Mac OS - Game starts, doesn't load

[gustafbstrom]

There's a weird problem when starting the game right after compilation, where the binary starts and the window comes up, but nothing loads inside. I remember that I successfully compiled + ran the game some while ago, but now it seems like it just freezes. I compiled it using Apples clang++ compiler, with libraries from homebrew. I also had to change the TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES variable in the "CMakeLists.txt" file by appending the original line with: -L/usr/local/lib -lSDLmain -lSDL -lpng.

See attached screenshot. The CPU works at ~20% utilization. Any ideas about what might be going on?

[ciplogic]

Hi, I think it is done by newest versions of macOS which broke SDL 1.2.

I don't have now a Mac. Can you try to build a SDL 1.2 app with graphics and say if it works?

[gustafbstrom]

I just compiled some example code from this guy's SDL2 tutorial page. Worked fine. Is that example good enough?

[ciplogic]

SDL 1.2 and SDL 2 are two different underlying implementations. One uses mostly CPU buffers for images, SDL 2 uses textures/OpenGL.

If you feel like, you can port the SDL 1.2 to 2.0 and I will be happy to accept contributions.

[ciplogic]

There was an open issue for requesting help in exactly this area:
#7

[rkurbatov]

Did you copy every required file at the proper places? It requires data and maps folder, fheroes2.cfg, fheroes2.key and (non-mandatory) dejavusans.ttf which are put to the executable folder. I spent a half of day trying to run it under Linux :)

[gustafbstrom]

Did you copy every required file at the proper places? It requires data and maps folder, fheroes2.cfg, fheroes2.key and (non-mandatory) dejavusans.ttf which are put to the executable folder. I spent a half of day trying to run it under Linux :)

Yes, all copied.

[gustafbstrom]

Addition: I re-installed the SDL libs (usinghomebrew). I also re-ran cmake on a clean repo pull. Difference: sound works fine, but still no graphical view.

[ihhub]

Same for me. Such issue appears in original source code as well.

[ihhub]

I took original source code from sourceforge and run with small modifications for SDL2. The game works as perfect with graphics and sound.

[kamiccolo]

Mhm. That is weird. What exactly SDL versions are You running? Also, any chance of hooking the debugger and/or tracer on and checking what's actually happening beneath? Also, what's exact version of MacOS You're using?

[kamiccolo]

Also, have You tried resizing/minimazing/dragging the blank Window? Some time ago there were reports of libsdl behaving weird on some Apples until forced action.

[ihhub]

I'm on MacOS Mojave (10.14.6), I use SDL 2 library (not SDL 1.2). Resizing for SDL 1.2 doesn't help while with SDL 2 it works as charm.

[ihhub]

I mention again: I'm running original fheroes2 from sourceforge.

[ciplogic]

The original FHeroes2 was working full of visual glitches on my machine so I had to drop it. If you know how to fix by porting the code to SDL 2, please do so. I would love if our codebase can support SDL2 nicely as SDL 1.2 is quite old and it looks that it is unsupported on newer MacOS.

[gustafbstrom]

@ciplogic After some fooling around with CMake and such I finally got to compile it and it seems to work fine. Rather slow before getting to the main menu after starting, but working nonetheless.
Can you give some reproducible example of what glitches you are referring to? I don't see any problems so far.

[ciplogic]

Can you make a branch to test it online? Clone it locally and push the code somewhere. Make a copy of the SDL2 dlls (if you use Windows), so maybe we can base the code on SDL2 if it is just slower