Thief - The trail of the Arch-Heretic

Post by **Enjay** » Sat May 20, 2006 2:09

OK, I just uploaded the revised version to incoming. In fact, I uploaded 2 versions because I noticed a minor bug in the sndinfo lump just after uploading the first. Hopefully if Ty can make sense of the garbled e-mail I sent him, he'll rename njhthief1.zip to njhthief.zip and use it to replace the one currently in the archive. With any luck, Ty will have cleared it in a day or two.

What's changed?

A lot of Solarsnowfall particle effects have been added but hopefully I've managed to activate/deactivate them well enough as you move around the map to minimise the performance hit. Puking script 666 now toggles between fast and slow computer configs. The slow config removes all reflective floors and nearly all particle effects for those with machines not quick enough to allow Solarsnowfall's particles.

A new area has been added. Just an open town square where the sewer key can now be found, rather than just lying next to the sewer door. It's a largish area and although you can only get onto a couple of them, and many aren't particularly obvious there is a boat load of 3D floors in the area. There's very little to explore in the new area - it's lined with "closed" buildings that you can't get into but obviously a new area means more enemies and items and a bit more loot too.

Other than that, there are a couple of minor cosmetic tweaks to take into account some of the comments made to me. I was going to try and spend a little more time on this map, but real life has caught up with me big time over the last few weeks so I guess it's probably best that I just draw a line under this and consider it done. It's just getting too frustrating to try and juggle all the stuff I have going on ATM. So, as far as I'm concerned, this is the final version and there will only be changes to it in the the future if someone comes up with a real showstopping bug.

Post by **Enjay** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:16

OK, Ty has moved it. You can grab it from the main server:

ftp://archives.3dgamers.com/pub/idgames ... hthief.zip

However, with it's 5 user limit, you'll be lucky to get it. Other mirrors do not seem to be updated yet. When the text file changes to one that says

[spoiler]

Code: Select all

Archive Maintainer      : Heretic level for GZDoom
Update to               : Please replace my file njhthief.zip, uploaded about 
			  2 weeks ago with this bug-fixed and improved version.
Advanced engine needed  : GZDoom
Primary purpose         : Single play

[/spoiler]
at the top and the zip file size and date changes to 5,716,784 bytes 20 May 2006 00:43 your favourite mirror will be updated and you can grab it from there.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:55

Why 'lucky'? I connected upon first try.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat May 20, 2006 14:31

I think I have to do something about the particle effects. They bring down my system to an unacceptable speed - and I have a fast computer.

Post by **Enjay** » Sat May 20, 2006 16:38

Really? If I run at 1024x768 with the way the particles are set up ATM I usually get values between 28-36 fps. Not fast, but certainly playable. If I leave all the dynamic lights and particles on, but go down to 640x480 I rarely drop below 40 fps (2.8GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, GeForce 6200 (84.21 drivers), WinXP Home, DirectX9c). Although, any improvement you could provide from your side would, of course, be welcome. Before I switched the particles on and off as you move around the map BTW I was lucky to get over single figures for my FPS anywhere on the map.

Oh, and the Berlin mirror has the updated version now too.

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/msdos/games/i ... hthief.zip

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat May 20, 2006 16:47

Enjay wrote:Really? If I run at 1024x768 with the way the particles are set up ATM I usually get values between 28-36 fps. Not fast, but certainly playable.

That's what I get as well - compared to smooth 85 fps without the particles.

The rendering is not the problem. What costs so much time is moving the particle objects. That alone takes 14-18 ms per frame and it's mostly a complete waste.

Post by **Enjay** » Sat May 20, 2006 18:08

Graf Zahl wrote:compared to smooth 85 fps without the particles.

Well, if you will spoil yourself with those fast frame rates.

Fair point. Dropping to old frame rates when you are used to better is a jolt, but perhaps I'm a bit more tolerant of them than you. I'd certainly describe them as slow, but not unacceptable. However, as I said, if you can work out some magical way to improve the handling of particle moving, it would be greatly appreciated and have positive implications for all sorts of mods.

...I thought you weren't going to be around for a week or so?

Post by **wildweasel** » Sat May 20, 2006 18:32

I think I averaged about 15-20 FPS on the previous version, with particle effects on and multiply lights. Switching to additive lights made it a bit more tolerable (25-30) but still not quite what I'm used to.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat May 20, 2006 18:52

Enjay wrote: However, as I said, if you can work out some magical way to improve the handling of particle moving, it would be greatly appreciated and have positive implications for all sorts of mods.

If I do you'd have to make another update. That won't work without modifying the DECORATE definitions.

Post by **Enjay** » Sat May 20, 2006 19:36

I figured as much. However, a modified DECORATE presumably wouldn't take too much to do and it could be used as a test-bed for your changes. Although, I suspect Solarsnowfall and others wouldn't be too far behind me in wanting to use it. If it means a useful feature like this ends up in GZdoom, it's certainly worth it.

Post by **solarsnowfall** » Sun May 21, 2006 6:46

I managed to average fps in the high 70s to low 90s area throughout most portions of the map, and the upper 90s into the 100s after puking 666. That's at 800 x 600 without vertical sync, and there were a few areas that dipped down to about 40 fps in high detail. I'm sure I could have done some things to improve performance with the lamp lights, like increasing the delay between missiles (reducing the amount in game) and perhaps taking out all the translucentsy to the individual projectiles.

Enjay wrote:I suspect Solarsnowfall and others wouldn't be too far behind me in wanting to use it.

You got that right!

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun May 21, 2006 8:30

The translucency wouldn't have helped much. It's moving this large amount of actors that causes problems, not rendering them. Doom's movement code is simply not capable of handling several hundreds of constantly moving things simultaneously.

Post by **solarsnowfall** » Sun May 21, 2006 18:23

Ok, so increasing the delay time would have definately helped. Now if I'm reading your previous post in the correct context, it sounds like you might have some solution to this?

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun May 21, 2006 18:34

I have an idea. We'll see how much it helps.