(Poll) Main reasons for using GLProQuake rather than DarkPlaces

[JohnXmas]

I know this is not really GLProQuake vs DP related, but I can't resist to come here with my some questions/requests. Maybe another thread should be open for this...

Anyway, I think currently, the only engine dealing well with fog is TQ148. I mean, when fog is activated, the mist layer covers everything equally on distance. It speads over the sky too. In EZQuake, for instance, it doesn't affects the sky at all. So a dark skybox with fog cut along the mountain edge may look really ugly.
In DP, fog activation, even on very soft settings, just kills the skybox! Why? Is there a way to display original Quake skies or the custom skybox beyond transparent fog?

I really like EZQuake/FuhQuake water caustics - the way it looks and the ease of color control - Can we get this in DP?

Sorry for sounding eye-candy addicted here... Outside of this, DP is an absolute source of great Quake delight. Moreover, since the last update! Million thanks LordHavoc for your tireless dedication and support!

[Baker]

shorty in #quake1 said upon trying darkplaces that ... and can't connect to any servers (maybe cheatfree ones, but it connects to all others for most people, Monster seems to have trouble sometimes though).

AFAIK, Shorty only plays DM at quake.crmod.com which is a cheat-free server so no doubt he couldn't connect with DarkPlaces.

I'm saddened by people ignoring the menus when I worked hard to make sure they offer every feature, unlike all other engines where you're stuck reading a console guide on a forum thread to get 'the best' settings, or having a friend set it up for you.

I'm also saddened by people continuing to ignore the DarkPlaces readme, which is now not only included in the zip (darkplaces.txt) but also maintained on the website in a much easier to navigate form.

The DarkPlaces readme has graphics tips, network tips, and even trouble shoots a few common problems that are not DarkPlaces' fault. And still it gets ignored.

Well, I wouldn't take the "no one reads the docs" thing personally. I think that's just normal human behavior.

The reason I suggested a more streamlined menu is because that comment where Shorty from #quake1 said DarkPlaces doesn't have brightness settings is hardly the first time I've heard that.

Phenom told me DarkPlaces doesn't have brightness settings when he was using Ubuntu and Monster told me a few months ago that DarkPlaces doesn't have brightness settings. I thought those were odd comments.

The way I think about engines myself is two-fold, what do they add to the game and how do they make the game easier.

The functional strengths of DarkPlaces over GL ProQuake are:

1. You can set the video resolution without the command line.
2. You can set the brightness without the command line.
3. Mouselook is in the menu.
4. It looks a lot better and has vastly more capabilities.

I do think it is hard to find things in DarkPlaces menus, but that's just my opinion. Perhaps that is compounded by the difficulty of "tuning" DarkPlaces because there are a lot of different things in a lot of menus and it seems hard to me to find the right combination.

I don't have all the answers, I just know I see a lot of questions about setting up DarkPlaces and was thinking of how that could be reduced or eliminated.

Thanks for letting me know about the tilde toggle cvar, I looked all over for something like that but couldn't find it in the list. I'm accustomed to using tidle to open/close the console; it's a habit I will never be able to break.

[R00k]

I believe that Lord Havoc has contributed more than anyone in the quake scene, engine side. Sometimes [the] menus are daunting. Sometimes the cvars dont explain themselves. Maybe explosion shells are not that great anymore and there isnt an exlposion particle. Or that decals DONT clip on edges. OR maybe lighting is a bit negative. Or your computer doesnt run as fast with it at most settings. Well, maybe most mods dont support all of DP extenstions, or maybe not all servers run DP7, or maybe we dont all use MD3 models, or maybe we dont spend the time configuring the client.

Lord Havoc is trying to get a focus on the CURRENT multiplayer's needs/wants. I think that this shouldnt be a DP bash, but a wish list of things players would want from a talented coder who is willing to provide for a worthy audience...

I beg to differ, most people coming back to Quake for the first time in years don't mind the menu system at all.

It's only the people who are used to a useless menu system in other engines that ignore the DarkPlaces one, or are intimidated by it when they want to change the few settings that are accessible in other engines.

A suggestion though, is to describe the menu options as they are highlighted, maybe text at the bottom of the screen (statusbar like).
In the console, cvars typed with empty value and "tabbed" provide descriptions, yet newbie menus have no descriptions for each option....

[spooker]

cl_bobmodel 0 makes it not move at all, but I don't consider this a big deal.

i tried DP the other day for a few minutes, didn't like it, and went back to my comfy ol' GLPro. I'll tell you why. 1) The complication, as baker is saying. 2) Why the fuck can't you use cl_bob like every other engine? Is there a reason we have to learn this new command just for DP? 3) Tilde not exiting console

might not sound like much. but the graphic improvements dont mean that much to me. I played 320x240 until about a year ago; i only want as much information as is necessary to bitchsmack as many players as possible

[Baker]

might not sound like much. but the graphic improvements dont mean that much to me. I played 320x240 until about a year ago; i only want as much information as is necessary to bitchsmack as many players as possible

I think you can have both. And "bitchsmack" as many players as possible even better than you can with glpro.

[LordHavoc]

i tried DP the other day for a few minutes, didn't like it, and went back to my comfy ol' GLPro. I'll tell you why. 1) The complication, as baker is saying.

Reworking the options menu at the moment to mostly present a list of presets for certain categories of settings (effects, lighting) and certain settings that people want right away (mouse speed, screen brightness, game brightness, gamma, etc).

Any other 'complications'?

2) Why the fuck can't you use cl_bob like every other engine? Is there a reason we have to learn this new command just for DP?

Erm, cl_bob affects the view bobbing, not the gun model bobbing, the two are separate in DarkPlaces, but not in Quake.

I've gotten compliments from singleplayer quake players for the doom-style gun bobbing, so I can assure you that not everyone hates it.

If you want cl_bob 0 to also shut off cl_bobmodel then I can understand that, and the next release will disable the gun bobbing when view bobbing is disabled.

As for the 'just for DP?' comment, you have to learn things for every engine.

3) Tilde not exiting console

It uses escape to close the console specifically because of international keyboards that do not have tilde on that key, and all I get is complaints, sigh.

Changing the default in the next release, as I'm getting really tired of the endless complaints about a FEATURE.

might not sound like much. but the graphic improvements dont mean that much to me. I played 320x240 until about a year ago; i only want as much information as is necessary to bitchsmack as many players as possible

I aim better at 1600x1200 than I do at 320x240, the map textures being sharper at higher resolution gives me a better perception of distance to a player, and the higher resolution also gives me a better chance of identifying their team quickly.

[LordHavoc]

While researching problems with QW .loc files in darkplaces I had to search for fuhquake config files (as they seem to use a lot of macros of the form $loc_name_ra and so on, which are defined in the config files as cvars)...

While looking I came across this fine example of an ezquake config: hoshi4.cfg

... and you thought configuring DarkPlaces was complicated?

[LordHavoc]

Posted a new 20070315 build today:
Fixed bug that made ambient sounds not play (except in demos).
Doubled default hearable sound range to match ProQuake.
Added support for the strange macros often found in FuhQuake/ezQuake .loc files.
Cleaned up the options menu and added some selectable presets for effects and lighting.
Changed default value of con_closeontoggleconsole cvar to 1, to put an end to the nearly 2 years of complaints about the tilde key not closing the console.
Added code to setinfo pmodel/emodel when connected to a quakeworld server (incase anyone cares about what version of player.mdl/eyes.mdl are being used).
Fixed bugs in server query code when using sv_protocolname QUAKE, the server now properly responds to quake1 query tools when running quake protocol.
Disabled cl_bobmodel code when cl_bob is 0 for better compatibility with quake configs that expected the gun bobbing to be off when view bobbing is off.

[=peg=]

nice work! if only my pc could deal with the realtime worldlighting stuff i would definitly use DP!

[scar3crow]

erm... r_shadows_realtime_world 0 ? That would take 95% of the hit off, I keep them on for dynamic lights, which in the Graphics menu would be everything on basically except RT World. My machine is 5 years old.

[Canadian*Sniper]

While researching problems with QW .loc files in darkplaces I had to search for fuhquake config files (as they seem to use a lot of macros of the form $loc_name_ra and so on, which are defined in the config files as cvars)...

While looking I came across this fine example of an ezquake config: hoshi4.cfg

... and you thought configuring DarkPlaces was complicated?

set  loc_name_ga             "ga"
set  loc_name_gl             "gl"
set  loc_name_mh             "mega"
set  loc_name_ng             "ng"
set  loc_name_ra             "ra"
set  loc_name_rl             "rl"
set  loc_name_separator      "-"
set  loc_name_sng            "sng"
set  loc_name_ssg            "ssg"
set  loc_name_ya             "ya"

Ahhh this makes more sense from last night. So you get to identify what you want the config to say about key items. Versatile I like

Cheers on adding this feature! Saved me time instead of going thru EVERY QW loc file I have and using the find/replace option

For some nice QW locs, I found some here:

http://www.rootzilla.org/~djpi/files/quake/locs.zip

[R00k]

The new version looks cleaner and more user friendly. (I cant find the bumpmapping cvar yet). Did I notice a typo of gl_ext_seperateTencil ? should be gl_ext_seperateStencil ?

Hmm, though maybe I screwed up something, but I reset everything to default after installing this build but I cant connect to any netQuake servers. Ca.quakeone.com Quake.runequake.com quake.intertex.net (nothing) just says connection accepted. Though it does alow to connect to WhiteHot (dp7)


Edit: AH ok sv_protocolname "QUAKE" that works. Hmm, can it just automatically set the protocolname based on port#?

[LordHavoc]

erm... r_shadows_realtime_world 0 ? That would take 95% of the hit off, I keep them on for dynamic lights, which in the Graphics menu would be everything on basically except RT World. My machine is 5 years old.

With the 15th build you can just choose Effects: Normal, Lighting: High.

[LordHavoc]

Ahhh this makes more sense from last night. So you get to identify what you want the config to say about key items. Versatile I like

As my post on the DP news states, I did not implement the cvars, I only implemented hardcoded values for them. If you really want the cvars added I can do so, but it will make .loc loading a bit slower.

[LordHavoc]

The new version looks cleaner and more user friendly. (I cant find the bumpmapping cvar yet). Did I notice a typo of gl_ext_seperateTencil ? should be gl_ext_seperateStencil ?

I'm not going to make a new build just for that typo, but thanks, it will be fixed in the next build

Hmm, though maybe I screwed up something, but I reset everything to default after installing this build but I cant connect to any netQuake servers. Ca.quakeone.com Quake.runequake.com quake.intertex.net (nothing) just says connection accepted. Though it does alow to connect to WhiteHot (dp7)

I have no idea why it does not connect to Quake/ProQuake servers for some people, it does for me, and I've heard it even changes from day to day for some people... Any information on this would be much appreciated as I clearly can't reproduce it here.

If you want to send me a packet log it might help:
log_file connectproblem.log
developer 100
developer_networking 1
connect ca.quakeone.com
<wait until it times out>
connect ca.runequake.com
<wait until it times out>
connect quake.intertex.net
<wait until it times out>
quit

Then just send me that log file.

(note: developer_networking prints every packet, and developer 10 or higher prints some extra messages of interest)

Edit: AH ok sv_protocolname "QUAKE" that works. Hmm, can it just automatically set the protocolname based on port#?

That cvar is server side, so it is of no concern as a client.