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Bloodshedder

The /newstuff Chronicles #272

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Graf Zahl said:

BTW, this WAD is so dark, even on the brightest light mode that I'll probably have to add a console variable to boost the light level somewhat.


Legacy's lighting system is considerably brighter than other ports - what looks fine in Opengl, looks incredibly dark in gzDoom.

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I noticed that. It wasn't a big problem with Nimrod or HI-Tech Hell but here it makes the WAD nearly unplayable. On 'Doom' lighting mode in GZDoom it is so dark that you barely can see anything. I had to switch to 'Standard' but even that is still far too dark for my taste.

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mystic said:

I feel sorry for the small minded zdoom zealots who steadfastly refuse to use any legacy maps,



Most of these 'small minded zealots' have serious problems with Legacy. This has nothing to do with copying both into the same directory as they don't shade any files whatsoever.

But would you use an engine that likes to crash your computer? I for sure don't and as a result I only start Legacy when it is necessary.

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mystic said:

I feel sorry for the small minded zdoom zealots who steadfastly refuse to use any legacy maps

That's a bit unfair. I do have Legacy installed but it gives me so much trouble and interference with Windows that I only use it when necessary and would rather it just went away.

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Graf Zahl said:

...For that it'd need an official release that replaces 1.42.

Yeah, though the next release will be 2.0 from what it looks like now. 1.4x is dead, so any official release is highly unlikely between now and whenever 2.0 goes live, which I can't predict. People will have to make do until then, or until gzdoom supports it.

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Graf Zahl said:

Most of these 'small minded zealots' have serious problems with Legacy. This has nothing to do with copying both into the same directory as they don't shade any files whatsoever.

But would you use an engine that likes to crash your computer? I for sure don't and as a result I only start Legacy when it is necessary.

I just don't use Legacy in general. I made a simple map for doom2.exe once, the map screwed up in Legacy so that really put me off the port altogether. :P
I think I'll check out Phobia anyway. Hopefully Legacy won't fuck up though..

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Graf Zahl said:

This has nothing to do with copying both into the same directory as they don't shade any files whatsoever.

They both use a fmod.dll, and in general Zdoom and Legacy require different versions of it.

As an aside, I do actually keep them both in the same directory, and have batch files that copy the right fmod.dll into that directory whenever I want to use either of them. Works for me<small><sup>TM</sup></small> - I have no unusual problems with either.

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Grazza said:

They both use a fmod.dll, and in general Zdoom and Legacy require different versions of it.



Right. I never copied them into the same directory so I never bothered to look.

But how can Legacy use FMOD? Legacy is GPL and FMOD is incompatible with the GPL so these licenses cannot be mixed in any way. Conclusion: Legacy is illegal! :P

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Graf Zahl said:

Emulating Legacy's 'MAP' command isn't really that hard. It took me 10 minutes to implement. The thing that probably requires a MAPINFO lump is the music. ZDoom doesn't prefix music names automatically so D_RUNNIN is D_RUNNIN but never O_RUNNIN and so on. This means that the map starts with Doom's music until the script changes it.


In legacy D_ means Midi/Mus
and O_ means Mp3.

As for the light, I find it that GZdoom draws most of the world brighter than I get in Legacy. Specially the brighter lightleveled areas.

As you can see in these comparision shots, GZdoom shows it brighter. Except for in the far away darker areas, where Legacy is showing it brigther than GZdoom:
GZdoom
Legacy

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kristus said:

In legacy D_ means Midi/Mus
and O_ means Mp3.


I know. In my opinion it's a completely needless distinction. ZDoom (and therefore GZDoom don't care about prefixes and I had to add some additional checks to the FS changemusic function (although the engine still doesn't care about the contents. If you want to play 'music1', it first looks for a lump called 'music1', then for 'o_music1' and finally for 'd_music1'.) But I won't change the default handling because that might interfere with other things.

As for the light, I find it that GZdoom draws most of the world brighter than I get in Legacy. Specially the brighter lightleveled areas.


That's the depth fog. Legacy only has a global density setting for that that is applied to all light levels. GZDoom uses adaptive depth fog that is denser in dark areas. As a result bright areas are brighter than in Legacy but dark areas are considerably darker because everything fades to black at a much closer distance. But I added a new light mode to the latest version that is closer to what Legacy does. I still have to fine tune it though to make it match better.

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I know it's the depth fog. I applied it for that very reason my self.

But Legacy is still brighter than software Doom here, but GZdoom is even brighter. So I don't think anyone will have any problem seeing anything. Which is a pity, because it could obscure all the bugs if they couldn't. :p

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I've yet to try phobia. Holy Hell, was insane, it's a lesson in masochism for even the seasoned doomer. God mode and weapon wads made this a little more interesting. Map05, was fuckin funny.

I was running in software render and it was running like my molasses on my comp. It gave me that nostalgic feeling of playing high detail wads on a shitty PII 233mhz again.

It was real amusing seeing my AMD64 2.2ghz /w a gig of RAM put to its knees by an ancient game like Doom. But if I used the openGL render, would've been a different story.

DeathCiS, and skytempl were real fun short maps to play through.

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Graf Zahl said:

But how can Legacy use FMOD? Legacy is GPL and FMOD is incompatible with the GPL so these licenses cannot be mixed in any way. Conclusion: Legacy is illegal! :P


Lets not even go into all of ZDooms conflicting licences.

And when I re-upload sarin with some music the text file might fix itself. Or I'll bug someone until it is.

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You played Holy Hell and didn't get past the second battle? Tsk tsk tsk

I'm in the process of playing it right now, although I am a wimp and I'm playing it on skill 2... my computer can't handle 20,000 monsters in one map at once.

7,000 is more managable.

Nonetheless this map is HUGE, SIMPLE, FUN.

I recommend skill 1 and 2 for slower computers myself... but play maps 1 through 4 on UV for a Holy Hell experience.

I personally think this map deserves the more suitable title of Holy Shit.

Or Holy F**k.

You start off in a room, where you walk and teleport away... then you find yourself in a courtyard with 12 pillars surrounding a small hill with a button. You press it, and zombies and shotgun guys rape you as well as imps. The need for the ammo that the zombies drop is obvious, as this first battle was quite a challenge. Then you press the button and you reveal a huge wall of revenants and they all shoot at you. They never hit me, I ran in circles, got their fireballs into one very bright one, and then directed it into the area behind the wall where that fireball destroyed the monsters - but that place is only opened up from behind a marble cube on the other end.

But then there is a series of battles in a castle, very difficult and very fun, with a rather creative use of wolfenstein textures and SS soldiers.

Afterwards, more large areas are open up including a satanic church and a massive field of demons. The final battles are the hardest and largest, with about 1,500 monsters (on Easy)...4,000 on hard, in one single room. It lags. I ran. I died. And after all that, one hundred archviles teleport out and bring them all back.

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Martin Howe said:

That's a bit unfair. I do have Legacy installed but it gives me so much trouble and interference with Windows that I only use it when necessary and would rather it just went away.

What interference with Windows are you experiencing? The only interference I see is the changing of the volume -- which, by the way, seems to be a bug in Allegro, which they seem to be using because of its mass platform independence -- and I have that solved with a small program my roommate wrote called "vol_save.exe."

Note that I'm not disputing that there is "so much interference with Windows," I'm merely curious and would like to know about any interference I'm not noticing.

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rrwoods said:

What interference with Windows are you experiencing? The only interference I see is the changing of the volume -- which, by the way, seems to be a bug in Allegro, which they seem to be using because of its mass platform independence -- and I have that solved with a small program my roommate wrote called "vol_save.exe."

Note that I'm not disputing that there is "so much interference with Windows," I'm merely curious and would like to know about any interference I'm not noticing.


The sound volume issue is certainly the most annoying problem. But Allegro seems to be a pretty bad library overall that causes many issues, ranging from random crashes to slow graphics display. General instability appears to be the main issue because so many users seem to have it. As Legacy 2.0 Beta doesn't exhibit any of those on my system I'm quite sure that Allegro is the guilty party for all of it as the new version is using SDL instead.

Right now I am at a point that I don't install new software when the readme says that it uses Allegro. I can't trust it anymore. Fortunately this library is so rarely used.

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Phobia is amazing, it really shows off the hidden potential of Legacy. 3D floors are used to great lengths without seeming forced. Also the 'Fate of Atlantis' type "Brains/Brawn" paths are a creative way to extend longevity. Great Work Kristus!

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Carribean was another fun map, it felt original. Finished Phobia. Legacy is a sack of shit that crashes constantly for no reason other than it's sexual orientation. Nevertheless it was a necessary evil in order for Kristus to accomplish his creative vision.

I liked what I played, although the gameplay in some parts wasn't to my liking. Hexenesque element of it was kickin. There was moments of frustration, part of it due to being clueless as to what to do next. The other part possibly, scripting glitch or two.

I also found monsters in Myst mode. Unique from any other Doom mod I've played. Me likey.

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GZdoom FAILS at emulating phobia, because the main lighteffects- coronas, ARE NOT THERE! HEH! figures, as graf is too lazy/don't know how to code it in. oh , graff, by the way, if you can't run legacy, then you'll be happy to know I CANT RUN GZDOOM. it hardlocks. ^_^

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That's just like saying "Anyone who maps for Doom fails it. It's buggy, old, and it's frikin dead.". I think you may have dropped your brain somewhere along the way. Might want to go back and look for it.

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Xtife said:

anyone who maps for legacy fails it
its buggy, its old, ITS FRIKIN DEAD

You're always more popular if you sway with apparent public opinion

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Xtife said:
its the truth, someone has to say it :)

You better be on April fools mode, because you're wearing the clownboat hat already anyway. Idiots have said such things ever since back when Quake was released, or even before that. In your clueless and lame state, you are the one who is dead.

A game or an engine isn't dead because it hasn't had a recent release, nor is it dead if it has some bug (or otherwise doesn't work) on this or that chimp's computer, or because some other engine attempts to "replace" it.

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i wouldn't say it's strictly dead; if anything, it continues in a state of undeath- despite the sporadic legacy map released now and then, popular opinion regards it with distaste, it hasn't updated in close to 2 years, it's had a long history of bugs and problems. each of these by themselves cause damage, but combine the three (the latest version is buggy as hell, said bugs haven't been fixed in 2 years, which only worsens public opinion) makes it pretty much a zombie, kept alive only by GZ's diligence with gzdoom (thanks a bunch, btw, potentially the best port ever) and infrequent map releases.

[edit] i like how my posts get randomly edited with unclosed parentheses and everything.

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rrwoods said:

What interference with Windows are you experiencing? The only interference I see is the changing of the volume

That is the only one I have noticed of late, but it is damned annoying. Since future Legacy versions won't have the sound problem, it might be worth a try in the future, but for now I just remember that it gave me various crashes.

I think Legacy is suffering from from the problem of a few serious bugs in the past causing people like me to dump it ages ago; by now some of those may well have been fixed, but people have already turned to other source ports.

The other big downer with Legacy is its lack of support for Heretic and HeXen. I'm a firm believer in the principle of the one-stop-shop and my so-called "(G)ZDoom Bigotry" is based on the fact that (G)ZDoom supports ALL five games (yes, including Strife) and with enhanced ACS, PLUS almost total DeHackEd support PLUS, now, OpenGL, PLUS an advanced monster definition language. In other words, it is the most all-round capable port and it gives me what I want for day-to-day gaming and that is why I use it for almost everything. Naturally, I don't like to have to change ports, even temporarily, just to run one WAD, no matter how good that WAD may be. Couple that with the slow development/maintainance of Legacy and overall, using Legacy is really too much trouble unless a WAD requires it.

At the end of the day, people vote with their feet (or in this case their mice) and Legacy has just got too far behind in the race for there to be a compelling reason for its continued existence. The "undeath"/"zombie" remark in the previous post is unfortunately not too far off the mark.

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Csonicgo said:

by the way, if you can't run legacy, then you'll be happy to know I CANT RUN GZDOOM. it hardlocks. ^_^

Sure, but unlike with Legacy, if you report it (in more than just a terse note on the news forum), it is likely to be fixed in a reasonable time as it is being proactively updated. How many years do I have to wait for the next update to Legacy (August 1004 and counting...) :P?

EDIT: Sorry, 2004, but it feels like 1004 :)

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Csonicgo said:

GZdoom FAILS at emulating phobia, because the main lighteffects- coronas, ARE NOT THERE! HEH! figures, as graf is too lazy/don't know how to code it in.



Remember: GZDoom is not Legacy! Also:

I wrote in my news post:
But please keep in mind that although it seems to work now it is still made for Legacy and is not expected to run without the occasional glitch and I haven't seriously played it myself. Proceed at your own risk!


In other words: You have no reason to complain. And if you have problems there are better ways to sort them out than just saying 'It doesn't work.' How am I supposed to do something about it without any feedback?

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Martin Howe said:

The other big downer with Legacy is its lack of support for Heretic and HeXen.


Legacy have supported Heretic for ages. (since 2000 or something) and the public alpha version of the C++ version of Legacy support Hexen.

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