My thoughts on Risen3D Vs. Doomsday
I just tried Risen3D for the first time today, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts. I am still a loyal Doomsday fan, and will continue to be so unless Risen3D starts adding a significant amount of new features. However, I must say there are some things that I found better in Risen3D.
The first thing I noticed was the fluid movement when compared to the latest builds of Doomsday. I was able to slide around corners and alongside walls without sticking or "bouncing". Something definitely feels off in Doomsday when compared to Risen3D. The movement just feels wrong in the current builds.
Second, the performance and stability is significantly better in Risen3D. I know there are plans to increase the performance in Doomsday, but I wonder how long this will take - given the engine has has these plans for years. I had dynamic lights, 3d models, high-res textures, and all the extra FX turned on in Risen3D, and noticed no performance loss on some of the most demanding maps. I currently have to turn off dynamic lights and decorations in Doomsday, and sometimes other features when my FPS drops too much.
Some of the Risen3D models are much better than the JDRP, and I'm surprised nobody has converted them yet! I think the Zombieman, Arch-vile, Spider Mastermind, Mancubus, and possibly the imp are better than the current JDRP models. Also, I'd say the fireballs are much better in Risen3D, and some of the ammo pickups appear more detailed. I know this has to do with the JDRP and not the Doomsday Engine itself - but in my opinion, they go hand-in-hand. If it weren't for the resource packs, Doomsday would be just another port (and in that case, I would go with Zdoom since it is easily the most versatile and stable port without resource packs involved).
In defense of Doomsday - Risen3D does not have as many features, and I still believe Snowberry kills the standard Risen3d Launcher. However, I sometimes wish the developers of Doomsday were slightly less ambitious, and spent more time on stability rather than adding more and more features. For the last 5 years or so, I've felt like Doomsday has taken one step forward, and two steps back with each release. For every new feature that is added, it seems at least one new bug comes with it. An example of this is the addition of "ringzero" to the newest builds. Just when I thought the builds were starting to get more stable, the engine has seemingly gone two steps back once again. I know that ringzero is "better" in technical terms, but I hope all the new bugs that were introduced are quickly resolved.
All said and done, I am still a loyal fan of the Doomsday Engine, and believe it will eventually have a release that is stable with most of the current bugs crushed. I've been following the Doomsday Engine from the beginning, when it was just an executable file with no launcher, and was developed by just Skyjake. Heck, I remember when the forum topics were about Doom Legacy Vs. Jdoom (don't hear anything about Doom Legacy anymore). All the progress lately definitely has me excited, and I have hopes that a stable version is closer than ever. I just hope that won't take too long!
The first thing I noticed was the fluid movement when compared to the latest builds of Doomsday. I was able to slide around corners and alongside walls without sticking or "bouncing". Something definitely feels off in Doomsday when compared to Risen3D. The movement just feels wrong in the current builds.
Second, the performance and stability is significantly better in Risen3D. I know there are plans to increase the performance in Doomsday, but I wonder how long this will take - given the engine has has these plans for years. I had dynamic lights, 3d models, high-res textures, and all the extra FX turned on in Risen3D, and noticed no performance loss on some of the most demanding maps. I currently have to turn off dynamic lights and decorations in Doomsday, and sometimes other features when my FPS drops too much.
Some of the Risen3D models are much better than the JDRP, and I'm surprised nobody has converted them yet! I think the Zombieman, Arch-vile, Spider Mastermind, Mancubus, and possibly the imp are better than the current JDRP models. Also, I'd say the fireballs are much better in Risen3D, and some of the ammo pickups appear more detailed. I know this has to do with the JDRP and not the Doomsday Engine itself - but in my opinion, they go hand-in-hand. If it weren't for the resource packs, Doomsday would be just another port (and in that case, I would go with Zdoom since it is easily the most versatile and stable port without resource packs involved).
In defense of Doomsday - Risen3D does not have as many features, and I still believe Snowberry kills the standard Risen3d Launcher. However, I sometimes wish the developers of Doomsday were slightly less ambitious, and spent more time on stability rather than adding more and more features. For the last 5 years or so, I've felt like Doomsday has taken one step forward, and two steps back with each release. For every new feature that is added, it seems at least one new bug comes with it. An example of this is the addition of "ringzero" to the newest builds. Just when I thought the builds were starting to get more stable, the engine has seemingly gone two steps back once again. I know that ringzero is "better" in technical terms, but I hope all the new bugs that were introduced are quickly resolved.
All said and done, I am still a loyal fan of the Doomsday Engine, and believe it will eventually have a release that is stable with most of the current bugs crushed. I've been following the Doomsday Engine from the beginning, when it was just an executable file with no launcher, and was developed by just Skyjake. Heck, I remember when the forum topics were about Doom Legacy Vs. Jdoom (don't hear anything about Doom Legacy anymore). All the progress lately definitely has me excited, and I have hopes that a stable version is closer than ever. I just hope that won't take too long!
Comments
Indeed there have been a few regressions along the way but by and large, they are nothing serious. Considering we've replaced so much of our architecture its actually rather complimentary that what issues there are, are so minor. I appreciate that some of these may be considered "deal breakers" from a player's perspective and these are what we are now focusing on as we prepare the stable 1.9.7 release. I guess what I'm saying is "keep the faith, it will all work out in the end".
However, I must say that your appraisal is rather contradictory. One the one hand you say you dislike Risen3D because it lacks features (in Doomsday?), then bemoan the fact that Doomsday has them.
I agree that the player movement is still off in the current build 369. This needs more attention.
On the subject of performance, I must say that I have no real issue with the current build. Although I admit that I don't use 3d models personally. Granted, performance can and will be improved but as we are replacing so much of the technology it is only productive to spend so much time optimizing. We could spend a couple of days optimizing some algorithm or another only to end up replacing it entirely a few weeks later. There is a lot of work involved in a hobby project like ours and we have to spend our time wisely to maximize the potential of it.
Once we've ironed out the big issues currently present in the unstable builds we'll most likely spend some time optimizing. However, don't expect miracles. We are still talking about a renderer that was first designed over a decade ago and is now seriously outdated. There is only so much that can be done without rewriting it, which we plan to do later down the line in any case (see the roadmap).
Stability wise, again, I have no issues with the current build. In fact, I find the current build considerably more stable than version 1.8.6
As for the 3d model content, this is outside our remit to be honest. I had hoped that when I stepped down from maintaining the resource pack(s) that the community would take up the slack and continue to develop them. Sadly that didn't happen. I don't think that you can reasonably expect deng team to maintain these in addition to developing the engine and everything else we do for this project.
However, you said you wanted to accomplish certain issues first before allowing some more coders to join, among other reasons, like saying something like the work involved would take a skilled and experienced coder (not as easy to find). Of course there are others like KuriKai who improve textures and maybe models too, but not many. Maybe sooner or later though there will be after the major release is out the door.
I can certainly understand that, believe me. I just meant there must be some sort of happy medium. Improving technology too much leaves you with a situation similar to Duke Nukem Forever. You can never catch up in the way of technology; it's impossible. By the time you finish improving one aspect of the code, something else better is sure to come along. I was disappointed years ago when you stopped making models and skins in order to code, because I was quite happy with 1.8.6 and was looking forward to seeing the new content from you - even more so than seeing more features in the game. Sometimes I wonder what Doomsday would be today if instead of re-coding the entire engine, you had redesigned all the models and skins. Sure it would be outdated code, but the game would have some impressive looking content. I respect your decision to leave, however. It's your choice to make, and you have to do what makes you happy. People like me should not influence your decision.
Like I said above, I was only suggesting a good balance. Adding too many features can have an impact on stability. Likewise, adding no features at all can have the players desiring more.
Yes, I can understand this from the perspective of a coder. The baffling part to me, as a player, is that 1.8.6 ran so much better with all the same resources. From my point of view, it seems strange that old technology ran far better. Just the other day, I ran version 1.8.6 of Doomsday with dynamic lights, 3d models, high-res textures, detailed textures, and more - yet the game ran great. I know there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that you have changed, but the game itself seems just as detailed from my view. Why is it that Risen3D and older versions of Doomsday run better? What causes the same dynamic lights, for example, to lag?
In the way of stability issues, I'm mostly referring to all the current problems with loading resources. I know the game itself doesn't crash much anymore, which is a good thing.
I also think it's sad that nobody else has stepped up to the plate for resources. Like I said in my previous post, resources make Doomsday worth playing. Without them, Doomsday is like every other port. When you think about it, why would I want to play Doomsday without resources, when Zdoom supports more user-made maps and has more features that don't pertain to visuals?
It would be great to have more coders in the team. One of my primary goals in 2011 was improving the project infrastructure and communications so that the team can actually collaborate effectively. Before last March we had serious issues in this area, which hindered our progress. Now that we have automated builds, master branch for release-quality code base, clear roadmap, and a dedicated internal team communication medium, we are in a hugely better position from a teamwork point of view. In the future as we transition to Qt, compiling the engine will also be easier as the number of dependencies is reduced.
I am definitely open to the idea of adding more team members. Anyone who feels they have something to contribute should drop me and/or DaniJ a note and we'll provide more information.
It's great to hear the loyal fans' views, thanks for sharing.
As you've followed the project for a long time you may be familiar with the overall situation, but I'll recap: after the 6 or so early years of the project, I distanced myself from Doomsday for a couple of years, which unfortunately occurred while my work for the 1.9 betas was half-finished. The main code base was left in an unreleasable state. During my absence, DaniJ picked up the responsibility of doing the main coding work. This culminated in the beta6/ringzero branches, which we have only now merged back to the main code base.
So the pendulum is now swinging back, and we're working on returning the code to a stable, well-performing state. In the future the team infrastructure we've set up will protect us from this sort of problems, and balance between new features and stability is much easier to maintain.
I believe there are many reasons a user would choose to use Doomsday. Without any additional resources Doomsday does a sterling job (even if I do say so myself) of presenting the game to the user. I personally don't use any additional resources when playing, for example.
Another reason is ease of usability. A user can download, install and configure the engine plus addons in only a dozen or so mouse clicks at most. There is no requirement to understand a command line or the internal workings of the engine in order to play.
As for user-made maps; I agree that Doomsday lacks some functionality here and there. However, Doomsday can load larger and more complex maps than any other port. Yes we may lack BOOM support (which is right around the corner, I might add) but there isn't much else that Doomsday is missing.
Well, I haven't gotten a chance to thoroughly look at the latest builds that are merged with RingZero, because there were some fatal errors that prevented me from doing so (maybe these errors are finally fixed in build 374). Or are you talking about builds before this? If so, then I simply did not notice. Is multisampling enabled by default, then? Is there an option for it in the control panel? Because in every game I've played in the past, I've found that enabling AA from the Nvidia control panel does not really change a whole lot, besides smoothing out a few edges - yet the games will lose significant performance. The real quality comes from AF, which I force from the Nvidia control panel for all games. This loses no performance, and makes everything look a whole lot better. I'll try using -noaa and see if the performance improves on my side.
I agree with all the points you made about reasons why Doomsday is great. However, some other ports like Zdoom are just as easy to install, are not as bloated, run faster, support more user-made levels, have just as many if not more features, and are far more stable. I've never once gotten Zdoom to crash, or found any visual error in any level. The movement is also more fluid, the mouse has no lag, and the game has less quirks overall. It's this reason that I use Zdoom to test maps that I work on. I understand that you and Skyjake have put a lot of effort into coding this engine, and the code is great for sure. However, I would still argue that the Doomsday Engine is the king of ports when it comes to visuals, but not much else. You are competing with some ports that have been worked on even longer than Doomsday, and have everything worked out, minus the visual aspects. Oh, and Zdoom DOES have a nice launcher.
Of course, I love the visuals of Doomsday, and would not turn to any other ports for this reason. Zdoom plays great, but I don't want the game looking like it did back when it first came out.
When you say "loading addons from the command", are you excluding addon loading from snowberry? Because I get all the issues of resources not working when I load them from the addon list in Snowberry. In other words, there seems to be no way to get addons working with the current builds; at least not that I'm aware of. Well, maybe putting them in the auto folder will work, but I don't feel like restructuring all my addons just for the current build. To me, this is a serious issue, because I don't want to play Doom with sprites and messed up font. I'd rather use an older build until resources are working in the new builds in snowberry.
Thanks for the tip about AF. I'll disable it in the control panel for Doom, and have Doomsday use the built-in AF.
I realize that this is perhaps inconvenient (although the in-game loading is actually much more convenient than using a launcher, especially when paired with the console's aliasing and binding features (though I grant you that this takes some time to configure and isn't nearly as user-friendly as a graphical launcher)).
However, as I've already stated elsewhere, this is indeed an important issue which will be addressed by Wednesday's build.
In what way is it the font messed up? It looks fine to me.
I just meant the messed up hi-res font when loaded with snowberry, like this screenshot I posted a while back:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l ... 65menu.jpg
That's because you aren't using the latest builds. I have the same problem you are talking about when I use the older builds; that is, I have low-res font in the menu.
That's exactly what I'm doing.