my screenshots , but first i have to PLAY the whole game again after 15 (??) years ??

[BigBadPenguin]

Tested vulcan and opengl version under linux (native)
No problems so far!

Thx 4 the update

[jose_morales_ariza]

Hi. I'm not able to redefine the controls.

[Aliaxi]

That's amazing. I wanted to replay the game since i bought it on steam i used to have the disk version. Knowing there is a never version amazing. I'll try it out!

[cptmcnair]

Research gives me the Air Strike, but it's never added to my Task Manager.

[cptmcnair]

Originally posted by cptmcnair:

Research gives me the Air Strike, but it's never added to my Task Manager.

Oops. My bad. It was there

[Bengamillen]

@John Dont know if this is the place to ask, but im not sure where else if not

in the source files there are quite a few references to 'lasertrooers', including a texture of darwinians, but 1 pixel column off, called 'lasertrooper'.

I know that there was a more RTS future war sort of idea floated early on in development, but noting much else is out there about it I can find.

Can you add any insight as to what these were?

[hamurlik]

When I start the game, it shows a black screen for a second, then the darwinia.exe process dies and opens up crash handler, which stays for a minute, and then dies too. It only crashes on beta, normal version works fine.

[Steven]

Originally posted by уменя аустисм:

When I start the game, it shows a black screen for a second, then the darwinia.exe process dies and opens up crash handler, which stays for a minute, and then dies too. It only crashes on beta, normal version works fine.

This should be fixed now.

[hamurlik]

Thanks, all works now.

[fleser]

I'm tried the Beta and it doesnt work properly for me. The levels are not the same like in original game and looks damaged. The first level has red light source and it looks odd. The Radar Dish don't work properly. When you chouse the the point and try to set it there, the Dish rotate to opposite side, and it impossible to make connection between the islands.
I have few sugesstion. Please add opportunity to choose the original sound effects, and add achivements for this game.
I realy like this game and wait any DLC :-)