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alexz721

Odd problem in PrBoom/PrBoom+

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I apologize if this has been answered before, but I couldn't find anything in the forum search.

I've been encountering a problem whenever I try to run PrBoom/PrBoom+ on my computer. Whenever the screen flashes (picking up ammo, getting hit by monsters, etc.), the entire game will stop for a moment and then continue. It's as if entire frames are getting cut out while the screen returns to its normal color, the result being that the game has skipped a fraction of a second ahead by the time it starts responding again. Needless to say, when engaging tons of monsters, it screws with the gameplay considerably. It also happens when watching demos. It's infinitely annoying and I was wondering if it's a problem on my end or if anyone else has experienced it.

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This is a problem with your graphics card. Apparently it is not capable of doing instant palette changes.

You can verify this by using another port that renders to a paletted screen (e.g. ZDoom.) If that shows the same problem it's your hardware. If not it's PrBoom but I have no idea what else could cause it.

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ZDoom works fine. I'm using a Radeon 9800 Pro, latest drivers. Any idea how I could tweak its settings?

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No, it doesn't happen in windowed mode, but I'm running at a desktop resolution of 1280x1024, and I don't want to have to lower it every time (unless I've missed an option to make the windowed mode bigger).

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alexz721 said:
(unless I've missed an option to make the windowed mode bigger).

Yes; it's based on the resolution you chose for PrBoom. So if you're using 640x480, or something like that, you could raise it to 1024x768 or whatever.

The issue also occurs with Chocolate Doom and Eternity? (They all use SDL).

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Hmm, happens in Eternity also (which switching to windowed mode also fixes), but not in Chocolate.

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If a solution to this can't be found, and you're not happy with using windowed mode or GL, then in prb+ you can disable these palette changes (in the Status Bar / HUD menus). Not an ideal solution of course though.

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Well now that's odd. I could have sworn the same problem was happening in glboom yesterday, but upon checking today, there's no problem. Still, if anyone has any ideas about prboom+ and Eternity, I'd be grateful.

And thanks for the tip, Grazza. That does fix the problem, but as you said, not ideal, but I'll keep it in mind.

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Which versions do you use of each engine and which SDL version. It's definitely related to palette changes, but it might also be related to how it's used.

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Most recent versions of both ports, 2.4.4 for PrBoom+ and 3.33.33 for Eternity. As for SDL version, how would I check that?

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The date stamp on the SDL file. Maybe you could also try running PrBoom+ and Eternity with the SDL from Chocolate Doom (I think it's older).

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Okay, that's what I thought you guys were referring to, but I wasn't sure. I was using the SDL.dll file that came with each port (1.2.9). Anyway, I surfed over to the SDL website and picked up the latest runtime library (1.2.11), and the palette changes are no longer an issue. Thanks for helping me pinpoint the problem, guys.

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