Heretic/Hexen demos at speeddemosarchive.com

Did vv ever release the source code to Heretic 1.3+? Does anyone have it?

Whatever demo recording bugs he fixed, the bugs are still present in Hexen source code and that needs fixing too.

Am still surprised Heretic 1.3+ is still not allowed on official SDA list. SDA accepted unofficial 1.91 patch to fix the demo recording for Doom... so why not Heretic 1.3+?

andrewwan1980 said:

Am still surprised Heretic 1.3+ is still not allowed on official SDA list. SDA accepted unofficial 1.91 patch to fix the demo recording for Doom... so why not Heretic 1.3+?

Not sure what you're referring to here. Please give a link to the list of rules you're talking about.

Grazza said:

Not sure what you're referring to here. Please give a link to the list of rules you're talking about.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself here...

http://speeddemosarchive.com/faq.html
http://speeddemosarchive.com/rules.html

So far, I think only heretic-n accept heretic v1.3+ demos.

SDA only accepts original EXEs ...

VinceDSS said:

So far, I think only heretic-n accept heretic v1.3+ demos.

SDA only accepts original EXEs ...

Do you think SDA didn't mind about the Doom 1.91 unofficial patch?

do you have a link to where radix clearly states that hacked EXEs such as doom 1.91 are accepted?

If this is true, that means we can see some heretic single segment runs very soon on SDA :D

One way to submit Heretic demos to the SDA without the hacked executable would be with direct video capturing on Windows 98.

I remember i tried doom2.exe in dosbox a while ago and after few changes in dosbox config it worked well. I suppose heretic should have same support as doom... or not?

EDIT. Yup it does http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=662&letter=H :-)

andrewwan1980 said:
Do you think SDA didn't mind about the Doom 1.91 unofficial patch?

The question is unnecessary because the DOOM stuff at the SDA is from COMPET-N, which does not use the longtics patch.

myk said:

One way to submit Heretic demos to the SDA without the hacked executable would be with direct video capturing on Windows 98.

Yes, if we don't mind it... we can actually record on a 32-bit PC on Windows 98 or Windows XP (SP1a... or vanilla XP is the best for speed wise.. SP2 upwards makes the games slower). If we can do this.. then we can do for Heretic, Hexen & Blood!!

I been playing around and found that Hexen actually has a -recordfrom <saveSlot> <demoName> parameter. Since SDA allows game saves... we can just record to end of level but not exiting the level yet. Quickly save the game to a slot. Then finish the recording by exiting the level. Then enter Hexen normally and load that saved game. Exit level and then immediately save on the next level to same slot. Exit back to DOS. Record using -recordfrom <slot> <newDemoName>.... and continue your speedrun. Just before you exit again.. save to the NEXT slot... and create new demo files.

The problem is we only have 9 save slots... but we can manually back up the hexndata/hex<level#>.hxs files after a recording... coz we need the HXS files as it represents the state of that MAP upon exit.

The other MASSIVE problem is Raven never ever implemented playbackfrom a save slot.... :(

But if we used U-Hexen or SDL-Hexen (which are both Hexen 1.1 demo file compatible)... with a little modification we can playback EVERYTHING properly...

I was going to implement a continuous Hexen demo recording in one massive LMP file.. but since SDA only accepts original EXEs.. there's no point...

_MethoD_ said:

I remember i tried doom2.exe in dosbox a while ago and after few changes in dosbox config it worked well. I suppose heretic should have same support as doom... or not?

EDIT. Yup it does http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=662&letter=H :-)

SDA forbids and BANs emulation & virtualisation.

Though FreeDOS might be interesting since it can do multi-task... and is neither virtualisation nor emulation.... and could get a video capture in background...

andrewwan1980 said:

SDA

For clarity, it would be useful to refer to this as speeddemosarchive.com, because Doom has its own SDA, and people may well think you're referring to that.

SDA (the Doom one) will accept Heretic and Hexen demos whatever you record them with.

As for Hexen's demo support, I'm not sure it even has reliable demo support, and I don't think uHexen has perfect compatibility with it(even assuming the concept makes sense). I've only done a little testing though, and it was a while ago. I'd be happy to be corrected if that is not the case, but then the lack of Hexen.exe demos would be puzzling.

I fear that if the demo archives do not adapt to current circumstances they're eventually going to find the river of demos running dry. Fewer and fewer people can run the DOS EXE's without appeal to emulation. DosBox is, at the same time, highly accurate. To forbid it seems counterproductive, even if I understand some of the reasoning behind it.

I think that eventually this is going to have to change :)

The reason why emulation & virtualisation Radix doesn't like is cause:

• bugs?
  
• open-source.. which means anyone can modify the source and then do a speedrun... while most people take for granted that DOSBox, PrBoom, etc. are guarantee accurate.
  

So yeah I kinda understand why they say original exe's only.

To solve for speeddemosarchive.com we would need to get original ID Software & Raven guys to fix their demo recording, etc. and release official patches. (just joking.. not in a million years!))

Grazza said:

<snip>

As for Hexen's demo support, I'm not sure it even has reliable demo support, and I don't think uHexen has perfect compatibility with it(even assuming the concept makes sense). I've only done a little testing though, and it was a while ago. I'd be happy to be corrected if that is not the case, but then the lack of Hexen.exe demos would be puzzling.

Hexen demo recording is just like Heretic & doom demo recording (minus the end level stats). I recorded Hexen and Heretic demos and played back fine using original exes. The main problem lies in Hexen where the map game state needs to be saved for the next levels. Also the current demo recording in hexen is pointless because you never can record over 2 maps consecutively.

However, if we use my technique described above (record, save before end of level, finish record, load previous save to complete level thus saving map game state, then -recordfrom <save#> <newDemoFile>, and repeat... and backing up the hexndata folder all the time).

This will give a full episode speedrun. The only problem is the original exe doesn't playback this. According to SDA.com, as long as demos were recorded from original exe, one is allowed to playback on any source port (assuming the source port can read and is backwards compatible).

PS: the only other problem is there was a bug in Hexen (and Heretic) on the -recordfrom parameter. According to the source code, it loads the game save... then initialises a NEW game on that map to start recording from. But using the assembly hack trick like 1.91 longtics we can comment the initialise line out. I done this the C programming recompile-way and it works.

Quasar said:

I fear that if the demo archives do not adapt to current circumstances they're eventually going to find the river of demos running dry. Fewer and fewer people can run the DOS EXE's without appeal to emulation. DosBox is, at the same time, highly accurate. To forbid it seems counterproductive, even if I understand some of the reasoning behind it.

I think that eventually this is going to have to change :)

Yeah, I assume Doom-N, Heretic-N have already set some ground rules, such as only accept original Heretic 1.3 or Heretic 1.3+ (demo record fix), etc.

SDA.com could modify DOSBox to their own secured version.. which we can use to play games... and record.. and it would encrypt or do something to ensure it was SDA.com's DOSBox and not any other's...

It's a sketchy rule because you can hack and modify DOS itself in similar ways. In fact this brought some controversy to COMPET-N when it became evident these types of changes had been used for the first full NM DOOM II movie.

myk said:

It's a sketchy rule because you can hack and modify DOS itself in similar ways. In fact this brought some controversy to COMPET-N when it became evident these types of changes had been used for the first full NM DOOM II movie.

NM DOOM II movie? show me

Compet-n's Doom2 movie runs can all be found here.

The ones starting "30nm" are full-game Nightmare runs.

Winterfeldt's disqualified run is 30nm6520 (retained in the compet-n archive for hisrorical purposes). The other 30nm runs are considered valid, and the fastest to date is Vile's famous 30nm2956.

There is also a TAS (openly Tools-Assisted) run, at the TAS site: 30nm1849 (TASMBF demo, plays back with prboom+ in addition to MBF). It's an old run by Sedlo; very nice, but it doesn't use some of the current routes/tricks.

Regarding Dosbox, I don't see speeddemosarchive's objection to it as making sense. It appears to be a result of a cookie-cutter approach to their rules, stemming from the fact that Doom is a very small portion of speeddemosarchive's overall activities (essentially it is a Quake demos site that also accepts demos in video form for other games). It's nice that the site accepts Doom demos at all, but you can't expect them to tailor their rules to the Doom-engine games.

Dosbox is essentially an emulator of an operating system, rather than a game's executable. If Dosbox isn't allowed, then neither should running DOS programs under Windows operating systems that emulate DOS. And as others have commented, it does nothing to prevent cheating. Anyway, compet-n and of course DSDA don't object to Dosbox, which is what really matters for the Doom demos community.

You're right, Windows XP's "DOS" is DOS emulation. DOS games will also run on FreeDOS which really is DOS and with some knowledge can easily be modified (it's open source) to do anything DOSBox could normally do or more.

andrewwan1980 said:

I been playing around and found that Hexen actually has a -recordfrom <saveSlot> <demoName> parameter. Since SDA allows game saves... we can just record to end of level but not exiting the level yet. Quickly save the game to a slot. Then finish the recording by exiting the level. Then enter Hexen normally and load that saved game. Exit level and then immediately save on the next level to same slot. Exit back to DOS. Record using -recordfrom <slot> <newDemoName>.... and continue your speedrun. Just before you exit again.. save to the NEXT slot... and create new demo files.

The problem is we only have 9 save slots... but we can manually back up the hexndata/hex<level#>.hxs files after a recording... coz we need the HXS files as it represents the state of that MAP upon exit.

OMG... Exe's hack seems a much simplier way than this.

void G_DoCompleted(void)
{
	int i;

	gameaction = ga_nothing;
	if(G_CheckDemoStatus())
	{
		return;
	}

This stupid check actually delivered to He&He from old Doom 1.2 code. Remove it and voila.

myk said:

You're right, Windows XP's "DOS" is DOS emulation. DOS games will also run on FreeDOS which really is DOS and with some knowledge can easily be modified (it's open source) to do anything DOSBox could normally do or more.

True. It uses NTDVM (DOS virtual machine).

I think DOS under 95/98 is native.

The thing about virtualisation is that it's the REAL OS being installed onto a virtual PC (opposed to DOSBOx emulating DOS). I agree DOSBox might contain bugs or can be modified, but Virtualisation definitely is more about the hardware-oriented... and installing a REAL OS in on a virtual hardware. If the virtual hardware was hacked then the REAL OS probably wouldn't work. So I totally disagree with speeddemosarchive.com's ban against virtualisation.

Hitherto said:

OMG... Exe's hack seems a much simplier way than this.

void G_DoCompleted(void)
{
	int i;

	gameaction = ga_nothing;
	if(G_CheckDemoStatus())
	{
		return;
	}

This stupid check actually delivered to He&He from old Doom 1.2 code. Remove it and voila.

Yeah, I been looking at those code. I was going to implement "record-over-more-than-1-map" feature... but if speeddemosarchive.com only accepts original exes, then there was no point.

BTW, how did you know it's old 1.2 code? Was 1.2 code ever released?

Version 1.2 also ends demos when the exit it activated. The Heretic engine was apparently started from the Doom v1.2 code base, and the Hexen engine is based on Heretic's. As for -recordfrom, that's also from the earlier versions of DOOM, as you can see described here.

So you saying later Doom version could record over multiple levels?

I'm not sure what you mean by that question. The new demo recording code was implemented in version 1.4. This removed the broken -recordfrom parameter, added multi-level demo recording and marked each demo with the version of the corresponding game release.

Thanks, I wasn't sure whether Doom could record over multiple levels. But thats cool if originally it can (1.4).

Well, that is what made recording popular in the first place. Before that change was made you couldn't even see the tally screen while recording, let alone record full episodes.

actually vile did all his demos under windows 2000, which is a virtual DOS ... and SDA took his demos ...

On top of that win2k gives a 20% slowdown which is an unfair advantage...

VinceDSS said:

On top of that win2k gives a 20% slowdown which is an unfair advantage...

how is that possible? is there some technical explanation? and does that apply to just doom or other programs as well?