Poor old XP machine (no SSE2 release)

[LDAsh]

This is the first time it's ever crashed, with 1.28.01.  (Windows XP or newer / Wine 1.6 / no SSE2)
1.27.11 is still working fine on the same system.

If there's a place I can send the crash dump directly, because I don't know what's in it and I'd rather not make it public.

[manx]

Unless you are running

Code Select Expand

mptrack.exe /fullMemDump (see https://wiki.openmpt.org/Manual:_Command-line_Parameters), the crash dump itself (crash.dmp) will not contain any private information. Your configuration (with some amount of anonymization applied) gets written alongside, however I think in this particular case, we probably do not need your settings at all. about-openmpt.txt might be useful though in order to know your system and CPU details.

Any recovered module files will also get written to the crash directory. We probably do not need those either.

Do not fear to make crash.dmp public.

If you still prefer to not send crash.dmp publicly, you can set the "View Status" to "private" in the issue tracker: https://bugs.openmpt.org/bug_report_page.php.

[manx]

Does http://manx.datengang.de/openmpt/temp/openmpt-1.28-r11113-win32old-o1-fpprecise.zip (SHA256: 179ABD23C59F23A8E536C661A7B46FD4468246EBD46E14BFD91AA95BF45CBA09) work on your system?

[LDAsh]

Thanks for your time manx. 

Unfortunately that build crashes the same way, the same exception.
I've uploaded the crash dump and PM'd you the URL.

[manx]

Should be fixed in 1.28.01.02. A test build should appear in a couple of hours at https://builds.openmpt.org/, more precisely at https://builds.openmpt.org/builds/auto/openmpt/bin.win32old/1.28/.

[LDAsh]

Cool, that works again now!  Thanks a million! 

[Saga Musix]

We noticed that the official OpenMPT 1.28.02.00 was still broken even after that fix, as it was built on a different machine with a different VS2017 installation. For the official builds, this should really be fixed in an upcoming update.
But be aware that supporting CPUs without SSE2 instructions will become more and more difficult (due to limited toolset support), and we consider dropping support for such machines in one of the next major updates (i.e. OpenMPT 1.29 or 1.30).

[LDAsh]

I understand completely and I also understand it's a matter of libraries and dependencies which not much can be done about.
So this basically puts OMPT into Vista+ realm and no longer legacy-friendly, so maybe 32bit builds will be dropped too?

Ultimately the biggest concern isn't so much keeping up legacy builds (the previous truckloads of releases are still useful) but once they are dropped how to effectively port a file from one version to another, without throwing a bunch of errors and headaches.

[Saga Musix]

So this basically puts OMPT into Vista+ realm

Technically no, right now we are just talking about CPU features - a Windows XP machine with a CPU that supports SSE2 is able to run those builds. However, once we upgrade to Visual Studio 2019 for official builds, we will have to drop Windows XP support as it will no longer be supported by the compiler. Remember - both XP and Vista are out of support now, and by the time OpenMPT 1.29 is released, Windows 7 will be (close to) out of support, too.

and no longer legacy-friendly, so maybe 32bit builds will be dropped too?

Unlikely to happen anytime soon as there is no reason to do so. Even Windows 10 still comes in 32-bit flavors, and anyone requiring support for lots of 32-bit plugins will still be able to profit from not having to use those in the plugin bridge. We only cut platforms when we must or there is anything to be gained from it, but 32-bit support falls into neither of those categories.

once they are dropped how to effectively port a file from one version to another, without throwing a bunch of errors and headaches.

Any file written in an earlier version of OpenMPT should play just fine on newer versions.

[LDAsh]

Thanks for clarifying all that, especially assurance about MPTM files always being compatible.

Just personally, I hope Win7 will never be dropped because I think it will be the only decent Windows OS left out there, regardless of whether Microsoft support it or not.  I don't want to start a whole debate about that but just wanted to express myself.

[LPChip]

One thing to add here, but this is technically something different...

Even though mptm files will always open in any version of windows or any version of OpenMPT, if you use DirectX Media effects in your music, the song can sound different in different OS's because of a different version of DirectX installed.

I had an old song that used DirectX effects and it sounded different in XP compared to 7 for that reason. Saga Musix pointed out that it is not even guaranteed that DirectX media effects are present in a different OS and it depends on what software and version is installed.

[Saga Musix]

Just personally, I hope Win7 will never be dropped because I think it will be the only decent Windows OS left out there, regardless of whether Microsoft support it or not.  I don't want to start a whole debate about that but just wanted to express myself.

This is just as unrealistic as keeping support for any other legacy operating system, I hope that's obvious. It's pretty clear that toolchains and libraries will move on to drop support for legacy operating systems, so we will be unable to support them. While I'm not a fan of Windows 10 myself, it has at least gotten better in previous years and some of its initial flaws are no longer present. But who knows, maybe by the time we have to drop Windows 7 support, we could have a cross-platform OpenMPT version. Maybe.

I had an old song that used DirectX effects and it sounded different in XP compared to 7 for that reason. Saga Musix pointed out that it is not even guaranteed that DirectX media effects are present in a different OS and it depends on what software and version is installed.

This hasn't been the case since OpenMPT 1.27, since all default DMOs are emulated now.

[manx]

For general and more in depth reasons why it is unavoidable to drop support for old platforms, see also this whole thread. It applies to 1.27 specifically, but the general reasoning goes the same way for any future or current time when we consider dropping old platforms.

[LPChip]

Oh, that's good to know. thanks Saga Musix for that bit of info.