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Wad'a'Holic
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Why is everyone saying that XWE sucks?
Its not a bad program, I find it more useful than Wintex (cos that program hates Windows XP and never works for me).
XWE does have some nice features, and the interface is heaps more user-friendly.

Anyone else feel the same way as I do?
Old Post 04-20-05 02:31 #
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Pika132
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The major problem with XWE is it tends to randomly turn images into raw hex and sounds into nothingness, meaning they can't be used. This is, of course, a bug. I tolerate it because AFAIK Wintex is no more, update-wise, and XWE gets a new version like every three months, not that that's bad...
Old Post 04-20-05 04:35 #
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Use3D
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Try deutex and then come complaining.
Old Post 04-20-05 04:45 #
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NiGHTMARE
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Pika132 said:
sounds into nothingness

WinTex sometimes screws up sounds as well.
Old Post 04-20-05 11:03 #
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Csabo
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Pika132 said:
...XWE... tends to randomly turn images into raw hex and sounds into nothingness, meaning they can't be used. This is, of course, a bug.


Are you able to reproduce this? If you could send me a WAD that it happens on and tell me what steps you have taken it would help.

(Also, are you aware of XWE's undo function? It creates a backup file for _every_ operation you perform. If _anything_ gets screwed up, just click undo. If you get a complete crash, you can still go to your temp folder and find all the backups, so you should be able to get back to a previous, working state.)
Old Post 04-20-05 14:09 #
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Pika132
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I really doubt anyone cares, but I stated in another topic that I tend to delete/disable backups. I have a reason for this--I don't have a very good computer (256mb RAM! That barely runs HL2, let alone DooM 3!) and I need all the space I can get.
Old Post 04-21-05 20:18 #
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TheDarkArchon
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Csabo said:


Are you able to reproduce this? If you could send me a WAD that it happens on and tell me what steps you have taken it would help.

(Also, are you aware of XWE's undo function? It creates a backup file for _every_ operation you perform. If _anything_ gets screwed up, just click undo. If you get a complete crash, you can still go to your temp folder and find all the backups, so you should be able to get back to a previous, working state.)



It's not random: the BON1** sprites from pyromaniac always turn into hex things. Though the number of images that do this have gone done in the betas.

And for sounds I've only found one case which I can't link to now.

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Old Post 04-21-05 22:44 #
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Xenophon
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Anything starting with DS** will become a sound too... :P
Old Post 04-21-05 22:46 #
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TheDarkArchon
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You can turn that off: Open xwe.ini, go to the [WAVESOUND] section and remove DS*;

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Old Post 04-21-05 22:49 #
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Csabo
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Pika132 said:
I really doubt anyone cares, but I stated in another topic that I tend to delete/disable backups.

I care. I want XWE to work well and be a useful tool to everyone. You cannot disable XWE's undo backups. (If you are thinking of the "Keep only one backup file" option, that only affects the backups generated when the file is cleaned up, NOT the undo backups.)

Bottom line: anything gets messed up (which I would still like to see), click Edit|Undo.

TheDarkArchon said:

It's not random: the BON1** sprites from pyromaniac always turn into hex things.

I don't think this is the bug Pika132 is talking about. This is a minor thing: XWE has a very complicated way of determining what lump is an image. (Why? Because of the tons of game file formats/image formats that it supports.) Doom images don't have a header (e.g. like GIF or BMP files). Apparently I need to tweak the rules to make sure those BON1** sprites are recognized as valid doom images.

This is not a big deal though. You can still copy/paste/export do whatever with these lumps. Sure, it's annoying that XWE doesn't realize that they should be pictures (and therefore displays the lump as bytes), but it's not a crash or anything, it won't "mess up" your wad.
Old Post 04-22-05 00:00 #
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Csabo
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Those BON1** sprites are actually "broken". They each have about 1000 bytes extra, unnecessary data saved after the image data. They will probably display properly in most ports and the extra bytes will be just ignored. XWE determines that they are not images because they are longer than what a correctly saved Doom image for the given dimensions could be.

Simple to get around: right-click those lumps, Edit Size, and enter let's say 700. Voila! The images will display immediately. If you click Image|Save and have XWE re-save them (correctly), you will see the size drop down even more, to the "real" image size.
Old Post 04-22-05 00:19 #
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TheDarkArchon
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That's sorted it, thanks.

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Old Post 04-22-05 21:38 #
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robindegen
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NiGHTMARE said:

WinTex sometimes screws up sounds as well.


wintex screwed up my texture's colors, i had to use XWE to get 'm right.
Old Post 05-21-05 14:12 #
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Scuba Steve


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XWE takes FOREVER to import sprites for me and to move them around. There is at least a 3 second pause between any of those actions and it constantly uses so much temp space that my HD fills up while using it.
Old Post 05-21-05 17:16 #
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robindegen
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I got a 2.8 ghz with 1,5 gb ram, so i dont notice that ;)
Old Post 05-21-05 17:28 #
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Scuba Steve


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So? When I use Wintex to import anything, it's immediate. It doesn't require a ton of disk space or a long wait time to move them or import.
Old Post 05-21-05 18:02 #
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Csabo
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XWE backs up your WAD file for every modification. Your WADs are very large, that's why it's slow. Wintex works on a copy of the original file. If anything goes wrong with it, all your changes so far will be lost.

I could add an option to turn off backups, you'd get the same performance as with Wintex - but obviously you'd lose the undo feature.
Old Post 05-21-05 20:19 #
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Scuba Steve


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That would be really handy. As it is I have Backups already turned off because it continuously made backups until it filled my Hard Drive with 2 gigs of backups. I naturally keep a backup of wads I work on elsewhere so if I could tell it not to that would be helpful.
Old Post 05-21-05 20:33 #
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Csabo
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Okay, grab the latest beta from here: http://ca.geocities.com/xwe@rogers.com/xwe_beta.zip. Go to View|Options and check "Disable Undo". It should improve the performance a lot. Important: anyone using this option is advised to create a backup first. (Note: if you click File|Clean Up, that's effectively a backup.)
Old Post 05-21-05 23:49 #
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robindegen
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i think backing it up is really needed, wintex can screw it up to btw.
Old Post 05-22-05 01:12 #
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Scuba Steve


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Then leave the box unchecked.
Old Post 05-22-05 03:14 #
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robindegen
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well duh! :P
Old Post 05-22-05 15:42 #
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Scuba Steve


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Just got a chance to try out the new features, and I must say brilliant. The speed increase is deffinately worth it, I noticed at least a 3X increase, which is very helpful indeed. XWE has now moved into a more primary role beside wintex, about 70/30.
Old Post 05-22-05 22:47 #
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Csabo
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I'd be very interested in what the remain 30% is. Is there stuff that:
- XWE's missing but Wintex has?
- Is easier to do in Wintex?
Old Post 05-22-05 23:45 #
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Scuba Steve


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I really like how wintex handles editing entries directly in the software by opening a program like paint. I keep PSP open most of the time and it's just easier to copy a picture into the clipboard from PSP, edit an entry in Wintex and paste it. I find this easier than having to save all my pictures as files and import those.

I also prefer Wintex's handling of textures, it just seems to be more solid. Unfortunately Wintex doesn't support large textures, so I am forced to use XWE.
Old Post 05-23-05 01:22 #
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robindegen
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what would really be great is that it converts midi to doom mus for you, so you dont have to use the command line tool.
Old Post 05-23-05 12:52 #
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Csabo
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Scuba Steve, grab the latest beta again from the above link. I've added a copy/paste image feature. Click on an image first so that it has the focus, then press CTRL+C. This will copy the image to the clipboard. You can then paste it into your graphics editor of choice (I've tested it with PhotoShop). Once you've done editing, select all and copy, then in XWE, CTRL+V to paste.

XWE has an image editor built in. It's geared towards per pixel editing from keyboard. Move with cursor, G to pick up current color, draw with 1-8. (1 is current color, higher numbers are colors after the current color - easy to draw gradients and shades.) It could be useful for touch-ups.

I'm also planning on adding a feature that would let users associate editors with lumps. You'd have to specify the command line, XWE would extract the current lump into a temp file, and launch the editor. I think Wintex does something similar.

robindegen, that could be added. Although most ports play midis, which eliminates the need for conversion.
Old Post 05-23-05 16:32 #
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Csabo
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robindegen, grab the latest beta from http://ca.geocities.com/xwe@rogers.com/xwe_beta.zip. There's now a built in Convert MIDI 2 MUS option. The first time you run it you'll have to point it to the MIDI2MUS.EXE (or have XWE find it for you). Please test if and let me know if there's any problems.
Old Post 05-25-05 08:23 #
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