Easier way to watch demos

Updated - now 1593 patterns. Demos from http://lsvc.free.fr/CFD/, http://dsp.czweb.org and http://www.hair.spb.ru/games/doom2/ (two new sites and one old obscure one) are now supported, except that I couldn't find a way to get at the stuff inside .HA files at hair.spb.ru. Various other little improvements, including in the support for Dosdoom (converted Tasdoom) demos from the old and new TAS sites (some fiddling with the iwads that are loaded, in order to get more of them to play back without any additional command-line options).

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Sure; feel free to let me know about anything that isn't supported (and could be). I don't have those files, so please supply them.

emailking said:

FYI: DVSmini16.lmp is a (the?) maxdemo for DVSmini16.wad. No clue where I got this from (dated July 2005 on my system).

I noticed where this came from (found accidentally when looking through stuff on my hard-disk): a file called "!DVS lmp with my pWAD for doom2 (RUSSIA).rar" that someone uploaded to compet-n's incoming folder.

heh, 9000 postcount

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Tiny update, with some minor improvements and an increase in the number of patterns to a nice round 1600. I'm pretty much running out of things to add to this, with the exception of any new demos that aren't supported by the existing patterns.

Another tiny update. Posted as an attachment, as that is the easiest way for me to upload stuff right now.

-- attachment removed as there is now a newer version --

Another update, with just a few changes, mostly for demos that have appeared in the last couple of weeks and that weren't supported.

Updated again, with a few new patterns and additions to existing ones to cover new demos that didn't work with the existing ones.

BTW, I update the patterns quite often without posting (other than changing the stats in the first post of this thread), as it would get a bit boring to post every few days about a few new characters being added to the patterns.

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Thanks for spotting that. I have no idea what caused it, and it certainly wasn't intentional. I have restored these patterns, and reuploaded the corrected version (same link as before).

Updated once more. Patterns added for a few recent demos, and support for a couple of things from far-flung corners of the web which no one else is ever likely to find, etc.

BTW, I shall be away the next two weeks.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but there are certain DOSDOOM demos that supposedly desync with anything but the DOSDOOM exec. Andy Olivera's TAS collections include a couple of those, e.g. the MAP15 and MAP22 runs from his CLEIMOS2 set. These days prBoom+ plays back them to the glorious end with -complevel 5; but those who prefer vanilla may find that the Ultimate DOOM exec does just as good a job. =)

Are there DOSDoom demos that don't play on Doom v1.9u correctly? That version is the closest to the released source, as far as demo playback is concerned, and DOSDoom is a quite plain port of the source, past some limits enhancements (visplanes, at least). What are the main technical differences between complevels 3 and 5?

I looked into this in some detail a while back.

My findings were that all Dosdoom demos that I could find play back fine with the Ultimate Doom exe (or Doom95), except for those that feature a spechits overflow. Those few demos require either the Dosdoom exe, or prboom+ with -complevel 5 (and overflow emulation enabled obviously).

Currently there is no way to force a complevel (or other such command-line option) to be applied automatically (I made a feature request along those lines some time ago), so some TAS demos won't play back with just the autoloading. You can use -auto -complevel 5 in the command-line (or right-click action, etc.) to force the Dosdoom complevel together with autoloading of wads, so this is still quite convenient (I have each of the basic complevels set up as a right-click action). Ironically, unconverted Tasdoom demos play back fine, as they are recognized as such, and the correct complevel is implemented.

I have been continuing to update this every few days, as normal. The current version of the patterns supports everything that I am aware of right now, and that can reasonably be supported, with a total of 1622 patterns.

Another small update, or rather the latest in a series of incremental updates.

Once more updated.

A few small changes and additions, most notably patterns for major recent releases (Wonderfull Doom, 1monster and cchest3) that should cater for these as long as people use the "natural" naming conventions.

A New Year's update.

1637 patterns, and supports every damned demo I know about that it is capable of supporting, more or less. It will continue to be incrementally updated (normally without any new post here) as and when it needs to be.

Updated again.

All the normal updating for new demos that need it, and also for the original and extra demos from the Realm of Chaos UVMax demopack.

I would add support for the various other demos at the Russian demos forum and their contests, but it isn't so easy to work out what demo is for which wad (often no txt and naming not so clear), and some of the wads are in password protected zips.

I'd like to thank you for the immense work you put into this, Grazza. Coding 1600+ patterns by hand - that's simply mind-boggling! The convenience of being able to watch pretty much any publicly released demo with a single click without having to dicker around with command lines, shortcuts and frontends definitely soothes the pain of the long wait for "New Ideas in the Alekhine, vol.2". ;D

How long did it take you?

Never_Again said:

How long did it take you?

In the txt I wrote:

I dread to think, honestly. More than two hundred hours.

Well, that was what I wrote in late March 2007, but it's still a fair comment. Probably less than 300 hours in total. Maybe half the time it would take to write NIITA2, if I had any enthusiasm to do so.

It wasn't all done purely by hand, BTW. Where there is a long list of demo names included in a pattern, this was normally done using some word-processing trickery, rather than typing them all in.

I know it's not the main subject there, but it's maybe linked : like Grazza I set my lmps for to watch them by clicking on it. But when I've changed the directory of my prboom-plus I had to set again the default program for opening them and... Windows ignore when I choose prboom-plus now...
Any solution ?

At the risk of stating the obvious...

Check that the new one is the default action (right click on a lmp - the default action is at the top of the list and bold) and pointing to the correct location. And of course that it includes

"%1" -auto

(In some of this I'm assuming XP is being used.)

Otherwise, more info is needed to determine what the problem is. But surely it is something to do with the file association not being defined correctly, given that it worked before and all that has changed is the file location.

I use Windows XP but with a comp using Vista I've the same problem after a change of place for prboom-plus...
For a more accurate report, I quote your txt :

3) Scroll down to LMP in the list. Highlight it (by clicking on it) and Click on "Advanced".
4) Click on "New...". Where it says "Action:" type in anything you feel like. I'd suggest "Play with glboom-plus -auto".

In folder options it's not available for me, I don't know why.

5) click on "Browse..." and locate the exe you want to use (either prboom-plus or glboom-plus). Once you've selected it, click on OK.

It worked before, but now when I click on it, the browser ignore my choice and prboom-plus isn't added in the list...

Anyway you've did a great job with patterns, maybe you need a program especially for to help you on this task.

I don't know what is going wrong there, but MS seem to make it harder and harder for the user to take control of this stuff. Have you updated/patched your O/S recently?

I've made a request to Andrey to make it so "-auto" behaviour is applied by default whenever a lmp is loaded but no wad (and when the launcher isn't enabled). I think this would be extremely useful (solving all such problems, regardless of O/S), with no real drawbacks.

My O/S is updated automatically.
The comp with Vista isn't yet updated, and the problem is similar.
Maybe a registry error, but I've checked a few hours ago and nothing appear wrong...

Vista is indeed a huge pain in this respect.

Andrey provides a possible solution for Vista here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1846844&group_id=148658&atid=772946

For convenience, I'll copy/paste it:

You can use something like (with your path to exe):

auto.reg

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.lmp]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.lmp\shell]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.lmp\shell\open]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.lmp\shell\open\command]
@=""D:\\games\\doom2\\glboom-plus.exe" "%1" -auto"

If you have admin's rights you can create another and more universal CMD-file, for example lmp2glb_NT.cmd:

ASSOC .lmp=DoomDemos
FTYPE DoomDemos=%~d0%~p0glboom-plus.exe %%1 %%* -auto

Put it in folder with glboom-plus.exe (it is important!) and run. On Vista you must start it with administrator privileges (right click, Run as Administrator)

Grazza said:

Andrey provides a possible solution for Vista here:

Must work on >= Win2000

It works perfectly, thanks !

@Grazza : maybe you should include a lmp2glb_NT.cmd and a lmp2prb_NT.cmd in your lmpwatch.zip :)