Why does ZDoom have sharper resolution than GZDoom? And can GZDoom replicate that sharpness?

[Dweller Dark]

I've been messing around with both GZDoom and ZDoom, and I've noticed that ZDoom's resolution is way crispier than GZDoom, along with shadows being handled differently. I'm curious as to if both are capable of being that sharp, or if it's something specific to ZDoom itself.

[Bauul]

You're probably comparing the Software renderer found in ZDoom with the default settings of the Hardware renderer in GZDoom. GZDoom contains both: you can flip between them in the Display Settings menu. The basic Software renderer in GZDoom looks more or less identical to the ZDoom one. 

 

You might also be using the default Trilinear Texture Filtering on the GZDoom hardware mode, that makes all the textures super blurry. If you go into Display Settings, Hardware, Texture Settings and change "Texture Filtering" to "None", that will clear a lot of that up.

 

GZDoom has an absolute wealth of display settings, I'd recommend having a play around with them to find a look you like.

[Dweller Dark]

48 minutes ago, Bauul said:

You're probably comparing the Software renderer found in ZDoom with the default settings of the Hardware renderer in GZDoom. GZDoom contains both: you can flip between them in the Display Settings menu. The basic Software renderer in GZDoom looks more or less identical to the ZDoom one. 

 

You might also be using the default Trilinear Texture Filtering on the GZDoom hardware mode, that makes all the textures super blurry. If you go into Display Settings, Hardware, Texture Settings and change "Texture Filtering" to "None", that will clear a lot of that up.

 

GZDoom has an absolute wealth of display settings, I'd recommend having a play around with them to find a look you like.

 

What is the basic software renderer in GZDoom? SoftPoly? If that's it, it stutters a lot on my system. But I'll look at the texture filtering and see if it looks better turned off.

 

Edit: Turning texture filtering and forced aspect ratio off made it a lot sharper, though the SoftPoly renderer gives me heavy stutter, unlike the rest of the renderers.

Edited January 12, 2021 by DavetheDoomguy
Added info

[Gez]

There are three (or four, depending on how you count) renderers in GZDoom:

1. The hardware renderer (the one that may count for two, since it supports OpenGL and Vulkan, though they share most of the same code)
2. The SoftPoly renderer is an experimental outgrowth of the hardware renderer: it still polygonizes the world, but instead of sending the polygons to the OpenGL or Vulkan backend, it sends them to a software backend.
3. The original software renderer, also referred to as "Carmack renderer". This is the one from ZDoom. It's available in 8-bit paletted and 32-bit truecolor modes; if you want speed in software mode go with paletted.

[Dweller Dark]

9 hours ago, Gez said:

There are three (or four, depending on how you count) renderers in GZDoom:

1. The hardware renderer (the one that may count for two, since it supports OpenGL and Vulkan, though they share most of the same code)
2. The SoftPoly renderer is an experimental outgrowth of the hardware renderer: it still polygonizes the world, but instead of sending the polygons to the OpenGL or Vulkan backend, it sends them to a software backend.
3. The original software renderer, also referred to as "Carmack renderer". This is the one from ZDoom. It's available in 8-bit paletted and 32-bit truecolor modes; if you want speed in software mode go with paletted.

 

The only ones that show up are Vulkan, OpenGL, and SoftPoly. How do you access the hardware and software renderers?

[seed]

6 minutes ago, DavetheDoomguy said:

The only ones that show up are Vulkan, OpenGL, and SoftPoly. How do you access the hardware and software renderers?

 

Either from the game selector at startup, or from Options -> Video Mode.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Here's Dwars' tutorial  if you want to use software render. He uses an older gzdoom, but it should be the same

[Dweller Dark]

2 minutes ago, seed said:

 

Either from the game selector at startup, or from Options -> Video Mode.

 

I never see it at startup, but I did find it in Video Mode beneath the renderer selection (Vulkan, OpenGL, and SoftPoly one)

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

There's also a mod called vanilla essence (I think that's how it's written) that will make you game look like vanilla-crispy doom (software render)

[Yandere_Doomer]

i dont like messing with my graphics....im fine with how they are...

 

[seed]

9 minutes ago, DavetheDoomguy said:

I never see it at startup, but I did find it in Video Mode beneath the renderer selection (Vulkan, OpenGL, and SoftPoly one)

 

You should, unless you've disabled the game selector altogether so it skips that stage when GZDoom starts.

[Dweller Dark]

22 minutes ago, seed said:

 

You should, unless you've disabled the game selector altogether so it skips that stage when GZDoom starts.

 

I am using DoomLauncher, so maybe that's why? Either way, I got things how it looks in ZDoom, and it's good to know where everything is. Plus, the lag in the SoftPoly renderer mostly fixed itself once I changed everything else, except the fade-in screen.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

You could also use LZDoom, it's good for old machines (like mine)

it's basically gzdoom for older machines

[Dweller Dark]

2 minutes ago, Lol 6 said:

You could also use LZDoom, it's good for old machines (like mine)

it's basically gzdoom for older machines

 

I do have LZDoom, but both ZDoom and GZDoom seem to work fine on my laptop. Though I'll probably use ZDoom because it looks better to me and is a bit simpler than GZDoom, unless it's to run a mod or something and requires GZDoom.

[Gez]

1 hour ago, DavetheDoomguy said:

I am using DoomLauncher, so maybe that's why?

Yep. The IWAD selector only pops up if it isn't told what IWAD to use, and an external launcher like the one you use will tell it that.

[Dweller Dark]

6 minutes ago, Gez said:

Yep. The IWAD selector only pops up if it isn't told what IWAD to use, and an external launcher like the one you use will tell it that.

 

I think I understand what you're talking about, the IWAD selector is that small menu that appears when you run GZDoom normally, right?

[Gez]

Yeah. In addition to IWAD selection, there's a bunch of buttons related to starting video mode and whether to load some optional resources (dynamic light definitions, sprite brightmaps, widescreen graphics).