wHeretic comments?

Hi, I'm the dude who brought you wHeretic, does anybody have any _constuctive_ comments about it? I'm considering reviving the project.

I'd really like to hear from DooMBoy and The Ultimate DooMer but I'll take input from anybody.

http://www.raven-games.com/hosted/wheretic

Here's the lowdown if yer too lazy to click the link.

wHeretic is a port of the original DOS game Heretic by Raven Software to the Win32 platform. The last build is fully compatible with all versions of Windows that support DirectX 3 or higher (that includes NT4).

Feature list
-high res while maintaining the original look & feel
-A3D audio (ideally this would just be replaced with DirectSound only but will break volume control on NT4)
-network compatible with the original DOS version and adds UDP support
-many of the limitation (memory imposed) have been removed or at least relaxed
-etc (check the readme for the latest build).

Edit: added link. added brief description for those who've (gasp ;) ) never heard of wHeretic.

What is it?

Robin, please disregard the post above mine. I am really excited to see WHeretic making new progress (and glad to see its not dead ;) ), especially if its a direct port over.

Although I'd like to see an improved key-bind configuration..

Deathman said:
a direct dos-to-win9x port over.

I believe those are relatively unnecessary, since Windows 98 will run Heretic without any sort of special setup; in any case it might allow you to set it up with a wider spectrum of sound cards. Concentrating on flawless Windows XP compatibility, not totally disregarding older versions of windows if necessary, might be more appropriate.

Some engines have Heretic support to a degree, although often it's good to have a relatively pure alternative; even the more real game compatible engines make some changes that the more purist players or designers prefer to avoid.

Deathman said:
a direct port over.

Well... your original wording gave me something to say.

damn delays >:(

chilvence, I've added a brief description of wHeretic to the first post.

Deathman, thanks for your comments. I never messed with the key-binding mainly to keep wHeretic compatible with the original. What features would you like to see in the key-binding?

Does anybody still care about NT4 support?

There might also some issues with the music. I'm not sure if the default MIDI patches on newer Creative cards are correct.

Deathman said:

Robin, please disregard the post above mine.

Nah I was serious, I'd never heard of it before today. Demo compatibility is a pretty neat thing, I'd say given that its been sleeping for 4 years thats still a pretty good selling point.

I've heard of this port before and the last time I used it was a good long time ago, around a year ago.
As I recall there were quite a few things that needed fixing, such as sounds playing back too fast, choppiness while playing, etc. Of course, my computer isn't the fastest on the block so other people may not have experienced these problems.
I'm sure you busted your ass programming this port, but as of the last time I used it, it needed work.
It is nice to hear you're working on it again though - I had given up all hope of WHeretic being updated ever again :)

Thanks DooMBoy, can you give me a quick rundown of your system specs? What resolution were you running in? Was it a monster level you were playing? I'm really puzzled by the sounds playing back too fast thing.

I'm especially curious because the system I was working on back then was a K6-2 300 and I didn't experience those problems if I stayed at 640x400 (well, some of Ken Phipps' levels did slow it down but those levels were absolutely huge!).

Computer specs:
PIII 450 mhz
Voodoo3
Win98SE
64 megs RAM

Like I say, not exactly a power house, but it's good for Dooming and Hereticing :)

It didn't seem to matter if I was playing a level with or without monsters, regardless the sounds would play back too quickly, and the game was a bit too choppy for my liking. I was playing at 640x400 - anything higher than that and WHeretic would get so choppy it was well nigh unplayable. And even at 640x400 there were framerate problems, as in E1M8 when you're taking on the liches. Stuff flying all around the screen, chaos ensuing, framerate dropped like a rock on my box :(

What do you have for a sound card? In any case, things may improve if I drop A3D support and use plain old DirectSound (although I can't be sure that the A3D libraries are the problem). It'll likely break volume control on NT4 but I'm not sure if anybody cares

Don't forget that it uses the original software render, slightly tweaked for high-res. That's why it preserves the original look & feel but the downside is that the CPU is doing all of the work. Add full 3d sound on top of that (possibly emulated) and you've got one busy CPU. I had it working through DirectSound initially with simple pan/fade, which might be a better option for low end CPUs.

I remember this port - I picked it up a couple of years back when there weren't any...and what I can remember was that it used to gradually slow down over time, until a new map was entered or (I think) a savegame was loaded. But that was on a P200, and it ran pretty slow on big maps.

The machine I have now is a 1.6 GHz, and I've just run through E1M1 on it. It handled fairly well, and although the gradual slowdown is still there it doesn't have too bad an effect. Music and sounds were ok, and I tried E3M1 of Sinful Discharge (a map which played awfully on the P200) and it held up ok there as well.

Although we now have ZDoom and Doomsday for Heretic source ports, there is something we don't have - a port that is very close to the original but with hi-res modes for today's machines and reliable demo support that the others don't have. And that could fill a gap in the market, for the people who prefer vanilla and particularly for the demo recorders. (as it's effectively like prBoom in that department)

I suggest these improvements, if they're not already in there:

A Windows version (it runs in a dos box)
Removal of editing limits (HOM's, visplanes, savegame buffer)
HereHackEd support (I'm not sure if the exe can be patched)

Hey Ultimate DooMer,

I'm well aware you and DooMBoy's first impressions of the port. ;)

Here are my comments re: your suggestions.

-A Windows version (it runs in a dos box)

It's currently a Win32 console application. The reason I left it as a console app is because you get the "debug console" for free. Anyway, it's a native Win32 binary, not a DOS application.

-Removal of editing limits (HOM's, visplanes, savegame buffer)

visplanes has already been increased (which I guess fixes HOMs), savegame and demo buffers are essentially limitless.

HereHackEd support (I'm not sure if the exe can be patched)

I thought about that one a bit and if I'm not mistaken that would require an HHE parser wHeretic. I seem to recall it being on my list at some point but it wasn't super high priority.

As for the thing slowing down over time, that might be in the sound stuff or a memory leak in some of the other stuff that I extended.

Edit: removed bonehead statement about HHE support.

I tried it in XP (system: P4 2.2 GHz, 1 gig RAM), and found it generally OK (I didn't get this gradual slowdown) apart from the sound effects, which were seriously screwed up. Sounds from quite a while ago would still be playing long after the events that caused them, so the sounds you'd hear at any one moment would be a cacophony of random events from the last 20 seconds or so. Freaky and surreal, but not much use.

OK, so it seems that there are some serious issues with the A3D SDK and newer systems. Since using an updated version of this API is no longer an option (special thanks to our friends at Creative for buying out Aureal and mothballing the technology), the logical option is to drop A3D and use another lib. For now it looks like it'll be FMOD.

Hi Robin,

I don't know if you remember me, but I contacted you a while ago. I was maintaining a Heretic demo site (ala Compet-N). And I'll be again when I go back to France.

You removed the automatic game shutdown while exiting a map, making the stats screen available and allowing multilevel runs.

The main thing I would complain about is that you cannot adjust the vertical mouse movements. It would be nice to be able to remove them too.

I also remember that the multiplayer demos are completely fucked up (as they were in the original heretic.exe).

As others said, I remember I had to play in 320x200 if I wanted to avoid lag.

I would be glad to help you improve wheretic and keep its heretic demo compatibility :P

Feel free to check out Eternity for some fixes / extensions to Heretic stuff if you need any.

Robin,

I am glad to hear that you are considering continuing with wHeretic. It runs fine on my Win2K machine and I don't seem to have any problems except the music doesn't seem to play, or it is playing too low to hear and I can't adjust it.

The only thing I would really like to see is some key bindings as has been mentioned. Of course I would love to see a 3D Heretic (a-la Edge)! :)

I will defintely be keeping up with your project. I have always enjoyed Heretic, and it is nice to have a dedicated port for it.