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[RESOLVED] GameEx Arcade Edition v18.10 - .APNG Files Display Issue

Draco1962

By Draco1962
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Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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Hi Tom - I am reporting an issue with how the .apng files are displaying within the menu of GameEx Arcade Edition v17.20. I have not tested within GameEx as I do not have it installed on my laptop. I assume the same behavior would occur there as well.

Attached are my gameex.ini and log.txt files from this morning and a quick video showing the problem in action.

GameEx.ini log.txt

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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P.S. I used Scutters Spinning Ball Animated Wheel Images app to create the APNG files. I have tried recreating some of the files to see if there was any change in behavior to no avail. As you can see in the video, the behavior is not consistant and some display with no problem and all were created using the same settings within the app.

scutters GameEx God (Top Rank)

scutters

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@Draco1962 -  wondered how you were getting on with your wheel creation. Those look pretty neat! 

I thought i'd tested the wheels with PinballX (which i assume uses the same display library as Gameex), but maybe i just got lucky and used images that didn't have the issue. I think the cause is that the image frames aren't being stacked so only the changed pixels / sub frames are displayed with no base frame (see http://littlesvr.ca/apng/inter-frame.html).

You could try unchecking the compression option in the app and see if that helps (but obviously if it does it will come at the cost of larger file sizes). 

@Tom SpeirsThe images play fine in Chrome\Edge, but you can see the issue in MNGer. Is the problem with the image format or the display library? :unsure:

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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@scuttersI disabled all Image Compression on a test file and the issue resolves but the file is more than twice the size 1.87mb vs 755kb . Added Image Compression back and issue returns. 

Confirmed same results via MNGer.

UPDATE: Confirmed no issues with compression enabled in Chrome or Edge. Observed minor "jump" in XnView as the file loops to the beginning.

scutters GameEx God (Top Rank)

scutters

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Tbh, I'm not sure if the 'interframe optimisation' thing is something Tom can fix so that the frames get stacked when rendered or not (or even if it is a bug?)

I suppose i could add a nearly transparent pixel in each corner of the image on alternate frames or something like that so that the change rectangle in the optimised apng is always the full frame. i think that could be workaround (might mess up the file size reduction though)

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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I haven't tested making minor changes with the compression settings to see if it resolves the issue while allowing some compression.

I will give it a try if you think it might work.

scutters GameEx God (Top Rank)

scutters

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18 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

I haven't tested making minor changes with the compression settings to see if it resolves the issue while allowing sone compression.

I will give it a try if you think it might work.

I did play around with that earlier (without success), but you're welcome to try too. If i get chance tomorrow i'll have another look.

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scutters GameEx God (Top Rank)

scutters

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@Draco1962 I didn't have any luck by changing the compression level, but i did by adding one pixel dots in each corner of alternate frames to force the change rectangle to be the full frame (and avoid the inter frame optimization). The pixels added are virtually transparent so shouldn't be an issue visually. It does affect the file size reduction though, but in my tests the saving were still ~80% of the savings made before. Hopefully the 'fix' will work for your images, i tried a few different image combinations but there's a chance your images may still have an issue.

ImageToSpinBall_131.zip

Only the exe included in the zip, just copy it over your existing exe.

I probably won't update the app in the main download as this is just a hack to get us by (i'm hoping in the future gameex apps can display the original format animations like Chrome/Edge etc)

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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I have tried it with both. If I disable the Image Compression, all APNG builds thus far work but are quite a bit bigger. If I enable Image Compression, the file sizes are significantly smaller and I might get the first one that previously "failed" to work, but subsequent attempts fail.

Opening in Chrome or Edge looks flawless, it is only in MNGer and GameEx Arcade Editiion that do not display the APNGs with Image Compression correctly.

scutters GameEx God (Top Rank)

scutters

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21 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

I have tried it with both. If I disable the Image Compression, all APNG builds thus far work but are quite a bit bigger. If I enable Image Compression, the file sizes are significantly smaller and I might get the first one that previously "failed" to work, but subsequent attempts fail.

Darn, thought the hack would work. Maybe @Tom Speirshas an idea? The compressed apngs work in Chrome/Edge and Irfanview but not in Gameex apps (my guess is it's something to do with the blend_op flag in the apngs frame control chunk - https://wiki.mozilla.org/APNG_Specification#.60fcTL.60:_The_Frame_Control_Chunk)

edit - @Draco1962 one other thing to try i suppose is to turn off compression in the app and then try compressing via https://tinypng.com/. Maybe that uses a slightly different algorithm for blending / optimising.

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Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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Lived that meme during one of my app implementations 2 years ago. Not fun. 

  • Draco1962 changed the title to [ATTN TOM] GameEx Arcade Edition v17.20 - .APNG Files Display Issue
  • 1 month later...
Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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Hi Tom - I have installed v18.03 of GameEx AE .net6 and still getting the issue with the .apng files not running properly as previously reported in this thread.

  • Draco1962 changed the title to [ATTN TOM] GameEx Arcade Edition v18.03 - .APNG Files Display Issue
Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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24 minutes ago, Tom Speirs said:

But it sounds like you got a solution anyway.

No solution. An attempt was made by scutters to fix through his app but to no avail, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. 

It isn't the themes, simply the .apng files. I will try to get those to you if you need them.

Tom Speirs GameEx God (Top Rank)

Tom Speirs

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5 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

No solution. An attempt was made by scutters to fix through his app but to no avail, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. 

It isn't the themes, simply the .apng files. I will try to get those to you if you need them.

I thought you said disabling compression fixed it?

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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It did in most cases but at a significant increase in file size and intermitent but noticeable lag with the files loading as I advanced the menu. 

The fact that the compressed files work fine in everything else but GameEx was concerning. 

On 3/23/2022 at 3:02 AM, scutters said:

Darn, thought the hack would work. Maybe @Tom Speirshas an idea? The compressed apngs work in Chrome/Edge and Irfanview but not in Gameex apps (my guess is it's something to do with the blend_op flag in the apngs frame control chunk - https://wiki.mozilla.org/APNG_Specification#.60fcTL.60:_The_Frame_Control_Chunk)

edit - @Draco1962 one other thing to try i suppose is to turn off compression in the app and then try compressing via https://tinypng.com/. Maybe that uses a slightly different algorithm for blending / optimising.

If this is more than you wish to deal with at this time I can certainly understand. I'll stick to the static images.

  • Draco1962 changed the title to G Files Display Issue[ATTN TOM] GameEx Arcade Edition v18.09 - .APN
Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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Verified still occurs with latest 18.09 when utilizing compression.

  • Draco1962 changed the title to [ATTN TOM] GameEx Arcade Edition v18.09 - .APNG Files Display Issue
  • Draco1962 changed the title to [ATTN TOM] GameEx Arcade Edition v18.10 - .APNG Files Display Issue
Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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I know it may be a while but will continue to report back if I notice anything new from testing.

Removing the compression remedies the "squashing effect" from top and bottom of the image only. The files are 3-4x the size uncompressed.

There are other issues that occur with the image displaying striping artifacts as the frames progress. Here is a quick vid and a copy of the same file.

I have tested viewing the .apng file in MNGer, MS Edge, and XnView and none of these exhibit the striping. I tested it with a static (.png) background image to rule-out any issues with the bak.mp4 but the same striping artifact occurs.

 

 

Golden.apng

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