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netnomad312

More stupid questions about ports...

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I've tried two new (to me) ports in the last three days, and so far I think they both suck. I already use ZDoom for just about everything, but I got tired of waiting for a decent ZDoom room to open on Doom Connector (I can't really make one because I lag horribly).

Since most everyone on DC seems to like Legacy, I decided to try that. My problem with Legacy is its lack of the options that ZDoom has. The ability to scale text in high res, for instance. Maybe I'm just missing where they are, but it just doesn't seem as easy to understand as ZDoom. Also, I can't figure out how to load a custom wad...

I did, however, like the dynamic lighting effects (like glowing torches and rockets). Since Legacy's an OpenGL port, I figured ZDoomGL might have the same effects, but also ZDoom's simplicity. So I downloaded the latest version, 0.7 I think. I read about the -nomd2 command (or whatever that command was) and used it, and then also loaded my wad. When it started, I noticed it was slow in responding to my selections (about half a second before loading the next menu). I went to player setup, and all the text on that screen seemed to be below where it should have been. Then I started to play... but then the weirdest thing of all happened. Not only was it horribly slow (you know how in vanilla doom, when you see a multi-patch texture on a two-sided line? that's how slow it was), I was apparantly farsighted; everything in the right and left sides of the screen was sky. When I moved forward toward the first door in the level, more and more of my vision became sky, until that's all I could see. I opened the door, and it was back to my farsighted vision again.

So my questions:
1. Does Legacy simply have less options than ZDoom?
2. What was going on when I was trying out ZDoomGL?
3. Why do most people on Doom Connector like Legacy do damned much!?

Also, I have a question about ZDaemon. How much like ZDoom is it? And what's with this "server" business with ZDaemon? I have absolutely no clue what that means.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my stupid questions...

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1. Does Legacy simply have less options than ZDoom?


Yes. Most of the focus has been on the Single Player aspect.

3. Why do most people on Doom Connector like Legacy do damned much!?


Because the ZDOOMers all use ZDaemon, and ZDaemon folks use their spiffy launcher and IRC client jobby. DC is the only place Legacy players can go to hook up with other Legacy players so that's where you find us.

If you don't have a fast connection you should probably go with ZDaemon. The new Legacy netcode is still a ways off, and as it is now needs a fairly fast connection.

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Yeah the ZDaemon netcode is way better than the code we current;y have for legacy. Then again, it is still the code that Fab and Boris wrote about 3 years ago. :p

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The problem with ZDoomGL is the near clipping plane, which is too far away. Go to console or open ini file, find the variable (it's something like gl_nearclip, I don't remember exactly), and set it to some smaller value, 0.1 for example.

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I opened the ZDaemon launcher, but didn't play any games just yet. Basically is ZDaemon ONLY a multiplayer port? I'm assuming you just click one of those rooms and enter it, right?

Does ZDaemon need to be installed in the game's folder? That's where I put my ZDoom files, and when I was putting the ZDaemon files in there, it asked to overwrite fmod.dll. The version ZDaemon had seemed to be older than the one I have now, so I didn't overwrite it. But it's giving me crap now about fmod.dll. How do people who use both ports manage this?

Retox: Thanks. Any idea why it was going so horribly slow?

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netnomad312 said:

Retox: Thanks. Any idea why it was going so horribly slow?

What CPU you got? It runs rather slowly on old CPU's due to the fonts. Try disabling ingame messages or something.

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Having Zdoom and Zdaemon is very simple. Download all of the Zdaemon files into its own neat lil folder. then download IDE. set up IDE's path configs for zdaemon and you are good to go.

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Zdoom's mouse... even on max isn't sesnitive enough for me. That's why I stick with legacy and jDoom.

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You need to adjust some of your mouse settings from the zdoom console (use the ~ key). The mouse slider does not adjust the sensitivity very far. In the console, type mouse_sensitivity and hit enter, it will tell you the current setting. Mine's at 6 and I don't think the slider puts it that high. You set it in the console like this: mouse_sensitivity 6 and hit enter. Try it, if it's too sensitive, you can use the slider to decrease it (the slider button may not appear to move, but the mouse should slow down) or just type in a smaller number.

There are other zdoom mouse controls to be set as well. m_forward controls how much "walking" movement you get when shoving the mouse forward and back. Mine is set low, 0.1. There is also m_pitch which controls the looking sensitivity and m_yaw which controls the turning sensitivity. The mouse_sensitivity setting affects all of these together.

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JDoom's netcode seems to be getting some improvement, so you may see more people playing it on Doom Connector (3). Not likely though, as most of the people there are n00bs that don't even know the difference between the source ports, so they just stick with Legacy, which is what everyone else on DC3 is using.

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Hmm... well I got ZDaemon to work decently in its own folder. But I've tried playing it on Doom Connector only once. There was no lag (which was incredibly rare for me), but there was this really weird button delay that mostly applied to firing - it took a quarter second before the shot was actually fired, throwing my aim off greatly (thus I couldn't exactly play a decent DM at the time). Is that just ZDaemon's equivalent of lag?

This computer I'm using for Doom is far from having normal speed problems; a P3 equivalent and 128 MB of RAM should be enough for any port, right?

AgentSpork said:

JDoom's netcode seems to be getting some improvement, so you may see more people playing it on Doom Connector (3). Not likely though, as most of the people there are n00bs that don't even know the difference between the source ports, so they just stick with Legacy, which is what everyone else on DC3 is using.

I've learned to put up with Legacy simply because it doesn't lag like hell, as ZDoom does. I'm never lag-free, but at least it's tolerable in Legacy.

(Which reminds me, I'm gonna need Legacy on my laptop in about a week when I go on vacation...)

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netnomad312 said:

Is that just ZDaemon's equivalent of lag?


Yes. You can move smoothly in zdaemon without apparent lag because of the "player prediction" code in it. If your ping to that zdaemon server is significant, you will notice the delay in weapon firing.

Zdoom has recenly included a player prediction option which is effective in smoothing out a multiplayer game over the internet. 47i has it enabled by default (cl_noprediction = false). You can also use -dup 2 or -dup 3 to speed up a game if there's much latency or a low data rate (players on modems).

I haven't tried Legacy multiplayer, but I expect the main reason one doom port has less lag than another is due to the connection between you and the other players. No port should have any lag on a LAN and probably any port will lag to hell with high ping between players on the internet.

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I'm not connected to a LAN at all; this is the home PC my whole family uses... MY only computer is a laptop that can rarely get net access. So this one is what I usually play online with. My sucky connection will probably give me this "fire delay" all the time...

Legacy has the more classic lag, but I can tolerate its lag. But ZDoom (which IMO ownz Legacy) lags horribly. All the time. Which, again, is the only reason I put up with Legacy.

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The strange thing about ZDoom's net code is I can play with a dial-up user and get no lag at all, but when I play with someone that has cable, I'm lagging to hell and back

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I've noticed similar things playing online. I have DSL now and when I host (zdoom) for another DSL user, we usually get a smooth, very low-lag game going. I even hosted for two players on the US East coast, with me and the fourth player on the West coast and that game was smooth with little lag. The next day, I hosted for two local people, one on DSL and the other on dial-up; it was pretty bad, way more lag than the day before. We tried turning player prediction on and off, you can do that in game, and it was better with prediction on.

When I used to host with a modem, I remember experiencing more apparent lag than the client did. We would play a while, then trade host / client roles and could definitely see the difference.

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