Processor power affecting doom2.exe

[Mogul]

I was watching the infamous demo of BahdKo vs. Ocelot that ends in something like, 50-3, and noticed in the readme that their machines were very different. BahdKo was on an Athlon XP 1600 and Oce was on a p150 or something of that sort.

I don't mean to talk about the match itself that much; this isn't one of those he should have won or she should have won threads, but I would like to know - does machine speed affect the multiplayer games? Doest he power of the system affect the LAN connection factor? (etc)

I mean, we're dealing with doom2.exe here, not some high-end source port. But still, would the 150 run the program as well as the 1600? Does it matter?

The main reason I ask is because I'm in the market for a decent pc so I can put 98SE on it and play doom2.exe multiplayer all I want on THAT computer, while keeping this one for things like Quake III and DOOM 3.

[Opulent]

first off, you can still buy a computer that will play both DOOM and DOOM3... but that window is closing rapidly.
the speed of the machine matters, but in this case it would not be much of a factor.
DOOM was designed for a 386SX in mind -- one with an ALU. in short, both systems are much more horsepower than is needed to play DOOM 1x1.
now, if one of them was on a 386 with MSDOS, there would probably be some framing issue and network speed as the clockrate and hardware for the 386 would be so much slower in responding to the network requests(even in token ring networks).
lastly, it is important to note that Bahdko could play both of us teamed on Map01 with teamplay on and we'd get pasted... but that shows just how good ocelot is too. :)

[Mogul]

So you're saying that the game (doom2.exe) was running at the same speed on both computers?

In that case, a modern machine with Windows 98SE would be the optimal setup to play doom2.exe, right?

(man - I'd LOVE to have four reasonably powerful machines with that setup and play DOOM II for hours and hours LAN at my house :):):):):):))

[Ultraviolet]

The speed at which vanilla Doom can run is limited. Remember the 35 FPS cap?

[fodders]

The speed of the machine decided what colour you were. Indigo was usually assigned to the fastest machine and people considered this an advantage, which led to the cheat -player2 .

[Bucket]

fodders said:

people considered this an advantage, which led to the cheat -player2 .

Wasn't that in a Dilbert cartoon?

[DevastatioN]

Ok, I have played Doom2 DM for a long time, and LANed quite a bit.

It is true, that Indigo has more lag than Green, thats because in this old network setup it designates player 1 (green) as the "host" machine, that is why all LANers switch games between Indigo and Green.

Fodders is actually wrong in this case, actually, the slower the green machine, the laggier it is for Indigo usually, in my experience, so it is actually better to have the fastest machine hosting as green, that way the slower machine which has Indigo, actually get s abetter connect, but Green still has the advantage, and it is proper to switch colors after each round.

[DevastatioN]

Oh, btw Fodders, Indigo has the advantage in MODEM games and zone games, not LAN :) the positions reset each other kinda, depending on the ms lag

[fodders]

Well my experience was with others connecting to a BBS via modems @14400 and I connected via com2 @19200. Studies showed in modem games, being indigo gave around 16 frags advantage over green between 2 equal players in a 50 frag game, so it wasn't insignificant.

[Ultraviolet]

It was probably because of dark monitors ("Where did indigo go?") and Doom's limited gamma correction.

[DevastatioN]

No, if u read my second post, I said on MODEM games and ZONE games, and the technicalities are actually over 70ms, that this happens, a BBS is a modem game, therefore you are correct Fodders.


There is a 15 frag difference between green and Indigo on LAN for Green, and in modem games its roughly the same for Indigo.

Ive not done testing or anything with computer speeds on modem games however, but im sure the latency affects it more than anything, where as on LAN, as I stated, the faster the machine of Green (player 1) the clearer the game for Indigo (Player 2)

[Ultraviolet]

DevastatioN said:

No

You can't deny that visibility can be a factor, and an incredibly strong one at that.

[DevastatioN]

Er, visability factor affects game very little usually, cause most people who play dont have dark monitors, or know how to use the gamma option on their monitor / computer / DooM 2, it's not nearly as big a factor as Indigo / Green lag actually.

Ive seen one monitor that I have LANed that was unplayable, and I gave him bright.wad to use against me, just cause his monitor was a POS :)

I also for a long time used an extremely dark monitor, u get used to it really, It may play a factor, but then you should take into account the mouse quality factor, mouse software, speaker quality, keyboard quality, monitor size, even the mousepad, cause I had to get new stuff like that for gaming heh, but that stuff usually isnt really concidered, we're assuming that you can play with the equipment you have, and if both players are equaly as good not taking equipment into the factor, there is a 15 frag difference.

[BahdKo]

Hi everyone!!!

I meant to post a lot sooner than this, but I was kinda locked outta the doomworld forums due to my consistantly losing my password. Bloodshedder helped me out with it tho, yay!

Seems this thread has gone in three directions.. I feel clueful about all of them, so I figure I'll write about them all.

On processor power affecting Doom2.exe, that's a question with a lot of different answers.

In respect to modern machines, comparing for example a 700mhz machine to a 2.4G machine, I do not believe an appreciable performance difference will exist due to the machine CPU power difference. These machines are within a range where, unless you had major background tasks working, a machine would not have trouble maintaining full framerate at all times while managing the video, sound, and mouse driver. Note though that there can be moments of hard disk access by Doom2.exe and even some of the faster machines may hesitate at these times. This is a bus speed and hard drive access thing, not a CPU thing. If you happen to see a brief image of a little blue floppy disk in the left corner (if I recall correctly) when you do something for the first time in a game, usually map related, that's what it was.

You might also keep in mind that Doom2.exe is actually a bit processor intensive because it does not use the video card particularly. The CPU of my Athlon 1600 tends to get hot when I run Doom2.exe, and without its extra fans, Doom2.exe makes it go high enough to become unstable.

In regards to machines in the 400mz - 700mz or so, the machines aren't exactly struggling with the 100% maximization of performance in Doom2.exe, but the nature of the background tasks becomes more important. In most cases, people with machines of this performance should be able to get maximum performance out of Doom2.exe. Once again, the issue of the hesistations due to hard drive access is still there, and as you tend to move backwards in CPU speed, you are typically moving backward in terms of bus speed and hard drive access times. I'd be inclined to pay attention to the performance of a 400 - 700mz machine to make sure nothing is interrupting it's Doom game.

Machines in the 200-300mz range are, in my opinion, the slowest machines that should be used for Doom without first causing Windows98/95 to "Shut down to DOS mode". In this mhz range, with windows loaded, the operating system may already be interrupting the game FPS occasionally to do operating system tasks. Hard drive access is also getting pretty slow on these older machines.

The P1 120 - 200mhz should be dropped down into DOSmode before playing, and even in DOSmode, they are not guarenteed to produce the perfect performance. At this processor speed, in DOSmode, the machines will tend to be able to maintain a steady 35FPS *some or most of the time*, but drop frames at other times due to the CPU not being able to keep up with very busy in-game situations. This can sometimes be observed in Doom2 Map07, where a player is straferunning in the outer hallway/garden area and straferuns past an opening to the inner garden. Doom has to suddenly render that visible area including all the walls, pillars, and platforms, and it's possible to note the framerate drop while Doom does this. I've also seen plasma use by the opponent make these slower speed CPUs work so hard to where they will drop frames.

While the framerate and mouse responsiveness on these slower machines would be considered playable relative to the original hardware Doom was designed to work with, the framerate will not tend to be maximized at all times. The thing here is that the *average* framerate is not the big deal for us modern players. The performance question is, can Doom2.exe maintain a *minimum* framerate of 35fps at absolutely all times, without hesistations due to operating system distractions and CPU workload being too high. The machines for which Doom was originally made do not render it at the maximum speed at all times; but these days we have machines available that CAN get that level of performance out of it.

In regards to machine speed and network hosting: If there is a substantial performance difference between the machines, the game should be tested to see if the game performance is best when the fastest machine is Green. Green takes the role of the game server, and in some cases, BOTH machines see a performance increase when the fast machine is Green.

Now the next question would be: how much of a difference would CPU differences make to a person's game? The answer: within reason, this depends on the player (within reason means: extreme performance problems, such as playing on a 486-30 at half screensize and in Doom's own low resolution mode is extreme and will be damaging to anyone who tries it). Even on machines that are dropping frames, my experience is that a player who tunes it out very well is capable of playing to very high levels. It's mainly a distraction thing, is my take. In that Ocelot game you mentioned, for example, if he had used my machine and I had used his, he would have beat me worse, but it would have been because the frames his machine was probably dropping would have driven me up the wall.

On visual differences between green and indigo: In a couple of maps it makes a big difference, but in most, the difference is functionally minimal. Dwango5 Map2 is a good example where Indigo has a big advantage. All of the walls are grey, and I've seen people succesfully camp in plain sight as Indigo. Green on the other hand is a different world in terms of available tactics on this map. Dwango5 Map1 has an area that is a little bit like this - - the BFG room's lighting seems to hide Indigo a bit better than Green. An important point about this is that it does not seem to be enough of a problem to give me a frag count difference against anyone, even though I do notice it and have to look more carefully when I am Green.

In doom2.exe's native network environment (IPX/SPX over LAN), the Green player is picked simply by which machine has the highest MAC address (or I could be mixing that up .. it may be lowest, I can't remmeber positively now). Some dial-up BBS software may have been able to arrange the player colors based upon a CPU speed rating, but Doom2 natively doesn't do it. There are alternate versions of IPXsetup.exe that permit the players to choose which color each workstation should be via "-player 1" and "player 2" etc. switches (http://www.doom2.net/doom2/files/ipxsetup.new , file has to be renamed ipxsetup.exe to work).

The negotiation of modem to modem games uses a different mechanism for choosing green vs. indy. I suspect it may be attemting to generate a random number which it calls the "ID String", but I am not sure it is working well at being random, if its supposed to be such. The machine that has chosen the lowest ID string is designated as Green for the game. The "-player2" switch from ID's native Sersetup.exe (note the lack of a space between 'player' and the number '2') causes the particular machine to choose "9999999" as its ID string, thereby requesting an Indigo position in the network arrangement. "-player1" also works, requesting a Green network assignment by generating an ID string of "0000000". If both players try to choose the same string, Doom will hang up with the error "Dupicate ID string" (although this is not the only thing that can cause this error).

An illustration of the performance differences between Green and Indigo can be seen in this somewhat confusing graph:



This isnt based upon network code analysis, it's mainly my best attempt to show the relationship that I've come to understand in a graphic way. In plain english: Green is lagless up through 30-40 ms or so, then its performance degrades rapidly. Indigo has a little bit of lag up through 30-40ms, and then its performance begins to degrade but nowhere near to the degree Green does. Around 50 ms or so, Indigo and Green will generally have matched player control responsiveness due to lag affecting both, and at latency higher than that, green's feeling of laggyness increases well beyond what Indigo is experiencing. My impression is that modem to modem games will tend to have a ping of 60 and up, 60 being a very good local connection.

On dark monitors: there is an ideal monitor brightness setting for doom. If the brightness is too high, the redscreen damage effect has a whitewashing effect, and is more blinding and seems to last longer. Too low, and the opponent will be harder to see in dark areas than is necessary.

If you've actually read this far - - I hope this has been informative, but before I have to give this book a title and find a publisher, I'll stop now. heh!

--BahdKo

[Ultraviolet]

So, would you consider custom palettes in network games to be a means of cheating? I'd imagine you could remove the redscreen effect all together, perhaps replace the invulnerability section of the palette with a normal grayscale, un-green the radsuit section, and so on, and get a major advantage off of it. However, in Doom2.exe, there's really no way to check for map and resource hacks, eh?

[myk]

That's why the best place for a Doom competition is a LAN, not the Internet. Generally for any game, as well.

[BahdKo]

Ultraviolet said:

So, would you consider custom palettes in network games to be a means of cheating? I'd imagine you could remove the redscreen effect all together, perhaps replace the invulnerability section of the palette with a normal grayscale, un-green the radsuit section, and so on, and get a major advantage off of it. However, in Doom2.exe, there's really no way to check for map and resource hacks, eh?

Yes. That stuff is cheating in Doom2.exe, unless you're color blind and your mods are helping compensate for this (no joke). If the guy you're playing isnt a buddy or, minimally, someone you know well enough to be pretty sure otherwise, there's always the possibility that it's happening. Playing on a LAN plus someone actually looking over the guy's shoulder at the LAN is the only way to positively know that cheats like this aren't being used against you.

People who cheat are playing for reasons that I cannot identify with, that's for sure. Ick.

[Ultraviolet]

My mom makes me wear a dress.:(

[DevastatioN]

Yes those things are cheating, and they rarily occur anymore.

The only cheating that usually would occur happens in lower levels of play, and definately not on LAN. So it's not really an issue in the community today, all real games are held on LAN, and LAN cheating hasnt occured in a while kinda.

[Ultraviolet]

I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my comment, but then I remembered what it actually was. I believe I may have misconveyed my intentions, seeming obscene instead.

I was referring to my belief that cheaters are under the influence of an instinct for conquest by any means, hence referring to the penis. It's psychologically undeniable that males have a strong conquest instinct. For example, one doesn't really get any physical pleasure from sex that one can't get on one's own. Part of the overall experience is the fulfillment of the conquest instinct. Cheaters in games don't just want the physical pleasure of playing, acting on reflex, seeing the pretty colors, they want the psychological pleasure of winning, as shallow as it may be.

I could be wrong, and maybe females have the same instinct somewhere, or possibly one even stronger. Sorry, Bahd, I didn't mean anything sexist by my last post, and I hope it didn't seem that way. I figure if it was enough for fodders to edit it (and since you two must go back a while, what with being oldschool deathmatchers) it must have really come off wrong.

[Mogul]

DevastatioN said:

Yes those things are cheating, and they rarily occur anymore.

The only cheating that usually would occur happens in lower levels of play, and definately not on LAN. So it's not really an issue in the community today, all real games are held on LAN, and LAN cheating hasnt occured in a while kinda.

Man, that's true and it brings to mind a funny situation -

Can you imagine being at a big LAN, and getting caught cheating? OH MAN that'd be an embarassing situation.

[DevastatioN]

Its not really a laughing situation kinda, cause it has happened, :) and people have been caught cheating, like Merlock ;) (Era 1995)

[Stealthy Ivan]

fodders said:

The speed of the machine decided what colour you were. Indigo was usually assigned to the fastest machine and people considered this an advantage, which led to the cheat -player2 .

Ahh yes, I remember this, but are you sure indigo was not assigned to the first player to join/host the game?

[fodders]

In a dial up game it was, but if the dialer used the command -player2, it overrode this.

[Mogul]

OK - question.

In a doom2.exe LAN match - does either player experience lag?

It kind of sounded that way.

[DevastatioN]

Yes, i nLAN, Indigo experiences lag, because of how the doom2.exe network coding works.

[Mogul]

That's too bad. I wish doom2.exe was slightly more ideal when it comes to deathmatching. I prefer it over source ports, otherwise.

[DevastatioN]

Well, DooM2.exe DM is ideal actually, you just switch colors after each game, like chess, once your green, then indigo (in chess once your white, then your black)

It's prolly the ideal deathmatch youll ever find on LAN.

[Mogul]

mmm perhaps you could call it ideal if you switch out, but the point is, per-game, one of two players will be at a slight disadvantage due to lag.