DescentDevelopers/Descent3

[Runtime Issue]: Missing objects due to upper case HOG file names

Closed this issue · 3 comments

phlash commented

Build Version

0e69bf4

Operating System Environment

  • Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows (64-bit)
  • Mac OS X
  • Linux (specify distribution and version below)

CPU Environment

  • x86 (32-bit Intel/AMD)
  • x86_64 (64-bit Intel/AMD)
  • ARM (32-bit)
  • ARM64 (64-bit; sometimes called AArch64)
  • Other (RISC V, PPC...)

Game Modes Affected

  • Single player
  • Anarchy
  • Hyper-Anarchy
  • Robo-Anarchy
  • Team Anarchy
  • Capture the Flag
  • Bounty
  • Entropy
  • Hoard
  • Monsterball
  • Cooperative

Game Environment

Linux 64-bit build on Debian stable (12.5), but issue likely on all case-sensitive file systems where original game content contains upper case file names.

Description

After recent changes (commit f7b19d0bf4f0315ba0e6f6ce1e3db58932b05d8e - Fix mercenary features) my local build failed to reach the first menu screen due to a missing object GuideBotRed that was referenced in the above commit.

On investigation I discovered that this object exists in the EXTRA1.HOG and EXTRA.HOG files in my GOG-supplied original content, but these HOGs were not being loaded due to their upper case file names.

Renaming the files (see my updated discussion: #93) fixes the problem, however I wonder if it would be prudent to support case-insensitive loading in the cfile module?

Regression Status

Issue not present: ad78f4d
Issue present: f7b19d0

Steps to Reproduce

Issue occurs when loading the game, if both EXTRA?.HOG files have any uppercase characters in their name, preventing them from loading.

winterheart commented

Related to #262.

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JeodC commented

We have two options here: disable the red guidebot if not found (so the game loads), or add case insensitivity, which is what we should do. The former is a band-aid, the latter is the solution.

Here's what happened: the red guidebot was outright disabled on linux and mac. You wouldn't have seen it even if extra.hog and extra1.hog were loaded correctly. But, since the engine wasn't case-insensitive anyway, the digital releases would end up doing two things:

  • In steam, extra.hog would load in place of extra1.hog, so the game would be missing the patches in extra1.hog.
  • In GOG, neither EXTRA1.HOG OR EXTRA.HOG would be loaded. Mercenary missions were probably unplayable, and if they were playable, they were likely broken.
  • 👍1
JeodC commented

For neatness I'm going to close this as a duplicate of #262

  • 👍1