Engine preference

[Rafeinator]

Since my Doomsday engine (1.8.6, I don't use the newer versions) has been bugging out on me, I've been trying out other ones, including ZDoom and PrBoom, but I have to say that Doomsday's still my favorite. The other source ports I've tried all have issues that Doomsday didn't have, like HOM effects and stuff.

[Gez]

If you prefer Doomsday, you should try Risen3D.


Or if you don't, try GZDoom instead of ZDoom, and GLBoom+ instead of PrBoom.

[Wagi]

Chocolate-Doom for when I feel like classic, Skulltag for when I don't.

[DaniJ]

Rafeinator said:

Since my Doomsday engine (1.8.6, I don't use the newer versions) has been bugging out on me...

Why don't you use a newer version? If you have a problem please post about it on the user forums.

[RjY]

A self-fulfilling prophecy: everyone says PrBoom trunk is dead, nobody uses it, so I'm like, why bother working on it, which makes everyone think its dead, repeat until false ;-)

I wasn't a great fan of Proff's idea of having PrBoom+ "take over" the PrBoom name, but I accept that for most it would simply be a reflection of the current status and, as various posters upthread point out, less confusing.

I do still work on trunk occasionally but I had sensed most users, at least from Doomworld, had switched/were switching, so my recent changes (fsvo recent ;-) ) are more to make packaging easier for militantly free software distributions, i.e. Debian. But, unless we ever put out another release, I guess they'll stay rotting there in svn...

[TimeOfDeath]

RjY - [WH]-Wilou84 still uses PrBoom to record demos. :)
PrBoom was the first classic-style port that I used. I recorded many demos on it but then people kept telling me to use pr+. Peer Pressure. :/

[printz]

TimeOfDeath said:

RjY - [WH]-Wilou84 still uses PrBoom to record demos. :)

I'm using Eternity to record vanilla Doom demos, so I can test it for bugs.

Just what does -vanilla emulate? Lost souls bouncing on floors, or not? So I may know what -complevel it's equivalent to.

[Kira]

TimeOfDeath said:

RjY - [WH]-Wilou84 still uses PrBoom to record demos. :)

And every people doing speedruns on the CFD-N because of rules.

[Phml]

So, what is the point of PrBoom over PrBoom+, anyway?

[Gez]

There are less TAS features in it, I think.

[WH-Wilou84]

Phml said:

So, what is the point of PrBoom over PrBoom+, anyway?

As far as I'm concerned, while I can appreciate entryway's ( and Eternal's ) efforts to bring many new mapping-related features in PrBoom-plus ( such as support for hi-res textures, .ogg music, fancy OpenGL stuff, a better framerate on large maps etc. ), I'd like my Boom-compatible maps to work with a strict Boom environment.

We often see "Boom-compatible" maps which have only been tested with ZDoom and the author assumed that the map worked in Boom as well, only to see that there are numerous errors in them ( blocking corpses, doors not tagged etc. ).
Moving to PrBoom-plus would mean moving to a kind of new and evolving "Boom+" mapping standard. As I'd like my maps to be compatible with a large array of ports, I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

On the other hand, I must say that PrBoom-plus is the best port for demo enthusiasts, by far. :)
I usually stick to my old PrBoom 2.5.0, but PrBoom-plus surely has its uses, most notably for maps that make regular PrBoom go awry ( Sunder, Speed of Doom map 28 etc. ).

[entryway]

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
support for hi-res textures, .ogg music, fancy OpenGL stuff, a better framerate on large maps etc.

PrBoom supports OGG music too, hi-res textures do not work without low-res analogues in prboom-plus, and a better framerate is not a good example of "Boom+" mapping standard

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
Moving to PrBoom-plus would mean moving to a kind of new and evolving "Boom+" mapping standard

Moving to PrBoom-plus would mean moving to more comfortable playing and watching demos

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
I usually stick to my old PrBoom 2.5.0

PrBoom 2.5.0 supports 65534 sidedefs and shows sky correctly on epic.wad map05 (Boom does not), thus you need 2.4.3 or earlier versions to avoid unnecessary Boom+ stuff

[Graf Zahl]

If you want a 'strict' Boom environment, use Boom!

That said, aside from outdated versions, is there even one active port out there that doesn't fix some of Boom's problems?

[printz]

Graf Zahl said:

If you want a 'strict' Boom environment, use Boom!

Very well. If you use DOSBox, it works. I've started testing my project in vanilla MBF instead of WinMBF (SDL_mixer problems) or Eternity (some reproducible MBF crashes are fixed in EE) to make sure everything is in order.

Only problem, even with DOSBoxed Marine's Best Friend, is that the (Allegro?) sounds are still imperfect. They are noisy, and seem channel-limited (you sometimes hear your player's sounds displaced when they're simultaneous with others').

Is there a possibility that PrBoom+ gets the MBF beta frames available for DEHACKED editing? I'll ask for this in its own thread a few years later when I have something to show off (now I only have DEHACKED and a few unfinished maps). I have several new monsters and decorations that use the MBF beta frames, without needing -beta to work (big thanks to Gez for making me know about those frames!) Unfortunately, using those frames will result in the mod not working in PrBoom+. As a curiosity, the new frames do work in ZDoom (probably also thanks to Gez).

[Vermil]

Do you really want to muddy Dehacked though.

Boom is a bit of a mess of varitants, some with incompatibilities; as is my understanding, Dehacked is comparatively clean.

[printz]

I'm simply wishing that the MBF complevel in PrBoom+ will be completed :)

[entryway]

printz said:

I'm simply wishing that the MBF complevel in PrBoom+ will be completed :)

Any test wad with using beta frames? I ask because PrBoom/+ has all of them in info.c/h

  // add dummy beta bfg / lost soul frames for dehacked compatibility
  // fixes bug #1576151 (part 2)
  {0,0,-1,NULL,S_NULL},  // S_OLDBFG1
  {0,0,-1,NULL,S_NULL},  // S_OLDBFG2
  bla-bla
  bla

[printz]

It does? I'll look for the latest version then. Last time I tried it didn't work, but it's worth verifying that I really did everything else correctly.

EDIT: Yes, it works, thank you!

I am having a lockup somewhere, but until I know better, it may just be a bug in my DEH.

[entryway]

printz said:

I am having a lockup somewhere, but until I know better, it may just be a bug in my DEH.

I think you need to specify all fields to force your DEH to work, because default values for all beta frames are {0,0,-1,NULL,S_NULL} in prboom. Probably I need to fill all of them with correct values.

[Graf Zahl]

I think that would be a good idea. Even ZDoom has the beta stuff available now so among the common Boom-compatible ports PrBoom is the only one that does not.

It sure would allow for more editing options when going the Boom/MBF route.

[printz]

I wrote that BEX manually, because Whacked2 doesn't read those undocumented frames and things. Also, (currently) neither Eternity does have any functional values for those frames, except for the beta BFG supported from SMMU.

[Quasar]

printz said:

I wrote that BEX manually, because Whacked2 doesn't read those undocumented frames and things. Also, (currently) neither Eternity does have any functional values for those frames, except for the beta BFG supported from SMMU.

I do intend to add them back though ;)

[entryway]

printz said:

I wrote that BEX manually, because Whacked2 doesn't read those undocumented frames and things.

I've added all missed MBF states, sprites and code-pointers to boom.tbl with HEX editor. Now you can write MBF dehs with Whacked.

mbf.cfg and mbf.tbl:
http://prboom-plus.sf.net/whacked2_mbf_cfgs.zip

[printz]

Thank you! I'll be using it now.

EDIT: It appears that I'll have to change Thing #142 in my BEX to something else. Maximum thing Dehacked number in PrBoom+ appears to be 141, which is the music changer.

If entryway keeps adding features, maybe thing #142 will become available in PrBoom+ anyway :P

It's actually less standard after #140 (after the dog). 141 and 142 are shared by MBF and Eternity as the beta BFG shots. In MBF, 143 and 144 are used for the beta treasure items (sceptre and bible). In Eternity, 143 is unused, and 144 is used by the BFG-burst gimmick. Heh.

[entryway]

I don't understand what is wrong. Do you use the latest test version of prboom+? Post a link to example DEH then.

[printz]

Well, what I did was that I've browsed INFO.C of prboom-plus-2.5.1.3 and saw this final part of the thing table:

#ifdef DOGS
  // Marine's best friend :)      // killough 7/19/98
  {   // MT_DOGS
    888,   // doomednum
    S_DOGS_STND,    // spawnstate
    500,    // spawnhealth
    S_DOGS_RUN1,    // seestate
    sfx_dgsit,   // seesound
    8,    // reactiontime
    sfx_dgatk,   // attacksound
    S_DOGS_PAIN,    // painstate
    180,    // painchance
    sfx_dgpain,   // painsound
    S_DOGS_ATK1,    // meleestate
    0,    // missilestate
    S_DOGS_DIE1,    // deathstate
    S_NULL,   // xdeathstate
    sfx_dgdth,   // deathsound
    10,   // speed
    12*FRACUNIT,    // radius
    28*FRACUNIT,    // height
    100,    // mass
    0,    // damage
    sfx_dgact,    // activesound
    MF_SOLID|MF_SHOOTABLE|MF_COUNTKILL, // flags
    S_DOGS_RAISE1   // raisestate
  },
#endif

  // MUSINFO lump
  {   // MT_MUSICSOURCE
    14164,           // doomednum
    S_TNT1,         // spawnstate
    1000,           // spawnhealth
    S_NULL,         // seestate
    sfx_None,       // seesound
    8,              // reactiontime
    sfx_None,       // attacksound
    S_NULL,         // painstate
    0,              // painchance
    sfx_None,       // painsound
    S_NULL,         // meleestate
    S_NULL,         // missilestate
    S_NULL,         // deathstate
    S_NULL,         // xdeathstate
    sfx_None,       // deathsound
    0,              // speed
    16,             // radius
    16,             // height
    100,            // mass
    0,              // damage
    sfx_None,       // activesound
    MF_NOBLOCKMAP,  // flags
    S_NULL          // raisestate
  },

};

Considering that the dog is thing #140, the only object after it -- the music changer -- will be #141.

Instead of the music changer (which didn't exist back then), MBF uses four things for its beta emulation (from MBF's info.c): pastebin link, so its final thing # is 144. However, I'm not requesting you to add 3 dummy things :) They're already differently defined from port to port.

[Graf Zahl]

I think they should be unified from port to port, along with the states and code pointers MBF adds.

That would provide some real options that can be used in mods targetting PrBoom, Eternity and ZDoom.

[entryway]

printz said:

I'm not requesting you to add 3 dummy things :) They're already differently defined from port to port.

All these things were added a week ago. Use the latest build

http://prboom-plus.sourceforge.net/history.html

[printz]

YAY, that's great.

[Vermil]

Graf Zahl said:

I think they should be unified from port to port, along with the states and code pointers MBF adds.

There are more basic things that aren't unified between ports.

For instance Doomsday, ZDoom, Vavoom and EDGE all have different heights for a bunch of scenery mobs. A few of which are not small.

I haven't looked at other ports yet.