Renderer upgrades?

[david_a]

I didn't want to derail the scripting thread, but are there plans to increase the max resolution and uncap the framerate anytime soon? A fancy scripting language is certainly cool but to be honest I'm not going to spend a lot of time using a port that's stuck at 1024x768 35fps. Nearly all modern computers will either have a 5:4 1280x1024 panel or a widescreen display, neither of which will display a 4:3 resolution optimally.

[SoM]

david_a said:

I didn't want to derail the scripting thread, but are there plans to increase the max resolution and uncap the framerate anytime soon? A fancy scripting language is certainly cool but to be honest I'm not going to spend a lot of time using a port that's stuck at 1024x768 35fps. Nearly all modern computers will either have a 5:4 1280x1024 panel or a widescreen display, neither of which will display a 4:3 resolution optimally.

We've been throwing around the framerate cap problem, but as of yet we haven't resolved the issues of doing so and maintaining demo comp to my satisfaction. As far as the resolution cap, yeah, that's in the plans... somewhere... I think it's near the bottom of my todo list.

[Quasar]

I already did some ground work for raising the rescap, btw, by moving the video buffers off the zone heap. They're on the C heap now, so having them grow indefinitely large is not such an issue ;)

As for uncapping the framerate, PrBoom+ does it just fine without sacrificing compatibility. It does this via frame interpolation. The code's not too pretty, though, and as Graf Zahl mentioned in the Dynasegs thread, it may present a challenge for polyobjects. At any rate I'm not opposed to supporting it; it'll just default to "off" when we implement it, since I've never cared much for it - makes the game feel very weird to me :)

[Butts]

i like playing doom with 120+ fps, its always nice to have ridiculously smooth visuals. i didn't know eternity was capped at 35 fps though, its kind of a turn off for me... still love the port though, neatest features by far.

unrelated question: is it possible to have more than 1 linked portal? i started mapping for eternity and was working on a complex caste-like level and was going to have more than 1 linked portal in view at once (ends up i'm planning on having 4) and i have a floor portal and a ceiling portal in the same sector, but where the ceiling is, its HOM and the floor portal becomes impassible. maybe i'm just doing it wrong... any help is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

[esselfortium]

Butts said:

question: is it possible to have more than 1 linked portal? i started mapping for eternity and was working on a complex caste-like level and was going to have more than 1 linked portal in view at once (ends up i'm planning on having 4) and i have a floor portal and a ceiling portal in the same sector, but where the ceiling is, its HOM and the floor portal becomes impassible. maybe i'm just doing it wrong... any help is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

Yes, it is possible. I think the limit is rendering 8 portals inside each other, and that's a hard limit that was intentionally added to prevent incorrectly-made portals (or endless looping hallways, or something else to that effect) from being able to either lock up the game or cause major slowdown.

It can get very confusing, though, to set up the sector tags for areas with multiple portals above each other.

[Quasar]

A single portal could have any number of other portals visible within it. The limit which essel refers to is a limit on the number of times that a *single* given portal will render during the same frame. And yes, that limit is necessary to prevent infinite recursion between the same or multiple portals.

[esselfortium]

Ahh, okay. I thought it might be that, but I wasn't sure.

[printz]

What the hell is the problem with 35fps? Isn't that enough? The human eye has probably fewer images per second, anyway.

[myk]

printz said:
The human eye has probably fewer images per second, anyway.

The human eye doesn't work that way.