This isn't directed for Uber devs, but for players who run game on Linux because I'm want to get some feedback on this idea. Today game still have problems with partial UI crashes (PA#2617) that likely not yet resolved by Coherent. There also problem with open source (read: Intel) drivers that hard to debug too (PA#1595) and just today I'm find out at least one guy with most recent Catalyst have GPU process crash in-game. So I think about what if developers can set "--software-ui" on Linux by default to provide better out of box experience for players with option to disable it. Is there any downside? There is several issues known for software UI: Several months ago one of Nvidia users reported that "--software-ui" make cursor disappear. (PA#4123) Is anyone ever met this one? There also black screen after game finished until window resize. (PA#3796) This one is annoying, but a lot better than in-game control loss or missing cursor. Suppose some workaround/hack is possible. So for me it's looks like at least before crashes fixed completely it's might be good thing to disable GPU acceleration for Coherent by default. Is anyone have ideas how much does this affect performance and responsiveness? I just think most of players include Nvidia one using software UI anyway, but i can be wrong. PS: Need your opinion guys! @n00n @DeathByDenim @liamdawe @MCXplode @Brokenshakles @yrrep @eeyrjmr @hobarrera @arm2thecore.
The next time I play I'll have to try the --software-ui option. I'm running an nVidia GTX 660 with proprietary drivers in Debian and have no issues (currently). I'll try to report on bugs you've listed with using it as well as performance issues. It might be a few days before I report back however.
I have not had any control or display issues lately. However, I'm also running the nVidia 331.38 (64-bit) drivers from back in January; I see that they have a release dated today, so I should probably update to the latest and see if anything crops up also.
I use --software-ui with my NVidia, but this seems to be a side effect from having to use optirun to make PA run on the NVidia card. If I don't, I do not have a mouse cursor unless I use the Mouse Fix mod and also the build menus are flaky and sluggish. This is because the UI itself still runs on the Intel, I think. Even then, the mouse cursor has a black background, so I can't actually see what I click on. Using --software-ui makes all this go away, so I always use it. The only thing that bothers me is that the main menu or Galactic War map is black after returning from a battle. It's rather annoying because even though, like you said, a resize fixes it, the UI slows down considerably after a resize. It's like it's still calculating something for a long time. I've tried to create a mod that repaints the main menu after a battle, but haven't been successful yet. I do not suffer from stuck UI panels or control loss, but it was rare for me to get the BadAccess that caused the UI crash from before the Linux workaround anyway. But, short answer: Yes, I always use --software-ui. Better performance and less bugs.
Yep, I also get no cursor if using "--software-ui". Build: 74525 Driver: 343.22 (proprietary) Device: GTX Titan The main one which I've been assuming was cased by the Coherent bug, is the filter UI in the bottom left corner sometimes being unresponsive & requires the selection to be altered/remade before functioning.
Yes --software-ui makes ui much more stable for me. It wouldn't be bad to enable it by default. Coherent still has bugs, Uber has put some workarounds in but they still don't fully fix the problem of the way coherent interacts with both linux open source and proprietory drivers.
I just tried the --software-ui option. The mouse pointer disappeared even on the login screen. I used the Tab key to put my password in and fiddled around enough to start a game, but unfortunately I couldn't see if the black screen was present after the game ended, because I couldn't Del my commander. I tried, and it brought up the prompt asking if I wanted to destroy the selected units, but after trying to click in the Yes box with no mouse (and succeeding), the prompt just went away and the commander became deselected - but never blew up. Considering that I haven't had any troubles with the way the game runs now (without --software-ui), I wouldn't recommend that Uber does this by default. Coherent needs to fix their stuff.
Anyone using optirun please also state if your using primus or virtualgl. There are different environment variables set for each that could be used to the detection.
Because when using optirun, GL_VENDOR will be "NVIDIA Corporation" but we still want --software-ui by default. I've don't know if that's the case with virtualgl but it was with primus, back when I last tested bumblebee/optirun. But this might get too complicated with optirun, it might be best to just leave it out of the detection logic.
Sure, I'm using "auto", which means "virtualgl" to the best of my knowledge, and the GL_VENDOR is "NVIDIA Corporation" as well.
I'm don't really think like enabling anything by default on Nvidia it's good idea if there any chance this will make more problems than solve. On AMD blob and open source drivers there zero serious issues except black screen after game that likely can get easy workaround or even being fixed super easy. E.g likely it's should be easy to find why this UI scene change cause that.
It depends what packages you have installed, optirun will fall back on primus if it and not virtualgl is installed. Primus is supposed to give better performance so you should probably switch to it.
On the latest builds I've noticed CoherentUI keeps spawning more threads and using more ram if you don't have --software-ui and --single-process enabled. The only side effect is I can't get back to main menu after game is over. Coherent uses 1GB of ram in hardware mode and 500MB of ram in software mode and less cpu; makes no f%$king sense. Less ram, less cpu usage in software mode wtf. CoherentUI is incoherent running a leaky ship.
In-game Coherent always running ~30 threads by default which is tend to be 1.5GB on Windows and 2.5GB on Linux. Though "single-process" isn't really good thing and even on Windows I'm have UI lag if I enabled it. Though I personally have no performance differences with renderer process limit: Code: --coherent-options="--renderer-process-limit=7" Still it's can't be really used by default because every system is different and for players with tons of RAM performance may decrease.
