[FINAL RELEASE] Eviternity

[alps]

On 12/20/2020 at 11:19 PM, Xeriphas1994 said:

 

They can be, but it's mostly associated with vintage wads or incomplete complevel implementations. Is there a specific map here you think is buggy?

prboom doesnt need reject lumps to load levels. nor does eternity engine (latest). however this is what i've done. i've rebuilt the wad's nodes, reject lumps and blockmap using zennode. then i've took out all the reject lumps from the new wad and put them on the original wad (so blockmap and nodes are left untouched), then i've loaded it in og mbf 2.03, and funny enough i didnt get crashes.

and it only gets better. you can avoid lag in large maps by changing dosbox's config file (allocate more memory and faster cpu thread).

also, it will work on a physical dos machine, i have tested but only with dos 7.10 (which is unofficial, haven't tried 6.22 yet) but i will when i get the chance

 

if there's anyone out there who wants to have a vintage experience of eviternity then you can try it out.

oh and mbf-snm 2.04 has better compatibility with eviternity as far as i'm concerned. just do cwsdpmi -x before running it.

[AnotherGrunt]

Wow, so many positive reactions. Well, thanks all. 

Problem with Eviternity (and most of new WADs) isn't fact that it contains vast levels but fact that it has been createad in Doom Builder 2 and it wasn't built and optimizer for old engines that relay on pure software BSP rendering. I thought it is a good engineering practice to optimize product (or WAD) before release but It seems to me, not anymore nowadays. It's realy shame because techicaly there is no obstacle to run this thing on DOS (ok, maybe map15 and some bigger maps are obstacle ;-))

If anything I encourage anyone to try Eviternity in DOS, especially developers (you'll see things you can't notice in modern GZdoom or similar port), but if it isn't your thing, it isn't your thing. (@seed) Ok.

 

On 1/5/2021 at 9:33 AM, alps said:

so blockmap and nodes are left untouched

 

It helps to rebuild everything. BSP traversal is then faster so it runs smoother. Eviternity is good WAD for my personal project where I render only vanilla limits and it's visible there:

https://imgur.com/a/mzsxdxM

 

It's smooth and beautiful experience.

 

On 1/5/2021 at 9:33 AM, alps said:

it will work on a physical dos machine, i have tested but only with dos 7.10 (which is unofficial, haven't tried 6.22 yet

Yup, exactly it works. Just little tweak, all it needs.

 

BTW, MAP06 i think is a bug:

 

So consider it as bug report.

[seed]

3 hours ago, AnotherGrunt said:

Problem with Eviternity (and most of new WADs) isn't fact that it contains vast levels but fact that it has been createad in Doom Builder 2 and it wasn't built and optimizer for old engines that relay on pure software BSP rendering. I thought it is a good engineering practice to optimize product (or WAD) before release but It seems to me, not anymore nowadays.

 

There is no "problem" here. Look, dude, seriously now, we understand that you like playing in DOS and DOS-like environments, but you're being inconsiderate at this point.

 

Granted, I am not speaking in the developers' name, but Eviternity was built with modern tools, for modern ports, there was never any intention to go above and beyond to support such arcane ways to play, let alone any testing done for it. You are part of a minority, one which is too small to be worth investing even more workhours to cater to, it was difficult enough to build what was built and is presented here, free of charge.

 

Respect the creators by playing it the way it was meant to be played, rather than insisting on something that is not going to happen. More power to you and others who want this - but as far as things go, that is your project and concern, not theirs.

Edited January 6, 2021 by seed

[DSC]

Looking at things like the new enemies and the gigantic landscapes, why would you wnat to play this on a DOS like software in the first place?

[Gifty]

Hey! This Christopher Nolan movie looks like shit on my black-and-white 5" tube TV from the 40s -- what gives!

Edited January 6, 2021 by Gifty

[BlueThunder]

@AnotherGrunt  Not sure if you know of its existence but you should check this out,  Kind of bridges the gap between modern source ports and dosbox. at least in my opinion.  I know Fabian has done alot to help make Eviternity as compatible as possible and Woof is a port of MBF for dos to modern windows basically.

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by BlueThunder

[AnotherGrunt]

@BlueThunder Hey, thanks! 

[Woolie Wool]

1 hour ago, DSC said:

Looking at things like the new enemies and the gigantic landscapes, why would you wnat to play this on a DOS like software in the first place?

Why not? I did (though not actually in DOS) and it looked great. That said, I don't think Eviternity on DOS MBF could ever happen, not least because the DOS extender will not be able to allocate enough memory for the larger maps.

[BlueThunder]

34 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Why not? I did (though not actually in DOS) and it looked great. That said, I don't think Eviternity on DOS MBF could ever happen, not least because the DOS extender will not be able to allocate enough memory for the larger maps.

I Have messed with it in dosbox myself just out of curiosity.

[kristus]

On 1/3/2021 at 11:11 PM, AnotherGrunt said:

@Horus

I do. I'm nobody?

What is the benefit you experience from playing on the legacy ports?

[AnotherGrunt]

@kristus Thanks for asking.

 

I have little tweaked Dosbox, caped execution speed around Pentium (first) level, tweaked MBF.exe so mostly the benefit I experience is the feeling. Like back on old HW but still works. And Eviternity is good (and beautiful) mod/WAD so I don't know. Probably not as much as benefit (for most modern players), but try and you'll see.

[kristus]

Yeah I think I get what you're saying.

[Dragonfly]

I think the DOS related discussion would be better suited to a thread of it's own instead of this release thread.

 

 

 

On 1/6/2021 at 7:07 PM, AnotherGrunt said:

I thought it is a good engineering practice to optimize product (or WAD) before release but It seems to me, not anymore nowadays.

Absolutely and utterly incorrect. We spent many an hour optimising Eviternity. Just because it doesn't run in some ancient environment it was never designed for doesn't mean we didn't attempt to put out a polished and optimised end product.

[Woolie Wool]

On 1/7/2021 at 3:10 PM, AnotherGrunt said:

@kristus Thanks for asking.

 

I have little tweaked Dosbox, caped execution speed around Pentium (first) level, tweaked MBF.exe so mostly the benefit I experience is the feeling. Like back on old HW but still works. And Eviternity is good (and beautiful) mod/WAD so I don't know. Probably not as much as benefit (for most modern players), but try and you'll see.

lol, no way in absolute hell is a Pentium 200 or 233 or whatever you're emulating going to run this wad. I tried running it in both PrBoom and Eternity on my 1733 MHz Athlon XP machine and it got absolutely annihilated. Just use a modern port and use resolution scaling to turn it down to 320x200.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Woolie Wool

[IvanDobrovski]

On 1/6/2021 at 10:07 PM, AnotherGrunt said:

I thought it is a good engineering practice to optimize product (or WAD) before release but It seems to me, not anymore nowadays. It's realy shame because techicaly there is no obstacle to run this thing on DOS (ok, maybe map15 and some bigger maps are obstacle ;-))

 

You'll be hard pressed to find apps today coming out that are well optimized for Win95 Pentium I or II... Stuck in the past?

 

On 1/6/2021 at 10:07 PM, AnotherGrunt said:

If anything I encourage anyone to try Eviternity in DOS, especially developers (you'll see things you can't notice in modern GZdoom or similar port), but if it isn't your thing, it isn't your thing.

Yeah they'll see things they can't notice in GZDoom, like bugs. A lot of them...

[Shepardus]

On 1/6/2021 at 11:07 AM, AnotherGrunt said:

I thought it is a good engineering practice to optimize product (or WAD) before release but It seems to me, not anymore nowadays.

"Optimization" has to have a target audience/goal you optimize for, otherwise what you're doing isn't optimizing, it's tilting at windmills. In the case of Eviternity, DOS MBF is not part of the targeted source ports. It targets PrBoom+ and GZDoom according to its txt, and runs great on both.

[AnotherGrunt]

On 1/8/2021 at 3:20 PM, Dragonfly said:

Just because it doesn't run in some ancient environment it was never designed for doesn't mean we didn't attempt to put out a polished and optimised end product.

 

Ok, then I'm really sorry for false accusations. I've got little confused with statement:

 

Quote

Eviternity is primarily an MBF format project

 

Probably just absurdly high hopes.

 

12 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

I tried running it in both PrBoom and Eternity on my 1733 MHz Athlon XP machine and it got absolutely annihilated.

 

In DOS? That can't be. Code for DOS is more optimized so on Athlon XP it has to fly like wild.

 

On 1/8/2021 at 3:20 PM, Dragonfly said:

I think the DOS related discussion would be better suited to a thread of it's own instead of this release thread.

 

 You're right. Sorry. I'm out then.

[dmslr]

40 minutes ago, AnotherGrunt said:

Ok, then I'm really sorry for false accusations. I've got little confused with statement:

 

Quote

Eviternity is primarily an MBF format project

 

Probably just absurdly high hopes.

So what? This means the wad uses MBF features. It doesn't say: "Works on any MBF port".

Edited January 9, 2021 by dmslr

[seed]

Same for Boom.

 

Nowadays, MBF and Boom really means such features are incorporated into the wads (aka Boom/MBF-compatible), not that they run under these executables.

 

Boom.exe and MBF.exe have been dead for decades, and no wads are tested on them anymore as modern ports long superseded them.

[Dragonfly]

On 1/8/2021 at 2:20 PM, Dragonfly said:

I think the DOS related discussion would be better suited to a thread of it's own instead of this release thread.

 

 

[dei_eldren]

Am playing this through on HNTR and just got to lvl4.  The set absolutely gorgeous, and the level designs are complex, intricate and have a great flow despite being not at all straightforward in progression - am not a fan of complex puzzles but thanks to the level design on map03 i had fun figuring out what i had missed.  Personally i was also happy that there's been good care taken to implement different difficulty-levels - HNTR feels just right, challenging but not exasperating.  Think i'll play this also through on HMP.

 

Incredible work - the effort and work of the designers is much appreciated!  Thank you.

Edited January 10, 2021 by dei_eldren

[Tasoulios]

I reached level 05 but when i save in it, it crashes.

 

Tried to save a bit later in the level, same crash.

 

I'm using zDOOM + Beautiful Doom mod. Never had such issue with any other MegaWad.

 

Edit: Here's the error:

 

Code: C0000005 (Access Violation - tried to read address 000002B993BFA140)
Address: 00007FF7E5FD034E
Flags: 00000000

Edited February 7, 2021 by Tasoulios

[Dragonfly]

Try playing without mods, or using a source port listed in the text file of Eviternity. This was not tested on the old ZDoom.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Dragonfly

[eirc]

Hello, I'm sorry if this has been mentioned before but I cannot find anythign... I have this issue in GZDoom where in the level end-screen, the total time is cut at the bottom of the screen:

 

 

Any ideas on any settings that may be affecting this? The only one I found was force aspect ratio and only 5:4 makes a change actually fixing this, but it also squishes everything else...

[Tasoulios]

8 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

Try playing without mods, or using a source port listed in the text file of Eviternity. This was not tested on the old ZDoom.

 

Sorry, i meant GZDoom, not the old zDOOM.

 

It does save with no crash if i disable the mod. But i don't understand why it's crashing only in level 5? Also, i played a ton of other mods with Beautiful Doom and they never had an issue.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Tasoulios

[Daerik]

4 hours ago, Tasoulios said:

 

Sorry, i meant GZDoom, not the old zDOOM.

 

It does save with no crash if i disable the mod. But i don't understand why it's crashing only in level 5? Also, i played a ton of other mods with Beautiful Doom and they never had an issue.

 

Level 5 and onwards starts using custom enemies that beautiful doom probably doesn't like.

[Tasoulios]

47 minutes ago, Daerik said:

 

Level 5 and onwards starts using custom enemies that beautiful doom probably doesn't like.

 

I thought that was the case but the only enemy it introduces is the new pinky demon. The same enemy appears in later levels (along with other new monsters) and i get no crash when i try to save.

 

Oh well. I guess this is impossible to troubleshoot. I just played the level without saving and moved on.

[Dragonfly]

@eirc That's a GZDoom thing I believe, likely caused by the resolution you have selected.

 

---

 

5 hours ago, Tasoulios said:

Oh well. I guess this is impossible to troubleshoot.

 

This is why I don't support mods with my releases. It creates potentially infinite extra work for almost no benefit.

[antares031]

2 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

This is why I don't support mods with my releases. It creates potentially infinite extra work for almost no benefit.

 

 

Instead of asking "Hey, why is this megawad not working with this gameplay mod?", people should ask "Hey, why is this gameplay mod not working with this megawad?"

[eirc]

6 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

@eirc That's a GZDoom thing I believe, likely caused by the resolution you have selected.

 

I play in 1920x1080. I tried different resolutions and the only one that makes a difference is again the 5:4 one (1280x1024) that fixes it and doesn't squish everything but well I now have half my screen black lol. All others cut it off at that same point. So from what I gather there's no fix for this?

Edited February 8, 2021 by eirc