What is your favorite sector light mode for GZDoom?

To fix the squished face in GZDoom make sure hud preserves aspect ratio is set to on in the hud options-> scaling options section.

If I think the author used 'Standard' while making the map I'll switch to that, otherwise I've found 'Doom' to be the best at matching software renderer lighting. 'Vanila' and 'Software' tend to make barely visible areas too dark, but that might be the result of me using GL effects like bloom, tone mapping, and a touch of constrast boost.

14 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Gzdoom has since changed its menu system completely but it looks like it's done now by: Options -> HUD Options -> Scaling Options -> Status bar -> change the slider to 5. This is probably different depending on your resolution, I use the bog standard 1080p

 

 

Thank you very much!  I did a bunch of experimenting last night with GzDoom and managed to get it looking pretty close to a vanilla HUD bar.  I can't remember the last time I updated GzDoom though so wonder if updating will mess up any of my settings and set everything back to default.

I am still using 1080p but ever since getting a 1080p 21:9 Ultrawide monitor it's so nice using 2560x1080 in games.  It actually seems to work for Ultrawide Doom as well.

14 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Software was since made obsolete by "Vanilla" lighting mode, I refuse to opt out of it now.

So now instead of Software if I want to get as close to the original look maybe I should give Vanilla a try?  I was messing with the Gamma settings hitting F11 (never knew that was a thing) last night after reading another thread on this forum and it actually seemed to make the game rather dark at default like I remember the game being long ago.

12 hours ago, Gez said:

For anyone wondering what the difference is, "software" corresponds to ZDoom's software renderer, and "vanilla" corresponds to, well, vanilla Doom's renderer.

 

The reason for ZDoom and vanilla Doom being different in the first place was that vanilla Doom's method was oddly resolution-dependent (something you can test for yourself by changing the screen size, and comparing light levels between full-screen and post-stamp size window).

I will have to change the screen size a bit and see how that looks.  It seems that most people in videos (for obvious reasons) tend to play the game brighter to be able to see easily so I got used to playing the game that way as well, but I miss a bit of that horror element of some areas being so dark you can barely see monsters outlines.

I think they ruined the lighting a bit with the recent Doom 64 port to Steam that I got, I love that you can see but it's tough to make the game as close to darkness in the N64 version.

You can lower the brightness setting AFAIK.

It's important to remember, though, that Doom 64 wasn't meant to be that dark, it was a consequence of the Midway developers basically working in a windowless room with the lights turned off to avoid screen glare...

15 hours ago, Gez said:

You can lower the brightness setting AFAIK.

 

It's important to remember, though, that Doom 64 wasn't meant to be that dark, it was a consequence of the Midway developers basically working in a windowless room with the lights turned off to avoid screen glare...

Oh interesting, I didn't know that.  It's nice to have the option now so the brightness can be turned up or down.  For some reason Doom 64 used to scare the bejesus out of me as a teen playing on the N64.  The darkness and ambient music/sounds (the weird humping sound some doors make when they close gives me the creeps because it sounds like Doomguy) used to keep me from getting too far in the game.

Old topic that's been bumped but: I usually almost 95% of the time play in Software Rendered Mode but when a mod or WAD needs to use OpenGL Mode than i use the Software Sector Lighting setting just because i'm so used to it. It's not really that different imo (at least not on my cheap screen).

On 2/1/2018 at 3:03 PM, Vorpal said:

Every time I fire up gzdoom (once every year or so) I have to spend 45 minutes unfucking the default graphics settings. It's so disheartening how 95% of youtube videos use it and just roll with the default flat lighting and smeared textures and clipped sprites :-(

 

edit: was mad enough just now to make a quick mockup.

 

The bottom left custom config was the closest I could get to vanilla/zdoom, no matter what the lighting contrasts slightly too much (shown) or too little.

Do you wish to share some settings? I'm pretty much tired of testing and I don't see results after changes.

2 hours ago, arepakiller said:

Do you wish to share some settings? I'm pretty much tired of testing and I don't see results after changes.

Given opengl as the rendering mode:

Hardware Rendering Options -> Sector light mode -> Software

Texture Options -> Texture Filter mode -> None

Gamma 1.0

Brightness 0.10

Contrast 1.2

Saturation 1.0

That's about all I touched, I think. Been a while..

i use sectorlightmode: VANILLA

for all eternity. tweak from there with gamma and brightness for your monitor.

Is there a way to fix this issue with gzdoom in Doom1 map E2M6? (the dark maze)

For comparison sake, this is how it's supposed to look:

Also, this one is the maze entrance area using the "Legacy" light mode. But it doesn't look anything like "legacy" is supposed to be? I don't get it.
 

Using the software renderer or the software sector light mode?

You could try the latter with ZDoom32 and a Mesa software driver (Mesa3D For Windows), probably would be too slow tough. A lower resolution could help.

Legacy mode was supposed to emulate Doom Legacy, it's not very useful.

It's mainly about the 1st screenshot up there.

Is there a way to make the gzdoom OpenGL renderer look exactly like the software renderer?

(meaning: area in the player's surroundings is lit up) This happens in ALL "light modes"

And 2nd question only if you have time: why would this ever be removed from a Doom source port? Is there a logical explanation for this?

No, the software and vanilla modes look similar but it's an emulation. Besides sprites are not rendered the same way.

Removed what? The software renderer? I can't remember any port removing it.

On dimanche 12 avril 2020 at 2:33 PM, drfrag said:

Removed what? The software renderer? I can't remember any port removing it.

It's been removed from Vavoom.

Also the early GL ports like GLDoom or DoomGL, I think they just replaced the renderer entirely but I haven't checked. I'm also not sure if Doomsday kept the software renderer or not; it kinda seems contrary to its mission statement.

True, i forgot about those but Vavoom removed it very late. And the D3D hardware 3D renderer in Vavoom and Doomsday i believe.

On 4/12/2020 at 9:53 AM, DwarfCleric said:

And 2nd question only if you have time: why would this ever be removed from a Doom source port? Is there a logical explanation for this?

Yes and yes. Most GL ports have removed the software renderer.

Yes there is a logical explanation: Depending on what the author wants the software renderer may be a serious roadblock and must be removed to allow reaching the intended goal.

I noticed something rather interesting recently.  Certain monsters are historically supposed to have their sprites fully lit when attacking, like the revenant and the spiderdemon.  However, I found this is not the case in GZDoom (I have version 4.5.0) when using hardware rendering.  I have video mode set to Vulkan API, sector light mode set to Software, and no tonemap in an effort to emulate the look of the True Color SW Renderer while getting better performance and maintaining a higher FPS.  With these settings, only a small area around the revenant's missile launcher is lit when fired; however, if I switch to the True Color SW Renderer, the revenant's whole sprite is fully lit.  Was this change intentional for the hardware renderer, or is there some setting that needs to be adjusted to make this work?

Do you have brightmaps checked on your gzdoom startup window?  Brightmaps disable sprites from going full bright and only the portion of them that would actually be "lit" by firing a weapon, attacking, etc, will light up.  Brightmaps also don't work in the gzdoom software renderer.