Slow menus and dialogs in ZC 2.55

[cbailey78]

Why are the menus in the ZC player so slow? It makes it very painful slow especially configuring all the controller/keyboard bindings. What gives???

[Emily]

Menus are slow? I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean by that.

[BFeely]

If you are using DXGL it is currently a bug in how it handles direct writes to the primary surface, which Allegro does a lot of when drawing the UI elements. Try not forcing Vsync in either the control panel or DXGL settings.

[cbailey78]

Thank you! That fixed it.

[ZoriaRPG]

If you are using DXGL it is currently a bug in how it handles direct writes to the primary surface, which Allegro does a lot of when drawing the UI elements. Try not forcing Vsync in either the control panel or DXGL settings.

Hmm, perhaps I should write this in zquest.cfg when enabling or disabling DXGL.

[ZoriaRPG]

If you are using DXGL it is currently a bug in how it handles direct writes to the primary surface, which Allegro does a lot of when drawing the UI elements. Try not forcing Vsync in either the control panel or DXGL settings.

Oh, wait. Do you mean the allegro vsynnc setting in ZC< or is there a DXGL vsync variable somewhere that we need to address in the config files?

If so, with the .cfg files that we include with 2.53.1 and 2.55, where would I add that, and what is the exact setting?

; DXGL Configuration file for ZC Player/ZQuest
; Note: gfx_card and gfx_cardw must be set to DXAC in zc.cfg and zquest.cfg

[system]
; Do not write a DXGL profile by default - leave this set
NoWriteRegistry = true

; Leave this line if if releasing a package on Steam
NoOverwrite = true

; Uncomment and fill this line in with the SHA256 hash of ddraw.dll if not
; releasing on Steam to enable DXGL Config backup/restore:
;BundledDDrawSHA256 =

[display]
; Add 8-bit color mode needed to run ZC fullscreen, required for compatibility
; with Windows 8 and above
AddColorDepths = 1

; Override and DXGL Config screen aspect settings
ScreenAspect = Default

; Screen filter - choose 0 for nearest or 1 for linear.  Affects fullscreen
; scaled/stretched modes.
ScalingFilter = 1

; Set to 0 for exclusive fullscreen (best performance), 1 for non-exclusive
; fullscreen, or 5 boderless window mode
FullscreenWindowMode = 0

; Choose an additional configuration file to enable fullscreen mode, stretched
; mode, scaled mode, or 4:3 mode - uncomment the desired one

; For window mode, set window mode in zc.cfg or zquest.cfg
; Window mode scaline will come in a later version of DXGL. 

; Fullscreen - change display mode
;Include = dxgl-fullscreen.cfg

; Fullscreen - aspect stretch
;Include = dxgl-aspect.cfg

; Fullscreen - Expand game to 4:3 aspect
Include = dxgl-aspect-zc-43-scale.cfg

Do you have a list of variables for this config file that it supports?

It seems that I will need to add a small DXGL tab to ZCL.

[BFeely]

The current documentation for DXGL variables is in dxgl-example.ini included in both the installer and source code package. It lists all the configurable settings, within the required INI sections.

In the [display] section you will want to add the following:

VSync = 0

This will enforce the DXGL default setting, which allows the game to turn it on and off as required.
1 will completely disable vsync.
2 will force vsync, even when writing to the primary surface, which is currently broken hence causing the slow menus.

As already mentioned, make sure not to set vsync in your graphics card control panel, as this will be equivalent to changing this setting to 2.