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Windows tty issues

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Mariusz Wojsyk

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Dec 16, 2003, 4:17:10 AM12/16/03
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Greetings.

Along with NetHack 3.4.2 where was a lot of posts how the windows tty port
is slow on w98 machines. Next there was a patch released and cured the
problem. I wasn't interested in the patch, as I play tty version on w2k and
the game was running as smooth as 3.4.1.

Now 3.4.3 is out and the patch is a part of official sources and strange
things happens :(
When I compiled the game and updated defaults.nh (I modify DUNGEON, OBJECTS
& TRAPS options) I saw something like this:
http://republika.pl/amiro/nethack/screen2.png

With the default configuration there was somewhat better:
http://republika.pl/amiro/nethack/screen1.png

This occurs only when I play in window (not full screen console). I checked
also official 3.4.3 windows binary and 3.4.2 win32tty-slow patch and the
results are the same.
I play on polish version of windows 2000.

Is there anyone else who gets this behavior? Any ideas how to correct this?

BR,
Mariusz Wojsyk.
--
"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."


Nicholas Aodhagan Webb

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Dec 16, 2003, 5:07:49 AM12/16/03
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On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:

[snip wierd characters showing up in map]

> This occurs only when I play in window (not full screen console). I checked
> also official 3.4.3 windows binary and 3.4.2 win32tty-slow patch and the
> results are the same.
> I play on polish version of windows 2000.
>
> Is there anyone else who gets this behavior? Any ideas how to correct this?

If I were to guess, I would say that the fonts the console is using
doesn't display certain characters correctly. Whatever font your
non-windowed console is using, you want to use that one in windowed as
well.
To fix it, right-click on the title-bar of the console (where it says
"Nethack.exe ..."). There should be something like "properties" in the
menu that pops up. You want something that sets the font size. It is
currently set at 10x18. Try it at different sizes. It it doesn't work at
8x12, then this isn't the problem.

I don't know why this would change from one version to another. Perhaps
the new version coincided with the desire of a larger window?

Anyways, tell me if this helped or not.
Nicholas Webb

Mariusz Wojsyk

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Dec 16, 2003, 8:50:40 AM12/16/03
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Uzytkownik "Nicholas Aodhagan Webb" <na...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu> napisal w
wiadomosci news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu...

> On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
>
> [snip wierd characters showing up in map]
>
> > This occurs only when I play in window (not full screen console). I
checked
> > also official 3.4.3 windows binary and 3.4.2 win32tty-slow patch and the
> > results are the same.
> > I play on polish version of windows 2000.
> >
> > Is there anyone else who gets this behavior? Any ideas how to correct
this?
>
> If I were to guess, I would say that the fonts the console is using
> doesn't display certain characters correctly. Whatever font your
> non-windowed console is using, you want to use that one in windowed as
> well.
> To fix it, right-click on the title-bar of the console (where it says
> "Nethack.exe ..."). There should be something like "properties" in the
> menu that pops up. You want something that sets the font size. It is
> currently set at 10x18. Try it at different sizes. It it doesn't work at
> 8x12, then this isn't the problem.

I can choose two fonts for the console window - raster font and Lucida
Console (true type). On all raster font sizes from 4x6 by 8x12 to 10x18 the
screen displays weird characters. With Lucida Console the display is
correct, and after switching from it to raster font the screen is still
correct until I force redraw (ctrl-r) or move.

I hope there is other solution then just playing with Lucida Console because
I dislike this font :)

Michael Lehotay

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Dec 16, 2003, 9:29:05 AM12/16/03
to
> Uzytkownik "Nicholas Aodhagan Webb" <na...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu> napisal w
> wiadomosci news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu...
> > On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
> >
> > [snip wierd characters showing up in map]
> >
> > > This occurs only when I play in window (not full screen console).

Something similar has always happened to me, for all versions of NetHack.
In full screen mode fountains are displayed as a backwards P type symbol.
In windows, they look like little hooks.

My understanding of it is this: when in full screen mode, the font built
into your video card is used. When in a window, Windows decides what font
to use. Perhaps if you installed a font that contains the high ASCII,
IBM-PC line drawing characters, you would be able to play in windowed
mode.

--
Michael Lehotay

Mariusz Wojsyk

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Dec 17, 2003, 3:29:09 AM12/17/03
to

Uzytkownik "Michael Lehotay" <mleh...@hotmail.com> napisal w wiadomosci
news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@post.queensu.ca...

> > Uzytkownik "Nicholas Aodhagan Webb" <na...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu> napisal
w
> > wiadomosci news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@hilton.cec.wustl.edu...
> > > On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip wierd characters showing up in map]
> > >
> > > > This occurs only when I play in window (not full screen console).
>
> My understanding of it is this: when in full screen mode, the font built
> into your video card is used. When in a window, Windows decides what font
> to use. Perhaps if you installed a font that contains the high ASCII,
> IBM-PC line drawing characters, you would be able to play in windowed
> mode.

I think its that low level console output functions don't use correctly
selected fonts (or maybe codepage). The most common bad character from
http://republika.pl/amiro/nethack/screen2.png (the triangle) is ascii 31
(0x1F), and it should be above 127. It looks like some characters from range
128-255 are mapped to 31 but some diplay correctly.

Michael Lehotay

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Dec 17, 2003, 8:55:06 AM12/17/03
to
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
> Uzytkownik "Michael Lehotay" <mleh...@hotmail.com> napisal w wiadomosci
> news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@post.queensu.ca...
> > My understanding of it is this: when in full screen mode, the font built
> > into your video card is used. When in a window, Windows decides what font
> > to use. Perhaps if you installed a font that contains the high ASCII,
> > IBM-PC line drawing characters, you would be able to play in windowed
> > mode.
>
> I think its that low level console output functions don't use correctly
> selected fonts (or maybe codepage). The most common bad character from
> http://republika.pl/amiro/nethack/screen2.png (the triangle) is ascii 31
> (0x1F), and it should be above 127. It looks like some characters from range
> 128-255 are mapped to 31 but some diplay correctly.

What I was getting at is that I think your font contains only some of the
high ASCII characters. The ones which cannot be represented are shown as
the triangle. Why do you think your problems are caused by the low level
console output functions? If you would like to test this, I can write you
a quick program to display a character using both high and low level
console output programs, and see what happens.

I found some Unicode Windows fonts on sourceforge.net which have all the
high ASCII characters.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=41991
On my version of Windows, though, it is not immediately obvious how to
change the font face used in consoles (just the point size). You might
have better luck.

--
Michael Lehotay

Mariusz Wojsyk

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Dec 18, 2003, 3:41:05 AM12/18/03
to

Uzytkownik "Michael Lehotay" <mleh...@hotmail.com> napisal w wiadomosci
news:Pine.GSO.4.58.03...@post.queensu.ca...
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
> >
> > I think its that low level console output functions don't use correctly
> > selected fonts (or maybe codepage). The most common bad character from
> > http://republika.pl/amiro/nethack/screen2.png (the triangle) is ascii 31
> > (0x1F), and it should be above 127. It looks like some characters from
range
> > 128-255 are mapped to 31 but some diplay correctly.
>
> What I was getting at is that I think your font contains only some of the
> high ASCII characters. The ones which cannot be represented are shown as
> the triangle. Why do you think your problems are caused by the low level
> console output functions? If you would like to test this, I can write you
> a quick program to display a character using both high and low level
> console output programs, and see what happens.

I think the font I use has all the characters, because I can just printf()
everything up to 255. It's why I changed DUNGEON and OBJECTS options and at
least everything looks good on unpatched 4.3.2 and earlier versions. If the
program is not a problem for you please send it to:
amiro at poczta dot onet dot pl

>
> I found some Unicode Windows fonts on sourceforge.net which have all the
> high ASCII characters.
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=41991
> On my version of Windows, though, it is not immediately obvious how to
> change the font face used in consoles (just the point size). You might
> have better luck.

I will try this out.

BR,
Mariusz Wojsyk.

Michael Lehotay

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Dec 18, 2003, 11:40:56 AM12/18/03
to
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Mariusz Wojsyk wrote:
>
> I can choose two fonts for the console window - raster font and Lucida
> Console (true type). On all raster font sizes from 4x6 by 8x12 to 10x18 the
> screen displays weird characters. With Lucida Console the display is
> correct, and after switching from it to raster font the screen is still
> correct until I force redraw (ctrl-r) or move.

I found an article in the MSDN knowledge base which seems highly relevant
to this. I am at work right now and don't have access to my compiler, but
when I get home I'll read more about it try to figure out if your problem
can be easily fixed.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;99795

--
Michael Lehotay

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