B.D.P.E. help wanted

I am working on a doom port, called B.D.P.E., The Best Doom Port Ever. Just to clarify, it is not the best doom port ever, its very much a fledgling port. It is based off the original doom source code. Thus far, I have got it to compile under Linux, added SDL graphics from Chocolate Doom, added SDL mouse handling as well as a few small fixes. I am working on using SDL_mixer for sound and adding joystick support at the moment, as well as working out a few bugs in the mouse buttons and strafing. If you don't run *NIX, don't fret, once I've removed the OS dependent sound server, it should compile on Windows or BeOS or whatever it is you use.

Allow me to explain my goal. Get a simple, clean, stable doom port, with as little modification as possible, then add client-server capability. Sort of like revamping the original doom, without tainting it with up-down looking and the like.

If you would like to help, please post a response or PM me.

P.S. I'm open to new names, so if you have any ideas let me know.

Sounds good. I'd suggest not only taking the SDL base off Chocolate Doom but to outright use Chocolate Doom as a whole to start off (except the net portion). You could also share C/S code development with the Odamex team, which are also developing an open source C/S Doom engine.

As for a name, what about CSDP (Client/Server Doom Port)?

myk said:

Sounds good. I'd suggest not only taking the SDL base off Chocolate Doom but to outright use Chocolate Doom as a whole to start off (except the net portion). You could also share C/S code development with the Odamex team, which are also developing an open source C/S Doom engine.

As for a name, what about CSDP (Client/Server Doom Port)?

I like the name.. CSDP.

I'll think about using Chocolate Doom. However, I think it would be pretty cool to use the original doom code. What has been added in Chocolate Doom?

Sediti0n said:
What has been added in Chocolate Doom?

It merely makes sure to be as close as possible to the DOS executable that accompanies the game. The released source was rearranged and tweaked a bit when being prepared, which produced some small differences with the game out of the box.

Essentially, it's much truer to the original game than the released source code was. You'd also get benefit from the fact that Chocolate Doom officially supports many Unices (including Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X) and Windows; possibly others but I don't know about them ;)

There are quite a few subtle portability bugs and compatibility issues with the original source which I've addressed with Chocolate Doom. If you base your port off the original source you'll probably be dealing with problems that I've already fixed :-)

Chocolate Doom's svn history goes all the way back to the original source, so even if you decide not to use it directly, you may find the list of changes a useful reference for stuff you need to fix.

The original linuxdoom source as released by idsoftware has also a lot of limitations bacause it was designed to run in systems with low memory. You should increase limits such as:

-MAXVISPLANES
-MAXVISSPRITE
-MAXDRAWSEGS
-MAXPLATS
-SAVEGAMESIZE
-MAXLINEANIMS
-maximum demo size
etc....

and also support hi resolutions (requires changes to the definition of visplane_t)