[GEC] Master Edition PSX Doom for the PlayStation. Beta 4 Released [11/16/2022]

[Dexiaz]

I'd like to take next "Cyberden" and "Bad Dream" maps.

[Gerardo194]

Those maps are yours now, @DeXiaZ

[riderr3]

@Gerardo194 you can also sign me for Level 9: Stronghold and The Garrison.

[Gerardo194]

@riderr3 done!!!!

[Dantosking]

Okay, Let me take those maps:

Plutonia
Level 19: NME

TNT
Level 15: Dead Zone
Level 32: Caribbean

[Erick194]

The maps are now yours, welcome to the project.

[Kroc]

On 7/8/2018 at 6:05 PM, riderr3 said:

What about the official built-in emulator PS1 on PSP? PSP's MIPS R4000-based CPU is running most of the PS1's R3000 code natively. I did a few tests and sometimes it it even runs little more faster than ePSXe.

 

As long as you have an ISO file, it's very easy to build PSP versions of PSX ROMs. When all is said and done, I'd be happy to put together a PSP release unless anyone nearer the project already knows how. This is certainly how I intend to play this!

 

[Dexiaz]

I totally forgot...please sign me up for "Mount Pain" map. In The Lost Levels we decided to delete the Mount itself...and this sucks (but it was the realistic reason - possibly the Mount and outdoor area consumes too much VRAM) - I'll try to do some magic like with the Black Tower...possibly I'll save this Mount.

[Gerardo194]

Slot is yours @DeXiaZ we will sign you up tomorrow morning.

[riderr3]

1 hour ago, DeXiaZ said:

I totally forgot...please sign me up for "Mount Pain" map. In The Lost Levels we decided to delete the Mount itself...and this sucks (but it was the realistic reason - possibly the Mount and outdoor area consumes too much VRAM) - I'll try to do some magic like with the Black Tower...possibly I'll save this Mount.

I foresee huge slowdowns there because of tall windows and open view to sectors located at different heights. One way or another you'll have to simplify something.

Also on plutonian MAP29 I suppose big slowdowns because of streets position.
I see here can be applied design workaround which Dragonsbrethren did in Caged
Just a hint to someone who will want to take this slot.

On the weapon progression:
As we know the secret map "Marshes" contained Super Shotgun, and this map is part of "Ultimate Doom".
Like on this manner, it would be nice to see single SSG on one of the Master Edition Ult.Doom levels. Maybe a Warrens would be suit for that...
It's just a personal opinion, the final decision will be for the GEC.

[Dark Pulse]

Interesting. Some further testing of Hanger in Xebra isn't having remotely any of the slowdown EPSXE is having in the troublesome spots. In fact, it runs pretty damn solidly... maybe it's an EPSXE thing?

 

This is why we need to be sure we're testing on as accurate emulators as possible, and ideally, actual hardware - now I'm not sure which one is "correct" without that, but considering Xebra is focused on accuracy, I will presume that's the gold standard for how the level "would" play until proven otherwise.

 

@Erick194 / @Gerardo194 - Do you have actual hardware to do testing on? If not, it's crucial to find people willing to test this on actual PS1 hardware.

[Erick194]

17 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

 

@Erick194 / @Gerardo194 - Do you have actual hardware to do testing on? If not, it's crucial to find people willing to test this on actual PS1 hardware.

 

Of course, we have PlayStaion 1 and PlayStaion 2, which can read PlayStaion 1 games. I have to get CDs to start testing. The last one I had was using the New Hangar map, and it really worked.

[Dark Pulse]

45 minutes ago, Erick194 said:

 

Of course, we have PlayStaion 1 and PlayStaion 2, which can read PlayStaion 1 games. I have to get CDs to start testing. The last one I had was using the New Hangar map, and it really worked.

PS2 could slightly alter how the game runs, though, keep that in mind (with texture filtering and possibly faster loading), plus of course, somewhat trickier to get burned PS1 games running on a PS2 unless you got a disc swap/tool (or it's hard/softmodded).

 

PS1 should be the gold standard to test against (obviously), but that's good that you guys have them, as it gives us real-world accuracy testing that Xebra (or EPSXE) wouldn't catch. A few more testers with PS1s/PS2s wouldn't hurt, either. We're gonna need that kind of feedback if the aim is to make it run on the real hardware, for those of us who no longer have the hardware to do it with. (My PS1 is long gone, and my PS2 is in storage.)

Edited July 13, 2018 by Dark Pulse

[CoTeCiO]

41 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

PS2 could slightly alter how the game runs, though, keep that in mind (with texture filtering and possibly faster loading), plus of course, somewhat trickier to get burned PS1 games running on a PS2 unless you got a disc swap/tool.

 

PS1 should be the gold standard to test against (obviously), but that's good that you guys have them, as it gives us real-world accuracy testing that Xebra (or EPSXE) wouldn't catch. A few more testers with PS1s/PS2s wouldn't hurt, either. We're gonna need that kind of feedback if the aim is to make it run on the real hardware, for those of us who no longer have the hardware to do it with. (My PS1 is long gone, and my PS2 is in storage.)

I've been testing some maps using these tools on a PS1 as well, so I can test stuff too.

[Dark Pulse]

7 minutes ago, CoTeCiO said:

I've been testing some maps using these tools on a PS1 as well, so I can test stuff too.

Good. In the interest of avoiding ROM hacks that don't work on the real hardware, while good-accuracy emulators are good, unless we've got 100% accuracy, nothing will ever top real hardware.

 

Granted, the days of making hacks for ZSNES or SNES9X (which were wildly inaccurate back in the day) compared to us running this on an emulator like Xebra is night and day - Xebra is far more accurate than either of those two were, comparatively speaking. Mind you, SNES9X is a lot more accurate than ZSNES now, and it's the go-to if you can't run higan or something derived off it. But I digress.

 

Still, if you have access to the actual hardware, testing for accuracy literally can't get much more accurate than that.

 

Ideally, we'd test it with every model of the PS1, as there was some changes to the hardware (certainly by the time you get to the PSOne), but in practice, most OG PS1s are likely to be quite dead, with better luck on the SCPH-5500 and up models. All we can do is test on what we have access to, and if it doesn't work on some other model, then that's up to Erick194 to decide what to do.

[Erick194]

I consider that psxdoom must be executed well in versions of older consoles, since psxdoom was compiled with the libraries of "psyq version 3.5" or earlier, since the higher libraries eliminated several functions of the console that remain in the PSXDOOM.EXE .

[Dark Pulse]

12 minutes ago, Erick194 said:

I consider that psxdoom must be executed well in versions of older consoles, since psxdoom was compiled with the libraries of "psyq version 3.5" or earlier, since the higher libraries eliminated several functions of the console that remain in the PSXDOOM.EXE .

Right, but as I said, that'd require a tester getting hold of an older console, and it being in good working order. There's tons of models (29 in all accounting for all regions, 43 if you count the rarer models like Debug stations/Net Yaroze/etc.) so us testing all models is just infeasible. (Admittedly, if we count all regional versions of a particular hardware set as one console, that cuts the count down to 11 base models, 15 with special models.)

 

For that matter, it brings up another excellent question - Doom and Final Doom on PS1 came out for NTSC-J, NTSC-U/C, and PAL. Does your hacks account for all six versions of the game, or is it only good for NTSC-U/C? Obviously in this day and age it's fairly trivial and doesn't matter for emulator users, but for players playing on actual hardware (especially NTSC vs. PAL), this is actually really important.

[Erick194]

 

Relax, I'm also working on those versions.

[Dark Pulse]

2 minutes ago, Erick194 said:

 

Relax, I'm also working on those versions.

I'm not worried, just want to make sure it's accounted for, is all. :)

 

If all goes well with this test that I'm about to run, Hanger should have all its bugs fixed, all its little issues sorted, and be running fine, and all that will be left is coloring the sectors and it's done. I've compiled a nice little changelog for it.

[Erick194]

 

Excellent :)

[Dark Pulse]

In fact, I think that'd be a good idea... albeit it might be too late for some maps, since I doubt everyone who's involved (especially the stuff that's already done) remembers most of their changes. But it'd be neat to hear from the mappers who worked on the conversion and the hackery what things got changed (besides the obvious like texture reduction), since while there's lots of great WADs for the Doom scene, only a handful of those give creator insight and so on, and I always found those interesting.

 

I'll be having it with my maps, at least.

[Dexiaz]

Teaser:

 

*Ouch exploded face in 3...2...1...*

 

This map is not so easy to recreate. Sometimes after teleporting I'm getting "Texture overflow", sometimes everything is ok.

 

In gameplay meaning this map hard as hell. If I'll keep the blocking monster (in PC original it was the Spider Mastermind) which alerts Cyberdemons - I can't get to the center of room to collect sphere and keys.

 

If I disable this blocking monster - everything plays fine and kinda easy, but that's different feeling of map beating.

 

So what I should do with this? Keep this blocking monster or delete it? In second variant you will trigger all Cyberdemons after teleporing to the ending room, but you can easy avoid rockets and monsters.

 

In first variant even me suck big...rockets. So possibly nobody will beat this level in this condition :|

[riderr3]

Texture overflow happening because of many sprites appeared in front of the player. Like those crash in Suburbs.

Perhaps one of the solutions is to leave the blocking monster and reduce the amount of cyberdemons (also to get rid overflow crash, I assume).

[Dark Pulse]

Wow. Got Hanger all colored and seemingly ready to go, only to discover that it would bomb out if the player died and tried to respawn. Guess that means the light columns are the last casualty of the map, which forces some linedef textures to be extra lights, but now respawn works. Map must really be pushing the memory limits, but other than a few minor changes and me doing some extra linedefs to smarten up the lighting a bit, it's unexpurgated from the original PC layout.

 

But otherwise, it's done... I hope. All that should be left now is just getting some screenshots up here. But that'll have to wait for a little while longer - I need some sleep, badly.

[riderr3]

I have no idea why Garrison does not included in PSX Final Doom. I've only ditched 3 chaingunners and reduced 3-4 textures. No slowdowns occured here.
Notable place is the yellow key pedestal.

It's almost impossible to jump here because different collision system in PSX Doom, so I've bit lowered height of sectors between the pillars and moved stairsteps. It's anyways could seem tricky to gets here, but player need to use turning and strafing simultaneously.

In Stronghold, I've removed a tons of textures and flats.
As example this is what I get after converted texture/flat names with dm2conv:

Even there is not enough room to see all of them in preview.
Many unnecessary textures and flats even not at the player viewpoint, or even outside of map, in the dummy sectors! Like those gstone, bfall and red rock.

Later this was reduced to work in the limits:

In combination with colored lighting, you probably will not even notice how much was removed.

That's how I saving VRAM space, because using 128x128 door textures in this map is unreasonably:


For those who interested, I've uploaded scripts which can convert all texture/flat names in your map, from PC Doom to PSX Doom derivatives.
I've made it because it's annoying to see "unknown" every time on new map. See readme for details.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/puc2gi0wcq85woj/DOOMPCtoPSX_texflat_names_conv.zip

Also I encounter a situation where I can not shoot imp who is located on the box above - the bullets are disappeared to nowhere. I suppose another participants also knew about this issue which is happened sometimes. Later I've rebuilded BSP nodes and everything was fine. Maybe a PSXBSP related bug, or just specific engine behavior?

One more thing which must be taken into account: lowered platform actions can be activated from opposite side on two-sided lines. Better move nearby line to 56 units away to prevent this. As example small window-like lift near red key in Stronghold, it's can be activated from the place near standing chaingunner.
Such omissions also were made by the developers who porting the original levels. A good example is System Control where you can open doors leading to the yard through nearby walls, without visiting left room.
 

Edited July 16, 2018 by riderr3

[Dark Pulse]

14 hours ago, riderr3 said:

One more thing which must be taken into account: lowered platform actions can be activated from opposite side on two-sided lines. Better move nearby line to 56 units away to prevent this. As example small window-like lift near red key in Stronghold, it's can be activated from the place near standing chaingunner.
Such omissions also were made by the developers who porting the original levels. A good example is System Control where you can open doors leading to the yard through nearby walls, without visiting left room.
 

I ran into that as well while converting Hanger, as this is precisely what happens for the automap lift secret.

 

The good news is that if it's not really "crucial" that it be usable by the player (that is, if it's a lift that's only supposed to trigger off a button and never be lowerable directly by the player), you can simply remove that linedef trigger, but if it's somewhere the player can get trapped (like in Hanger), you'll need to add a second switch somewhere in the region so they can press it to lower the lift again and get out.

 

If the player is supposed to be able to use it though, yeah, you will have to change some stuff around.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Chasm is coming along nicely but I'm curious, how laggy/slow should my map run? Right now my map's FPS is all over the place with the worst being like 15-20fps (slow enough to impact performance but not enough to be completely unplayable) and two, I added a soulsphere and some armour right at the start of the map. Should I remove these or keep them (since on UV, there's a LOT of nightmare enemies!)

[Job]

Is there a reason in particular why you added those items to the start on other difficulties? Maybe to compensate for difficulties with the areas that have slowdown issues? I'd only keep them for UV, buta little later in the map or put them in an easy to find secret. 

[riderr3]

4 hours ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

I added a soulsphere and some armour right at the start of the map. Should I remove these or keep them (since on UV, there's a LOT of nightmare enemies!)

In some cases it can introduces some imbalance or inconsistence.
Myself, I've added 2 medikits and 1 stimpack to Stronghold, it can be inconspicuous, but it really helps the player. Because hitscanners on this map are much more dangerous because of slower pace and turning.
Notable huge differences can be regarded as a whim (at least by players). If this is not related to technical limitations, at least.

Also I did non adding NM/SP monsters just to "fill the space", on the contrary, mostly times I adding them as a replacement of excluded monsters. There may be an exceptions like 3 NM Demons in dark corridor of Garrison (suitable location). Or Habitat, where I added NM/SP revenants to dilute the absence of other mid/high tier monsters.

I do not take such maps where I'm sure that there may be huge problems with converting. It's better leave this decisions for GEC.

Edited July 17, 2018 by riderr3

[Dark Pulse]

Just tried a trial run of Hanger and completed it from Pistol Start on Ultra-Violence. But boy did it get hairy in some spots... and admittedly unlike the players (save for players who played the original map), I have the benefit of knowing exactly what I've done to the map.

 

A few more little tweaks and I'll do another run, then pull some screengrabs off the video I'll record to put up here. (I would pull them from this video but I forgot to record it fullscreen, so some desktop notifications and crap got through.)