Strange 'Skin not found' error when starting -- help, please

[rtmag]

I am a brand new user of both this forum and of the VDrift game.
I'm running Windows XP service pack 2;
Running the latest release for Windows (2008-02-24).
Here is what I get upon game startup (in the command prompt window):

Code:

Found config file C:\Documents and Settings\...\.vdrift/controls.config.
Found config file C:\Documents and Settings\...\.vdrift/VDrift.config.
Version of game: 2008-02-24-full
Skin name not found in config file...

Can somebody please help me with this! I have never had a chance to play VDrift. I am following the required steps for what to do before posting and nothing works.

Thank you guys.

[thelusiv]

Welcome to the forums.

Skin name not found is a benign warning message that doesn't matter. You need to look at the stderr.txt that is created when the game is run. Also, please tell us a little more about your system - what kind of graphics card do you have, how much memory and VRAM, and what graphics drivers are you using?

[rtmag]

OK, I see how that would be. But, the game refuses to load any further than this! The game window appears with nothing in it, and then disappears completely along with the Command Prompt window.

As for more details on my system, here they are:

Graphics card: I do have an Intel one. (Thought it would be from NVIDIA when first buying the system... guess not.) Isn't there some way to play on Intel graphics? I use other OpenGL games on this same system.

1GB RAM (DDR2). Intel dual-core CPU.

The rest of the stuff should not make too much of a difference.
It is a less-than-1-year-old machine.

[thelusiv]

Well your system should be able to run the game, unless your video card doesn't support multitexturing which I suspect. Intel cards are known to be a little...less robust than nvidia/ati cards. Do you see the "stderr.txt" file in the directory where you run vdrift.exe from? That should tell you what the problem is. I suspect it will report that your card doesn't support multitexturing. One thing you can try is opening your VDrift.config (the one in C:\Documents and Settings\username\.vdrift) and change the line that says

Code:

shaders = on

to

Code:

shaders = off

[joevenzon]

OK, I see how that would be. But, the game refuses to load any further than this! The game window appears with nothing in it, and then disappears completely along with the Command Prompt window.

The game should still create a file called stderr.txt in the same folder as vdrift. There might also be a stdout.txt file. See if you can find them, and if so, open them up in notepad or something and post the contents here.

Note to any windows devs who might be listening: could we maybe throw a message box up when there's an exception? Shouldn't be too much code.

I do have an Intel one.

That's a bad sign.

I use other OpenGL games on this same system.

That's a good sign.

If you can find the stderr.txt and stdout.txt files (should be wherever you installed the game), they will tell us more info.

[rtmag]

Here are the contents of the text files.

stderr:

Code:

Card supports: drawbuf6789532 auxbuf0 anisotropy4 cubemapping shaders multitexturing16(8) depth_texture shadow
Card does not support: antialiasing texture_rectangle framebuffer_objects
Status: Using GLEW 1.4.0
OpenGL error during graphics init
Fragment shaders enabled

I think this one explains the problems:
stdout:

Code:

Warning: option-47 is missing its default value. Assuming "".
Run with -verbose for troubleshooting.
Run with -nosound to disable sound.
Run with -benchmark to play a replay and output benchmark data.
0 joystick(s) found:
Extension not supported: GL_ARB_multisample
Extension not supported: GL_ARB_texture_rectangle
Extension not supported: GL_EXT_framebuffer_object

[rtmag]

I suspect it will report that your card doesn't support multitexturing. One thing you can try is opening your VDrift.config (the one in C:\Documents and Settings\username\.vdrift) and change the line that says

Code:

shaders = on

to

Code:

shaders = off

thelusiv told me to change the "shading" line of that file. It does not contain such code. Here is what the file does contain:

Code:

[ control ]
autoclutch = off
button_ramp = 0.0
profile = joystick

[ display ]
anisotropic = 0
antialiasing = 0
car_shadows = on
depth = 16
fullscreen = off
height = 600
input_graph = off
mph = on
show_fps = off
show_hud = on
skin = simple
texture_size = medium
view_distance = 2500.000000
width = 800

[ game ]
antilock = off
camera_mode = 3
car_paint = 0
game_mode = 0
ghost = off
num_shots = 0
record = off
selected_car = TL
track = zandvoort
traction_control = on

[ joystick ]
calibrated = off
deadzone = off
selected_index = 0
touchcomp = off
type = joystick

[ main ]
version = 2006-10-06

[ mouse ]
enabled = 0
xsens = 1.000000
ydead = 0.200000
ysens = 0.900000

[ network ]
host_game = 1
server_ip = 127.0.0.1
server_port = 1234

[ sound ]
music_volume = 0.42
volume = 0.750000

So... what should I try next?

[thelusiv]

Here are the contents of the text files.

stderr:

Code:

...
Card does not support: antialiasing texture_rectangle framebuffer_objects
...

I think this one explains the problems:
stdout:

Code:

...
Extension not supported: GL_ARB_multisample
Extension not supported: GL_ARB_texture_rectangle
Extension not supported: GL_EXT_framebuffer_object

Those two bits I left were the ones that show why it gave up. I'm not sure if the shaders are the only part of the game that use those extensions. You can add a "shaders = off" line under "[ display ]" section of your VDrift.config. It should have been there since the default VDrift.config got updated before I made that package, and the default VDrift.config has a "shaders = on" line under the display section. I guess you might have had an old VDrift.config from an old version of VDrift that didn't have the shaders option. If you have used an older version of VDrift, try removing your VDrift.config and run VDrift again so it will make you a new one. Then turn off the shaders option.

[rtmag]

The game now runs, with horrible graphics. I will try to fix the settings and keep you posted. Thanks, thelusiv for the tip about adding the shaders = off line.

[rtmag]

Now the game is crashing and quitting whenever I attempt to start a race. Going through the settings is not helping it.
What can be done?
BTW, you Windows devs should develop a less resource intensive version. A lot of people that want to play a game like this don't have a $1500 machine--or the latest graphics card in their 3-year-old machine for example.

[thelusiv]

Well, since your card doesn't seem like it will support shaders, and all our graphics are based on shaders...there's not much we can do to improve the graphics.

If it won't run at all now, but did before, try deleting your VDrift.config again, then run the game again to create a new one, then edit the new VDrift.config again to disable shaders. From there, use the tweaks in the menus to disable other features like turn down lighting quality, turn down texture size, turn down view distance, etc.

Also the game doesn't require a $1500 machine to run (and as a side note, we don't really have any Windows devs). My Linux desktop was built a year ago for under $1000 and it runs VDrift quite nicely (nVidia 7600GT video card). I used to have a 3 year old machine with a nVidia gf4 Ti4200 that ran the game pretty well.

The poor performance problem is not because of older machines. A lot of people have "Desktop" video cards that are not really aimed at gaming, commonly made by Intel, SiS or ATI (their lower end cards), often built into motherboards or laptops, and often using shared system memory as video RAM. These cards do fine at 2D but not well at all with 3D, and as in the case of your card, do not support all the extensions commonly used in 3D games. Sadly the PC gaming market is dying, as people favor buying the new gaming consoles over spending money on upgrading to high end video cards.

[rtmag]

OK, well then. It looks like my rudimentary graphics card does not perform well enough for this game--probably not the only one it won't work for. I'll be sticking with TORCS -- The Open Source Racing Car Simulator (torcs.org) for an open source racing game. The graphics are not quite as good as your game the way it looks, but it always works and it works well to edit tracks, cars, and most other things with it. It's been around for 10 years and has evolved well since then.

I won't be using VDrift until I get a more sophisticated graphics card or a Mac.

[joevenzon]

If you're looking to upgrade, you can get a Geforce 8600GT for around $80. I use a 7600GS, which does fine, and the 8600 is maybe 30% faster.

[thelusiv]

Upgrading is a good idea, but won't work for everyone, like laptop users. TORCS is a good open source racing game that is lightweight in terms of graphics. VDrift has sort of focused on somewhat more sophisticated graphics. The two projects have many similar goals, as well as some different ones. I hope VDrift continues down the path it is going, with better graphics, as in the end I think it will improve the game. Some users may not find it suitable for them unfortunately. That's what's great about open source though...choice...