Sunday, January 10, 2010

1.8.0 Alpha is Out

OK, I've released it.

Coupla points.

Firstly, you should be aware that this release is functionally incomplete compared to 1.7.666c - don't go looking for the same level of effects in it. There are a few things I've left unfinished, and they're all explained in the readme that comes with the engine (you do actually read readmes, don't you?)

Secondly, now is not the time for feature requests along the lines of "your engine would be cooler if it supported modding/multiplayer features x/y/z". That's not the purpose of this release. By all means save them up and bring them out later, but please hold them back for now.

The purpose of this release is as a test of the new rendering capabilities on a wide range of 3D hardware and computers. I'd appreciate if all feedback could be confined to that aspect of it. There have been some very significant enhancements and changes throughout almost the entire rendering path, and I need to hear of any problems people might have sooner rather than later.

Don't go looking for flashy new graphical effects, you won't find them. DirectQ remains true to it's ID Quake heritage.

Do go looking for performance improvements in large and complex maps. You know those maps that drag other engines down to framerates in the 10s or 20s? This engine should gobble them up and come back looking for more.

That's it for now until the first announcements about the Beta appear.

23 comments:

Coranth said...

Well, I've tested your DirectQ 1.8.0 Alpha on my Toshiba Notebook (just played through a few of the ID1 maps) and all I can say is "Alpha? What do you mean, 'alpha?'

This isn't an alpha, at all. An alpha isn't fully playable. An alpha has loads of bugs, and there should be things 'missing' in the game, such as the items you pick up! An alpha release should also have a whopper of a bug that makes the whole thing crash, and crash down hard!

All joking aside, this has to be the 'fastest' Quake I have ever played, and there's no weird shadow/ground texture z-fighting to speak of. Everything seems to be working as it should. What more is there to do?

Well... I suppose, you could do shadows; but you said you wouldn't do those unless they're done right. Here's hoping for some "DarkPlaces" or Doom 3 style shadows and lighting in the next release, j/k.

Seriously, this is great. Keep up the amazing, amazing work. I've been using your engine since the days of MHQuake, and I'll still be using DirectQ in the future.

gnounc said...

Not sure if this falls under something you are working on and thus dont need to hear about or not,
but in the menus I get a weird shearing effect, I can see the same thing while underwater too.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u286/Gnounc/triangles.jpg?t=1263190135

thats what it looks like.

but yeah...the engine is quite speedy : )

rovaman said...

Starts but crashes to desktop when I try to start a new game.

Usage is just copy exe to quake dir and run? (what I did)

Or needs shortcut with command line options like DP?

Could set available options OK and save cfg file.

Any particular version of DirectX needed? Using 9.0c.

Coranth said...

Rovaman, try these things and see if they help.

1. Make sure the drivers for your Graphics Card are up to date.

2. Download the DirectX End-User Runtime (dxwebsetup.exe) from www.microsoft.com and run it when you're hooked up to the net. That'll update your version of DirectX to the latest.

3. Maybe wipe out the config.cfg file from your QUAKE\ID1 folder, so that DirectQ can start fresh with a new config file.

mhquake said...

@gnounc: I know why that's happening, and I'd bet it also happens in other menus (like the multiplayer setup) and when you get the item pickup flash. It shouldn't happen but your driver isn't respecting the vertex sizes I'm telling it to use. It's good to know that there are drivers that do that, and I can produce a fix easy enough.

kempie said...

Not specific to 1.80 only (just noticed yesterday on 1.7.666c) but Beyond Belief crashes the engine after a map is selected.

BTW like the fact that 1.80 reverts to the previous menu after loading a mod rather than dumping to console in previous builds

Cheers, kempie

mhquake said...

Cheers, that's something I can check out right away. :)

mhquake said...

Beyond Beliefs QC was attempting to change the r_maxedges cvar which doesn't exist in DirectQ. Because DirectQ sets cvars via pointers we had a NULL in "var", so we went down in flames.

I think this kind of thing is rather evil for QC to do. I can understand the mod developer wanting to be helpful, but I still hold the opinion that there are certain cvars (relating to player settings and engine tech) that QC should be walled off from. Server cvars are fine, as are game-related ones, but I just bet that the mod develop who thinks "I need a spare cvar, my mod only works on GLQuake, GLQuake doesn't support resolution changing, so I'll use vid_mode" already exists out there somewhere.

There is a limit.

rovaman said...

Thanks for tips Coranth, got it running. Very fast. I like. :)

Tried ARWOP mod. Managed to crash it to console.

Start map, get Bunzo-do Kyanon (crossbow), shoot one of the stone knight models guarding the teleport. Crashes to console with message host_error: cl_parsemodel: bad modnum

Can get same results if you imp9 and shoot knight model with grapple.

Also tried Marcher for a little bit. Wow, HUGE difference!!!

This is lookin really good so far. :)

=peg= said...

try sv_protocol 666

mhquake said...

sv_protocol 666 should be enabled by default unless arwop does a stuffcmd to change it (which I doubt as by the time it could it would be too late, and also it's the FitzQuake protocol).

Try maybe sv_protocol 10002 (BJP) or 10003 (BJP with extended coords)?

Otherwise thanks for the steps to reproduce, but unfortunately I can't here - it works fine.

Silly question: you didn't have Quoth enabled? I've seen arwop crash to the console when Quoth was enabled before.

rovaman said...

I put sv_protocol 666 into autoexec.cfg. Didn't crash.

Took it back out, crashed to console.

Worked fine again after reinserting it.

So using sv_protocol 666 fixes the problem, whatever it was.

Thanks mh and peg :)

It's awesome to finally be able to play these big maps without a case of the herky-jerkys.

mhquake said...

If you're impressed by this wait till you see the beta. No kidding. :D

kempie said...

Further to the crash report earlier, when it crashes the desktop gamma needs to be restored manually. I remember Darkplaces having this problem a while back too. Lord Havoc created a tool to do this job. Is there another way?

Cheers, kempie

mhquake said...

DirectQ has a "vid_defaultmonitorgamma" command included, so just run it again and issue that command to restore gamma (I keep it in my autoexec too). It's pretty much the equivalent of LordHavoc's tool but integrated into the engine. I included it cos I needed something to restore gamma after it crashed during development. ;)

=peg= said...

Hmm so I tried ARWOP myself with 1.8.0Alpha and this is what happened when I loaded the engine with -quoth -game arwop in commandline, then started a single player game and select AXE (impulse 1)
(same issue when loading quoth and ARWOP in-game)
ARWOP worked fine on 1.7.666c btw..

=peg= said...

Ok I feel silly now.. worked fine without -quoth but I could have sworn quoth was required for ARWOP... ah well, my bad ;)

mhquake said...

Yup, DirectQ crashes to the console if both Quoth and ARWOP are selected together. Seen it myself about 4 or 5 times, and other folks have also seen it. I don't know to what extent it's widespread (or not) with other engines, but for now the solution is "don't use Quoth with ARWOP".

Don't expect huge performance increases in ARWOP map 2 by the way; that's a total stinker and parts of it seem to have not even been vissed properly.

rovaman said...

Question: Is there a command or variable to turn off the autoaim assistance thingy?

=peg= said...

set sv_aim to 1

=peg= said...

I noticed that in DirecQ (both 1.7.666c and 1.8.0Alpha) some rotating entities rotate the wrong way round.. this can be seen in ne_tower as well as in marcher..

In ne_tower the door/bridge at the beginning (pushing the button after climbing the first ladder) folds down towards you instead of away from the player)
In marcher, the silver key hatch (under water) opens downwards instead of up..

At first I figured it was a QuakeC bug, but fitzquake does it the correct way, so I guess it must be an engine bug..

fitz_ne_tower vs dq_ne_tower

mhquake said...

Aaaaahhhhh. Thank you! I had always wondered about that door/bridge/thing in ne_tower and the fact that I seemed to be able to walk over the gap with no problems; now I know why. I just need to reverse the direction of an angle when transforming it so this is going to the top of the "to fix" list.

Must make a mental note to regularly check how things behave in DirectQ off against other engines to make certain that behaviours are correct and consistent.

mhquake said...

Fixed.