A Complete Evaluation of DarkPlaces

[LordHavoc]

I've noticed a couple of cvars that don't save to the config. "cl_bob 0" doesn't save to the config; I have to type it in every time. Same goes for "r_glsl 0" (this cvar heavily affects performance on my GeForce 5200 card, setting to 0 increases framerates by 80% to 100% which no noticeable on-screen appearance difference that I can tell).

I'll make cl_bob* and r_glsl* saved cvars.

Regardin the increase in framerate with r_glsl 0, that is because the GFFX series SUCKS at pixel shaders.

[LordHavoc]

I know that r_glsl uses OpenGL 2.0 shaders, why would that so adversely affect my framerate?

Because the GFFX series SUCK at pixel shaders. This is the same reason HalfLife2/CounterStrike:Source use the DX8 renderer on GFFX cards rather than the DX9 renderer.

If I have it enabled (=1), my frame rate is about 50% lower. If I disable it, I can't tell a difference looking at the screen, everything looks the same (maybe real time lighting needs to be enabled?).

On all other pixel shader cards it is a slight slowdown on normal rendering but a major peed gain for rendering lights (r_shadow_realtime_world 1 mode is about a third to half the speed with it off on my GF6, and the difference is even more extreme if gloss textures are installed).

Around August I updated drivers on my old video card and DarkPlaces framerate was much worse for some reason unknown to me at the time and I think the difference might have been that the new drivers had OpenGL 2.0 support (I'm guessing). I can remember being really frustrated.

Cards before the GFFX/Radeon9500 are not capable of using r_glsl and consequently set it to 0 at startup and refuse to let you turn it on, so this has no relation to that performance loss on an older card.

I mention cl_bob because it is a cvar that just about everyone will turn that off for online play:

I play with it on.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what r_glsl does, but if turning it off has such a impact (assuming my experience with r_glsl is somewhat common, maybe it is or is not) maybe that should be off unless someone selects "high" or "full" effects (or does it have to do with the lighting?).

As mentioned it is a SPEED GAIN in most cases, so it is on by default, only the GFFX suffers.

[LordHavoc]

That happened to me a lot when using proquake as well. With my DualWeapons config activated and typing in a message using the letters e or q would kick/join me from the RA lineup. Or make me join a CA team accidentally. I'm used to it now.

This sounds very strange, typing movement keys would cause you to move if this is true, and I have not observed that.

[LordHavoc]

Haha, you made me say "conback" instead of "conchars".

Actually, after further testing it appears it is a flaw in the character set. It isn't DarkPlace's fault.

I don't know why JoeQuake renders it fine, but I'll "fix" it to be a proper charset.

Because DarkPlaces uses GL_LINEAR filtering on hud art and text so that it scales up a bit more smoothly, rather than being pixelated, a side effect of this mode in OpenGL is that the background color 'shows' around the edges.

[LordHavoc]

Apparently most of the charsets out there not only have an alpha channel but some sort of special treatment of the background color.

I'll edit the alpha channel to fix

It's actually the color of the transparent pixels (yes they have a color, even if you can't see it normally) that is the problem, ideally they should be the same color as the nearby opaque pixels, alternatively you can just make the transparent pixels have a black color and then you get a dark edge which is less annoying but still not perfect.

[LordHavoc]

This will depend on the gfx card used.. r_glsl en/disables opengl 2.0 glsl pixel shaders. On some (older) cards its slower then doing the same stuff on the cpu. If you disable those pixel shaders you will miss out on some eyecandy like bumpmapping. I'm not totaly sure on what else is done in pixel shaders alone.

Oh and scr_conbrightness 0 should make the console background black in DP so it should look like the other engine pic there.

Actually bumpmapping works fine for lights without r_glsl, but deluxemapping (which is used in Nexuiz) does not work without r_glsl, Quake has no deluxemapping (although I released a deluxemaps pack on the darkplaces download page which adds it - entirely useless unless you have bumpmap textures).

There's no apparent visual difference for most Quake players as they do not have gloss textures installed (which look better with r_glsl 1 than 0) or deluxemaps installed (which don't even work without r_glsl 1).

The main effect of r_glsl 1 is making lights render a lot faster (except on GFFX).

[Baker]

A question about DINPUT:

I am curious about something. I noticed that Nexuiz has a -dinput batch file. There are a large pool of players in both Quake and Quakeworld that swear by dinput. And then again, there are those that hate it (and even more that do not know what is it).

Is DINPUT one of those things that can be turned off/on on a whim, in theory. Or is that something that is complicated and the engine has to know that in advance to initialize it during start up.

The reason I ask this is that although DINPUT one of the more common command line parameters that is actually used, there are not any engines that I know of that have the ability to turn it on in-game.

[LordHavoc]

The reason I ask this is that although DINPUT one of the more common command line parameters that is actually used, there are not any engines that I know of that have the ability to turn it on in-game.

I've never been able to figure out if it's better, worse, or indifferent on my machine, it seems to only behave differently on certain computers, and I'm not sure which ones or why.

SDL switched away from using DirectInput and back to GDI (the standard windows system) because DirectInput was causing significant problems on some computers.

I have not made it a cvar option because I don't understand the code or care

[Baker]

I've never been able to figure out if it's better, worse, or indifferent on my machine, it seems to only behave differently on certain computers, and I'm not sure which ones or why.

Somehow I don't think -dinput has any affect on Linux. I could be wrong.

What -dinput effectively does on Windows is remove the effects of mouse acceleration and screen ratio from Quake.

If I am using 1024 x 768 (4:3) resolution, Windows corrects mouse movement with a 4:3 aspect ratio. In Quake without DINPUT, vertical aim is affected because Windows is "correcting" the mouse input. Same with mouse acceleration.

I've played with dinput so long I can't remember the effects of mouse acceleration in-game (I just hear plays complain about it, haha ).

[esteel]

As far as i understand it the mouse acceleration without directX is a windows xp bug..
Back when i still used windows i used that registry file to 'correct' this. Its said to disable acceleration in all cases but as i never used acceleration i'm not sure if its true.. And also 'some' mouse drivers should work around this problem too..
http://esteel.planetnexuiz.de/misc/m...tion_off_1.reg
And to revert back to windows default settings:
http://esteel.planetnexuiz.de/misc/m...on_default.reg

[=peg=]

Originally Posted by Canadian*Sniper:

That happened to me a lot when using proquake as well. With my DualWeapons config activated and typing in a message using the letters e or q would kick/join me from the RA lineup. Or make me join a CA team accidentally. I'm used to it now.

yeah i had that problem too.. but it turned out i had some impluses in my "-attack"-binds and "spacebar" being one of my firebuttons..

commands on -binds ( i mean the minus after a +alias) still get executed, no matter what state the game is in (messagemode)

[=peg=]

r_glsl 0 made a huge difference on my GF5600FX

r_glsl 1 => less then 10 fps with all eyecandy and realtime lighting on
r_glsl 0 -> 30-60 fps with the same settings

also i noticed that certain bloom/corona effects show thru doors (or at least the secret door near the megahealth in e1m1)

[scar3crow]

r_glsl 0 was 1-3fps faster in general gameplay on my gf4ti4200
i timedemoed demo1.dem with both, glsl 0 averaged 2 fps higher

[LordHavoc]

Somehow I don't think -dinput has any affect on Linux. I could be wrong.

What -dinput effectively does on Windows is remove the effects of mouse acceleration and screen ratio from Quake.

I was referring to testing on windows 98 a few years ago, and I kept acceleration disabled in windows.

Note that DarkPlaces disables acceleration (Windows XP broke the winquake/glquake code for disabling acceleration, but DP has it fixed).

If I am using 1024 x 768 (4:3) resolution, Windows corrects mouse movement with a 4:3 aspect ratio. In Quake without DINPUT, vertical aim is affected because Windows is "correcting" the mouse input. Same with mouse acceleration.

Pixels are always square (except a CRT running 1280x1024), there's no correction.

I've done enough measurements on mouse movement on the desktop in windows (when comparing mouse speeds for gaming) to know that there's no difference in vertical or horizontal movement speeds in windows.

Except at 1280x1024 on a CRT as mentioned, which is still the same number of pixels, but the pixels are a bit squished so it looks like less movement vertically even though it's actually the same.

The number of pixels moved by the mouse is all that quake cares about, so it doesn't matter if the pixels are square or not in terms of aiming, as long as the mouse reports the same number of pixels for the same amount of physical movement in different directions, and Windows does not alter the number of pixels moved.

I've played with dinput so long I can't remember the effects of mouse acceleration in-game (I just hear plays complain about it, haha ).

I hate acceleration

I only recently found the relevant xset to disable acceleration in Linux - xset 1 1 4, or any other value where the first two numbers are equal.

[LordHavoc]

r_glsl 0 was 1-3fps faster in general gameplay on my gf4ti4200
i timedemoed demo1.dem with both, glsl 0 averaged 2 fps higher

I hate to break it to you, but r_glsl 0/1 do nothing on that card, it doesn't support the features.