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one warning before you start slipstreaming AHCI drivers. XP should be on the latest servicepack so sp3 for best AHCI support. there are reports that sp2 should also work but there is little reason to not just upgrade it to the latest version. also intels own AHCI drivers for XP have been lobotomized on older sandybridge based chipsets despite the chipset supporting all features. winraid has provided modded drivers that enable full support for these chipsets. there was an unofficial sp4 for xp some years back which included every update after sp3 as well as the posready updates for embedded systems. should still be possible to get it though it only supports english xp out of the box this can be changed with mui packs. as for browsers mypal and supermium are pretty much the only still developed ones that work. though you should limit going online as much as possible as xp has little to no security (ms defender can no longer recieve definition updates due to ms changing cryptographic services which xp does not support) and you will be hard pressed finding other antivirus that work on it (panda is so far the only one i found and it is very unstable).

Shadowhide has released his TDM FM and it needs a release thread here. I'll quote from his release thread on TTLG. Edit: Shadowhide has released v.1.01 now which is compliant with TDM2.0 & a few other changes (like the music and loading screen). Here's the new download: http://rghost.net/48078929 http://darkfate.org/...ceptive_shadows

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts

I see we have independently noticed this problem. I have proposed named strings for these instead of numbered strings in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23204-proposed-i18n-improvements-for-tdm-215/ Would you be willing to change your patch to use those names? I'm translating those strings into the 16 languages now. I'll look to your translations for the German versions.

Since we have a Random Video of the Day thread, it seems like this is fair. Show us any article you find interesting, or funny, or surprising, or whatever else is out of the ordinary. I'll begin: http://www.dailytech...rticle33998.htm I never imagined people pissing in an elevator. Of all the strange ideas I've had in my life, that was never one of them. Personally, I suspect the thug. ... and this comment cracked me up. "Why in the world would someone pee in an elevator? Also, when the system catches someone, they don't have to call the police. All they have to do is lock the elevator doors, engage the heaters and shaking motors, and get paid ad money on YouTube for the footage. "

not to bad slipstreaming drivers on xp, in fact there are several tools that can do it in just one click and more than a few that can do it with a few more but also support servicepacks as well as standard updates. win 7 is even easier as it uses the wim format just like windows 10/11. nlite is usually the goto tool for xp as it supports both drivers and servicepacks/updates. there is a guide here -> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/slipstreaming-windows-xp-to-create-bootable-cd/ if you only need the AHCI driver it is literally one click after pointing it to where it was extracted. you can skip the multiple driver install if it is only the AHCI driver you want. be sure to select the x86 folder if it is 32 bit xp. the txt mode driver is the one you want as without it you cannot boot from the cd in an AHCI system. the rest is pretty easy if you are using nlite (skip the section in the guide about using nero and jump to using nlite for creating the bootable iso). if you cannot manage it i can make the slipstream for you, done it hundreds of times so im pretty well versed in it by now. can even create a wim based boot cd like newer windows installations use, but that takes quite a bit more work. but has the advantage of working better if booting from a usb stick.

I think it would be smart to go ahead and start a "Newbie thread" that covers all newbie questions in one place, as with the TDS Forum. It doesn't have to be this one, just for future reference. Aaanyway, I was going through the A-Z Tutorial, and right about the time you make the pool of water, I fixed some leaks, thought I got them all. Now it won't Dmap again, but when I hit Pointfile, it says "Could not open pointfile: E:/games/ ... /TutorialMap.lin" I don't know why since it's been working up to now. So if I have a leak I can't find it, but it's troubling just that Pointfile suddenly, inexplicably doesn't open! There isn't any ".lin" file either; not sure what happened to it. Any ideas? Edit: I started a map from scratch and Pointfile didn't show up again. So whatever it is, it isn't something I messed up in that first map, but a general problem I'm having with DR. Edit2: But it does Dmap and Map just fine, so that's ok.

I kind of miss our old status-bar on the right, where you could casually share what's on your mind or what is happening in your life right now. So, I figured, let's just start a thread for that. Let's get this started...

I am working on improvements I can make to all.lang. The potential scope of work is overwhelmning, so I'm focusing at this time on the Main Menu, particularly Settings. I'd appreciate your review of the workplan, which has 3 main components - 1) commenting-out #str phrases no longer useful 2) adding #str to replace phrases hard-coded in English, in the relevant GUI files. a) in [English] b) in other languages (using AI) 3) For existing Settings #str in the GUI files, that were translated for some languages: do the remaining languages (using AI). I'm excluding this - - strings in *.cpp files - translations into Dutch and Swedish, where almost all strings are untranslated. Each of these is a project in itself, and I'm not up to it currently. Reviewers... My base is the 2.14 all.lang. If you know of 2.15 changes that could affect individual #str, please mention it here Details I have a revised all.lang WIP with the following changes done so far: - Group (1) work in both [English] and all other sections, as summarized and itemized here... - Group (2a), only in [English] so far, as summarized and itemized here... Workplan for Group 3 is WIP.

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

I think we should create a thread where you can put requests and suggestions for Orbweaver. This thread should be NOT a discussion thread. If you want to discuss a proposal, create a specific thread for it. I want it to be only for collecting proposals, so we have an overview of what people might want to have. I guess this might also help Orb to decide what he should focus on once he gets productive. BTW: I really appreciate your effort, because we can really use this. So my personal wishlist proposal is that I would like to see a group handler. Similar like in Blender, where you can select several objects and put it in a group. When you select one or more of these groups, the objects are visible. If the group is not selected, it's invisible. In Blender and other 3D apps this is called layers (forgot the name before so I had to look it up).

If like me you scour the web looking for inspiration for your next TDM mission then look no further.. Now... talking of images have you guys seen the latest from the master that is DrK from his Rocksbourg4 campaign. We need more dirty texture in TDM me thinks...

I think it is actually quite weird that we don't have a thread on graphics technology, yet. So, I would like to encourage you to share awesome new demos, talks, articles or papers about graphics technology here. I recently came accross this brilliant analysis of the rendering pipeline of "Rise of the Tomb Raider". I would love to see something like that for Doom Eternal, but so far, I could only find this rather superficial (but nevertheless interesting) review by Digital Foundry. Epic revealed Unreal Engine 5 today, which looks absolutely stunning. That Nanite-Technology will probably save game developers quite a bit of time. I do wonder, 'though, how the actually do it? Do they dynamically generate LOD-models? Also, does their Lumen technology require RTX?

To be honest, I am considering hopping away from Bazzite to something not immutable. And the reason for this is: as a developer I really want to install some low-level stuff, which is usually not doable with flatpak/VM/containers (at least not with my Linux skills). For instance, right now I have the following packages layered: opensnitch (custom RPM) to have global control over networking coolercontrol to tie chassis fans to GPU + CPU instead of just CPU qemu / libvirt to run proprietary VPN inside Debian to RDP-connect to my work machine (Bazzite stripped it out recently) I also had hard time to make far2l work properly... it still has its quirks, perhaps because it is inside Distrobox. Most of the programming stuff is running fine inside Distrobox, which is OK to me. Now I decided that I should probably install VTune. Will I be able to find RPM package and layer it? Or maybe it has some messy custom installer which I can't run? I just feel it is not sustainable in the long run. However, even if I hop away, I'll still follow the immutable philosophy as much as I can. Appimage > Flatpak > Distrobox, native packages for the rarest cases of system software I absolutely need. P.S. And I occasionally face some bugs in Bazzite. First I had an issue where I could not type exclamation mark in email body in GMail (in browser). The next image fixed that, but network adapter stopped working inside VM. Currently I'm on "testing" image where both issues are fixed

I'm going back to work on my OP item 2b (new strings translated by AI). I hope the pivoted file can help build a targeted glossary of a few select TDM terms in multiple languages. I could then include that glossary in a multi-language AI translation prompt for the new strings. After 2b is done, I'll probably postpone OP item 3, to consider reordering parts of all.lang (similar to yaml). Do the [English] part by hand, and ask AI to reorder the rest?

Hello, At long last - at long freaking last - I finally got into The Dark Mod. Back when I was a teenager/young adult, about 20 years ago, I wasn't too keen on the idea of The Dark Mod. Since it didn't use the Eidos IP, it felt more like a knockoff than a tribute. Looking back, I noticed that in 2009 I even posted a thread here about how much I loved TDM, but at the time I didn't have a decent computer, and the experience was ruined by bugs. Then, after 2010, when I finally got a good gaming rig, I became completely absorbed in World of Warcraft, LOTRO, and other MMORPGs, so I never really gave new single-player games much attention. I still revisited Thief 1 and Thief 2, replayed fan campaigns, and so on, but I never seriously got into TDM. I also played Thief (2014). At first I liked it, but I eventually ended up disappointed by the lack of variety, the absence of the old lore, the Hammerites and Pagans - you know, all the things that make Thief feel like Thief. Now, with the upcoming reboot on the horizon, I've replayed The Dark Project, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows, T2X, and even Thief (2014) - yeah, I'm a masochist, I know - and I finally decided to give The Dark Mod the time it deserved. This time I completed Tears of St. Lucia, and then, over the course of just two days, I finished the entire William Steele campaign. I was blown away by how good it was. The detective mission, where you discover the disguise and eventually confront the killer, was fantastic, and the bank mission was absolutely gorgeous. So now I'm looking for more missions. Being almost 40 rather than a teenager, I have a pretty good idea of what I enjoy. Here's what I'm looking for: Cathedrals and churches - these are always my number one choice. I don't enjoy forced ghosting missions. No-kill is perfectly fine, and I don't mind if blackjacking is allowed, but mandatory ghosting isn't my thing. I'm not a huge fan of complicated puzzles that require piecing together clues from lots of different written sources. It wasn't an issue in the William Steele campaign since I played on Normal difficulty, though. I love rooftops, so I'd definitely like more missions featuring them. That said, I think verticality is a bit overrated these days and overused by many modern Thief FM authors. I enjoy believable cities with accessible rooftops, but I'm not a fan of skyscraper-like climbing mazes. In fact, I think the final William Steele missions came close to crossing that line, although I still enjoyed the way the climbing was integrated into reaching the rooftops. I'm not particularly interested in horror or zombie-themed missions. Classic mansion/manor heists are always welcome - I never get tired of those. Regards, Svetlio

Yes, instead of starting with the English text in the prompt, it is better to point it to a file instead, when the amount of text is voluminous (as it will be in my upcoming Group 3 work in https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/23204-proposed-i18n-improvements-for-tdm-215/ ). Good to know Google Translate supports URL file access. So does ChatGPT (even the basic version without login).

yeah lovecraft can be a bit hard to adapt in a game but can be really good if you capture the elements correctly. intro starts of as more of a sneaking and gathering information sequence, then things heat up in attack of the fishmen with a lot of running and gunning. at the marsh plant it becomes a mix between action sneaking and puzzle solving as well as survival untill you nail the younger marsh brother. at the esoteric order it goes into more sneaking puzzle solving and occasional action while gathering more information. this is where you get the knife which might actually be the most effective weapon in the game, but it requires stealth. you also team tag with another game character. and yeah the game can be pretty brutal to survive in, maybe something to look into in a remake. game saves are dependent on signs which are used as save points. while the idea is cool (bit like the save gems in daikatana or the consoles in dead space) it does ruin things a bit cause there arent many of them and autosaves only work by chapter. if you struggle in some parts, use dcotepatch to enable developer mode and use noclip or yuck god mode. the game was rushed due to the developer going bankrupt (one guy had to finish it up) so it is pretty unpolished gameplay wise.

my only stint with a flight simulator was with one of the first from microsoft. sadly while i had no problem lifting off or even flying the model landing it was another matter (got everyone myself included killed) . i was pretty mortified as i allways wanted to be a pilot so i newer touched it again. but yeah it can be both boring and gratifying to work with, if you can pull it off. had some game ideas i wished i had the skills to make (sadly im no artist in regards to making game content) and even development soon exceeded my coding skills so it newer really came together. allways been a fan of mythos related games though good ones are few and far between, and idtech 4 with some modifications could probably make an excellent game engine for those kind of games. it would have to be modified for a more open world experience atleast (something like the stem engine from the evil within which was based on idtech 4). one i would have liked to recreate was dark corners of the earth, and i would have loved to make one based on the mountains of madness. many critisized that dark coreners of the earth had weapons in some maps which is kinda ok if you think of it as mainly a survival / horror game. but tbf it does not really ruin the game like many believe. think of it this way what use is a revolver against a shaggoth ? or even a starspawn of cthulhu (yep you will meet both in this game). the was a game based on the mountains of madness which looked really impressive (Edge of Nowhere), but it was VR only grrrr.

@stgatilov, I was NOT proposing renaming all the numbered strings to alphanumeric (even though that would likely slow down the ordering rot you mentioned.) I was just responding to @wesp5 hearing that someone was already planning on doing so, which surprised me. Yes, I do have access to the SVN repo, thanks. I just try to avoid it as much as possible. For the current work, I'm using 2.14 as the stable base line (for .cpp code, all.lang, *.gui*, etc.) , because things are complicated enough as is. The yaml is just an organizing tool that "might" be helpful for my AI translation efforts, because it can formally encode relationships between strings. Not sure about usefulness yet. I'm not proposing that the TDM engine should read it. I could reorganize at least parts of all.lang similarly, if everyone's OK with moving further away from alphanumeric ordering of #str_ids. The two ideas for improving strings I'm also on-board with. Particularly for #1, which I've also floated as a trial balloon in the past. BTW, for that, my gen_lang_plus has related C++ code that might be of some interest (albeit doesn't use the idTech4 class structure and is Windows-based). For #2, I can see some disambiguation problems, but nothing insurmountable. Given that DR will never properly support #str_ids, seems reasonable. What time frame are you thinking about for these?

@Geep, doing massive restructure on old state is not a good idea. Since you are marked as Contributor, don't you have direct SVN access to the assets repo? If no, we should simply give you the access. I can't say I see anything still used in your list to be deleted. Usually the best way to check is to search over guis/ + scripts/ + maybe C++ code. Feel free to delete unused and reorder the lines in the strings file. I don't really like the yaml idea, because you are basically trying to extend the already overly massive strings framework. Now we have tons of old Perl code that nobody wants to mess with, and you'll add some more code which nobody will want to mess with a few years later? And what will yaml give you, really? If you reorder the lines in the existing format, you will get the grouping you want. The current order is messy simply because everyone is lazy to search for similar / related strings every time they want to add a new menu settings. And I'm afraid things will stay this way. Even if you make perfect order, it will slowly rot over time. Finally, here are some of my thoughts regarding strings framework: I would be happy to make all.lang the only file with strings, encoded in UTF-8. The engine should read it directly and use per-language table to convert permitted UTF-8 characters into its weird 8-bit encoding which is uses now (without generic UTF-8 decoding). This way we can finally get rid of the old Perl stuff. The strings file should support full-text replacements in addition to placeholder replacements we have now. That would allow translators to translate a mission without forcing the author to turn it into a total mess which is harder to work with. The full-text replacements should be used for missions, placeholders should be used for core. The p.1 idea will require changes in the engine, but I think they are quite lightweight. Reading UTF8->8-bit character table per language, and convert UTF-8 into native format when strings are loaded. What scares me more is trying to understand how it works now and constructing these new tables.

I felt a little guilty for abandoning it. But when the kickstarter failed it was hard to keep my interest up. I still work on it from time to time! So it's not dead dead. Last month I opened the project, fixed a bunch of bugs, made a wrapped emulator with raylib (It's a megadrive game, and this allows me to distribute it on modern platforms more professionally). But I'm putting my flight simulator first this year, and I'm hoping to launch it next year. Or early access. I don't know. It's kind of an ambitious project, so I'm still unsure how far I can take this. I'm constantly torn between making what I want and making something that can earn me some money. Being unemployed in your forties, with a son, is really not a fun place to be. And I haven't been unemployed for this long before. Every day I send resumes, every day I get rejections. I'm not prepared for this at all. I don't think game dev is a realistic way out of this situation, but it's what I know how to do. As far as self employment goes, I tried making some prototypes of sites and SaaS crap. I have no idea how to move any of these ideas forward, besides writing a blog and tweeting about it. My other idea was building some kind of retro hardware with some luxury materials, like a wooden carved snes controller. Seems like people nostalgic for this era have a lot of money, and are collectors. My brother is trying to sell painted miniatures, and he's trying to pull me in. So I could help sculpt them in 3D for printing and painting. Anyway, sorry for dumping my life here. The previous post was stuck in my mind for the whole day.

Somehow ammoAvailable(); does work, but it needs the weapon entity, not just the string it seems. void waterArrows() { entity weapon; float waterArrowCount; weapon = $player1.getWeaponEntity(); waterArrowCount = weapon.ammoAvailable(); sys.print("waterarrows" + waterArrowCount); } But with this script you have to select the waterarrow first. When I look up (string) $player1.getCurrentWeapon( ); , it returns atdm:weapon_waterarrow. But with that string I can't make it work. When I do a weapon.getName(); all is named the same "player1_weapon" .. so it's just the current weapon it seems, because the ammo count differs when selecting different weapons/ammo ... This: void waterArrows() { float waterArrowCount; waterArrowCount = $player1_weapon.ammoAvailable(); sys.print("AmmoCount" + waterArrowCount); } Does the same as the first ... hmmm

Hey I just wanted to create a Thread where everybody can post his improvement wishes. I Personally love this mod. There are so many features in it, and because it is a mod created by a community, why not write what could be improved. My wishes are: Some special weapons. I loved T2X and the variety of weapons. Some really hard to find special weapons, like the confusion arrow or a special bomb would be cool. But they have to be very special, for example as a result of a side quest - or maybe a usable torch for easier killing the undead More enemies, I think there will be an improvement, we just got spiders and zombies, but a higher variety is always good. More (custom) conversation. Thats one of the main parts I'm missing - so much flair and atmosphere is getting lost without them. Also some comments from he main charakter would be nice. For example when a guard gets knocked out "hah, now who's the taffer" ... better AI when the hear a voice. They start looking for you, but most of the time I just sneak into another room or a higher area and just have to wait, they should at least get someone with a torch or call other guards for help These are only small parts of the game which could be improved and are only my points of view, maybe it's either not possible to create or it fits not in the design of TDM.