Vanilla Doom's Sidedef Threshold

[Doom Marine]

A question regarding the sidedef limit of vannila doom: what is the max sidedefs that you can have before Doom2.exe shuts down? So far AFAIK, the largest proven level to run on the original doom2 is Misri Halek, at 24k sidedefs. So what is the sidedef threshold for doom2.exe?

[Graf Zahl]

Converted DOOMer said:

A question regarding the sidedef limit of vannila doom: what is the max sidedefs that you can have before Doom2.exe shuts down? So far AFAIK, the largest proven level to run on the original doom2 is Misri Halek, at 24k sidedefs. So what is the sidedef threshold for doom2.exe?

The maximum sidedef limit is 32768. That's the maximum the file format allows. It's theoretically possible to make a Doom2.exe compatible map that uses the full amount. Of course if you use sidedef compression you might go even higher. Sidedefs are not a resource that can cause internal buffer overflows and other nasty stuff.

[sargebaldy]

i tried using deepsea's sidedef compression once but ended up with walls i could walk through.. so i at the time assumed it was incompatible with the vanilla exe. i wonder if i somehow forgot to rebuild the nodes or something.

[deep]

sargebaldy said:

i tried using deepsea's sidedef compression once but ended up with walls i could walk through.. so i at the time assumed it was incompatible with the vanilla exe. i wonder if i somehow forgot to rebuild the nodes or something.

You forgot to build nodes. Many TNT and PLUTONIA levels use packed sidedefs.

[NiGHTMARE]

Bloodlands and Grievance have sidedefs packed on every level, so it's safe to say that most if not all of TeamTNT's projects use it.

[Grimm]

er . . . what is this sidedef compression?

[EarthQuake]

Not quite sure how it technically works, but it packs all like sidedefs together. All it does it reduce the sidedef number without harmful sideeffects.

Problem is, if you pack the sidedefs and try to edit them, then the properties of the others that were similar are changed also. It really fucks up your level within the editor if you keep changing them. You have to unpack them again before you do stuff.

[CodeImp]

Im not sure about Deepsea or WadAuthor but Doom Builder decompresses your sidedefs when you load a map that has sidedefs compression. When that happens, it will show you a note saying that did so. So you can edit without fear of fucking up your map if you edit one side.

If you want to apply sidedefs compression again, use the Export Map function from the file menu. That also uses the Export nodebuilder settings instead of Quick nodebuild settings.

[Graf Zahl]

Grimm said:

er . . . what is this sidedef compression?

Sidedefs are merely used as a reference for wall properties in Doom. If two sidedefs have absolutely the same properties (same sector, textures, texture offsets) you don't really need to copies in memory for it to work (unless the lines contain some kind of function. In that case it's safer to leave it alone.) Both affected linedefs can easily point to the same sidedef. As there is normally a lot of redundancy in the sidedefs you can save a lot of resources by packing them, not to mention that this allows a far higher number of lines in a level.

[Grimm]

I had a feeling this is what it was. Heh, so basically you just go through all the lindefs in a sector and reference them to the same sidedef? Hmm, seems kinda tricky to get the full value of though. (Mainly off-sets.)

[NiGHTMARE]

No, usually you get your editor to do it for you automatically, though the only ones I know of that can do that are Deepsea and Doom Builder. IIRC there's a little DOS-based utility that can do it too, but I forget what it's called.

[Doom Marine]

Doom Builder automatically packs sidedefs for you? Do you have to turn on that feature or is it defaulted?

Also, regarding packing sectors, hypothetical situation: If I had a sector in room A and another sector in room B... both sectors have the exact same properties in height, lighting, 0 tags, etc etc... and I were to pack the sectors, then play the level. I fire a gun in room A, would that not let the monsters in room B hear the sounds of the gunshot, provided there is no way sound can travel between room A and B with the possible exception of the packed sectors.

So my question is: does packing sectors inadvertently join two identical but separate sectors in such a way that it allows some weird effects such as sound travelling where it should not? Thanks ahead for answering these questions.

[Anders]

converted doomer, reread gherkins post and you'll find the answer to your first question.

yes, sound will travel if you pack sectors, this is often used to wake up monsters in monster teleporters.

[Erik]

Sidedefs will not be the first resource to overflow, segs will.

[Fredrik]

Erik said:

Sidedefs will not be the first resource to overflow, segs will.

Yep. The only use of sidedef packing is to reduce the size of the file.