FS1(?) problems

[Taylor Richards]

Although I can't effectively reproduce these problems in FS2 and I can't
figure out why a FS1 build exposes these problems I'm going to post them
here cause I can't figure them out and don't know where to start.

1.  Crash on popup dialogs...
  This seems to be compiler dependent as to whether it crashes or not
but I can't figure out why it crashes.  The crash happens in
src/popup/popup.cpp line 732, "b->hide();".  I've seen this crash before
but thought it was fixed when I could no longer reproduce it.  The fix
seemed to be because of an update that included a newer gcc (and glibc)
version (using RedHat 7.3).  Using RH (null) with gcc3.2 and
compat-gcc296 installed it will crash with gcc3.2 but work fine with
gcc296.

2.  Garbage on filenames with strcpy...
  This one seems new to me but could have been there.  I see it most in
src/bmpman/bmpman.cpp (bm_load_animation at the moment) in something
like "strcpy( filename, real_filename );".  "real_filename" is correct
reporting (eg.) exp04 but filename will give
exp04<bunch-of-trailing-garbage>.  This also happens in other places but
seems to vary with source and build changes.  I don't yet know enough to
figure this out so any help or just pointers to other sources of
information would be greatly appreciated.

I hate those two problems so much that I'll kiss whoever helps fix them
(I am a guy so don't get too excited).  The next two aren't much of a
big deal but advice on the first one would be appreciated.

1.  Background nebulas in the starfield don't work...
  In FS2 the starfield is populated with stars and bitmaps for suns and
nebulas.  The bitmaps weren't/aren't available in FS1 so polys/verts are
patterned on the starfield and colored.  This was disabled in FS2 and
turning it back on yeilds results like these
http://www.surfsouth.com/~trichard/fs/fs1_nebbug.jpg and I assume
(perhaps wrong) that it's related to the amount of asm in the tmap code
(it's also damn slow).  In my new patch I have the nebula set with an
ifdef and isn't built enabled by default but helps with testing.  I
don't know how much work it will take to fix to decide if it's worth it.

2.  Asteroids still don't work in original missions...
  Works in ST with same models, textures, code and mission settings.  I
have now clue why it's not working and I can't figure out how to get any
usable debug info on the problem.  But this is the last thing I care
about at the moment so I don't much give a shit.



Other than that the new patch should be out as soon I can finish and
test it.  I realize that I screwed up with how I enabled the FS1 Demo
and it's biting me now.  I'm most of the way getting the demo fix though
and this time without trampling/crippling other code.  I still haven't
been working with multiplayer code except for getting menus working but
job related stuff will have to come first.  The last patch still hasn't
gone into CVS.  I'm not in a hurry to get it in but if there was
anything wrong with it or something I should be doing better please let
me know so this next patch can be fixed.


Taylor

-- 
Taylor Richards <trichard at surfsouth.com>