visplane overflow

i'm having a problem with a WAD crashing to DOS, complaining about visplane overflows. it seems to be a problem with having too many linedefs in sight at a time, since it stopped working halfway through adding lots and lots of pillars. so:
*is there a limit to the amount of linedefs that can be drawn at the same time, and if so,
*...what # is it?
*is the nodebuilder or DOOM to blame (ie, can it be fixed through getting a new builder or play through a source port)?

Forget about Doom. Go to Zdoom!

Doom is to blame.....
Zdoom doesnt have a limit!

you don't have to go all the way to zdoom, Boom has no linedef limits and runs quite happily in DOS

I think it's like 128 two sided lines in sight in DOOM when you get the visplane overflow.

The answer isn't necessarily using a source port, althoug that would fix it. But if you added pillars (I'm assuming that go from the floor to the ceiling), there's no reason to cause a visplane overflow, unless you added sectors with zero inner height to make the pillars, which is a complete waste.

Check DOOM2 MAP01, that start room has two pillars but aren't sectors. They are inverted extensions of the existing sector. You should use that for a normal pillar.

But if you are using pillars that are not from floor to ceiling, then you either need to reshape your level to block off sections from view, or as noted, use a source port.

I'm pretty sure the limit was 255.

I have a level with a chessboard on it where each square is a separate sector. Way more than 128 two-sided line defs there.

Fanatic said:

I think it's like 128 two sided lines in sight in DOOM when you get the visplane overflow.

The answer isn't necessarily using a source port, althoug that would fix it. But if you added pillars (I'm assuming that go from the floor to the ceiling), there's no reason to cause a visplane overflow, unless you added sectors with zero inner height to make the pillars, which is a complete waste.

Check DOOM2 MAP01, that start room has two pillars but aren't sectors. They are inverted extensions of the existing sector. You should use that for a normal pillar.

But if you are using pillars that are not from floor to ceiling, then you either need to reshape your level to block off sections from view, or as noted, use a source port.

the pillars are in fact trees, which i neglected to mention since i didn't want to appear too stupid. :) they are inverted sectors, though, but all have a surrounding sector making up the leaves & branches. so i guess i must surrender to a source port.

...which reminds me - i haven't been able to get null-modem gaming to work with one. any pointers?

Visplane overflow has nothing to do with the number of lines in view. Visplane overflow is caused by there being too many visplanes -- well what is a visplane you ask? One visplane is generated for each subsector that displays a different flat, height, or light level. To get rid of it, either reduce the number of light levels or different flats used, or vary the height such that at any time, a number of floors are hidden. Floors that are not seen do not generate visplanes.

The only effects you will get in the original DOOM engine from using too many sidedefs are HOM and slow-down. While there is something called a drawseg limit, I'm not sure how it works, and it is certainly much higher than the limit on displayable 2s sidedefs.