MBP stability with 3 external displays

Not totally root caused, but making this note to myself: When attaching a 3rd external 4k display I was able to get it to work but came home from dinner after entire rebuild and hours (not days) of stability to a BSOD. Rebooting and it seems that 3rd external display seems to wreak havoc. Went back to 2 external and using the laptop display for still 3 total. Recall the reason for my entire rebuild was when pulling out the same 4k display adapter that cause me to lose audio and Skype abilities....just deciding to stay away from a 3rd external display for now. Not worth the issues ATM.

Maybe total video bandwidth issues? Working past thermal limits where there wasn't adequate testing of drivers?  Cheap external 4k display? Cheap external adapters from USB-C to DP and/or HDMI (both seemed to create problems).

no time to root cause, solved the problem short term and moved on.

update: 2/11/19, stable after one week by going to the 2 external+laptop display vs. the 3 external.

reboot for unsigned drivers

placeholder.

also, if you ever get the little 'warning' sign next to the driver in device manager, it may because you are trying to use an unsigned driver on an OEM system.

https://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows-8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/

https://www.howtogeek.com/126016/three-ways-to-access-the-windows-8-boot-options-menu/

realize new 'advanced options menu' you need to select 'see more options' to get to the Startup Settings' unlike the description above.

.NET 'the reference assemblies for framework ".NETFramework, Version=4.5" were not found

Windows thoroughly confused about this issue.

Fix was to go to a machine with the assemblies and just copy the 100MB over.

Directory

c:\program files(x86)\reference assemblie\microsoft framework\.NETFramework\v4.5\

ack to stack overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17220615/where-can-i-download-the-net-4-5-multitargeting-pack-for-my-build-server

4/2019: found an alternative, with VS 2017 installer you can right click on the right hand side components and hand pick the various .NET components you want to install. what a mess!

--adam

remote debugging reminders

When i try to get remote debug working on a new system, I usually try with a completely empty very simple Hello World to make sure all the shares are mounted, permissions are correct, etc.

Recently had a simple sample not work right and had to iron out some things i had forgotten:

Reminder if you've only installed 64bit remote debug tools you need to build 64bit binary for remote deployment.

Also, to get remote access to mount a shared drive you have to enable sharing and do a trial run with Remote Desktop both directions just to make sure the systems can see each other.

Randomly had a 'hello world' build from one of the Visual Studio wizards refuse to let me set a breakpoint. Creating an empty project (no files, no .pch, etc.) I got things to work.

building miniengine issue

Modify Nuget.Config in the MiniEngine directory from:
    add key="repositoryPath" value="..\Packages"
   to:
    add key="repositoryPath" value=".\Packages"

This matches previously functional versions of MiniEngine.  Might just be related to some internal changes that are not yet completely checked in.

Update: 3/1/19:

Had same issue and found above solution didn't resolve the issue but copying the Packages directory one level down did resolve the issue. Thinking one of the projects got fixed and others did not....sigh.

correcting the file..open path in visual studio

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3742723/how-to-change-the-default-open-file-dialog-path

bindless graphics

bindless graphics are the clipless pedals of graphics.

best resources found so far...i want better:

https://www.nvidia.com/object/bindless_graphics.html
https://developer.download.nvidia.com/opengl/tutorials/bindless_graphics.pdf

ray tracing vs. ray marching vs. beam tracing vs. path tracing

ray tracing vs. ray marching:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-raytracing-and-raymarching

beam tracing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing

path tracing:
https://chunky.llbit.se/path_tracing.html

update 4/2/19
love this description:
from here: https://www.dusterwald.com/2016/07/path-tracing-vs-ray-tracing/
linked from here: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/288758-new-path-traced-shaders-make-minecraft-look-amazing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fextremetech+%28Extremetech%29

Summary from extremetech re:Sebestian Duserwald's description:

[I]n ray tracing a ray is sent out from the virtual camera into the scene and traced until it intersects with a solid body. At this point a ray is cast to each of the light sources in the scene to calculate illumination and surface shading is calculated for the intersection point. If the surface is transparent the ray is sent out further into the scene, possibly at an angle to simulate refraction. If the surface is reflective a ray is sent out at an angle away from the object…

[A] path tracer is like a ray tracer on steroids. Instead of sending out one ray it sends out tens, hundreds or even thousands of rays for each pixel to be rendered. When it hits a surface it doesn’t trace a path to every light source, instead it bounces the ray off the surface and keeps bouncing it until it hits a light source or exhausts some bounce limit. It then calculates the amount of light transferred all the way to the pixel, including any colour information gathered from surfaces along the way. It then averages out the values calculated from all the paths that were traced into the scene to get the final pixel colour value.

Path tracing can be used for effects that ray tracing still has to fake, according to Dusterwald

No trespass agreement, city of Portland

https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/577740

MSAA Overview

My favorite MSAA overview: https://mynameismjp.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/msaa-overview/

Also, for programmable sample positions: https://mynameismjp.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/programmable-sample-points/