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vdgg
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I still have plenty of easy and difficult doubts concerning demos and demo recording. In this thread I will submit them from time to time; I hope more experienced forum members will enlighten me. My doubts are touching so different subjects and there are so many of them I decided to call this "random questions thread". Of course, everyone may plant his own question, too.

1.The first thing is about zdoom and demos recorded "with doom-strict compatibility" as j4rio put it in the scythe2b thread. I never heard about this before, never bothered changing any settings. My questions are:

a. How do you switch these settings? Manually via going to compat options and setting them separately? Or is there a more one-click-does-it-all method? If I have to set them separately, which options I set to "yes"/"no"?
b. After playing back j4rio's demos, does (g)zdoom remember these settings? (hey, this would mean they are changed with every demo played back, provided it uses different compat options)
c. What happens if I record a demo with "doom-strict compatibility" on maps such as high/low 2, high/low 4. They are "almost" boom-compatible, only some linedef actions have no tags, thus they cannot be completed under Boom. Will "DSC" allow to play these maps? Is it generally encouraged/ not encouraged to use "DSC" with these maps?

(For me, keeping as many vanilla glitches as possible is positive, I'm too used to rocket autoaim, difficulties with mancubus/arachnotron punching etc.)

Last edited by vdgg on 12-11-10 at 02:29

12-06-10 17:46 #

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Phml
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I can answer 1a, in the compatibility menu there's a top setting that automatically changes everything at once. By default it's "default", you can change it to "Doom", "Doom (strict", "Boom", and so on and it'll change every setting. I don't think it's completely accurate but it seems to be getting better and better (even the BLOCKMAP bug is available now).

12-06-10 17:59 #

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Gez
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

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The wiki is your friend for all (well, most) ZDoom questions. Now with a demo article!

The top of the compatibility options menu lets you quickly change the overall compatibility mode. Doing so will set or unset all compat options. Compatmodes available include "default" (all compat options off), Doom, Doom (Strict), Boom, Boom (Strict), MBF and ZDoom 2.0.63.

Also note that the ZDoom demo format writes the CVAR status in the demo header, so you shouldn't have to worry about having to change your config for playing a demo or playing a demo changing your config.

Last edited by Gez on 12-06-10 at 20:18

12-06-10 18:00 #

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myk
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vdgg said:
(For me, keeping as many vanilla glitches as possible is positive, I'm too used to rocket autoaim, difficulties with mancubus/arachnotron punching etc.)

One thing I saw in your demos is the monsters throwing their dropped goods in the standard ZDoom fashion. If you prefer more vanilla-like behavior there's a setting to make them drop them without flinging the items (compat_notossdrop 1). This is transferred to demos because it affects where the items fall, physically, and isn't just a visual effect.

Edit: Aha, I just checked and this is included in strict Doom compatibility, but if you require a higher compatibility mode due other reasons, you can apply the independent option on any mode.

12-06-10 19:20 #

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Never_Again
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In attempt to make peace with the devil :D I started recording with ZDoom this year. Thanks to Graf the latest version (2.5.0) made great strides into the right direction, and with a helpful tip from Gez I can now play without wincing every time the player picks up more than one item in a row.

ZDoom doesn't have -complevels like prB+, but its compatflags system comes close. Here are the settings I settled on after some trials and Z-Wiki research: compatflags 976976855. It is the Doom (strict) compat mode with the following additional flags enabled (i.e. set to YES):

Monsters get stuck over drop offs
Inst. moving floor are not silent
Allow any bossdeath for level special

Make a file named autoexec.cfg in your ZDoom dir and put this line in it

code:
set compatflags 976976855

so that you don't ever have to worry about compatibility mode. I found that Boom-compatible WADs play fine with this compatflags, which appears to make the Boom compat modes redundant.

There still remain a couple of ZDoomisms even in the "(strict)" versions of compat modes. One of them - allowing untagged linedef specials to apply locally - is critical, as it's the leading cause of ZDoom-tested maps being broken in other ports.

12-06-10 21:20 #

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Gez
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Never_Again said:
There still remain a couple of ZDoomisms even in the "(strict)" versions of compat modes. One of them - allowing untagged linedef specials to apply locally - is critical, as it's the leading cause of ZDoom-tested maps being broken in other ports.

ZDoom was never about perfect emulation, contrarily to PrBoom. The compatibility options are there for two reasons: user preference (silent BFG, item drops...) or fixing maps that rely on quirks. So Boom features aren't disabled in Doom compatmodes, for example; that's why Boom maps will work with your config. (You may want to add compat_boomscroll as well, though.) And so, behavior that could break a map aren't enforced, which doesn't make ZDoom a good port for bugproofing a map. (Or at least, not a sufficient one. It's still useful for all the console output warning you about problems in the mod and maps.)

12-07-10 15:54 #

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vdgg
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Thanks Phml, Gez, myk and Never_Again! I'm slowly beginning to get the picture.

Never_Again said:
ZDoom doesn't have -complevels like prB+, but its compatflags system comes close.

I made a stupid experiment and played back your 2.4.1 high/low2 demo using 2.5.0. Sure, "strict" Doom compatibility in the older version was less "strict" than in the newer one :) Your demo played back nicely for one entire minute (out of ten). So these complevel-like structures are somewhat deficient :)

Finally I'd like to nitpick a bit on Gez' encyclopedic link.

Actors are infinitely tall
CVAR and MAPINFO name: compat_nopassover
Doom's collision code treated all actors as infinitely tall, i.e. it was impossible to jump over any solid object. Needless to say, with such a setup 3D bridges and similar effects are impossible to create.

Wouldn't it be more true if I say "3d bridges are possible, but monsters cannot walk on the bridge over the player and vice versa"? By "3d bridges" I mean simple structures seen on Requiem MAP13 or Scythe2 MAP01.

Limit Pain Elementals' Lost Souls
CVAR and MAPINFO name: compat_limitpain
Doom.exe prevents a Pain Elemental from spawning Lost Souls if there are already 21 in the level. This limit has been removed in most source ports but there are maps that require it to work properly. Doom 2's MAP09, for example, will be close to unplayable in Ultra Violence without it.

Well, this example is kind of funny and very subjective :)

12-07-10 16:17 #

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Qaatar
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vdgg said:

Well, this example is kind of funny and very subjective :)

lol. Apparently, the author never played ToD's ToM MAP16 or D-D's Elysion. :)

12-07-10 16:40 #

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Gez
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

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vdgg said:
I made a stupid experiment and played back your 2.4.1 high/low2 demo using 2.5.0. Sure, "strict" Doom compatibility in the older version was less "strict" than in the newer one :) Your demo played back nicely for one entire minute (out of ten). So these complevel-like structures are somewhat deficient :)

They are. With 2.5.0, some of the compat options were enhanced to become more faithful than they were before, so while the demo recorded which settings it used, the precise effects of some of these settings has changed a bit. It's always safer to dig the engine version used for the demo (which is why it's better to record a ZDoom demo with an official version rather than an SVN build).

vdgg said:
Wouldn't it be more true if I say "3d bridges are possible, but monsters cannot walk on the bridge over the player and vice versa"? By "3d bridges" I mean simple structures seen on Requiem MAP13 or Scythe2 MAP01.

I think the 3D bridges implied there are those using bridge things, as has been the ZDoom standard until Eternity-style 3D midtextures were added.

vdgg said:
Well, this example is kind of funny and very subjective :)

Would you be surprised to learn that this example was written by Graf? ;)

12-07-10 16:47 #

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vdgg
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2. My second problem revolves around a mysterious demo. In 2003 DeDo recorded a MM2 MAP17 -fast tablefiller (link). He writes in the text file:

code:One weird thing was that when I went for the secret teleport I heard some noises as if an Imps fireball was hitting
the wall so I went to look for him but there was no Imp. I thought it's only my imagination but when watching the demo
I still hear them. Maybe you will hear them too I don't know.

I checked the demo. At 15:25, when all the monsters are already dead, I can hear something like an imp fireball hitting a wall, and then at 15:26 another imp fireball. Tried to move around with walkcam, tried to trace a missile on the automap with double IDDT. Nothing! What is happening here? What's the source of the sound?

Hints: use -skipsec 920, watch a few times, watch with lowered game speed... I wonder if there's an explanation on this phenomenon

12-08-10 06:46 #

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RjY
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vdgg said:
At 15:25, when all the monsters are already dead, I can hear something like an imp fireball hitting a wall, and then at 15:26 another imp fireball. Tried to move around with walkcam, tried to trace a missile on the automap with double IDDT. Nothing! What is happening here? What's the source of the sound?

Well I stuck in some debugging output and I can tell you the missiles are exploding at map coordinates (-12589, -32755) and (-12011, -32753). This is right on the edge of possible coordinates a thing can have.

This is not unusual. Missiles can go through walls and end up in the void. It's more likely in fast monsters mode where they're sped up. It's vaguely interesting that they explode at the edge rather than just wrap around and fly all the way back again, though.

Anyway after a bit more investigating I can also tell you the two missiles are both launched by the same imp, at 14:36 and 14:37. It moves from (-2609, 673) to (-2609, 697) between the two launches. Do -skipsec 870 and watch the fireballs go through the wall behind the player.

As to why you hear the sounds when the explosions are so far away, it's probably just the usual overflow in a calculation in the sound code somewhere, I have never bothered to debug exactly where.

Aside: In map03 of Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #24 sometimes the monsters escape into void space, wander all the way to the edge of the universe, and scratch the player from all that way away! It was certainly a surprise, I thought the map was haunted :P

12-08-10 08:11 #

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Grazza
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RjY said:
It's vaguely interesting that they explode at the edge rather than just wrap around and fly all the way back again, though.

I've found that sometimes there is a height change at the point where the void wraps around, which can prevent the player from travelling around to the other side of the map (that's one reason why the void glide in Evilution map13 doesn't appear to be useful).

So that could well be why the fireballs explode (i.e. they hit a "wall") rather than wrapping around in this case. Could test by noclipping out into the void and seeing what the Z-coordinate does at that point, of course.

12-08-10 09:02 #

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j4rio
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vdgg said:
2. My second problem revolves around a mysterious demo.

No explantation here, but I found another thing like this. Notice map 3 TNT tyson in 9:XX on DSDA... somewhere around 8:00-9:00, you can very clearly hear a seargant a number of times (his "NIEEGH" sound), but at that point, there were only 5 monsters alive in the last blue room - 3 mancos and 2 revs. Vono even went on a search because he had quite possibly heard that as well. Weird, really...

12-08-10 13:41 #

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Creaphis
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RjY said:
Aside: In map03 of Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #24 sometimes the monsters escape into void space, wander all the way to the edge of the universe, and scratch the player from all that way away! It was certainly a surprise, I thought the map was haunted :P

The same thing happens in reverse. A few days ago I spent some time tinkering with the idea that there might be a novel new way to damage the Romero head in MAP30 with a -complevel 2 -skill 1 -solo-net -respawn demo with death-abuse and a void glide (it doesn't work, so never mind what my idea was exactly). While I was out in the void, messing around, I noticed that if you move to the very edge of the void (where an invisible wall blocks you from wrapping around the map) you can hear every spawned monster's roaming noises, and you get quickly munched to death by demons! There's something in the code (probably an overflow glitch) that causes the very edge of no man's land to be considered as directly adjacent to every other coordinate in the level.

12-08-10 15:40 #

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Phml
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Aside: In map03 of Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #24 sometimes the monsters escape into void space, wander all the way to the edge of the universe, and scratch the player from all that way away! It was certainly a surprise, I thought the map was haunted :P

So THAT'S what happened to me! Damn you, void. :P

12-08-10 15:42 #

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Creaphis
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j4rio said:

No explantation here, but I found another thing like this. Notice map 3 TNT tyson in 9:XX on DSDA... somewhere around 8:00-9:00, you can very clearly hear a seargant a number of times (his "NIEEGH" sound), but at that point, there were only 5 monsters alive in the last blue room - 3 mancos and 2 revs. Vono even went on a search because he had quite possibly heard that as well. Weird, really...

This is weird and even a little bit freaky until you remember that sergeants and mancubi share the same roaming sound (DSPOSACT).

12-08-10 15:59 #

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vdgg
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Of course, I'm impressed by RjY's response which I qualify as "sorcery" :) Thanks!

3. Mentioned in another thread, I'm curious too:

Henning would often go to Windows to pause in his 30nm runs, and no one seemed to object to that.

Phml said:
Heh...
I'm certainly going to look at old records very differently now. Cheating or not, that's a debate I don't care for, but I used to think all those runs were done in one go. Pausing definitely makes things easier.

Same with me.
I was aware of pausing in Vince's Plutonia Max Run (MAP09), during the actual game. Of course, never had courage to ask :)
So, are 30nm29xx runs by Henning and stx-Vile affected by pausing? I'd like to see kind of a list of more "prominent" runs with indications "uses pause button" / "does not use pause button", or just simply, know everything in the aspect that the older players know (those that were around in 2005 an earlier...)

12-11-10 02:38 #

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Grazza
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I recall that there was an understanding that pausing in moderation was OK for compet-n runs - you weren't expected to junk a long movie run because you got an important phone call or had to sign for a parcel, etc. I could have sworn it was mentioned in the compet-n rules (and a web search suggests so too), but can't find anything at the moment. Maybe someone else can remember better, but IIRC, it was considered OK to pause three times in a demo (even using the pause key, which leaves pause tics in the demo).

I should also clarify that the only knowledge I have of Henning's use of pause is from the text-file for 30nm4000.lmp. Since that isn't readily available online at present, I have attached the demo. Note that he may well have stayed strictly within the compet-n rules at the time, and this demo was accepted as a new record, and AdamH no doubt read the text-file in full. I may also have misrepresented the amount of consultation about strategy that wasn't conducted in real-time. Anyway, you can read 30nm4000.txt and judge for yourself.

Frankly I doubt that the legendary runners used pausing very much at all, and 30nm4000 may well have been an exception even to the extent that it was employed there. After all, 30 minutes isn't a long time. And most people are liable to need a toilet break in a 3-hour run, so we can't begrudge them that.

Personally, I have only witnessed one movie run live by one of the compet-n specialists. That was Radek attempting a 30uv (failed when he got trapped by spiders on map23). He looked utterly calm and unflustered throughout, and like the last thing he needed was to break away from play for any reason that might have helped him with the run.

Overall, I don't think this is a big deal. One last point: there is nothing to stop people waiting a long time during intermissions to achieve a similar effect, other than the fact that this would make the demo rather tedious to watch.

Attachment: 30nm4000.zip
This has been downloaded 8 time(s).

12-11-10 04:10 #

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Grazza
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(Another post for this, as I have another demo to attach.)

Coming back to the Zdoom compatflags discussion, here is something linking that in with the glides discussion. This is STRAIN map07 in 0:00, recorded in "strict Doom" compatibility in Zdoom 2.5.0. It's completely trivial: you just run backwards and exit. (Not so for vanilla.) So for gliding, the behaviour is clearly very different. I presume the reason is that movement is strictly north, south, east and west, without the very slight movement to the left.

Note to Andy: please don't add this to DSDA.

Attachment: st07x000.zip
This has been downloaded 6 time(s).

12-11-10 04:37 #

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Ryback
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Grazza said:
I recall that there was an understanding that pausing in moderation was OK for compet-n runs - you weren't expected to junk a long movie run because you got an important phone call or had to sign for a parcel, etc. I could have sworn it was mentioned in the compet-n rules (and a web search suggests so too), but can't find anything at the moment. Maybe someone else can remember better, but IIRC, it was considered OK to pause three times in a demo (even using the pause key, which leaves pause tics in the demo).

I definitely remember pausing several times between levels when recording my first 30nm. The second 30nm and the 30ns, I don't think so. As you say there wasn't anything very remarkable about this behaviour at the time.

Other demos I can think of with ingame pausing:
28nm5103 - Panter's 28 level nm run has five minutes of pause tics in MAP15.
ep3-5532 - a maxkill run by Yonatan, this had some pause tics in E3M6 which he removed with a demo editor (and noted in the .txt). The run was accepted by Simon. Even though he missed some secrets :)
ev06-335 - single-level maxkill run by Yashar Garibzadeh, has two separate pauses in it, was accepted as is.

12-12-10 08:05 #

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Never_Again
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For what it's worth, the four hours of TNTmax was recorded without pausing. It was a Saturday morning (following a exhausting 10-hr night shift) and fortunately there were no calls or deliveries. I was aware of the precedent but thought it would be lame to take advantage of it. Besides, I tried Alt-Tabbing to Windoze on a couple of previous attempts and found that did no good for the concentration.
All the more bizarre to read now about Henning interrupting his 30-level nightmare run to chat. ;)

12-12-10 23:43 #

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Doomworld Forums > Special Interest > Doom Speed Demos > vdgg's random questions thread [pausing in long runs]

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