AVS fails to work [Trying to fix with v2.91 TEST #1]

[Warrior of the Light]

[edit]
so the convolution filter comes from convolution.ape i assume?

Personally, I've never been too confident on that issue. There's one built-in and a separate .ape which originates (I think) from before when it was integrated with AVS.
Same goes for the video delay ape and some other ape's. (I'm on my laptop and it's 2 am now so I can't check which ones exactly). I get duplicates in my list and adding 'the wrong one' crashes AVS.

I personally try to just not install the extra ones, but maybe someone else has a better idea. I'm just a user, and really not a programmer who'd know about how things work internally.

[DrO]

i've had a bit of a look and it's a crash in that ape though the crash location doesn't give me anything useful to work against - it doesn't show as an actual crash unless you 'Disable SEH for effects' on the debug window. though when i try on XP it works ok, which makes me wonder if it's something with the memory handling which is causing the issue.

so will have a bit more of a look tonight as i wouldn't be surprised if it's something simple causing it (like most of the AVS crash issues, heh). otherwise won't be tinkering with it until late next week (or this week as it now seems to be based on the time).

-daz

[DrO]

i spent more time than i should have trying to figure out the convolver crash and it just seems like that ape really doesn't like newer versions of Windows as i've made sure that the sent data to it is the same between the different versions (only thing might be due to how DirectDraw surfaces are handled between XP and Win7 but i cannot tell anything from the limited crash details i get).

so other than trying to find source code (doubtful) or decompiling it to work out what's going on (painful), i'm not sure what can be done other than looking for a replacement / writing one myself (that'll be fun, not).

-daz

[DrO]

i think i'm just going to have to put in a block on loading convolution.ape on non-XP installs as i just cannot work out what on earth it's doing which makes it fail on Windows 7 and not XP (unlike http://forums.shoutcast.com/showpost...60&postcount=8 implied which is not the case from my testing with my build on the different OSes).

not an ideal solution but it at least means it's possible to indicate the issue visually without causing things to crash, etc until a solution can be created (as this has to be an issue with that ape specifically on newer OSes as i'd have to expect it not to work on XP if it was specifically due to the AVS version).

and i've updated my post higher up with the status of the 'issues' i'd listed so that some are now classed as done. really the killer seems to be the whole fullscreen/overlay modes being borked now as i've not had a crash in a while (ignoring when i'm allowing convolution.ape to crash). might even consider uploading a test version in the coming week or two...

-daz

[Warrior of the Light]

I posted a journal on my dA page hoping for more replies.
I think that most could live without a working overlay mode.

If only things were better commented.

[QOAL]

Thank you very much for spending your time on this DrO. (I hope it hasn't been too much of a chore to get to this point)
News of the crash fixes alone is very welcome.

I'm surprised Yathosho (or even people from #avs) haven't voiced their opinion on this yet though.

I know it's a long shot (considering the source code for many apes has been lost), but is it worth trying to contact the convolution.ape author? This is their forum account.

[DrO]

v2.91 TEST #1
To install, download the attachment and extract vis_avs.dll into your Winamp\Plugins folder (if you prefer you can rename it to something else before installing or rename the existing vis_avs.dll).

Note: This depends on MSVCR90.DLL so needs to be used with a recent version of Winamp (i can hear the complaints about that already) but this is how all of the official plug-ins are done.


This is my test build (obviously the fullscreen stuff is still borked like all of the other versions on Vista and up) and is the CHAVS 2.9 code combined with the 2.81d changes and then my 'fixes' (so is back to 2.81b as a base with updates and anything i changed in 2.82/2.83 is not part of this).

This should fix the random GVM related crash (we're catching the error instead of failing)
Other crash fixes as i've come across in my tinkerings
Version resource is correct for this version
rand() seems to work as expected now (could do with confirmation)
Indicates the current preset in the right-click menu


If there are issues, will need to know the specific preset (attached to the thread if needed) and any useful information. Otherwise it's basically fullscreen mode that's the main breakage but that's more down to using DirectDraw instead of Direct3D for the overlays etc.

-daz

[QOAL]

I've found a crash with Synth-C's Lift Off pack. Inverse Eruption is the first preset in the pack that seems to trigger it when navigating away.

I suppose it's worth asking about the Dynamic Movement too.
I came across many presets that render incorrectly which seems to be down the DM.
An example could be the intro preset for Unconed's Final Whack.

Edit: Thanks again for your work

[DrO]

can reproduce a crash with the 'Inverse Eruption' preset though it's not liking it when i run it under the debugger so will need to find out why it's struggling to deal with the exception.

just tried the intro preset from the second one and that's a hell of a difference in output between this one and 2.81d (yet all i've ever seen is complaints but never anything to show what is going wrong). have attached a screenshot of 2.81d (left) and my 2.91 (right).

will investigate further on both as time allows in the coming days.

-daz