Doomsday 1.9.0-beta6.9 Released

After a few months of no releases, the Doomsday Engine team have released Doomsday 1.9.0-beta6.9. In this release are plenty of bug fixes and a few new features like the DOOM screenwipe. For more info check the release notes here. To download, visit the Doomsday Engine's homepage.

Heretic

    * Support for voodoo dolls. 

Indeed, this beta corrects large issues that the last few 1.9 beta's have had with poly obj's and works on getting player movement more accurate under the new control code (though the later is still not quite perfect).

It also introduces new visual feature's in the form of smoothed wall shading and screen wipes.

And yes, it adds voodoo doll support to Heretic (previously Doomsday only supported them in Doom).

Here's a link to the sourceforge download page. Why wasn't this in the first post?

Anyway. Great release, going to have a run through my maps now. :)

EDIT: hm, is it just me, or does movement feel.. off? I'm not sure why though.

Indeed, I'd agree that while player movement is closer than it was in Beta6.8, that it's still not quite the same as in Vanilla Doom (or Dday 1.8.6).

I'd imagine that player input on what feels "off" compared to Vanilla Doom would help Deng team get it spot on though.

Yes there is something not quite right with player movement still. Player feedback would indeed help to pin point the problem so feel free to discus your experience (remember to detail your control method as we have different paths for different setups).

Well. It doesn't seem to be speed. I made a map where the player runs a straight line down 7100 odd units. Got the same time (13 seconds) in Doomsday 1.9.0 beta6.9 as I did in chocolate doom 1.2.1. Will keep investigating.

Also, I noticed that the hud weapon isn't as high as it should be. Not sure if it's something on my end though.

Doomsday

Choco

It happens for all weapons, I just used the SSG for the comparison. This is the normal hud setting btw, not the one where you can apply opacity.

EDIT: Control method is WASD + mouse look.

Khorus said:

Also, I noticed that the hud weapon isn't as high as it should be. Not sure if it's something on my end though.

Press the '-' key to change the view size. It looks like you are using the "fullscreen with statusbar overlay" mode.

EDIT: Nope you are quite right, its too low. Will fix.
EDIT2: Fixed for 1.9.0-Beta6.10

Doomsday has an addtional screen size before full screen that displays the gameworld full screen but with the status bar up.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

DaniJ said:

Press the '-' key to change the view size. It looks like you are using the "fullscreen with statusbar overlay" mode.

Yes I tried that (that's what I meant when I said "not the one where you can apply opacity", I just couldn't figure it's name out :P).

I use a widescreen resolution (1680x1050) to play Doomsday, so I tried 800x600 with the same result. Tinkered with the FOV settings and got the same result too.

EDIT:

DaniJ said:

Nope you are quite right, its too low. Will fix.

Ok, thanks. :)

I have an idea what the movement issue could be:

When using fixed point math, mobj momentum is snapped to zero below the fractional unit lower threshold when applying friction. As we are doing all movement in floating point now, there is no such snapping and as such the application of friction is linear across the whole range. So previously friction would reduce momentum uniformly up to the lower bound then snap to zero. In the current release there is no snap.

So how would this feel? Well it would produce a somewhat "floaty" feedback, movement would feel less precise compared to original DOOM.

Does this explanation resonate?

I can't find any Zip/compressed file version for Win32. Only deng-1.9.0-beta6.9-setup.exe

kristus said:

I can't find any Zip/compressed file version for Win32. Only deng-1.9.0-beta6.9-setup.exe

Dday hasn't used zips for a long time. It installs itself as proper Windows software.

What the hell kinda crazy talk is that?

When I replied, Vermil's post read "The EXE is the compressed archive. Dday hasn't used zips for a long time now as Deng team want Dday to function like a proper Windows program."

Either way, it's pretentious, extremely annoying and superfluous. I don't need the headache of going through an obsolete setup program every time I want to install a Doom port.

You could probably open the exe with a program such as 7-zip or UniExtract and access the content directly.

Why do you think there is installer? We use an installer because it is not something that is easily installed manually, else we would distribute in Zip form.

Besides which, a great many Windows users actually expect an installer and are lost without one. Not to mention that under modern Windows oses its actually pretty difficult for the user to install something in the proper location without one.

I'm glad one port actually follows Windows guidelines instead of propagating archaic DOS conventions. It's 2010 people!

I'm glad most ports are portable applications and don't fuss around in this giant clusterfuck that is the Windows registry, leaving traces here and there that take forever to clean out when you want to uninstall them. :p

And the above illustrates why installers tend to polarize opinions. There are two different usage models; the normal one used by most where they just want it installed with as little fuss as possible or the so-called "portable" model.

Presently Doomsday cannot really "do" the portable model. Its something that will be addressed in a future release but at present its just not feasible - hence the installer with no Zip option.

Making a well-behaved installer for something as simple as a Doom port is trivial in Visual Studio. It's not like you're installing a graphics driver or anything.

DaniJ said:

And the above illustrates why installers tend to polarize opinions. There are two different usage models; the normal one used by most where they just want it installed with as little fuss as possible or the so-called "doomsday" model.

Fixed it for you.

Ok then, if you think the installer makes it more complicated than it needs to be; after install, gather up all the components and copy them to a temporary location. Run the unistall and remove any folders left behind (which is for user convenience when upgrading btw). Now install it manually yourself making sure everything goes where it should.

Unless you are using "wild west" XP or you want to install some place other than c:\program files it will take you a lot longer than using the installer.

I don't really know all the shit that needs to be done to get Doomsday to work in it's semi stable mode on a computer near you. But if you seriously think that all the shit necessary to get Doomsday up and running is easier, faster or even more user-friendly than that of GZdoom for example. Then you are truly deluding yourself.

DaniJ said:

or you want to install some place other than c:\program files

I never install games in Program Files. There's a fundamental thematic disconnect I make between games and "stuff that goes in Program Files".

And it has served me very well when Vista came and all of a sudden gaming community forums were suddenly flooded by "halp plese this mod dont work!!!1!" threads because of virtual folders fucking up any attempts at modding any game installed in Program Files.

david_a said:

Making a well-behaved installer for something as simple as a Doom port is trivial in Visual Studio. It's not like you're installing a graphics driver or anything.

That's not the point. The only reason installers exist is because Windows has done everything wrong it could do wrong when it comes to application maintenance - and too many developers following these broken guidelines.

Give me a portable install any day and I'll happily take that instead of the installer version. At least then I can be certain that it's gone when I delete it.

I think you are missing the point kristus. I agree that it is easier to install GZdoom (but then look what happens when you try to use it). What I said is that at present it is not possible for a Doomsday install to work the same way.

For starters, there is both Doomsday and the launcher to install and you need to install it so that multi-user works (not everything lives in the same directory).

I totally agree that Windows made quite a lot of mistakes with this. However I sure am glad that 99% of apps do NOT adopt the "portable" model of basically abandoning all Windows conventions and making it up as they see fit.

The DOOM community and other bastions of decade-old, outdated best-practice still like to think of games as small self-contained things that can be put anywhere they damn well please. This community really needs to stop thinking of source ports as simply a different binary that you can use in place of doom.exe

Gez said:

I never install games in Program Files. There's a fundamental thematic disconnect I make between games and "stuff that goes in Program Files".

And it has served me very well when Vista came and all of a sudden gaming community forums were suddenly flooded by "halp plese this mod dont work!!!1!" threads because of virtual folders fucking up any attempts at modding any game installed in Program Files.

Well duh. Most of those apps were developed with no best practice in effect and expected free reign over their install directory. Modern oses don't allow that so software needs to be updated accordingly to put things in their Rightful Place.

Now, I'm not saying the Windows model for application vs user data is perfect, its not, but thats a whole other argument.

DaniJ said:

This community really needs to stop thinking of source ports as simply a different binary that you can use in place of doom.exe

Why?

I understand that for certain type of applications, and for certain types of environments, it makes a lot of sense to have a centralized system. But I do not see how this applies to games. I do not see what there is to gain from a non-portable setup where you can't just copy a few iwads, a few ports, and your favorite mods on a USB stick and just plug it on any computer you want to use to play a quick game of Doom. It is something that's possible, that is occasionally useful, and that does not detract in any way from the enjoyability and usability of these ports.

DaniJ said:

I think you are missing the point kristus. I agree that it is easier to install GZdoom (but then look what happens when you try to use it). What I said is that at present it is not possible for a Doomsday install to work the same way.

What happens if you try to use it? For me it works flawlessly.

For starters, there is both Doomsday and the launcher to install and you need to install it so that multi-user works (not everything lives in the same directory).

Strange. ZDoom manages to be multi-user friendly despite being essentially a portable install.

I totally agree that Windows made quite a lot of mistakes with this. However I sure am glad that 99% of apps do NOT adopt the "portable" model of basically abandoning all Windows conventions and making it up as they see fit.

A well behaved Windows application these days shouldn't need anything more than a subfolder somewhere in the user's application data directory. You don't need an installer for that. GZDoom manages to find the proper path without one (to store cached BSP data.)

My main gripe with installers is that almost every single one of them adds more crap to the registry that's increasingly hard to get rid of later. I don't mind installers that merely copy an application to the proper directory and set up some start menu links. Anything more is just an open invitation for problems.

The DOOM community and other bastions of decade-old, outdated best-practice still like to think of games as small self-contained things that can be put anywhere they damn well please.

Guess what: They are! I can't imagine any scenario in which a game needs to be integrated into the system the way most installers do. They are self contained applications if developed properly

This community really needs to stop thinking of source ports as simply a different binary that you can use in place of doom.exe

Ah, now I understand why Doomsday is so unwieldy compared to all those 'primitive' other ports. What you describe here is precisely the mindset that bothers me in general about 'modern' software development: It's all idiot proof and discourages users from learning some basic understanding. As a result the more experienced user is subjected to countless things he doesn't need and make his life more inconvenient.

Well duh. Most of those apps were developed with no best practice in effect and expected free reign over their install directory. Modern oses don't allow that so software needs to be updated accordingly to put things in their Rightful Place.

What is the 'Rightful Place'? A centralized directoy? That's ok if there's only one instance of an application installed. I, however, have currently 6 versions of GZDoom, 11 versions of ZDoom, 2 versions of Eternity, 2 versions of PrBoom and some other ports installed. What a nightmare if I couldn't keep the config data local to each installation...


In short: Give me an installer for your port and I'll gladly pass. Give me a zip with a portable installation and I might try. You might guess correctly that I haven't bothered to install any Doomsday version for a very long time as a result.

Graf Zahl said:

Ah, now I understand why Doomsday is so unwieldy compared to all those 'primitive' other ports. What you describe here is precisely the mindset that bothers me in general about 'modern' software development: It's all idiot proof...

That is precisely the mindset we use. Whether you agree with that or not says more about you as a developer than it does about Doomsday.

I think everyone here knows that Doomsday does things a bit differently to other ports. We don't want to do things the way other ports do as we want to open DOOM up to the much larger audience to whom the very idea of using a command line is alien.

Doomsday aims to makes things easier for those with little experience of DOS DOOM. Is this really something to argue about?

BTW: It really does not bother me whether you use Doomsday or not to be frank.

DaniJ said:

I think everyone here knows that Doomsday does things a bit differently to other ports. We don't want to do things the way other ports do as we want to open DOOM up to the much larger audience to whom the very idea of using a command line is alien.

The majority of the Zdoom community?