Opened 3 years ago

Closed 14 months ago

#12940 closed defect (fixed)

AGS: Texts render incorrectly in some games

Reported by: tag2015 Owned by: tag2015
Priority: normal Component: Engine: AGS
Version: Keywords:
Cc: Game:

Description

In some games the ingame fonts appear strangely compressed and missing some pixels. This can be worked around enabling the "force text antialiasing" option which seems to fix the problem, but also adds a shadow and makes the text harder to read especially on backgrounds with similar color.

This happens with any scaler/size.

I have attached some screenshots with antialiasing disabled and enabled. These are just a sample but there are probably many others affected.

Attachments (20)

scummvm-cedricandtherevolution-noaa.png (50.2 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-casenoir-noaa.png (27.9 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-casenoir-aa.png (31.4 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-brokenwindows1-noaa.png (15.7 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-brokenwindows1-aa.png (17.3 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-suspiciousmind-aa.png (35.0 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-suspiciousmind-noaa.png (32.5 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
scummvm-cedricandtherevolution-aa.png (51.3 KB ) - added by tag2015 3 years ago.
nellycootalot-ags.png (21.0 KB ) - added by eriktorbjorn 3 years ago.
nellycootalot-scummvm.png (10.3 KB ) - added by eriktorbjorn 3 years ago.
puzzlebots-ags.png (469.4 KB ) - added by eriktorbjorn 2 years ago.
puzzlebots-scummvm.png (238.2 KB ) - added by eriktorbjorn 2 years ago.
TheSamaritanParadox-AGS-600px.png (122.3 KB ) - added by GateKeeper-Adventurer 21 months ago.
TheSamaritanParadox-ScummVM-600px.png (106.1 KB ) - added by GateKeeper-Adventurer 21 months ago.
TheSamaritanParadox-ScummVM-AAoff-600px.png (160.3 KB ) - added by GateKeeper-Adventurer 20 months ago.
zniwadventure-demo-scumm.png (161.0 KB ) - added by tag2015 18 months ago.
zniwadventure-demo-original.png (220.5 KB ) - added by tag2015 18 months ago.
shardsofgod-original.png (14.2 KB ) - added by salty-horse 17 months ago.
shardsofgod-scummvm.png (13.4 KB ) - added by salty-horse 17 months ago.
puzzlebots-scummvm-new.png (203.6 KB ) - added by eriktorbjorn 17 months ago.

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (37)

by tag2015, 3 years ago

Attachment: scummvm-casenoir-noaa.png added

by tag2015, 3 years ago

Attachment: scummvm-casenoir-aa.png added

by tag2015, 3 years ago

by tag2015, 3 years ago

by tag2015, 3 years ago

by tag2015, 3 years ago

by eriktorbjorn, 3 years ago

Attachment: nellycootalot-ags.png added

by eriktorbjorn, 3 years ago

Attachment: nellycootalot-scummvm.png added

comment:1 by eriktorbjorn, 3 years ago

I don't know for sure if it's the same bug, but there are text rendering differences in the freeware version of Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! as well. At least under Linux.

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/860/

by eriktorbjorn, 2 years ago

Attachment: puzzlebots-ags.png added

by eriktorbjorn, 2 years ago

Attachment: puzzlebots-scummvm.png added

comment:2 by eriktorbjorn, 2 years ago

Another possible example is Puzzle Bots, which I bought from the Wadjet Eye Games web site. In the upstreams AGS engine:


And in ScummVM:


comment:3 by tag2015, 2 years ago

This bugreport is a bit outdated now.
Using latest git, I noticed that the situation has improved for games using low-res fonts (such as Case Noir and Broken Windows). Now the fonts are not "crushed", there are still some missing pixels but the text is clearly readable.
On the other hand, the "force text antialiasing" option now does absolutely nothing.

For games using hires fonts, I noticed the same problems that eriktorbjorn reported on the demos of 3GEEKS and Grandma Badass, Larry Lotter and others...

comment:4 by tag2015, 21 months ago

Similar issue reported for Willow House (https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/14133)

comment:5 by windlepoons, 21 months ago

Similar font issue in Starship Quasar. (#14137)
https://bugs.scummvm.org/raw-attachment/ticket/14137/Starship_Quasar.png

comment:6 by GateKeeper-Adventurer, 21 months ago

The same thing happens in The Samaritan Paradox too, even to the point that sometimes the texts in ScummVM are hard to read.

It should also be noted that the entire text box takes more space on screen in ScummVM, even though the text itself is smaller, which can be easily seen by looking how the words are placed on different text lines inside the text screen.

by GateKeeper-Adventurer, 21 months ago

by GateKeeper-Adventurer, 21 months ago

comment:7 by GateKeeper-Adventurer, 20 months ago

I tried to see if I can make The Samaritan Paradox work better with different settings. It was a partial success. Turning the anti-aliasing off made the text readable.

But as a side effect, the most bizarre thing happened!
The protagonist closeup image that is supposed to be on the left side of the text box moved to the right side of the text box!

To make sure this wasn't a random coincidence I repeated this twice with same results.

by GateKeeper-Adventurer, 20 months ago

comment:8 by tag2015, 18 months ago

Similar issue in Gobliiins5 (copied from bugreport https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/14463):

the text and the subitles, when played over scummvm, is harder to read, because the font is thicker (pic1), as with standalone (pic2) without scummvm. i have uploaded 2 pictures for comparison.
https://bugs.scummvm.org/attachment/ticket/14463/pic1.jpg
https://bugs.scummvm.org/attachment/ticket/14463/pic2.jpg

comment:9 by tag2015, 18 months ago

From bugreport https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/13412 regarding Zniw's Adventure

The immediately obvious issue is the bad wrapping of the "Cycle immediately" text.
But if you can switch back and forth between the two screenshots you can notice that the glyphs actually seem different (look at 's' or 'm'), and also text that is more intense (semi-bold?) in the original does not appear bold at all in ScummVM.

by tag2015, 18 months ago

by tag2015, 18 months ago

by salty-horse, 17 months ago

Attachment: shardsofgod-original.png added

by salty-horse, 17 months ago

Attachment: shardsofgod-scummvm.png added

comment:10 by salty-horse, 17 months ago

I see a similar issue in Shards of God.


Last edited 17 months ago by salty-horse (previous) (diff)

comment:11 by antoniou79, 17 months ago

This was discussed in Discord yesterday but it seems that at least a few of these issues are due to AGS (upstream) still using a very old FreeType library (v2.1.3), the sources of which are part of the AGS repository and have been updated (lightly) to fix a few bugs.

ScummVM on the other hands uses an external FreeType library which should be a more recent version (currently the latest is 2.13.0).

When forcing the upstream AGS code to use recent versions of FreeType the font glyph rendering presents similar issues to ScummVM AGS engine, and on 2.13.0 I get identical bugs for a couple of games I've tested (The Castle and Dreams in the Witch House).

There is an open issue about this over on AGS github and I've written my findings there (with screenshots):
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/issues/1528

comment:12 by tag2015, 17 months ago

After the merge of commit ff03764,
most games using hi-res fonts should display properly, or at least much better than before (there may still be some minor kerning/alignment differences compared to upstream due to freetype differences).

The following games mentioned in this bugreport should be fine now:

  • Nelly Cootalot (standard / HD)
  • Willow House
  • Starship Quasar
  • Larry Lotter
  • The Samaritan Paradox (although the antialiased fonts look a bit different)

by eriktorbjorn, 17 months ago

Attachment: puzzlebots-scummvm-new.png added

comment:13 by eriktorbjorn, 17 months ago

Here's Puzzle Bots with the current Git version:


Not quite identical (most noticeably the position of the "e" in "one", so kerning differences seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation), but good enough for me. Thanks!

comment:14 by tag2015, 14 months ago

After the merge of the Freetype PR, it seems all the remaining issues have been addressed.
I quickly tested the following games and found no differences comparing with upstream AGS:

  • Broken Windows 1
  • Suspicious Mind
  • Case Noir
  • Zniw Adventure
  • Puzzle Bots
  • The Samaritan Paradox
  • Shards of God

If anybody wants to check... then we can finally close this bug

comment:15 by salty-horse, 14 months ago

I can confirm Shards of God looks fine now.

comment:16 by tag2015, 14 months ago

I'm closing this bugreport. If new issues are found it can be reopened (or new, more specific bugreports can be created)

comment:17 by tag2015, 14 months ago

Owner: set to tag2015
Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed
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