Quasar

Little known fact: the iPod's firmware contains a copy of the Small AMX, the same scripting system that Eternity is using. It was found by someone looking at a firmware update package, and they confirmed from strings in the binary that the interpreter is inside. What is it used for? My idea is that it could be employed in some kind of media authentication, wherein a file needs to contain a compiled Small script in the header which can be run to authenticate the file. Just an idea though. It could be used for anything else too, but if the code isn't being downloaded into the machine, I wouldn't know what the use of a script interpreter would be. If there's ever any "digital rights management" issues with the iPod later on, the knowledge of what virtual machine its scripts use could be a serious weakness :)

DOOM really was probably meant to support flats and sprites in PWADs, but the wad directory code that was used in the original engine didn't reorganize the main wad directory properly so that it would work right (which probably means id never tested using sprites or flats from a PWAD in the first place). See, the code in the renderer that uses sprites and flats expects the resource entries to be in one continuous block in the wad directory, because it makes lookup simpler. BOOM fixed this by adding a function called "W_CoalesceMarkedResources", which looks in ALL the loaded wads and then rearranges the in-memory copy of the master wad directory so that new sprites and flats end up in a linear block with the original ones.

Pfft, Half-Life?? I would have voted for DOOM over SMB3 (I did not vote due to GameSpy's registration policies), but I wouldn't rank Half-Life over a classic like SMB3. Blah. This poll may be fun to watch, but it won't prove anything :P Of course, really, what other game besides Super Metroid could possibly deserve the title of "best game ever?" ;) Once it was out of the line-up, I lost interest :P

Must be an SDL issue. I was going to re-enable the MIDI volume control for Windows, but it causes the balance to be set to far left on my machine any time I move it, so I have left it disabled until the SDL guys fix it (if they ever do; they're pretty lax about ever getting anything done it seems).

Another victory against the American goal of complete economic/political hegemony. The gulf that is developing between the US and EU is a GOOD thing, because it gives us a hope for escaping the nightmarish globalism (which is NOT, IMO, true capitalism, but more like a reverse fascism where industry controls the government) that is threatening to turn this world into something far worse than even Orwell could imagine. The global monopolies and their pet governments frighten me far more than any threat of terrorism. Far better to die than to live in a world with no liberties or freedoms, and where the only value is the almighty dollar.

No, v1.9 demo recording is not in 3.31b6, but it may be added in the next version. Also, Graf Zahl, Eternity does not abort on a LOT of errors which DOOM did abort on. The map that SargeBaldy is talking about does not have a missing texture, it has a texture which has no patch in a column. This is malformatted, bad data. Textures are not supposed to be allowed to have any columns without patches. The action needed to fix such an error is not obvious to me, nor do I particularly relish the idea of compensating for every possible data format error, just to allow people to make inappropriate levels which still work. I still remember a day when you could do everything right, and stuff still wouldn't work sometimes. Now map editors have been spoiled into expecting every port to automatically fix any mistake they make, at the cost of an explosion in error-checking and correction code. Meh.

Last time I tried, nuts3.wad ran fine, aside from not even getting 1 FPS on my machine.

I'll consider it, but the beta stuff would come in a separate optional package if I added it back, and not in the main port archive like it did with MBF. It's definitely not worth inflating the engine when only a few people will be interested in it. I also would probably not go to the trouble of adding stuff back like the old beta cheat codes (like AMO and GOD). Lee wanted it to be as authentic as he could manage, but I don't think it ultimately really adds anything to the experience.

There's an EDF patch available for beta 5 that fixes some sound problems, among other possible issues. You can grab the zip on the Eternity page, and then dump it in wherever you've installed Eternity, choosing to overwrite files. This doesn't fix the apparently still-broken LFN drag and drop issue. Until someone decides to help me alpha test this feature for the next version, it will remain broken. I'm accepting volunteers, in other words.

Actually, I think I've heard one or two of the DOOM II maps can cause a buffer overflow when saved in Ultra Violence, but I'm not sure. MAP30 certainly would have, if the boss brain bug hadn't kept save games from loading on that map in the first place ;)

The original engine used a static array to write the savegame data into -- if the total size of all data saved into the buffer (this includes things, active sector data, some fields off of sectors and lines, etc) was more than that amount, it would just quit. This was just poorly coded, and clearly didn't have much effort put into it, since it was very simple to make the buffer expandable after the source release. DOOM had a lot of stuff like this -- the fundamental engine technology was wonderful, but the surrounding support code was barely sufficient in most cases.

Small is not usable yet. Beta 6 will probably be the first beta with documented Small support.

Incidents of problems with prboom seem to be on a serious rise. I think the rate of development is outrunning the rate of maintenance programming, personally. If I were proff right now, I'd take some time out to fix some of the oustanding issues. I know for a fact that prboom contains a lot of code lifted directly from SMMU v3.30, and does not contain any of the bug fixes I have written in Eternity. Some of those problems are very serious and lead to stability issues like the ones that are beginning to manifest in complaint threads on the forums.

Probably some time this month ^_^

I think we should be looking at why so many people need these sex-drive and arousal enhancing drugs now. Maybe it could have something to do with the ridiculous and in many cases unattainable standards we hold on our bodies and our sexuality.

I've never been told about this before. I will investigate it. Generalized doors *should* act exactly like normal doors.

Look, I'm all for user feature requests, but there are some things I don't consider worth the effort. This would be one of them. It's not hard to start a demo recording off the command line, or to use the frontend to accomplish it.

I don't believe this is possible with the way things currently work, though I could be wrong.

BTW, Heretic armor is better than DOOM armor. In Heretic, the silver shield protects you from 50%, and the enchanted shield protects you from a whopping 75% of damage.

I'm mentioned 17 times in the /idgames archive: Levels by David Gevert (DaGGeR): 1. Base of Deathmatch (baseofdm.zip) 2. D.G. Deathmatch #1 (1dgdm1.zip) 3. D.G. Deathmatch #1 (2dgdm1.zip) 4. Earthbase3 (base3v2.zip) I am credited in these maps for beta testing and "for being cool." Levels by Joe Becht (Recidivus): 5. The Recession (jb-reces.zip) 6. Perchance to Dream (jb-dream.zip) 7. Bereft (jb-berft.zip) I am credited for playtesting, creating the fog COLORMAP for Bereft, and for "being a fantastic mentor." Source Ports: 8. MBF (mbf.zip) - Lee Killough -- credited for playtesting 9. Eternity Engine v3.29 'Gamma' Source Code (ee329g-src.zip) 10. Eternity Engine v3.29 'Gamma' Win32 (ee329g-win32.zip) 11. Eternity Engine v3.29 'Gamma' MS-DOS (ee329g-dos.zip) Consulting, scripting and coding support: 12. SWAD Pack 1: Stock CS Weapons (swad.zip) - by BlackFish 13. SWAD Pack 2: Custom CS Weapons (swad2.zip) - by BlackFish 14. Caverns of Darkness (cc-cod.zip) - by The Chaos Crew 15. Ni'mRoD: IXNAY on the HOMBRE (nimrod.zip) - by UNHOLY software I helped BlackFish learn EDF, provided coding support for CoD's custom Eternity mod, and wrote some FraggleScript for Ni'mRoD -- note the archives search won't find this one because I'm only mentioned in a text file inside the zip. Level editing: 16. Mock 2: The Speed of Stupid (mock2.zip) - various authors I did one map for this project, MAP03, "Fortress of Moooo!" Stuff I don't know why I'm credited for: 17. Frenzy D.M. (frenzy.zip) - by Fyrestorm and Kurt Kesler

Yes, savegames in vanilla DOOM II (or in any lack-luster port that doesn't fix it) will crash on reload if any boss shooter is active. The problem is that the boss shooter init'd it's spots when it woke up, and then just assumed they were valid from then on. So as soon as it tries to shoot a cube, the venetian blinds of death will close. BOOM fixed this by removing the limit on spawn spots and making them be initialized once at level startup, instead of once per boss brain awakening. There's no way a boss shooter could try to use the targets without them existing first under that system :->

Mancubus.net is gonna be down for a while, so no Eternity downloads until it's back :/ I don't think Doomworld ever mirrored the latest version (they're still on something like beta 2 ::hisses like a vampire at the mention of it::). And even if they did, you'd have to contend with 3D Downloads to get ahold of it. Doomworld needs a better file server :P

Probably not. The accelerative mouse code was added intentionally because many people had previously complained about the mouse code that is used in the DOS version, saying it was not enough like DOOM's mouse code. I think when it comes to this kind of thing, it is very hard to please everyone. However, we can look into the issue and possibly provide alternate mouse behavior for those who want something more traditional. Not being a mouse user puts me at a disadvantage for having a feel for this kind of stuff.

I wish, but not yet. I doubt that'll make beta 6 as it hasn't been started yet heheh.

It's a fun project to work on, it should be fun to play when it's done, it will show off some Eternity features, and it has encouraged me to accelerate development of the port. Beta 6 is going to have a mind-blowing number of new features.