A Complete Evaluation of DarkPlaces

[LordHavoc]

8. Does not currently have the following ProQuake features: record a demo at any time, game clock visible at all times, iplog/ident capability, pq_teamscores (shows team totals instead of individual player totals in the HUD), pq_smoothcam (makes observing other players nice and smooth somehow), pq_moveup 1 (swim = moveup if in water because moveup moves faster than jump swimming), and few other little odds and ends.

Recording a demo at any time is tricky.

iplog is in the current beta, but does not make use of iplog.dat at all, and has no identify command, it only has iplog_list which lists all players with an address beginning with the text given.

the pq server only sends pq_teamscores information if the mod supports it, and if the client identifies itself as a specific version of proquake engine, there's no general purpose way to request such information, I'm really not sure I want DP to pretend to be proquake.

pq_smoothcam is unnecessary in darkplaces, it automatically recognizes when you are observing someone (also makes targetquake and The Ascension of Vigil play better).

pq_moveup is not supported because it is the client engine interfering with the gameplay that is coded on the server, it does not know for sure that this is the correct behavior, a mod may actually have special behavior when using jump underwater, rather than swimming upward, ideally the mod should be altered to swim up at full speed when using jump, then it doesn't matter what engine is used.

9. Yellow mentoned that Qrack has a different MM2 beep than MM1 beep. I figured I'd throw this in the list for completeness.

Implemented in the beta also.

10. ProQuake server rcon (RocketGuy mentioned that and LH said "ain't gonna happen" ).

It's not completely ruled out, but I'd rather see people switch to darkplaces servers, so there's a bit of conflict of interest here

11. On very rare occasions, I get a crash (I think it has happened twice). But I blame myself :d

DarkPlaces should not ever crash, if you can compile the engine in a free compiler like Dev-C++ and run it in the debugger (in windowed mode, naturally, as fullscreen is hard to debug), I'd appreciate knowing where the crash occurs. However it may be a driver bug, I've been hearing of several driver crashes with darkplaces lately, which are hard to track down as they are not my fault.

If DarkPlaces ever had a lower setting to get a consistent and high FPS like GLPRO always does and even Qrack seems to usually do, I think it would be easy and a no-brainer for everyone to ditch GLPRO.

As I noted in my interview at http://linuxquake.org/ there is something the drivers dislike about DarkPlaces that I have not been able to identify.

In terms of high poly maps it runs better than glquake, which proves it is a more efficient engine, it is just does something the drivers hate and it is difficult to identify what.

I've implemented many optimizations over time, each one makes it faster, but none solve the underlying problem in the driver, if the underlying problem can be identified it will suddenly become the fastest Quake engine in existence.

[LordHavoc]

anyone else getting this?

AMD Sempron 2800+
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

The ATI drivers are failing to compile the dynamic light shader, and because they are so buggy they CRASH when they fail to compile a shader.

[Phenom]

Ok thanks LordHavok, you da man!

What does this mean though?

n terms of high poly maps it runs better than glquake, which proves it is a more efficient engine, it is just does something the drivers hate and it is difficult to identify what.

Meaning DP can support higher poly maps? would that include say... Doom3 maps? or would Doom3 maps be to complicated?

[Baker]

Ok thanks LordHavok, you da man!

Seconded :d

Another note to whoever cases:

I find that using "Brightness" (Contrast) of 1.5 and a gamma of 2.5 in DarkPlaces renders very vibrant colors in DarkPlaces that feel like what I accustomed to play with in JoeQuake and ezQuake.

I tried it out in single player and it with the default DarkPlaces settings and it looks absolutely amazing (except that I typed cl_bob 0 in the console, I do hate that side to side motion with "center mounted" weapons, but it looks sweet with "right side mounted" weapons).

I sort of think that default brightness(contrast)/gamma in DarkPlaces looks muddy and I imagine that is difficult to change, but the new menu system makes it so much easier to "tune" the brightness than in previous builds.

As DarkPlaces gets easier to setup (and what a difference that makes), it seems easier to setup the engine well.

I'll try the bloodhack cvar and see how that affects Shmack.

To Mindzy or anyone else who complains about the DP shaft: I was wrong, it isn't just that you need to set Smooth Sweep Shaft = OFF, but you need to do Polygon Lightning = OFF to get the traditional Quake shaft.

[Baker]

What does this mean though?

Meaning DP can support higher poly maps? would that include say... Doom3 maps? or would Doom3 maps be to complicated?

DarkPlaces supports Quake 3 and Half-Life maps, I'm pretty sure.

However, an important note, for Quake 3 it does not support all the shaders, so the colors do not look like Quake 3. I read somewhere that the shaders to do Quake 3 are incompatible with DarkPlaces's lighting system or something.

[Baker]

the pq server only sends pq_teamscores information if the mod supports it, and if the client identifies itself as a specific version of proquake engine, there's no general purpose way to request such information, I'm really not sure I want DP to pretend to be proquake.

Hmmm. Interesting. Qrack does pretend to be ProQuake.

I wonder if there is an engine neutral way to do this even on the server side (modifying the ProQuake server engine). pq_teamscores is immensely convenient in team games.

I can't seem to find the quote at the moment, but there are a few mods that are probably good candidates for experiments running DarkPlaces as the server that are not too difficult to deQccx.

[LordHavoc]

Meaning DP can support higher poly maps? would that include say... Doom3 maps? or would Doom3 maps be to complicated?

Nexuiz maps are higher poly than Doom3, so are the player models

[Baker]

This screenshot appears to use HUD replacement elements in DarkPlaces. I have read the entire darkplaces.txt and even looked around in the engine and I can't seem to get HUD replacement elements to work in DarkPlaces.

Is this supported in DP presently or did the maker of the screenshot use a gfx.wad .lmp method or use a mod with extensions to do this?

Just wondering.

[Phenom]

Whoa nice!

So why hasn't DP spun off into its own direction?

I actually see DP and Qrack/GLPro as 2 different clients.

Qrack, Solid Quake 1 client
DarkPlaces, insane enhancements to Quake & more!

So let me get this straight. I make a HalfLife map, and I can run it in DP? So I could make Quake expansions with HalfLife maps using DP?

P.S

Baker that screen shot looks awesome! the bumpmapping on the texture makes it look great!

I wanna try some stuff on DP but it doesnt work for me because I use ATI

[Phenom]

I'd be more then willing to setup a server to test out some new DP maps geared towards Doom3, Nexuis, whatever the max for DP is and see if we can get some kind of UltraQuake goin Lemme know if this interests anyone.. CAX was basically debugged on my bomber.ironrocket.com server and its a complete success! Thanks R00k & Bam you guys are top notch Quakers!

P.S sorry about the double post

[Baker]

I'd be more then willing to setup a server to test out some new DP maps geared towards Doom3, Nexuis, whatever the max for DP is and see if we can get some kind of UltraQuake goin Lemme know if this interests anyone.. CAX was basically debugged on my bomber.ironrocket.com server and its a complete success! Thanks R00k & Bam you guys are top notch Quakers!

P.S sorry about the double post

There is a Nexuiz forum at http://www.alientrap.org/forum/ , which is where esteel is from. There are a couple of other familiar faces there and anyone with a long memory can probably spot a few ex-Quake players like Abaddon too.

I may give Nexuiz another go now that I know a great deal more about DarkPlaces than 2005.
---

Back on the subject of things I've noticed, it would be nice if the DarkPlaces server browser sorted by players and then by ping, instead of just ping. This would make it easier to identify servers with players on them.

[LordHavoc]

Is this supported in DP presently or did the maker of the screenshot use a gfx.wad .lmp method or use a mod with extensions to do this?

DP has supported hud replacement art for years, just toss tga files in gfx/ with the appropriate names, just like normal. If it finds both a tga and an lmp (or a tga and a wad lump) it will use the size from the lmp or wad lump for rendering, just like QW clients usually do.

[LordHavoc]

So let me get this straight. I make a HalfLife map, and I can run it in DP? So I could make Quake expansions with HalfLife maps using DP?

You can, yes, although the HalfLife tools probably have a EULA forbidding use to make a game for any other engine, so the legality may be in question.

Furthermore they do not have the proper collision boxes, so players are 'taller' in halflife maps (as tall as the player in halflife), and shamblers are shorter than in quake (as tall as an alien grunt in halflife).

Quake3 format is preferred for these reasons, it has no such limitations (as well as the nice features like animated torch sprites and flares that face the viewer, terrain, embedded models, better model lighting, glass windows and other such things).

[Lardarse]

You can, yes, although the HalfLife tools probably have a EULA forbidding use to make a game for any other engine, so the legality may be in question.

That's why we use Worldcra... err... Worldcraft 3.3 instead of 3.4

[Baker]

DP has supported hud replacement art for years, just toss tga files in gfx/ with the appropriate names, just like normal. If it finds both a tga and an lmp (or a tga and a wad lump) it will use the size from the lmp or wad lump for rendering, just like QW clients usually do.

Excellent. So far I have not been able to make this work (in the past), but I hate the Quake HUD. :d