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Beyond all threads about feedback and criticism, I think it's also nice to congratulate people for a job well done. I have an old legacy laptop which I sometimes enjoy using for running older games. I had TDM installed on it, however the CPU-heavy demands of the game would make it impossible to run on long stretches, causing it to overheat even when multicore mode was enabled. I am happy to report that since release 2.09 I've had no overheating problems in my old machine, and that loading times are also greatly improved! Finally I can play TDM on the go! For the record my specs are: CPU: AMD A10-5750M APU with Radeon HD Graphics @ 4x 2.5GHz [56.0°C] GPU: AMD ARUBA (DRM 2.50.0 / 4.15.0-135-generic, LLVM 10.0.0) RAM: 8MB

Id Tech 4 used RXGB which is a swizzled S3TC compression because the alpha channel has higher bit depth than the red channel. If they had waited a little longer DXT5nm would have been available to give a better result in this approach (except there would be no alpha channel in normal maps). RGTC is another alias for D3D10 BC5 which is also virtually the same as 3Dc. The slower load times may just be due to the complexity of converting from a 3 color to 2 color format.

They do. There are SavePerspective() and LoadPerspective() methods on the AUI manager which can import/export the configuration to strings, which can then be saved in the registry. I haven't got it to work yet, but I assume it's just something I'm doing wrong and needs more debugging. If this can be made to work well I'm definitely in favour of getting rid of the old-style hard-coded layouts as well as the wonky position/size-saving code which has always been unreliable on my Linux system.

I added an experimental AUI-based layout. The API seems promising; the dock panels can be moved around as you wish, and can be floated as separate windows, meaning that the layout @peter_spy wants (with just the properties panel floating) could be achieved very easily. The major annoyance at the moment is that the dock panels start out really small at the left and right edges of the window, almost like toolbars, and have to be manually dragged to fill the window. I guess there is something weird going on with size hints.

Still experimenting with glass shaders, this time for some more complex shapes. The transparency sorting problem is quite visible here, and even with dark color, the material is too see-through IMO. Going for opaque version and perhaps some sort of glowing crystal a la TDS might be a better option overall. Edit: got a small breakthrough with translucent materials this morning. This is heavily reliant on actual lighting, so getting it right will be hard. But this is one step closer towards some nice magic glowing crystal effect Also, I had no idea you can actually get translucent materials to cast shadows

In OpenGL games if you use VSync in (exclusive) Fullscreen mode please force Triple Buffering in the driver, creating a dedicated profile for the game main exe. Or you'll get a framerate locked to submultiples of the monitor selected refresh rate and jumping among them (60->30->60, etc.)

MSAA in this engine is indeed a FPS killer, specially playing above 1080p. Afaik the engine should be capped at 60hz at default, even with vsync off, unless of course, you use the new uncap FPS option in the menu settings, there's also the "max fps" where you can cap the fps to 60 if you want but logically it should only take effect with uncap fps set to on (why would you uncap the fps and then cap it to 60, when the engine does that for you, is beyond me). Personally I prefere to just use the normal engine capped fps and not use those settings, nor vsync because afaik it can potentially cause input lag.

Hmm... surprises me TBH. The way I understood it, there are performance gains, but, not like 200 % or something. Good for you though.

About such announcements in general, I think the images they come with should have some sort of captions on where a screen comes from. Quite often in the past, you were using Spooks' WIPs, which look awesome, but these are not released missions. I imagine it's disappointing for players to think "hey, this looks amazing, where can I download this mission" just to get the "you can't" response. IMO this is much worse case of false advertising than screenshots with multisampling we discussed on bugtracker. The case above is a milder one, since it's a mission about to be released, but still, it's a bit misleading.

It is, in fact, not just default, but mandatory. The option doesn't exist anymore, FBOs are always active.

@Destined @peter_spy maybe wait for a bigger sale. While the game is hilariously fun, it isn't too engaging on the long term. I had played it over the course of the weekend and eventually managed to beat it on "hard". I then started to grind "hellish"-difficulty a bit, but I see no chance of succeeding there, as you die after just two hits on that difficulty. So, after just 6 hours of playing, I think I am going to drop this game.

Edit: nevermind, looks like the problem was that I should use the above line without "start". I've started cmd and entered: cd C:/personal/darkmod/packaging Then zipsync analyze -cn *.pk4 *.zip Edit2: the main problem now is that there's no 2.09 equivalent of this manifest: release208_from_release207 So I can only base my patch on 2.09b6. Shouldn't really matter since 2.09b6 is identical to 2.09, but still - I wouldn't have been able to follow the wiki instructions without looking into taaaki's mirror. So the 3rd command is currently: zipsync patch -b http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/zipsync/beta/209/beta209-06_from_beta209-05/manifest.iniz Edit3: got it all established, now anyone can easily download (or undownload) the current state of my reworked security camera by doing the following: Start the tdm_installer, select "Get custom version", click on "Next". Click on beta209-06 Paste this URL into the "Custom manifest URL" box and start the download: http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/zipsync/dragofer/sec_cam/manifest.iniz When the download is done, you can click on "Restore old darkmod.cfg", since I made no graphics changes. Saves can only be loaded on the build they were made on. Still got some more plans with this camera, but that's the distribution aspect sorted.

Hello, @Geep. Your FM finally has a wiki article now, with all the bells and whistles: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Away_1:_Air_Pocket_(FM) Sorry I didn't make it sooner.

Thank you: $ b2sum -a blake2s tdm_installer.linux64 5644d1a1b4c17f9d5abeb9c5e8517c10d269cc0174fac16842a9205180e50f4f tdm_installer.linux64 $ cat hash.txt zsMH:5644d1a1b4c17f9d5abeb9c5e8517c10d269cc0174fac16842a9205180e50f4f Yes I am technical I speak code -> C++, Rust, Python.

We are proud to announce the release of The Dark Mod 2.09! https://www.thedarkmod.com/posts/the-dark-mod-2-09-has-been-released/ TDM 2.09 marks a new phase of performance improvements aimed lowering CPU overhead in the graphics engine. A whole new graphic backend has been created by Cabalistic which uses modern OpenGL features to eliminate the need for the CPU to constantly issue commands to allow the Graphic Processor to render scenes. This gives TDM some of the performance advantages of rendering using a low level API like Vulkan. Stgatilov has been very busy this release cycle. He has put heroic efforts into improving the way that TDM upgrades and hosting operate in addition to the vast improvements to TDM itself. (He also refactored the entire particle engine and created a link system to connect TDM to Dark Radiant.) A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include: Better performance: A brand new Backend that uses UBO, Persistent Mapping, Bindless textures, and Multi-Draw has been added. “Frontend Acceleration” (Multi-Core job based rendering based on Doom 3 BFG) now works as expected. Normal Map compression now uses RGTC resulting in lower storage, VRAM requirements, and less artifacts ( load times should improve in future TDM versions when pre-compressed RGTC textures are added ) Background texture loading has improved. This should shorten load times and reload. Better visuals: A new Sharpening Filter has been added. It can make 70% Render Scale look almost like native resolution (more performance). ( It also cleans up some blurry textures for all Render Scales. ) Bumpmap lighting is smoother, so that lighting does not instantly flip to off when getting close to edges of occluded objects. Particle physics have been substantially improved for both accuracy and performance. Borderless Fullscreen works properly on Windows. Water and other GUI effects that did not respond to Gamma now brighten properly. AMD and Intel fixes have been added for SSAO rendering Better gameplay: Experimental Gamepad support has been added. Creep works in alway-run mode Better mapping: A new linking system allows The Dark Mod to act as a real-time preview of Dark Radiant The redesigned particles now have improved setup and configuration. Automated fixes have been created for “rotation hacked” models Prefabs have been seen numerous fixes and reorganization to make them easier to use Better Sound: Conversation and other sounds are no longer stopped by saving or going to main menu. EFX reverb has been added to “Mission 1: A New Job” Extinguished gas lamps are no longer noisy when doused New Assets: Dragofer, LDAsh, Kingsal, Bikerdude, Dram have all added substantial asset updates ranging from updated Werebeast animations, animation of the steam engine, fireflies and new furniture. More stable: A huge number of fragile code areas have been overhauled to either fix crashes or prevent likely crashes due to risk of divide by zero, uninitialized values, or dangling pointers (leftover settings) on entities and functions. We recommend that you upgrade using the new “tdm_installer” available here. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.09, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!

You know what raises expectations about the game being the same as the originals? Giving it the same title as the originals and calling the protagonist the same name as the originals and pretending like it is a continuation of the same story as the originals in your marketing materials. If they wanted to make their own unique stealth game, they could have come up with their own title and their own protagonist, like Arcane Studios did successfully.

More pix, to celebrate Lunar New Year - Year of the Ox - and Valentine's Day

I'll add to that by saying they placed far more importance on quick time events, and motion capture than they did on making a 'game'. That's what irks me about a lot of so called 'games' these days. They're not games, they are moderately interactive, casual entertainment. They were trying to make Thief a AAA title. Had they narrowed their focus, reduced their budget and simply focused on a well crafted 'game', they could have pulled off something amazing.

Another bit of virtual carpentry. Should help with presentations for smaller objects.

That's definitely a huge leap^, both visual and in terms of delivery! I'm trying to keep old stuff around to remind myself how far I've come. It's really helpful, when you feel burned out or when you feel like you haven't made much progress. The shot below is from March 2017, those were my first material tests The second one is from mid-2020.

Update on Shadows of Northdale: Act 3 and Act 4 are coming along! Slowly but surely. They are both double mission releases, so essentially i'm working on 4 missions at once. It's taking longer to cook in the oven than expected, but hopefully it'll be something very special once both acts are finished! I'm unsure if i'll do a double release or if i'll release Act 3 as soon as it's done and then Act 4 shortly after. As with anything to do with development things change a lot. Just ask poor Dragofer, Moonbo, Skacky, Epifire or Kingsal as they're often victims to my endless design questions Also as a point of reflection, i've been apart of this community for nearly 8 years! And I was looking back at the very first briefing I ever did (with a rather hilarious release date of fall 2013 for the accountant mission). Back when it was a single mission, before it became a campaign which I have since abandoned. But I digress, here is an example of how far my voice acting and briefing video work has come since I first started contributing to this community. How it started in 2013: How it's going in 2020: Anyway, back to work on finishing Shadows of Northdale Act 3!

Well it was worth a shot, but it turns out wxAUI is useless, unmaintained junk that simply doesn't work as advertised. In particular: The saving and loading is absolutely broken. Even if I pass back the exact string that it dumped out to the console, copied into a hard-coded string in code, all that happens is every single panel disappears, making it worse than no persistence at all. There is no way to fix the size issues with the panels. The only thing which works is setting a minimum size, which means the user can no longer shrink the panels down. The "best size" value is completely ignored by the initial layout; it only applies if you float the panels and then re-dock them with the mouse. These two factors combined effectively make it impossible to layout the panels to mimic the embedded layout, taking up the entire window. The panels can only be initialised as two small strips along the left and right edges (determined by the minimum size) with a large grey space in the center. Similar problems have been reported by other users years ago but nothing is ever fixed, just a few comments from developers insisting there isn't actually a problem. Of course it's possible that the behaviour is very different between Windows and GTK backends, and maybe between wxWidgets versions (we already know there are a fair number of bugs with the 3.0.x series on Linux).