Do you think GZDoom should have texture filtering on by default?

[ENEMY!!!]

I think the "on" default might be a hangover from earlier eras when most of us were playing with low screen resolutions.  At 320x240 or even 640x480, I generally prefer bilinear or trilinear texture filtering on.  Back in the 2000s, I always felt that it made Doom look more modern.  But I've recently been finding that at 1920x1080 resolution, I prefer it off in most cases.  The pixellation generally becomes less noticeable at higher resolutions, whereas the downsides of the smoothing of the filtering don't taper off as quickly. 

 

Human psychology shows that humans are often slow to adapt to changing situations.  I was no exception here, for many years I played Doom with trilinear filtering on at up to 1920x1080 resolution, not bothering to test how Nearest filtering worked.  What made me try out Nearest filtering was the comment in Makkon's Quake textures readme that "These textures were built for and look best in Nearest filtering."  With the higher texture resolution (generally 512x512) the pixellation of those textures is even less obvious.

[RDETalus]

44 minutes ago, ENEMY!!! said:

At 320x240 or even 640x480, I generally prefer bilinear or trilinear texture filtering on

same here, but I don't think we were still using those resolutions by the time ZDoom was available

[Professor Hastig]

That's weird. Independently of the game being played I always found texture filtering only ok if the resolution was higher, not lower. With 320x200 the filter only adds to the total loss of detail from the lack of pixels.

 

[s4f3s3x]

I enjoy playing at 640x400 on a 3024x1964 screen, but that's a subject for another topic

[banjiepixel]

Lower rendering resolution probably helps the texture filterng to blend better with rest of the visuals  Blurry filtered rendering of textures meant for SD resolutions combined with sharp edges of geometry rendered in HD resolutions just looks very inconsistent visually. Sharp geometry looks best with sharp textures. Even just displaying raw low resolution image without any actual upscaling on higher resolution screen will add naturally some blurriness so some extra texture filtering on top of that will stand out much less.

 

Doom is a game made for SD resolutions so it's assets will always look best when rendered in SD resolutions. GZDoom used to ship with low default resolution so texture filtering as default made more sense. Now that using the native screen resolution is the default setting, texture filtering makes the game look uglier than displaying the game in SD resolution.

[Red Recluse]

It is possible to build configurations on your chop without sin, but if you prefer default, just improve the graphics in general in the settings.

[RDETalus]

12 hours ago, Professor Hastig said:

With 320x200 the filter only adds to the total loss of detail from the lack of pixels.

Yes, but it helps smooth out the movement of the pixels.

 

Without the filtering, you would have wall textures that rapidly flash back and forth between different garish colors as you moved around the level. It would be hell on your eyes.

 

See how the black pipes on the green wall flash in and out of existence? Filtering eliminates that eye sore.

Edited July 11, 2023 by RDETalus

[Scuba Steve]

So has this stupid feature been turned of by default yet or what?

[Redneckerz]

42 minutes ago, Scuba Steve said:

So has this stupid feature been turned of by default yet or what?

Nope. And as such Graf's stance from 2018 still applies.

 

Quote

All I will say here is that the defaults is what I like. If I wanted I'd have changed them 10 years ago.

And if there's one thing the survey told me is that the opinion here on the forum may not necessarily match what the regular users prefer, best exemplified in the low 10% share of software renderer users overall.

 

[banjiepixel]

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

Edited July 11, 2023 by banjiepixel

[Shepardus]

5 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his mind.

Why should Graf care whether you choose to use GZDoom? I don't like texture filtering either, but boycotting a source port because its creator doesn't share the same opinion is just silly.

[Professor Hastig]

31 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

 

Oh yeah, right. And then?

 

LZDoom has been inactive for 1.5 years now and it doesn't look like anything will change about that. It's also a really outdated feature set by now.

And throwing around insults and threats isn't going to do any good, aside from running the risk that the developers may finally call it a day.

 

On the upside: I made a few suggestions to streamline the menu and they were quite well received and integrated into VkDoom already, so at least we can look forward to easier accessibility to the more important options. I don't expect to see much work here at the height of summer when people are more interested in doing different things than sitting in front of a computer, though. Patience is a virtue. ;)

 

So: If something bothers you, just talking and complaining is not going to change it, using hyperbole even less, and this thread is full of it. Try to actively do something about it. You may not get the perfect result, but sometimes an acceptable compromise may be almost as good.

 

 

 

[Mordeth]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

 

This attitude is... something else. It's a one-time action to just turn off that option yourself.

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

Why should Graf care whether you choose to use GZDoom? I don't like texture filtering either, but boycotting a source port because its creator doesn't share the same opinion is just silly.

 

My personal choice is something is of course something that Graf doesn't care, I have been boycotting GZDoom for years already. But if other people start doing the same, it is much better way to influence things than just a forum thread and a poll. And the thing is that his opinion on thjs matter makes very little sense and is very unprofessional by it's nature. Just look how many other competing products do not have texture filtering turned on by default.

 

40 minutes ago, Professor Hastig said:

LZDoom has been inactive for 1.5 years now and it doesn't look like anything will change about that. It's also a really outdated feature set by now.

 

Who cares? Point is to use literally anything else with better default settings. And if someone uses LZDoom just to play basic Doom stuff, outdated feature set doesn't really matter. Zandronum has been my main advanced port for years and it has worked great despite having even more outdated feature set than LZDoom. It does often seem like many people use GZDoom simply because of FOMO.

 

40 minutes ago, Professor Hastig said:

And throwing around insults and threats isn't going to do any good, aside from running the risk that the developers may finally call it a day.

 

I am not throwing aroud insults or threats here. I am merely suggesting other people do the same as I already do if they want to see things change. We shouldn't be afraid to challenge developers because we fear that it might make them abandon the development. It would be one thing if i/we used personal attacks against Graf but suggesting people to not to use GZDoom until things change and calling Graf a "chicken man" are being very gentle to the developers and are reasonably clearly not meant to be taken personally.

 

12 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

This attitude is... something else. It's a one-time action to just turn off that option yourself.

 

It more about the principle. And supporting less popular source ports. And directing GZDoom towards more professional and modern standards.

Edited July 11, 2023 by banjiepixel

[Darkcrafter07]

Really guys, calm down, Graf is not your slave and you didn't ever buy his work and Graf never promised to do anything for you, especially when you require it. Make a port or a GZDoom fork that would outcast it and do whatever you want and can. Or apologize and crowdfund the development, IF Graf agrees.

[Herr Dethnout]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

Idk if you are joking, but how "boycotting" a hobby project will make a change? Even more when is a silly option that can be changed in like 30 secs?

 

I mean, you're losing the point of this thread. lol

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Herr Dethnout

[aRottenKomquat]

This whole discussion seems a bit overblown to me. It takes 20 seconds to change the setting and then you never have to worry about it again. This is like telling car manufacturers that the driver's seat is in the wrong position when the car comes from the factory, and they really, really need to do something about it because it's clearly such a bad thing for that to be. But it's a solved problem because the manufacturer was wise enough to put position controls on the seat.

Edited July 11, 2023 by aRottenKomquat

[Professor Hastig]

21 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

My personal choice is something is of course something that Graf doesn't care, I have been boycotting GZDoom for years already. But if other people start doing the same, it is much better way to influence things than just a forum thread and a poll. And the thing is that his opinion on thjs matter makes very little sense and is very unprofessional by it's nature. Just look how many other competing products do not have texture filtering turned on by default.

 

I can tell you outright how any sane developer will react to people like you: They'll just ignore you. How much weight, do you think you have for a product that apparently gets ~50000 downloads per month? No matter what product, there will always be this unreasonable fringe crowd telling 'Do xyz or else...!'

 

Most of the time it's 'or else...'

 

24 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

Who cares? Point is to use literally anything else with better default settings. And if someone uses LZDoom just to play basic Doom stuff, outdated feature set doesn't really matter. Zandronum has been my main advanced port for years and it has worked great despite having even more outdated feature set than LZDoom. It does often seem like many people use GZDoom simply because of FOMO.

 

 

I think most users act way more levelheaded and prefer the better overall solution over the one with ONE suboptimal default. Which takes LESS THAN A MINUTE to change!

 

25 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

I am not throwing aroud insults or threats here. I am merely suggesting other people do the same as I already do if they want to see things change. We shouldn't be afraid to challenge developers because we fear that it might make them abandon the development. It would be one thing if i/we used personal attacks against Graf but suggesting people to not to use GZDoom until things change and calling Graf a "chicken man" are being very gentle to the developers and are reasonably clearly not meant to be taken personally.

 

Oh yes, the lone crusader type in their noble fight against overwhelming odds. How tiresome! History has told us that this rarely worked anywhere.

BTW, a threat of boycott is still a threat, albeit a mostly futile one.

 

27 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

It more about the principle. And supporting less popular source ports. And directing GZDoom towards more professional and modern standards.

 

Here's the problem with it: GZDoom is NOT a professional product. All its developers do what they do in their spare time. You have to accept that.

 

15 minutes ago, Darkcrafter07 said:

Or apologize and crowdfund the development, IF Graf agrees.

 

Crowdfunding may work, then again, it may not. If you ask someone to leave their job and focus on such a passion project, can you ensure that this person gets a steady flow of money? Let's just assume it needs to be sustained for 10 years. That means we are talking about an amount of money somewhere between $500'000 and $1'000'000 that due to local tax laws possibly cannot paid out in full up front and needs to spread out over the time span or most of it would be lost to tax payments right away. So even if there was good initial uptake, there's no guarantees about sustainability.

 

I have seen promising crowdfunded projects fail because they couldn't even raise close to the minimum amount of money to get it off the ground.

 

 

[baja blast rd.]

15 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

My personal choice is something is of course something that Graf doesn't care, I have been boycotting GZDoom for years already. But if other people start doing the same, it is much better way to influence things than just a forum thread and a poll. And the thing is that his opinion on thjs matter makes very little sense and is very unprofessional by it's nature. Just look how many other competing products do not have texture filtering turned on by default.

 

Always felt that a lot of Gamers imported their mentality and reflexive stance from wider games, where everyone is paying for stuff and corporations will put up with people's attitude and whining just so they fork over more $, and workers obviously can't complain or push back. And that people who are super used to that stance unfortunately sometimes bring it to the Doom scene, which manifests in the weirdly entitled griping about certain types of wads as if authors have any responsibility to please you.

 

And this is another perfect example of that. "Boycotting"? "Competing products"? No one is charging for any of this and I guarantee you that no source port dev out there cares ones iota if you and people like you entirely stop playing with their port. I bet most would be happy.

 

It's funny because I'm absolutely on the "texture filtering is ideally off by default" side and there are very good reasons for that, but Gamers manage to have consistently some of the most unlikable ways of presenting themselves in threads like these, even compared to the devs who are especially notorious for that. 

[Edward850]

24 minutes ago, aRottenKomquat said:

This whole discussion seems a bit overblown to me. It takes 20 seconds to change the setting and then you never have to worry about it again.

This rather misunderstands the problem. It's not about if it can be changed or how easy it is, it's that the ports default presentation has it enabled. The average user is not you who knows it exists, and thus the problem becomes is it a reasonable default presentation for someone who doesn't know anything about Doom ports.

 

The defacto rule of user experience design is your default design is how most people will end up using your program, no matter how many options you provide.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Edward850

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

 

I am in favor of having Texture Filtering being off as default, but this is going too far. Especially when turning off texture filtering takes like 5 seconds.

 

Also do you realize that LZDoom and Zandronum are vastly behind GZDoom in terms of features? You might prefer those, but good luck convincing most of the playerbase and especially GZDoom modders/commercial game devs to switch to those.

 

As much as I hate texture filtering, it is ultimately the call of the developer of software of what they prefer.

Edited July 11, 2023 by ReaperAA

[Ozcar]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

Wow wow wow okay, i hate texture filtering with my damn fiber. but boycotting gzdoom just because of a shitty feature? thats immature to do.
This isnt twitter, you know?

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ozcar

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

 

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

Please remove my quote because i want no association with a post that calls for a boycott, thereby exactly proving why any dev shouldn't always listen to fan demands if it is presented the way you are presenting it.

[Stupid Bunny]

• My opinion is that texture filtering is ugly.  There seems to be an overwhelming consensus around this
• It would rationally be the best, given said consensus and the experience of new users unfamiliar with GZDoom's maze of cryptic sounding options, if texture filtering were disabled by default but left in as an option for those who like it
• Graf probably isn't going to change the default anyway, which is most likely not the best design decision but also not something we can force him to do
• All of these things will still be true in another 5 years.  It is mildly annoying but hardly the hill for any of us to die on
• But seriously texture filtering is gross looking

[banjiepixel]

53 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

And this is another perfect example of that. "Boycotting"? "Competing products"? No one is charging for any of this and I guarantee you that no source port dev out there cares ones iota if you and people like you entirely stop playing with their port. I bet most would be happy.

 

I am well aware that I am entitled to developers of GZDoom changing the default setting. However, I do have the right to communicate my opinion and use my actions to put pressure on the developers to change their stance. There is nothing wrong boycotting GZDoom and suggesting other people do the same until the default setting is changed. GZDoom developers have the right to keep their stance but community has also the right to stop using GZDoom to have their opinion to be taken more serious by the developers. GZDoom or other free hobbyist projects shouldn't be sacred cows that can't be challenged for their bad decisions. And by modern standards, texture filtering on as default can be simply seen as pretty outdated view on how a pixel art game should look by default these days.

 

54 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

It's funny because I'm absolutely on the "texture filtering is ideally off by default" side and there are very good reasons for that, but Gamers manage to have consistently some of the most unlikable ways of presenting themselves in threads like these, even compared to devs who are especially notorious for that. 

 

How is "If we don't like it, we should stop using it until it becomes better" even a controversial take? Especially after all the complains in this thread about the fact that the topic of what the default texture filter setting of GZDoom should be has been discussed before multiple times and how it is supposed to pointless discussion because people are sure that Graf will never change his mind. Boycotting GZDoom is atleast something more than just complaining.

 

12 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Please remove my quote because i want no association with a post that calls for a boycott, thereby exactly proving why any dev shouldn't always listen to fan demands if it is presented the way you are presenting it.

 

Chill out, I didn't call for a boycott but siimply reminded everybody that it is totally a valid option if we want the community opinion to be heard on this matter.

Edited July 11, 2023 by banjiepixel

[Herr Dethnout]

7 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

There is nothing wrong boycotting GZDoom and suggesting other people do the same until the default setting is changed.

Sorry, but you can't say this and expect that I will take you seriously...

Edited July 11, 2023 by Herr Dethnout

[Redneckerz]

8 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

Chill out, I didn't call for a boycott but siimply reminded everybody that it is totally a valid option if we want the community opinion to be heard on this matter.

 

Quote

And that is why we should boycott GZDoom and use something decent like LZDoom or Zandronum until chicken man changes his stance.

Seems very much a call to me, esp when you mention you are boycotting it for years and there is nothing wrong with boycotting it. Your intent, which is what this is about, is abundantly clear.

 

Please remove the quote.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Redneckerz

[Darkcrafter07]

GZDoom isn't my sacred cow but please show me a decent alternative that would support all stuff I need to create my worlds:

 

- decorate for making custom assets;

- opus compression for music to sound good while compressed like hell;

- jpg compression, correct superpng compression support;

- terrain support;

- slopes support;

- 3d models support;

- custom opengl shaders support;

- cross platform (PC, mac, android);

- good opl synth emulator (adlmidi too);

- acs and scripting for dynamic music;

- sound environments;

- 3d floors, with multiple tags per sector;

- huge map sizes;

- dynamic skybox;

- portals and stacked sectors;

- brutal doom support;

- smooth doom support;

- dynamic lights, really HUGE sized ones;

- limited 3d model collision via zscript;

- zip and 7z support to reduce mod file size even more;

- gameinfo support to say it's your game;

- highres textures and animation support.

- MapInfo.

 

No, GZDoom is not perfect but nobody here including me wants to work on it right now.

 

I could dream about my renderer optimization techniques to be implemented sometime though to make it even better than it now is. I was able to optimize my map like up to 4 times faster and thus working on an ancient Celeron 2.4ghz in lzdoom. I think even more is possible but I'm simply not competent enough to write code and busy with other stuff.

 

If you know how then you can do such maps that no other engine would ever allow but that takes time and effort.

[Shepardus]

"Boycotts" only make sense when the target is dependent on the boycotters or it otherwise raises awareness of the issue. Graf is already well aware that Doomworld users do not like texture filtering, and does not depend on them for the continued existence of GZDoom. Even if every person here who responded to this poll were to swap their copy of GZDoom for a pitchfork, it would place zero pressure on him to change anything. Nor should it, it's his project and he can do what he wants with it. It's also open source, so nobody is beholden to any decision he makes, and nothing is stopping someone from forking GZDoom and changing the one line that sets the default. Between that and, you know, opening the options menu, you already have the tools you need to make the source port the way you like it. Demanding that GZDoom change its defaults is because you want other people, who can't be bothered to open the options menu, to follow suit. While I can sympathize with creators like Scuba Steve who are tired of seeing their work muddied by texture filtering, if you're not creating for GZDoom (which you wouldn't be if you're boycotting it), and you know how to open its options menu, your preference carries little to no weight.

[Herr Dethnout]

17 minutes ago, Darkcrafter07 said:

GZDoom isn't my sacred cow but please show me a decent alternative that would support all stuff I need to create my worlds:

Time for start a era for the ETERNITY

 

Spoiler

Got it?