TimeDX Help.
Tachistoscopic Acid Test.
The tachistoscopic acid test has been
dropped from TimeDX version 5, things work well enough that no extant machine I
know of these days could fail the test and it would have required a bunch of
work to make it work with the Direct3D
renderer and I just wasn't interested in doing it. There is however a DMDX
tachistoscopic acid test that when combined with a
DMDX test mode or two provides a much more rigorous test that the old TimeDX
test did as it's DMDX that's running the test and not some unrelated piece of
test code and is in fact my primary test as once you've observed the test
running properly and attuned yourself to smooth flow of the display any
inconsistencies are immediately apparent. In fact it was this test that
alerted me to the need to create the Direct3D
renderer soon after Windows 8 was released. Various iterations of the
tests are on the
server as well as the example here and it is now included in the
built in Introduction available
from DMDX's main Run dialog.
What you're going to see once the test is executing is a string
of numbers 1 through 29 ripping across the screen from left to right. Each
number is on the screen (or should be on the screen) for a single tick (usually
16.6 milliseconds) so any inconsistencies should be immediately apparent as a
break in the apparent motion of the display. Next thing to check is that
every number actually gets displayed (this is where the legacy DirectDraw
emulator failed in win8 when it was released and took some time to notice).
What I had to do was look at each section of the display closely (so I could
only see three or so numbers at once) and make sure each number was displayed.
Gets more difficult for the double digit numbers but if several passes of the
single digit frames looks good the rest is likely to similarly look good.
After that you could try the large textures version on
the
server or the second one in the Introduction as here the machine will be quite busy tossing textures around,
however most modern hardware I've tested succeeds here as well.
<ep> f25 <bgc 254254254> <id
#keyboard>
<VideoMode desktop> <eop>
0 <ln -2> "This is the
tachistoscopic acid test for DMDX",
<ln -1> "with test mode 1.",
"Thirty
frames displayed for a tick across the screen,",
<ln 1> "after the third time
it will repeat until you abort.";
0 "Ready..." <dfd 1>;
1 <testmode 1> p30
"1" / "2" / "3" / "4" / "5" / "6" / "7" / "8" / "9" /
"10" / "11" / "12" /
"13" / "14" / "15" / "16" / "17" / "18" / "19" /
"20" / "21" / "22" / "23" /
"24" / "25" / "26" / "27" / "28" / "29" /
"1done";
2 p30 "1" / "2" /
"3" / "4" / "5" / "6" / "7" / "8" / "9" /
"10" / "11" / "12" / "13" / "14" /
"15" / "16" / "17" / "18" / "19" /
"20" / "21" / "22" / "23" / "24" / "25" /
"26" / "27" / "28" / "29" /
"2done";
3 p30 "1" / "2" / "3" / "4" / "5"
/ "6" / "7" / "8" / "9" /
"10" / "11" / "12" / "13" / "14" / "15" / "16" /
"17" / "18" / "19" /
"20" / "21" / "22" / "23" / "24" / "25" / "26" / "27" /
"28" / "29" /
"3done" <bu -1> <continuousrun>;
0 "end";
TimeDX Index.