Fastest OpenGL source port engine for WADS?

Well. As I see it people are certainly more prone to hate on GZdoom because they don't like Graf. I've certainly made myself guilty of that on occasion. Though I don't really have any dislike for Graf, but we've had our run ins for sure.

First, I'd like to at least thank Graf for even coding an OpenGL renderer for an ever-changing source port in the first place. Thank you, Graf. Note that this does not, in any way, mean that I agree with your response to criticism, be it valid or baseless. Calm the fuck down.

Second, none of Graf's critics have posted any code in this thread in order to flesh out your concerns with the quality of Graf's code. VortexCortex, the next time that you take a break from lurking in order to respond, don't start vomiting up text from The C Programming Language book. You come off like a condescending asshole, despite your NUMEROUS appeals of "I'm a nice guy, really!" Not to sound too cliche, but if you are going to put a lot of effort into being a dickhead, you could have used that effort into LOOKING FOR EVIDENCE TO BACK UP YOUR CLAIM (EDIT: To clarify, VALGRIND output isn't code. Hell, it's barely effort. Code is what programmers are asking for).

Third, John Smith, be careful when you make facetious comments around programmers. We are a very touchy lot, and are prone to seeing criticism as assault. It happens to all of us in varying amounts.

Fourth, Gez and Fraggle - thank you for keeping your wits about yourselves.

I'm not going to argue quality of OpenGL programming here. I personally have done little OpenGL programming compared to a bunch of people out there in the Doom Community, and I stay the hell away from vendor-specific extensions whenever possible, but in terms of a port, GZDoom is very stable. I don't use crazy drivers, I don't use obscure chipsets. I do use an nVidia card, which seems to be the intended hardware, but if Graf isn't supplied with at the very least some kind of EMULATION layer for ATi boards, how would he be able to tune his renderer for handling a specifically different hardware spec, "quality of driver" arguments notwithstanding?


All of you guys need to calm the hell down. Graf, I for one would like to see your work continue, even if someone else is doing the coding. This seems to be the perfect opportunity to see your detractors put up or shut up.

fraggle said:

There's a difference between people making legitimate complaints and criticisms of GZDoom, and a group of people engaging in a deliberate campaign to troll and flame Graf Zahl at every opportunity. Frankly I'm surprised that he's put up with it for this long without just giving up.

I've already stated before that people who honest-to-goodness troll Graf are clearly in the wrong. So are the people who reply who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. But why don't you think you get the "focused" trolling that Graf is a victim of, fraggle? Or SoM? Or Quasar or eternity or Torr Samaho or any number of other port authors. It's your attitudes, and the way your carry yourselves. There's a saying that goes "Don't worry about the things you can't control". Graf can't control people's inclination to troll, but he can change his attitude, which is the thing that makes him such a target. Or he could...well...do what he just did.

Speaking of that, no matter how you slice it, there is no excuse for deleting everything without warning. Absolutely none. If he had wanted to quit because he couldn't stand the trolling, he could have left his work up for a week or so to allow people who were actually interested in it make copies of what they needed. But now we have to rely on (incomplete) subversion working copies and people's binary backups (and by the way there are several people with archives of his binaries, there's no need to grovel at his feet for them).

I'm glad to hear Graf will continue Zdoom contributions. It seems like there was just so much that could be done on the GL renderer, while the ZDoom engine is constantly changing and improving. He said the GL renderer just became annoying to work with, while Zdoom is still fun to work with, which I can understand. A fix in ZDoom fixes the problem, while every computer and graphics card has to be accounted for in a GL renderer.

And from what I understand, Graf is saying that he'll send all the old binaries to whoever decides to continue updating GZDoom or maintaining it with ZDoom svn, he's not wanting anyone to beg for them. I guess whoever continues it (Gez, Soulpriestess, whoever) can just make a new GZDoom homepage on DRDTeam. Though it seems inconvienient to actually take them down from the site in this intervening period.

fraggle said:

You guys are fucking pricks. I hope you're happy.

I'm not a prick, I have an nvidia card.

I've never had any problems playing UTNT, Sapphire or njthief on a R9200PRO. This was using versions from 0.9.17 to 1.0.24.

Now I wanted try the new releases to see how they'd perform on a HD4850, but Graf went and did what he did.

AlexMax said:

But why don't you think you get the "focused" trolling that Graf is a victim of, fraggle? Or SoM? Or Quasar or eternity or Torr Samaho or any number of other port authors.

It's your attitudes, and the way your carry yourselves. There's a saying that goes "Don't worry about the things you can't control". Graf can't control people's inclination to troll, but he can change his attitude, which is the thing that makes him such a target. Or he could...well...do what he just did.

That's complete bullshit. It's almost the same argument that people make against rape victims - that they deserved it because they were dressing slutty or something like that.

He has been on the receiving end of all this because he doesn't do what people want him to. The source code is and always was right there for anyone to fork it if they didn't like how he was doing things, yet funnily enough, nobody ever did. I guess it's easier for people to be trolling dickheads than to fix the problems themselves. Especially if they don't have the skills to do it themselves. Alienate and drive out the person who does. What an excellent plan. That'll get GZDoom working properly on ATI cards, right?

Maybe Graf Zahl has an attitude that annoys you. I don't care. He doesn't owe you, or me, or anyone else on these forums, anything. It's us who owe him a debt of gratitude for putting in the hard work to develop and maintain GZDoom these past years, for our benefit and asking nothing in return. No matter what attitude he may have, or bugs there may still be in GZDoom (or not), that remains the case.

But now we have to rely on (incomplete) subversion working copies and people's binary backups (and by the way there are several people with archives of his binaries, there's no need to grovel at his feet for them).

I think the Subversion repository is still here with full history? Correct me if I'm wrong.

fraggle said:

I think the Subversion repository is still here with full history? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Full history since the original commit. Pre-SVN versions aren't there.

Old binaries and sources are available here though.

fraggle said:

Maybe Graf Zahl has an attitude that annoys you. I don't care. He doesn't owe you, or me, or anyone else on these forums, anything. It's us who owe him a debt of gratitude for putting in the hard work to develop and maintain GZDoom these past years, for our benefit and asking nothing in return. No matter what attitude he may have, or bugs there may still be in GZDoom (or not), that remains the case.

Now I'm not going to say Graf hasn't been unnecessarily trolled before, because he obviously has, even in this thread, but if he's going to participate in this community, he does owe it to the community to at least try not have the big head about him. I frankly don't care if he, or anyone else, used a doom port to solve world hunger, if his attitude stinks he deserves the loss of respect that comes with that. Yes we should be appreciative that he chose to spend time developing GZDoom, and I for one will say I appreciate the programming knowledge he gives to this community a great deal as well, but that doesn't give him, or anyone else, carte blanche for having a large and sensitive ego at times.

fraggle said:

You guys are fucking pricks. I hope you're happy.

Nice trolling.

Or should I say, way to jump to conclusions?

fraggle said:

That's complete bullshit. It's almost the same argument that people make against rape victims - that they deserved it because they were dressing slutty or something like that.

Graf isn't a rape victim here. He's the dude who keeps saying "you're a moron," or "you're an idiot."

fraggle said:

He has been on the receiving end of all this because he doesn't do what people want him to. The source code is and always was right there for anyone to fork it if they didn't like how he was doing things, yet funnily enough, nobody ever did. I guess it's easier for people to be trolling dickheads than to fix the problems themselves. Especially if they don't have the skills to do it themselves. Alienate and drive out the person who does. What an excellent plan. That'll get GZDoom working properly on ATI cards, right?

So, basically, people without skill are screwed right? It's not as simple as you think. Even I commend Graf Zahl for the work he's done to create a half-way decent renderer for ZDoom at all. But this statement is fail. You're just trolling the very people who have, on numerous occasions, tried to REASON with this guy! And from what I see, you're doing nothing more in this thread than fueling the fire.

fraggle said:

Maybe Graf Zahl has an attitude that annoys you. I don't care. He doesn't owe you, or me, or anyone else on these forums, anything. It's us who owe him a debt of gratitude for putting in the hard work to develop and maintain GZDoom these past years, for our benefit and asking nothing in return. No matter what attitude he may have, or bugs there may still be in GZDoom (or not), that remains the case.

I don't care if you're fucking God. If you're a dick, you get treated like one. Similarly, the proof should be in this post.

I disagree with you fraggle, and I think you're acting like even more of a dickhead than Graf did. Is that how you become a moderator here? This is why I rarely come to DoomWorld in the first place.

If graf can't be an adult and ignore a little flaming, he shouldn't be in charge of a wet sponge, let alone a software project.

Guys, cut it out, I don't want to make a comic called Dialogs from Deutschland.

SoulPriestess said:

Nice trolling.

it's like raaaaiiaaaain on your wedding day...

[X] carnevil
[X] xenaero
[X] graf zahl
[ ] other people with penises and opinions

dew said:

it's like raaaaiiaaaain on your wedding day...

[X] carnevil
[X] xenaero
[X] graf zahl
[ ] other people with penises and opinions

I don't see how Xenaero is even close to that list.

I'm with team fraggle.

Also SoulPriestess complaining about moderators being assholes is one of the funnier things I've read today

Nothing brings the community together (or drives it apart) better than a good ol' shitfight.
Mildly entertaining, disappointing, but totally ridiculous! Keep up the quality, Doomworld!

*gets a beer*

I hope Graf isn't abandoning GZDoom. It's my favorite port for its visuals and gameplay.

Also, Graf... please optimize it for ATI cards because I have a big project underway :)

SoulPriestess said:

Graf isn't a rape victim here. He's the dude who keeps saying "you're a moron," or "you're an idiot."

I never said he was a rape victim, and I wasn't comparing trolling to rape. I was saying that it's the same sort of "victim blaming" bullshit that is used to blame rape victims for their attacks. Whatever attitude Graf Zahl has, it isn't justification for a campaign of trolling and harassment against him.

So, basically, people without skill are screwed right? It's not as simple as you think. Even I commend Graf Zahl for the work he's done to create a half-way decent renderer for ZDoom at all. But this statement is fail.

I wasn't implying that it was easy at all. But to me, it seems hypocritical to be attacking Graf Zahl for (perceived?) bugs if you can't fix them yourself.

I disagree with you fraggle, and I think you're acting like even more of a dickhead than Graf did. Is that how you become a moderator here? This is why I rarely come to DoomWorld in the first place.

To be frank, I don't think I'm normally quite this heated. I'm angry that a fellow programmer has been harassed into abandoning his project. I'm angry, as a programmer, that there seem to be source port users who think they have the right to demand what programmers do (to paraphrase jute, "a bizarre sense of entitlement"). It's exactly the same attitudes that drove out Lee Killough, by the way - in 1998! Sadly, it seems that some things never change.

If people seriously think I'm a bad moderator, please say so now, either by PM or in reply to this thread. If enough people think that, I'll resign my post.

fraggle said:

If people seriously think I'm a bad moderator, please say so now, either by PM or in reply to this thread. If enough people think that, I'll resign my post.

I think there's been enough hasty decisions for one day, let's not get everyone jumping under the nearest bus now. Maybe people just need to take a step back and remember it's mostly just "lol internets" going on here.

DooMAD said:

I think there's been enough hasty decisions for one day, let's not get everyone jumping under the nearest bus now. Maybe people just need to take a step back and remember it's mostly just "lol internets" going on here.

If everyone had the "lol internets" attitude of a 4channer, there would be fewer DOOM source ports and WADs. It takes serious time and effort to make them. Realize how much people with this attitude actually get done..

What he's saying is, you don't need to have a kneejerk emotional reaction whenever someone pisses up your tree.

If everyone had the "lol internets" attitude of a 4channer, there would be no internets...

I have a feeling this whole thing would have gone a lot smoother if Graf had instead said something more like "You know what? If you're so smart, how about YOU work on it, geniuses? I don't have much time to work on this any more, so be my guest."

Instead, it almost looked like he was abandoning it, and had apparently deleted a bunch of things instead of just letting other people work with it.

This attitude just seems unfitting for a person in his position.

I'm with fraggle, this is free and we have access to the code, we can compile it, update it, maintain it. It's solid and works, though it still has room for improvement in performance(nVidia user here).
This isn't something I criticize or "troll" Graf over, I personally disagree more with the way he acts sometimes, usually in a joking way(see my other post in this thread). Just because Graf doesn't know who I am doesn't mean I can't jokingly call him out on negative, hypocritical comments. If someone throws a punch, you dodge it or take it, you don't throw one back unless your life is threatened.

I can't tell people to do things, so I don't really care much if they don't change, but I'll be damned if I'll let a bunch of people argue over what's practically nothing. We still have GZDoom, it belongs to all of us, we can still use it since it still works, and unless/until something surpasses it, nothing will make it go away.
It's good that Graf is still going to work on ZDoom, and not outright ragequitting the community, much kudos for that alone.

I think the problem most people have with this situation is they think one side or the other overreacted, but in truth it's both sides.

I also, and I speak for only for myself when I say this, find a big problem with two arguments I've seen pop up.
Basically one is "Graf is a helpless, harmless and innocent coder that needs help learning opengl and is a victim of critics", and the other is "Graf is a godlike, perfect and flawless coder and should not be questioned at all and everyone is ungreatful for his superb work".
Fuck both of these.

Taking any criticism gracefully isn't obvious and this is especially true of brilliant clever people who find it hard to cope when criticism isn't soberly stated and when fair criticism and unfair criticism are included in the same sentence and thus difficult to separate. Just look at Yuvraj Singh in the IPL, Sreesanth in international cricket, or David Beckham at Manchester United.

People often fail to give enough respect to truly outstanding work, akin to criticising the Space Shuttle because it can't take off by itself instead of praising it for doing what other aircraft simply can't. Yes GZDoom has problems that will need to be addressed, and I have had my disagreements with Graf in the past, but right now if you want 3D floors and total ZDoom compatibility, it's the only game in town; don't forget that much of DECORATE's exposure of internal engine functionality was by Graf alone and without it, many of today's projects would be well and truly fucked (including my own). Note the deliberate use of that word in plain text and not asterisked; something I rarely do.

At least in the working world, a good line manager or director can show leadership and guidance and help such people to learn to cope with criticism gracefully; in a public forum there's just a shitstorm and, if one is lucky, the moderators might clean up the worst of the shit. It should be noted that writing unambiguously constructive criticism isn't as easy as one might think.

At the end of the day, Graf did a lot of good work and got lots of flames and vitriol with a bit of valid criticism thrown in. I have never before seen a super moderator motivated to call a bunch of people "pricks"; that's how bad the shit thrown at Graf had become. He didn't handle it well to be fair, but so much of it crossed the line by a big big margin.

I hope somebody has the humility and mature behaviour to ask him nicely for the old binaries back and that he will act accordingly.

Oh and forget ATI/NVidia - I have to make do with a 945GM. Now that really does suck :(

MartinHowe said:

Some kind of personal religion

NickLowe said:

I love the sound of breaking glass
Deep into the night
I Iove the work on it can do
Oh a change of mind
Oh change of mind, sound of breaking glass
All around, sound of breaking glass
Nothing new, sound of breaklng glass
Breaking glass, sound of breaking glass...

On topic: I agree that Glboom+ is the fastest.

Edit and Off topic: Nvidia has reclaimed their crown (gtx 480)

Ladna: it's really just a bunch of people who can't code
Me: any port with players is a shit fest and i just don't enjoy doom enough to suffer it lately
Ladna: yeah, a big fuckin idiot pile all around
Me: like i try not to trash the people who contribute to doom
Ladna: to be honest, i don't really agree with people dumping on graf
like i'm fine w/ dumping on ZDaemon, it's almost a year since .08 was released which was a shitty upgrade anyway (seeing as it took .06 and .07 to make everything playable again) but like, you just can't help ZDaemon at all. closed source, gg. GZDoom was open. Anyone at any time was welcome to fork and fix whatever they wanted. That vortexcortex guy could've run his stupid tests any time but instead, he just threw a fuckin fit and called graf a faggot. ok well, that's not very productive is it
Me: i'm gonna make a doomworld post and quote you
Ladna: rofl

Ladna the ghost

John Smith said:

Now I'm not going to say Graf hasn't been unnecessarily trolled before, because he obviously has, even in this thread, but if he's going to participate in this community, he does owe it to the community to at least try not have the big head about him. I frankly don't care if he, or anyone else, used a doom port to solve world hunger, if his attitude stinks he deserves the loss of respect that comes with that. Yes we should be appreciative that he chose to spend time developing GZDoom, and I for one will say I appreciate the programming knowledge he gives to this community a great deal as well, but that doesn't give him, or anyone else, carte blanche for having a large and sensitive ego at times.

See, here's the thing: if someone has contributed to a community more than others have, then s/he does have a right to the pride (and, yes, the ego) that is associated with that accomplishment. One may not like that person's display of that pride, and one may even try to take him/her down a notch, but that would indicate a smallness of one's own mind and a corresponding immaturity. It's clear that many of the people bashing Graf on this thread have never actually been in the work-force, where achievement is rewarded even if the person doing the achieving may not be winning popularity contests. That's how the real world works. And before anyone tries to raise the argument that public forums such as this are hardly analogous to the work-place, I'll say this: in key respects they are no different.

(i) If you want to present an opinion that is valued, make sure that it bears merit. Otherwise you're just flapping your gums, and people won't take you seriously.
(ii) If it's not something you would say to a person face-to-face, then certainly don't say it while hiding behind the anonymity that the internet affords.
(iii) If you're a producer, people will pay more attention to you than if you're just a talker.

Graf may have displayed some arrogance (to which, arguably, he is entitled) and impatience on occasion, but that hardly may be characterized as having a stinking attitude. Furthermore, his attitude may warrant a decrease in respect for him personally, but it does not lessen his achievements. As many on this thread have pointed out, it's easy (oh, so easy) to tear someone down. But so far, we've seen little by way of building things up. And unless people have something more to offer than "his attitude stinks and we don't need his services any more", all that remains is an end (and in this case, a messy end) to something that many of us have greatly enjoyed these past few years.

So, in summary, would you rather:

1. Put up with someone who you think is an ass at times but produces something you enjoy using?
2. Or be an ass yourself (because you're trying to teach the other person a lesson because you think s/he is being an ass), alienate the other person, and have to suck on sawdust because that person has left and taken his/her toys?

For my part, I agree that Graf can be brusque, argumentative, even abrasive at times. But I don't take it upon myself to try and beat some humility into him. On the contrary, I give him credit for what he (and few others in this community) has accomplished, gratitude for giving us the product of his sweat & tears, and allowance for his ego. Perhaps more of us ought to be doing that.

See, here's the thing, like I said, if you think you need to carry around a brash and abrasive attitude, you're going to, and deserve to, get as well as you give. That's life, whether it be in the workplace like you talked about, or in social dealings, like internet forums. The only people have the express ability (whether they deserve it or not) to be a dick to you without getting it back are your superiors, like your boss. And I'm pretty sure Graf isn't anyone's boss here. And if you disagree, well, then we just need to agree to disagree, because I just don't have time for people like that, period. Anyway, that's it, I'm done, I can't be bothered to be invested in this anymore, I just want a couple martinis and to forget about it.

Coldfusio said:

MartinHowe said:

Some kind of personal religion

Is that agreement or disagreement? Google doesn't find the phrase "some kind of personal religion" as a song lyric. Can anybody explain this, please?