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My new mission, A Night in Altham, is available. We are already up to version 2! @Dave the Tafferfound an problem that deserves a fix, so here is version 2: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y4r1dmziuq6clh2im3qz1/altham2.pk4?rlkey=m3cv5v6v70lxbc9xha61nuxoj&dl=1. I will ask @nbohr1more to update the databases. A special thanks to JackFarmer for several pieces of custom ambient music. They "complete" the mission, providing a unique feel to its locations. Also thanks to the many beta testers (jaxa, Shadow, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, thebigh, datiswous, Mezla, MirceaKitsune, Melchior, Acolytesix, TheUnbeholden, prjames, Bergante). Thanks to @peter_spy for his beautiful Builder Compound assets. This is a large mission, so be ready to take some time. I recommend that you do named saves occasionally (I actually implemented auto-saves for this mission, but it was causing crashes on Linux, so I removed it). This mission has a lot of keys, so it implements a key management mechanism. Keys are removed from the game when no longer needed. This includes when you use a key to open a door, or if you pick a door/lock that also uses a key. Most keys are automatically removed, but there are a couple that aren't (for example, if they open up more than one door). In a certain area, this mission uses the Keyhole Peek feature of TDM. Typically, this is when you lean forward (F key) into a door keyhole and you can see into the next room. But in this case you don't lean into a keyhole. It's a hole of another kind. It's an unconventional use of something that isn't used a lot in TDM; hopefully the mission context will make it clear when to use it. The mission does not use Keyhole Peek for regular doors. Be aware, there is a known problem on Linux, where the peek feature can cause a crash. Peeking is not required for mission completion. This has been tested on TDM 2.11a and the current dev build of 2.12 (dev16854-10518). Scary things warning: Difficulty settings make a difference. Things that are affected by the difficulty level: Enjoy!

I'm proud to announce the release of The Lieutenant 4: A Reciprocal Gambit Huge thanks to beta testers: @Mat99 @Bikerdude @Cambridge Spy @Shadow @DavyJones Screenshots: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCit3B 800x600 versions for @nbohr1more: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCir1t Download link (version 2): https://drive.proton.me/urls/PV79JTNVAW#7zDvAvipKG0I TDM 2.13 required. Enjoy! Frost

That is your subjective opinion ("games that look better"). And, as you mentioned Dishonored 2 earlier, it's pretty comparable to TDMs performance in maximum details. Note also that some fan missions look significantly better than others, due to lighting, the amount of detail and the textures in the maps.

"Dame Fortune is a fickle mistress. Every time she opens a door, she throws a brick through your window..." I'm happy to announce that my second FM, "The Last Night on Crookshank Lane", is now available on the Mission Database: https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=crookshank Backup download is also available here: https://share.anon-kenkai.com/crookshank.pk4 Big thanks to @Airship-Ballet, @wesp5, @JackFarmer, @taffernicus, @Bergante for beta testing and feedback. Special thanks to @datiswous for generously providing in-mission subtitles. This is a much bigger and more ambitious FM than my first attempt, and it ended up taking a year and a half to complete. It was also a very educational lesson in the importance of proper map optimization. It's a sort of soft-sequel to "The Threepenny Revue", but not part of a series per se, and can be played as a standalone mission. I took inspiration from FMs like "The Painter's Wife" in TDM, and "The Sound of a Burrick in a Room" from Thief Gold, and although I'd never put myself in the same league as either, I was always impressed by their size, scope, and detail. City exploration FMs have always been my favorite, and those maps and others like them inspired me to take a crack at something similar. Enoy!

I have a fairly cheap BenQ 4K monitor and keep the gamma at 1.2. Maybe I've done that so I can see my own missions . But regardless, I understand it's a PITA to have to adjust gamma for every mission. It did come up in beta but I just decided to keep the original setting, because that was my vision. People actually didn't like the full dark areas where you needed a lantern either, which I found puzzling and ignored. It just became apparent that there is a baseline that players have become used to I guess. Personally, I don't like it when missions all look the same.

I think a fairer comparison is something like skin deep. The game is awesome - it is very polished and smartly scoped for the engine and uses a modern idtech4 fork. The game runs very well in missions and is even steam deck rated. There are however “interstitial” missions and interludes which are much different in terms of scope and design - and on a device like the steam deck performance cannot really be sustained - even at low resolutions. Brute force only goes so far with the base technology.

That's not what I'm saying at all. It's still an old engine at baseline. Maybe IDtech just isn't all that efficient overall, but I've seen other devs do some incredible work with it. For example, it's easier to run Dishonored 2 on my hardware than Dark Mod with all the bells and whistles, and I think we can all agree Dishonored 2 looks better and does a better job rendering open environments without performance drops. The way these effects have been added is more like Oblivion Reloaded, or ENB, though perhaps Oblivion Reloaded is a bad example because it actually runs quite well in comparison. They are not well optimized, particularly the shadow and antialiasing code, I've yet to even test volumetrics. The Ambient Occlusion method looks like crap compared to newer methods used in MXAO (reshade) or RTAO (Nvidia), and is quite a performance hog in it's own right. It's nice to have options sure, but there are simply far better options available via external methods. It's fine though, I'll just turn off the fancy effects and enjoy all the great fan created content, just would have been nice to know what I was getting into/what all should have been disabled by default.

Welcome to the Snatcher's Workshop. Come on in, we may have something for you today. Feel free to look around. We trade everything here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We realize new ideas and take existing ideas for a spin. For fun. Somewhere in this post you will find a download with mods. Good care was put to make all mods as little intrusive as possible to make them compatible with as many missions as possible. This set of mods will never break your game but some features won't be available in a handful of missions (the reasons are known). Feel free to report here what works and what doesn't. TDM Modpack vs. Unofficial Patch With the release of recent versions of the TDM Modpack I consider the most relevant features of the Unofficial Patch have been matched, superseded, improved, or simply implemented in different ways. More importantly, the TDM Modpack is not only tightly packed and it has a minimal impact in your install but it achieves more by altering less core files, meaning more compatibility and less maintenance. One can, of course, argue. TDM Modpack 5.0 Compatible with The Dark Mod 2.13 (only) A lightweight, stable, non-intrusive, mission-friendly Modpack for The Dark Mod that includes many enhancements and a new set of tools and abilities for our protagonist: peek through doors, blow and ignite candles, whistle to distract enemies, mark your location, an invisibility-speed combo and more. Mods included in the pack do not alter your game or any of the missions in any relevant way. The pack includes enhancements to the core game and additions that can be used in missions but at the same time respects the vision of the mission creators. It is up to you to make use of any of the new tools and abilities or not. Please note that sometimes authors include in their missions their own versions of core files and as a result, some mods are not available in some missions. All missions will play fine regardless. Release posts: v5 series: v5.0 v4 series: v4.0 | v4.2 | v4.5 | v4.6 v3 series: v3.0 | v3.2 | v3.3 | v3.4 | v3.5 | v3.6 | v3.8 v2 series: v2.0 | v2.2 | v2.4 | v2.5 | v2.6 | v2.7 | v2.8 v1 series: v1.0 | v1.2 | v1.4 | v1.6 | v1.8 What's included in the pack? -:- APP: GENERIC MOD ENABLER -:- Credits: JoneSoft License: Free for unlimited time for Home users and non-profit organizations. Description: A portable, freely distributable Mod enabler/disabler. This application is required to run mods safely and it is included in the pack. At the heart of the Modpack resides JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler), an application that allows players to enable and disable mods with one click. JSGME has been around for more than a decade and it is to be fully trusted. Refer to the install instructions section at the bottom for full details. -:- MOD: CORE ESSENTIALS -:- A pack that includes a variety of mods from the best modders of TDM: ~ FAST DOORS Credits: Idea and programming by Obsttorte. Treatment by snatcher. Availability: All missions except Noble Affairs, Seeking Lady Leicester, Shadows of Northdale ACT II, Snowed Inn, The Imperial Sword, Volta 3: Gemcutter and a handful of lesser missions. Description: Being chased? In a rush? No problem: doors open and close faster when running. Topic: Slam doors open while running ~ QUIET DOORS Credits: An idea by SeriousToni (Sneak & Destroy mission). Mod by snatcher. Availability: All missions except Noble Affairs, Seeking Lady Leicester, Shadows of Northdale ACT II, Snowed Inn, The Imperial Sword, Volta 3: Gemcutter and a handful of lesser missions. Description: A vast number of doors play more subtle, sneaky sounds for a quieter, stealthier experience. This applies to doors that come with default sounds but only when manipulated by the player. Topic: Decrease volume of open/close door sounds triggered by player ~ LOOT ANIMATIONS Credits: Original idea by Goldwell (Noble Affairs mission). Programming by Obsttorte. Treatment by snatcher and wesp5. Availability: All missions except You Only Fly Thrice and a bunch of missions that come with their own implementation (tdm_frobactions.script). Description: Moves the loot towards the player before putting it in the inventory, underlining the impression of actually taking it. This mod comes with a subtle new loot sound that goes along nicely with the animation. ~ DYNAMIC INVENTORY Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: When picking up loot this mod displays the loot info in the inventory and shortly after reverts back to the last non-loot item selected. The mod in addition, remembers the last item selected when shouldering and unshouldering a body. ~ SMART CONTAINERS Credits: Obsttorte (source code updates), Dragofer (similar attempts), snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: To facilitate looting, the bottom of many containers (chests, jewellery boxes, etc...) gets automatically disabled at the beginning of the mission and only the lid remains frobable. ~ STEALTH MONITOR Credits: kcghost, Dragofer, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: Display some stats (Suspicions / Searches / Sightings) and the Stealth Score during a mission. Just bring up the "Loot" inventory icon and press "Use" (or setup a dedicated key). ~ STEALTH ALERT Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: Completing a mission without being seen is something that can be done with some practice and patience. This mod will play an alerting chime whenever you are seen so that you don't have to monitor the Stealth stats all the time. ~ BLINKING ITEMS Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions. Requisites: Console command r_newFrob must be 0, which is the game default. Description: Items within frob distance that go into the inventory (plus static readables) emit a subtle blink. This pulse can help you identify some valuable items that otherwise are difficult to detect. Topic: New Frob Shader ~ SMART OBJECTS Credits: snatcher, Dragofer. Availability: All missions. Description: Display actor and object names whenever you grab an entity with a name. In addition, objects (except AI entities) do not make or propagate sounds on impact while being manipulated. Topics: No impact sounds while holding an object / Nameless objects... a missed opportunity ~ FRAGILE BOTTLES Credits: snatcher. Availability: All mission except for few items in A Reputation to Uphold and Shadows of Northdale ACT I & ACT II. Description: No stealth game is complete without some good bottle smashing! There are hundreds and hundreds of bottles in our mission catalogue: go to your nearest kitchen, take a bottle and throw it to distract AI, extinguish fires... Topic: Breakable throwables ~ ALT FOOTSTEPS ON WATER Credits: SeriousToni. Availability: All missions except Hazard Pay, Noble Affairs, Shadows of Northdale ACT I and ACT II, Snowed Inn, Volta 2: Cauldron and a handful of lesser missions. Description: Alternative sounds of footsteps on water for our protagonist (walk / run / land). Topic: New Footstep sounds ~ MISCELLANEOUS Re-worked Inventory menu (more compact). Items can be sorted. Inventory count removed for non-stackable items. Alternative high mantle sound for our protagonist. Removed two anticlimactic player dying sounds Revamped and extended "Mission Complete" audio theme. Standardization of frob distances for some doors. Decreased brightness of the Objectives and the Inventory. Decreased brightness of stock newspapers. Player weapons are visually visible in the dark. -:- MOD: PLAYER SKILLS -:- A new "Skills" category is added to the inventory on mission load and the category includes the below abilities: ~ SKILL: PEEK Credits: Dragofer, snatcher, wesp5 Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can peek through any regular door. Select the item in the inventory and "Use" it on a door. Topic: Peek through (almost) every door ~ SKILL: BLOW / IGNITE Credits: Dragofer, wesp5, Obsttorte, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can blow out and light up candles and oil lamps. Select the item in the inventory and "Use" it on small flame sources. Topic: Extinguish small lights with a blow ~ SKILL: WHISTLE Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can whistle and draw the attention of nearby AI. The more you whistle, the more attention it draws. Select the item in the inventory and just "Use" it. Keep a safe distance. ~ SKILL: ALCHEMY Credits: OrbWeaver, MirceaKitsune, datiswous, wesp5, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can alter the properties of broadhead arrows by applying different reagents. Select the item in the inventory and "Use" it repeatedly to cycle through the different arrow types. Topic: Alchemy to alter arrow properties? Arrow types: Shadow arrow compound or "Darkdust": Widely believed to be a myth, little to nothing is known about anti-light matter. Where did our protagonist get his formula from? When this substance is subject to strain the particles implode and the residual component absorbs light until it dissipates completely. Flare arrow compound or "Starlight": A recipe based on luminescent mushrooms and other exotic herbs. The resulting powder produces, for limited time, a dim but steady blue-ish glow when mixed with the right reactive. A high concentration of the active mixture can cause a burning sensation to the eyes. ~ SKILL: LOOP Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can teleport between two points. You can activate the loop any time and use it to quickly travel back to a safe location, to explore two different areas in parallel or to ambush AI. If the loop fails keep trying, you should be able to get to your destination eventually. If your path forward is blocked you can break the loop by pressing the "use" key for 10 seconds, just make sure you are on the correct side of the loop... ~ SKILL: PENUMBRA Credits: VanishedOne (speed potion), kingsal (invisibility potion), snatcher (alchemy). Availability: All missions. Description: When the item is selected the player can avoid light sources and run faster than usual for limited time. Health consumed will gradually be restored. Penumbra doesn't muffle the noise you make and it doesn't work when in contact with water. THE PATH TO UMBRA: How to become one with the shadows Did you know? You can set key bindings for the skills by clicking on the Modpack banner in the Main screen: -:- MOD: CLASSIC BLACKJACK -:- Credits: Obsttorte, snatcher. Availability: All missions except A House of Locked Secrets. Description: A straightforward approach to blackjacking with new rules and mechanics inspired by the original Thief games. Never miss a KO again! - No indicator required. "Classic Blackjack" rules: Some AI are KO-immune and cannot be KOed: * Undead, creatures... * Guards wearing heavy helmets (to respect TDM vision) * Other: set by mission authors for the plot, in example The rest of AI can be KOed, just aim for the head: * Civilians: Can always be knocked out from any direction * Combatants: Can always be knocked out (including when fleeing) from any direction except when in high alert state (normally in combat mode) As reference, you can find in the Wiki the set of rules of the non-modded TDM: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=The_Dark_Mod_Gameplay#Blackjacking -:- MOD: FLASH GRENADE -:- Credits: snatcher, kingsal. Availability: All missions except Hazard Pay and Moongate Ruckus. Description: Flashbombs are clumsy and loud but as effective as ever. Instead of throwing Flashbombs like a cannonball we now toss them. Instead of exploding on impact Flashbombs now have a fuse. The chances of blinding have been greatly increased. -:- MOD: FORWARD LANTERN -:- Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions except Flakebridge Monastery, Hazard pay, Moongate Ruckus, Snowed Inn, Vota 1, 2 & 3. Description: The mod replaces the light of the player lantern with a subtle forward facing version. -:- MOD: HUNTER BOW -:- Credits: snatcher. Availability: Most missions (a few missions do things differently but you should never notice). Description: Nock and draw arrows at a faster rate. Extended radius of gas arrow effect. Chance to retrieve rope arrows when missing a shot. -:- MOD: LIGHT STONES -:- Credits: Idea by Zerg Rush, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Requisites: Lightgem enabled in Gameplay > General settings. Description: Splits the Light Gem into smaller stones with unique light detection levels. -:- MOD: RING HELPER -:- Credits: snatcher. Availability: All missions but the ring is dimmer when using the x-ray glasses or other overlays. Requisites: Frob Helper enabled in Gameplay > General settings. Description: The mod replaces the white dot pointer (Frob Helper) with an advanced ring-shaped aimer. The main difference is that the helper is now available for all objects you can interact with, large or small. Topic: Frob Helper discussion Options in Gameplay > General > Show Frob Helper: Always: Pointer and Ring Hover: Instant Ring Fade In: Ring delayed by one second Fade In Fast: Ring delayed by half second No: Off -:- MOD: SHADOW MARK -:- Credits: snatcher, Obsttorte. Availability: All missions. Description: Our protagonist's lucky deck! When the item is selected the player can drop and throw playing cards to mark a location. Cards can be retrieved. AI will not normally mind a single card lying around but cards can sometimes be noticed. Topic: Find more details in this post -:- MOD: SHOCK MINE -:- Credits: wesp5, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: This mod replaces the Flashmines with portable contraptions originally intended to store energy that have been altered to deliver a non-lethal electric shock to those who step on them. Remember: mines can be disarmed with the lockpicks! -:- MOD: SIMPLE SUBTITLES -:- Credits: Geep, stgatilov, snatcher. Availability: All missions. Description: A minimalist, imperfect approach to subtitles (you can set the scope of the subs in the audio settings). Topics: Subtitles - Possibilities Beyond 2.11 / English Subtitles for AI Barks Go to the audio settings and set the scope you prefer: Story: Story only On: Story and general speech (Give it a try!) Off: Disable subtitles Features of the mod: Background replaced with a font outline. Audio source widget replaced with a text transparency based on distance (volume) to the source. Yellow font color for story subs for best contrast, light grey font color for anything else. Non-story subs limited to a single instance, so that players aren't bothered too much with non-relevant subs (barks). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOWNLOADS / INSTALL / UNINSTALL So, how do I install and play with all this? Quite easy, but pay attention. I don't want you to break your game so we will be using a "Mod Enabler". A Mod Enabler allows you to enable and disable mods at will, with a few clicks. Before moving forward you must know a couple of things: The moment you enable a mod, previous saves will not work. If you want to load previous saves then you will have to disable the mod. If you play a mission with mods, the saves will only work when that exact set of mods are enabled. This above is important in case you deem your current saves precious. Consider yourself informed. DOWNLOADS You can download the TDM Modpack from Mod DB: INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS Download the zip, unzip it, and move contents to your TDM root folder: Folder "MODS" File "JSGME.exe" Go to your TDM root folder and double click on JSGME.exe (yellow icon). The first time you launch JSGME, it will ask for the "Mods Folder Name". Leave "MODS" and click OK. Now to your left you will find a list of mods available. To your right you will find a list of mods currently enabled. To enable a mod, select a mod on the left, and click on the arrow pointing to the right. To disable a mod, select a mod on the right, and click on the arrow pointing to the left. Go and enable the mods you want: UNINSTALL INSTRUCTIONS Quit the game (to unblock files) Go to your TDM root folder and double click on JSGME.ese (yellow icon) Disable all mods found on the right Close JSGME Delete the following: Folder "MODS" File "JSGME.exe" File "JSGME.ini" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you enjoy the mods. No coin? then leave a like for pirate's sake!

Lol, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Yes I remember when it was a Doom 3 mod... I also remember running it on a Radeon HD 4670 and thinking things would significantly improve over the years performance wise. As far as I can tell, things haven't improved near as much as I had hoped, if anything some of the missions/added fx are far more demanding than ever. While I can still appreciate it for what it is, this tired old claim that one can't criticize something that is free doesn't make any sense. I admit that my initial criticisms were a little over the top/rude, after a night of drinking and frustration, but that doesn't mean I won't suggest improvements. I mean if someone left a pile of trash on your lawn, would you say "oh boy free trash!", not that this mod is trash but you get the point. There isn't much I can do about the environment size problem, though I find the LOD settings do actually help quite a bit with that. All I can suggest is alternative shaders and antialiasing techniques. For shaders it seems MXAO offers better performance and an up to date implementation, but there are many other Reshade shaders available that can do a good job of ambient occlusion and global illumination with minimal performance cost. TurboGI for example is built to run on anything, and I've also had good results with Large Scale Perceptual Obscurance. For anti-aliasing you really want to be using DLAA or DLDSR (pretty much the same Nvidia tech). Or some other form of a.i based supersampling available from modern AMD/Intel cards. If that's not an option you can at least enhance the in game aa with the MFAA setting in the Nvidia Control panel, and apply some SMAA via reshade. Beyond that I am not a developer, so I can only point toward other projects that have much better performance. Not all of them professional/corporate projects either, just consider what some devs have done with mods like OpenMW, Oblivion Reloaded, Community Shaders, Daggerfall Unity and the Dream mod. We're talking massive open environments with soft shadows and many other rendering techniques. I just find it difficult to believe that shadows can't have soft fuzzy edges without absolutely tanking performance, but maybe the engine really is that bad at doing shadow masking/filtering. If the engine really is so un-salvageable though are there not other options available these days that could provide a much better experience going forward? Cryengine perhaps, or whatever OpenMW is using?

I never said the engine is totally optimized, you invented that on your head, what I said, is that the engine is updated way above and faster than the original Doom 3 engine and that is a fact. Some of the missions on this game, wouldn't run at all, on the original engine because of how heavy they are. That is how improved it is. You don't know how this game and engine evolved, how slow it was and how fast it has become. I'm here almost since the beginning, even when it was a mod of Doom 3, almost two decades ago, this engine and game have improved a ton. Also If you think the engine is not up to your standards, then do something about it! It is open source the code is there, for anyone to change and improve, if you can do better than the people that worked on this, then do it! If not stop bad mouthing their work and behaving like they own you anything or that you paid anything for this game and deserve better service!

Surrounded by greedy noblemen and treacherous siblings, Lady Kamila Leicester gets more than she bargains for after acquiring an ancient tome and performing the dark rituals within. Bikerdude, Wellingtoncrab, Dragofer, and Amadeus proudly present Grayman’s FM “Seeking Lady Leicester.” Notes - TDM 2.11 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission. You can get the latest TDM version via the installer or here. - Seeking Lady Leicester was originally a work-in-progress given to the Dark Mod community per Grayman’s wishes after his passing and was initially adopted by Bikerdude before Dragofer, Amadeus, and Wellingtoncrab joined to complete the FM. -This FM does NOT support any unofficial gameplay patch or mod. The use of such a patch and/or mod could break things in this FM. You've been warned. - "Story" subtitles are available for this FM. Simply go to Settings --> Audio and select "Story" or "On" for the subtitles setting. - This FM may be more hardware intensive than normal. LOD settings can be set below "Normal" to improve performance on low-end machines by disabling certain features. - This FM implements the func_peek mechanic, allowing players to peek through any door that has a keyhole on it by leaning forward. PLEASE NOTE: This function has been known to cause crashes for a small number of players in the past, likely due to using the 32-bit version of TDM. At no point in this mission is it required to use the func_peek mechanic; it is purely optional, so feel free not to use it. Download Version 1.1 This FM is available for download via the in-game mission downloader, or here via Google Drive. Promotional Screenshots ThiefGuild Thread Credits A big thanks goes out to Noelker and Goldchocobo for their wonderful voice work with the briefing and conversations, JackFarmer and itsPapiD for their fantastic briefing video, and nbohr1more for his story contributions and writing one particular gameplay feature that I won’t spoil here but you can read about in the readme.txt. An even bigger thank you goes out to our beta testers: nbhor1more, Daft Mugi, Silverwolf, Havoc, Datiswous, Cambridge Spy, Aluminumhaste, Thebigh, Ate0ate, Acolyte6, Kalavi, JoeBarnin. Thank you all very much for your fantastic feedback and tireless efforts as this FM evolved throughout the course of development! Asset Credits - Arx EOS’s Fish - Epifire’s models - Kingsal's Assets and Textures - WellingtonCrab’s assets and textures - Obsttorte's frob loot script - ZergRush's custom Grayman painting ===================Rest In Peace Grayman. You are missed=======================

I agree, it's not too bad to run at low res/low settings. I also agree that larger missions tend to be much more difficult to run. The question is what could be done about that? Is it something that could be addressed with engine level optimizations, or is it something that needs to be designed for by individual map authors, many of whom may not understand how to optimize large spaces avoiding engine limitations?

One thing that contributed to the difficulties, and also being stuck a few times now, is also the darkness of the mission It's significantly darker than some other missions (not even turning up the gamma or brightness really helped), and there are also shadows in some places I wouldn't have expected, as there's light sources nearby.

I've been able to run the game on quad-cores at around 720p30 (capped to 30 performs better) with HD 530/UHD 630 integrated graphics, and 1080p60 (maximum of the monitor) with the GTX 970. That's not exactly what I'd call demanding, although I haven't paid close attention to AA or other settings, so I may have been running on EZ mode. Because mappers are free to make their missions as large or small as they want, with varying amounts of visportal/etc optimization, it's possible that a specific mission is 10x harder to run than the norm (I'm not naming names but you know who you are ). But that should be rare and the training mission is probably a fair baseline. I have a 4K TV now, so I should test it on that sometime... after I get something better than an i3-10105/UHD 630 hooked up to it.

Story Tease On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit. Links "Away 1 - Air Pocket" Version 1.0 is available from the in-game downloader and its mirrors. As well as here. There are two extra documents contained in your installed .pk4 and also conveniently available here - For gamers needing hints, this Q&A uses "invisible ink" to selectively hide the answers: Air Pocket - Hints and Spoilers [Jan. 29, 2020].docx For understanding what's under the hood: Maintenance Guide to Away 1 - Air Pocket [Jan 29, 2020].docx For more about the innards and interations, see this FM's Beta Testing thread. Author's Note This is my first substantive TDM FM, a nautical adventure, and what I hope will be part of a longer story arc. Enjoy. Gallery Credits & Acknowledgements Thanks to TDM community members for encouragement - and assistance with newbie questions - while building this, my first FM (not counting an earlier nanoMission). Kudos in particular to Dragofer for the wonderful ship models (modified here), newly-created ship davits, and assets like kelp models from 'Down by the Riverside'. Also a custom cannon-ball hole through the hull, and much helpful guidance. The skybox is adapted from 'lagoon' by Hazel Whorley (CC BY-NC; hw_lagoon.zip at www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes). Finally, my deep appreciation to all who tested or assisted during the beta: Biene, Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, duzenko, peter_spy, and stgatilov

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.11 REQ Ver. 1.3 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11 **Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended** -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

This is an experimental GUI app for managing and packing Dark Mod missions. It's a successor to FM Packer but with a GUI, that I've been working on for some time. It's now at a stage where I feel somewhat comfortable sharing. Having a GUI unlocks potential for more in depth management of fms, which I intend to explore in the future. You can download the binaries here: https://github.com/Skaruts/tdm_packer_2/releases Currently: it can pack your selected mission into the pk4 at a click of a button it provides an editor for a .pkignore file where you specify which files to exclude from the pk4 it gives you a handy tree view of both the included and excluded files (Shift+LMB to fully expand/contract branches) it can launch TDM or DarkRadiant for the selected mission, or run a second installation of TDM to test your pk4 in isolation (see the menu Settings->Paths) it automatically writes your map sequence into the appropriate file all maps, except the ones in the map sequence, are auto excluded from the pk4 Important: This is still an experimental alpha version, so backup your missions before using it. Note: For now I provided binaries for Windows and Linux. I don't have a Linux system to test the binaries yet, though, so they may or may not work properly. As a last resort, one can still run this app from the source code by running the Godot Engine itself from the terminal with the "--path path/to/project" argument. (Godot itself is just a simple executable and requires no installation.)

In order to thank the team (and other mappers) for their relentless efforts in contributing, I hereby give the community.... Ulysses: Genesis A FM By Sotha Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraTlJ6ZHlYZ1pJRVE/edit?usp=sharing http://www4.zippysha...95436/file.html Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

The Creeps By Mortem Desino Available via the In-Game Downloader (approx. 60 MB) It crawls upon human minds why some are bound up in grave sins. For what does it profit a man if he remains devoted to the nether creatures? Surely such deeds shall earn no portion from the Lord Builder. Such a man has destroyed his high place in Heaven. --Bishop Deifer, Letters to the Builder Clerics This is a small experimental gameplay FM, exploring a few shock/creep/horror capabilities of TDM. It was designed to be played but one time: so give yourself some time to explore a relatively small space. Updated to v1.01 -- July 7, 2012

Hello! To celebrate 15 years of TDM, and because so amazing missions have been made in my absence, I felt compelled to made a small mission for everyone to enjoy: The Last Offering! Mission briefing: Build time: roughly 30 h darkradiant time during october-november 2024. AI has been used for initial mission brainstorming, proofreading and polishing readables. Thanks: *Whole TDM community for everything. *Betatesters: thebigh, datiswous, Shadow Other: I challenge you to play this short mission without saving or loading! The player gets plenty of gold for gear: buy a good thieving kit and enjoy the mission without saving! It is quite possible it is more exciting that way. Let me know what you think replying to this thread: I'd love to hear about your experiences and opinions. Enjoy, and I hope you have as fun playing as I had making this! Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HthqgoeBKf7kgYTRm5ice5t31_90_PRu/view?usp=drive_link

No it's not using an outdated engine. IDtech4 was open sourced and tdm is using that source, but has been building onto that. This means the current version of the engine tdm is similar, but not the same as idTech4 (at least that's how I understood it). Also many performance improvements have been made over the years compared to original idTech4, but it's also way more demanding. I'm using the Linux driver. You're making it sound like Thief (whatever version) is comparable feature wise. I mean these games are super old and unimpressive graphic wise compared to tdm (not including Thief4). But I guess if raw performance is the only thing you care for.. Also, aparently you find it ok to miss out on the many amazing missions people have made for tdm. Maybe do one step back and think it over.

VOLTA 3 : GEMCUTTER 1.1 [ TDM 2.12 REQUIRED] Please make occasional hard saves! There is a rare quick save crash that happens. AUTHOR'S NOTE --------------------------------------------------- Can you believe it's been 15 years of The Dark Mod? Happy anniversary and please enjoy this mission. --------------------------------------------------- DESCRIPTION --------------------------------------------------- This is a medium size, dense city / boat mission that continues the Volta storyline. It's an evolving campaign - some story details in here might not line up with Volta 1 and 2. --------------------------------------------------- CREDITS --------------------------------------------------- VOCALS by Andrew Bartmess, Desino Mortem, Goldwell, and Yandros. TESTING by Amadeus, AluminumHaste, Bikerdude, Dragofer, Epifie, Goldwell Mat99, Mike A, Skacky and WellingtonCrab. ADDITIONAL MODELS AND TEXTURES by WellingtonCrab and Epifire. EDITING by Amadeus and Moonbo. --------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL THANKS TO Goldwell for years of feedback and help Amadeus for helping get the Volta story into a good spot. -------------------------- FAQ / GUIDE (spoilers!) -------------------------- -------------------------- BRIEFING SCRIPT (spoilers!) -------------------------- Youtube link courtesy of Goldwell:

Mission Name: King of the Mountain Author: Spoonman Build time: 3 months. Version: 1.00 Released: 18/09/2017 Type: Prison escape. Size: Medium. Completion time: 45 minutes. Difficulty settings: No. Known issues: There might be beeping noises from broken speakers when playing with EAX on. Beta-testers: Cambridge Spy, Spooks and Bikerdude. Special thanks to: Bikerdude for helping me out in optimizing the mission, reworking the cell areas, improving lighting across the map, providing me with several particle effects to use in the map, and being very helpful in general in beta-testing the mission. Download links: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e2c66whf35za5r4/kotm.pk4

@chakkmanBefore joining this forum I completed all available fan missions for TDM, but before playing them I had significant experience with other stealth games and fan missions for Thief series and I will tell you that I hated TDM's gameplay for its jankiness, but at the same time, paradoxically, I learned my ways around all those broken mechanics. And yet I still don't think that this jank should be a norm for TDM and your point of view only proves it, because you're not alone who may see things like this when they had better experience in other stealth games. And so this huge pile of gameplay imperfections just does TREMENDOUS disservice to the popularity of TDM, some people may try it and just say to themselves: "Screw this crap, I prefer player friendly games!" and they will be absolutely right. But why I learned to be tolerant to such things? Well, because I saw a lot of passion in all those fan missions I played and still exactly because of this I think that TDM has no right to be so broken. I think that it is mostly thanks to the modding community TDM is not dead, without all the great fan missions barely anybody would ever touch it and they just deserve better platform for their work. The problem here is that TDM wasn't created by a professional game designer, it's harsh but true. As I understand it, the dev team just had their opinion about certain things and instead of doing them in the best way possible they simply ignored all the better examples in the stealth genre.