Compet-n Discussion

[Schneelocke]

emailking said:

FireFox is defaulting the a background that matches the surroundings over here.

More specifically, it probably defaults to transparent.

But yeah, is it possible to change that? It really makes the listings rather hard to read. (Good idea otherwise, though. :))

[Hobbs]

VinceDSS said:

is it really so hard to have a dual boot ??

only takes an old HD and couple hours

Yes, actually it is. Last I checked NTLDR doesnt like having a bootable NTFS and a bootable FAT32 partition on the same drive (though the old drive idea might work for some), and only on smaller drives is a FAT32 partition for 2k/XP anywhere near feasable.

[Opulent]

Angus Thermopyle said:

Hmm, I could record some Alien Vendetta stuff for DSDA, so I don't have to bother with the exe. Never thought about it :)

Opulent, do you accept AV demos?

Of course! please send. :)

[VinceDSS]

HobbsTiger1 said:

Yes, actually it is. Last I checked NTLDR doesnt like having a bootable NTFS and a bootable FAT32 partition on the same drive (though the old drive idea might work for some), and only on smaller drives is a FAT32 partition for 2k/XP anywhere near feasable.

Trying to install bootable WinXP/2k and Win98 partitions on the same HD is a dead end (maybe Norton Ghost could be a work around).
What you have to make sure is that you get an old HD, your win98 CD as well as win98 drivers for your hardware.
1 - unlug your winxp drive
2 - install your old HD
3 - boot on the win98 CD and install it with all necessary drivers
4 - put you winxp drive back on as Master on primary IDE
5 - put your old HD with win98 as slave or on another IDE port
6 - in the bios choose which HD you want to boot on ... easy

you can even use boot magic so you don't even have to go into the bios

only downside is that very recent computers, especially 64 bits CPUs have problems with win98... the SB live DOS emulation freezes the computer.... (I got that with my AMD64 with nforce4, but hopefully I have my old P200 and also a P4)

Angus Thermopyle said:

Feel free to visit me in Germany if you wanna help me with it :)

The main problem with C-N is the lack of updates for several years now (jealously looking to Quake SDA with its weekly updates). Why should I upload demos if they are hidden in the incoming folder? I'm sure there are lots of people who even don't know about the great stuff Xit uploaded recently, or Eugene or Kristian. And today I found a Plutonia tyson by a new player. (So it's not really 'dying', Vince.) It's very sad that they don't get the attention they deserve. Nobody would be more happy than I if COMPET-N would be kept up again.

you are welcome to visit me in France too :)

About Compet-N, maybe it is time to search for willing candidates... and maybe do a vote here on Doomworld ??

[goofy]

as a temporary fix for the iframe readability problem, I find that highlighting helps a lot in Firefox. Just click anywhere in the iframe and press Ctrl-A. The highlight even remains after you click on a demo you wish to download. (Sorry if I'm just stating the blatantly obvious.)

[Schneelocke]

VinceDSS said:

About Compet-N, maybe it is time to search for willing candidates... and maybe do a vote here on Doomworld ??

I'm more than willing to help out (if I can). :)

[Searcher]

This might help on the dual boot question.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/dual_booting.asp

[Hobbs]

404

Vince has it pegged for how you can do it. Except you dont need nearly as much convolution. And ya some newer motherboards dont like windows 98 (more specifically they dont like you booting off a FAT32 partition, but Windows 98 is the time when you notice this the most).

[Searcher]

Sorry the link went dead. The little search box on that page brings up 4800 hits when you search for "dual boot"

Edit: Spelling

[xit-vono]

Radix told me that he was willing to set up a doom section on the sda. We will need to get access to the cgi files though, or re-do them. I will also probably need help with the updating, or someone else can step forward and volunteer to do it.

[VinceDSS]

Vile has already done something for doom and doom2 on the SDA?, hasn't he?

I am working on turning his last 30nm into a AVI, maybe that could be a new addition.

[xit-vono]

Yes vile has converted all the doom and doom2 individual level UV speedrun records to avi, as well as doom episode nightmare and doom2 nightmare so his demo should be on there too.

[VinceDSS]

Not the last 30nm unfortunately.
Dash has great prboom mod for screen capture in software mode, with filters and motion improvements. I am gonna wait for it.

Budko's prboom sucks for screen capture, it doesnt take palette change when hurt ot picking up items, it doesnt have the neat prboom 2.3 filters and no motion blur (which looks really awesome).

If I have time I am gonna work on turn the coop 30nm and 30uv in AVI too... with both player views (although one very small in a corner)

[entryway]

VinceDSS said:

Budko's prboom sucks

[VinceDSS]

don't take it out of context, I said "Budko's prboom sucks for screen capture"

[myk]

VinceDSS said:
don't take it out of context, I said "Budko's prboom sucks for screen capture"

Does it? It merely takes screen shots normally, but lets you automate the process; Dash's mod may have added quite welcome and useful features in that regard, especially since it was made with video production in mind. Now, sucking is when something works badly, not when something works normally, but not enhanced for a quite specific purpose (recording videos, in this case.)

[VinceDSS]

sorry but I don't think so :
- if not specified it makes only 8-bit screenshots, which are unusable to compile AVIs, imagine converting 70.000 pics to 24-bit
- it doesnt take palette changes (when hurt or on item pick up)
- if you press any keys when screen dumping, everything is shot, menus, walkcam...
- only works good for glboom, which doesnt look good at all

[myk]

Yeah, I knew that already; and momma said more tact gets less pointless discussion.

[Henning]

I don't really see where compet-n as we know it should evolve from this point on. The traditional win98\doom2.exe 1.9 combo just isn't doable anymore for most people.

Those days are long gone!.

[Schneelocke]

Isn't that why Chocolate Doom is being developed, though? To have a port running on modern computers that still gives behaviour (and thus times) at the very least comparable to doom2.exe?

Once Chocolate Doom is ready to do that (which it may or may not do already - I haven't really looked into it yet), it'd probably be a good idea to allow Chocolate Doom-recorded demos to make sure that the C-N can stay alive. Maybe mark them as such to alert people to the fact that they were not recorded with doom2.exe.

Just a thought, of course. :)

[emailking]

I agree with that. The argument that "doom2.exe is *the* game, period" just doesn't really ring true for me anymore. It was one thing when the ports were new and allowed all kinds of leverage. But now, even I only use prboom, for a number of reasons but the main one being that xp just can't handle doom2.exe properly. If some program can be demonstrated to run virtually indentically to doom2.exe, but can run on win xp, then I would argue that should be allowed at this point.

[Grazza]

I'd welcome a change to "demos must play back with doom(2).exe", but the compet-n rule has always been "absolutely no port demos at all".

If such a rule were adopted, it would also need to be clarified what would be considered cheating in such an environment (e.g. a HUD that displays kills & secrets stats - and other such things, in addition to the obvious ones; would hi-res be included in that?).

BTW, I don't recall any suggestion that fraggle developed Chocolate Doom with compet-n use in mind.

As I understand it, the Quake SDA (the Quake equivalent of compet-n, more or less) doesn't insist on only the original Quake.exe being used, and it doesn't seem to have suffered as a result.

[emailking]

Perhaps it's possible to make the port tag demos that follow the rules of the port somehow? And therefore any demos that were cheated (e.g. hi-res, monsters alive displayed, etc.) could be easily identified?

[myk]

What people can do is set up a site where IWAD demos are accepted, under whatever rules they specify, and if they wish, compete against COMPET-N records. But it won't be the same thing, and it won't be COMPET-N. Much less if some measures aren't taken to give some sort of credence to the judgement and standard of recordings, as speculated above (such as a speedrunning mod of Chocolate Doom.)

I'm assuming Doug already accepts non-Doom/2 IWAD demos on the DSDA, anyway.

[VinceDSS]

or maybe somebody could just finish niv's doom/2.exe sound driver for XP/2K

[Schneelocke]

emailking said:

Perhaps it's possible to make the port tag demos that follow the rules of the port somehow? And therefore any demos that were cheated (e.g. hi-res, monsters alive displayed, etc.) could be easily identified?

How would you make sure that those tags aren't tampered with, though? Someone intent on cheating could still change them afterwards.

Personally, I think cheating actually probably isn't that much of a problem anymore, or at least not more than it used to be. Someone determined enough will be able to cheat no matter what you do, anyway - cheating it's a social problem, so it requires a social solution, not a technical one. Chocolate Doom etc. are just tools to make sure that demos are comparable - not tools to rule out cheating.

Grazza said:

BTW, I don't recall any suggestion that fraggle developed Chocolate Doom with compet-n use in mind.

Maybe not, but that's nitpicking; the stated goal still makes it a natural choice:

"Chocolate Doom is a port of the Doom source code which is designed to act as identically as possible to the original Doom executables."

[Opulent]

myk said:

I'm assuming Doug already accepts non-Doom/2 IWAD demos on the DSDA, anyway.

of course! :)

problem is... that up until last year it was at least slightly troublesome to record a cheated demo that looks legitimate. Today, anyone who plays the game can with ease. Running a serious competition with any entrant who is even slightly under suspicion makes the competition flawed.

[Angus Thermopyle]

My old computer is no longer covered with dust :)
I found an easy glide trick on Alien Vendetta Map03, please check C-N incoming. The demo is very improvable.

[Gusta]

Haha I know ...
(it seems after experiences with TVR! we will find more and more glide tricks in those wads)