3.33.50 'Phoenix' Progress Report

[Quasar]

Here's a report on what's going on for the upcoming 3.33.50 'Phoenix' release:

* Joe is currently working on some new Hexen line types, including pillars and waggle floors.

* I am currently finishing up the "secret feature" which many people actually know about. As part of this, I've given EE the ability to use multiple column drawing engines (via a structure bearing function pointers to all the relevant drawing functions). This will enable Eternity to restore the old-school low-detail mode from Chocolate Doom's source.

* Finishing sound sequences has been put off til last because they're annoying me :P

[Murdoch]

Quasar said:

This will enable Eternity to restore the old-school low-detail mode

Ummm.... yay?

[Quasar]

Low Detail...


... and High Detail! Yay.

[Murdoch]

Yay, now I can make my fave 12 year old game look even worse! :P

[Graf Zahl]

Novelty factor = 5
Usefulness factor = 0


Honestly, who needs crappification mode anymore - except to be totally nostalgic - but even then it should only be used in 320x200. ;)

[entryway]

Quasar said:

* I am currently finishing up the "secret feature" which many people actually know about. As part of this, I've given EE the ability to use multiple column drawing engines (via a structure bearing function pointers to all the relevant drawing functions). This will enable Eternity to restore the old-school low-detail mode from Chocolate Doom's source.

http://prboom-plus.sourceforge.net/history.html

[+] New Screen Multiple system (like in chocolate-doom) and Interlaced Scanning for this. (emulators and TV style)

That?
It was done in PrBoom-Plus ideally and very fast. In difference from Chocolate Doom.

[Quasar]

This will make more sense in context of the secret feature; just wait and see. All I'll say is that it's oldschool.

At any rate, it barely took much code or work to restore this, and in the process it also allowed me to let people use both the old unoptimized column drawer (which might be important if the quad cache proves to not work on some 64-bit machines later), and the old-fashioned flat drawers with low precision that warp the floors really bad when you get close or play in hires and mlook downward (some purists may prefer the fuzzy look, personally I don't ;)

Also you might wanna consider that on some really older machines, this could provide a speed boost. The higher your resolution, the less it degrades the picture. At 640x400 even it makes much less difference (the resulting horizontal resolution is still 320 rather than 160 as it would normally be).

[myk]

That should be true; I find 320x400 to be an attractive resolution for Quake, for example.

[Hobbs]

Graf Zahl said:

Novelty factor = 5 2
Usefulness factor = 0 -20

It was cute to keep in Chocolate Doom, and since it was part of vanilla I'd expect it in there anyway. But for Eternity its just there and serves even less purpose than in Chocolate, which there appeared to be trueness to exe and nostalgia, but you arent getting a whole lot of either in Eternity so...

[Quasar]

I don't understand what the deal is with people not recognizing EE's efforts to remain like DOOM. The secret feature will help with this to a small degree. I'm tempted to reveal it early now :P

Just remember, simply because you can run EE with a bunch of cool high-tech features doesn't mean it can't still act almost just like DOOM. That happens to be one of its main selling points, so to speak.

[myk]

And "usefulness" is only about half the reason to do something, when it matters; and in this case the feature was already pretty much done beforehand anyway (from Chocolate Doom.)

[Grazza]

As a teaser for the secret feature, this appears to have fallen a bit flat. :p

While not excited about this feature in its own right (I'm perfectly happy with 1680x1050...), I can see a use for this as helping with tracking down VPOs (together with the existing VPO detection feature) when testing maps for vanilla compatibility. And I await the secret feature.

Also, it's good that it isn't described misleadingly as double detail, as in, um, certain ports.

[Quasar]

I doubt the secret feature will make people jump up and down either, but that's not really the point. Since 3.33.50 is dedicated to Toke, I wanted to add something to it that had an oldschool DOOM purist touch. Something that otherwise only Chocolate Doom can still claim. That something is something that has been a source of problems for EE in the past and was recently the subject of a giant rewrite/reorganization effort.

(I have just dropped you a giant hint :P )

[Mordeth]

So:

• Chocolate Doom has it
  
• Toke would have liked it
  
• It's an "oldschool purist touch"
  
• Source of recent trouble in EE and subject of massive rewrite
  
• The ability to use multiple column drawing engines is part of this new feature

...which leaves me with absolutely zero ideas, since whatever I can come up with does not comply to one of those clues?

[Quasar]

Well I said Toke might have liked it. Or he might not have cared either way :P The point is, it's something that, when activated, brings EE closer to vanilla in a way that has, up until now, been considered an area where compatibility was not particularly important.

[entryway]

...Toke...

All this starts to resemble profiteering on death :( IMO. Sorry.

[Quasar]

Sorry but that's a ridiculous accusation. EE 3.33.50 is dedicated to Toke's memory. It's not trying to "capitalize" on anything, let alone something that was a tragedy. Toke helped me with debugging Eternity on several occasions; it's the least I can do to give him a final honor. The secret feature is something I have planned to work on for quite some time, but never saw it as being very important. With Toke's passing, I decided it would be a nice little something extra to add to the version that will be dedicated to him, seeing how he liked the oldschool DOOM.

For that matter, how would trying to capitalize on death improve the standing of my port in any way, shape, or form? What you have said doesn't even make sense and seems like flamebait to me.

[Csonicgo]

Quasar said:

I doubt the secret feature will make people jump up and down

Hmm.

this wouldn't have anything to do with -left and -right parameters, would it?

[entryway]

Quasar said:

and seems like flamebait to me.

not in this life

[Quasar]

Csonicgo said:

Hmm.

this wouldn't have anything to do with -left and -right parameters, would it?

'Fraid not, although that would be pretty cool. I don't think Chocolate Doom itself has fixed the offset views yet (correct me if I'm wrong ;)

entryway: very well then. Let us call it a misunderstanding and be done with it :)

[Murdoch]

entryway - that was an incredibly cheap shot.

Quasar - ah, I get it now. That's very nice. I didn't know this release was dedicated to Toke. Truth be told I'd never even heard of the guy, but my comparitively limited involvement with Doom, especially on the IRC and DM fronts, is really responsible for that.

[Mordeth]

entryway said:
(Something retarded)

What kind of complete mong are you? Seriously, I want to know.

[Mordeth]

JoelMurdoch said:
Quasar - ah, I get it now. That's very nice.

I still don't get it :P

[myk]

It's not MultiPlayer support?

[fraggle]

entryway said:

http://prboom-plus.sourceforge.net/history.html

[+] New Screen Multiple system (like in chocolate-doom) and Interlaced Scanning for this. (emulators and TV style)

That?
It was done in PrBoom-Plus ideally and very fast. In difference from Chocolate Doom.

If you're saying Chocolate Doom is slow then I should point out that low detail mode isn't one of my major concerns :-)

[Mordeth]

myk said:
It's not MultiPlayer support?

That's what I'm hoping, but that fails some of the clues we've been giving.

[fraggle]

Mordeth said:

So:

• Chocolate Doom has it
  
• Toke would have liked it
  
• It's an "oldschool purist touch"
  
• Source of recent trouble in EE and subject of massive rewrite
  
• The ability to use multiple column drawing engines is part of this new feature

...which leaves me with absolutely zero ideas, since whatever I can come up with does not comply to one of those clues?

I have discovered what the "secret feature" is. Quasar, you shouldn't brag about things when your source code is in a public version control system :-)

I won't give away the surprise, though.

[entryway]

fraggle said:

If you're saying Chocolate Doom is slow then I should point out that low detail mode isn't one of my major concerns :-)

I know. I wait from Chocolate of an excellent multiplayer. To steal it!

[Quasar]

fraggle said:

I have discovered what the "secret feature" is. Quasar, you shouldn't brag about things when your source code is in a public version control system :-)

I won't give away the surprise, though.

I never said it was impossible to find out what the secret feature was if you went looking for it ;)

BTW, multiplayer will be in the next version of WinMBF thanks to anarkavre, but not EE. That's still a good way off I'm afraid. For example, the console rewrite has to be done first, and that'll be nearly as big a deal as the ... other recent rewrite was...

[Anders]

Oh! I hope it's the thing I actually once considered doing, but never did. (I did a test hack of it though)