Search the Community

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5883

New here. I'm a data analyst by trade (sql, etc), but dabble in game dev stuff in my spare time. So, I'm def not a developer. Hence my question may sound dumb to seasoned devs... I dl'ed the Dark Mod source, and just scanned through some of it, mainly seeing if I could help tweak, optimize or help on the GLSL. (I worked on an HLSL mod for a game, so spent a lot of time learning shaders and tweaking them.) I looked at some of the .h and .cpp files, though, and noticed some redundant calculations... EG: In the /renderer/MegaTexture.cpp, there's several functions that have things like this... (I copied this from the "GenerateMegaMipMaps" func)... // mip map the new pixels for ( int yyy = 0 ; yyy < TILE_SIZE / 2 ; yyy++ ) { for ( int xxx = 0 ; xxx < TILE_SIZE / 2 ; xxx++ ) { byte *in = &oldBlock[ ( yyy * 2 * TILE_SIZE + xxx * 2 ) * 4 ]; byte *out = &newBlock[ ( ( ( TILE_SIZE/2 * yy ) + yyy ) * TILE_SIZE + ( TILE_SIZE/2 * xx ) + xxx ) * 4 ]; out[0] = ( in[0] + in[4] + in[0+TILE_SIZE*4] + in[4+TILE_SIZE*4] ) >> 2; out[1] = ( in[1] + in[5] + in[1+TILE_SIZE*4] + in[5+TILE_SIZE*4] ) >> 2; out[2] = ( in[2] + in[6] + in[2+TILE_SIZE*4] + in[6+TILE_SIZE*4] ) >> 2; out[3] = ( in[3] + in[7] + in[3+TILE_SIZE*4] + in[7+TILE_SIZE*4] ) >> 2; } } I'm a noob at understanding the optimizations compilers do.. In working with java & python, I'm pretty sure when calculations are done in a loop call, the compiler is smart enough to calculate something once. (So, I'm pretty sure a C-compiler is smart enough to do that, too). IE: the TILE_SIZE / 2 in the "for" statements will get calculated once, not each time the loops loop and the statement is evaluated. (I may be wrong, though. I'm projecting my experience from java / python after I ran tests when coding various projects. I've never done C++ development, so unsure how the C++ compiler would function.) But, in the body of the code after the 2nd "for", the TILE_SIZE/2 is calculated 2 more times on the byte out. So, pre-calc once for the first "for" to use over and over. Another time (?) for the next "for" to use over and over, then 2 more times in the body each time the 2nd for loop runs. And, I'm assuming each time that block is ran, it's calculating those 2 calc's each time. Also have TILE_SIZE * 4 calculating 8 times in the body, which, if those are re-calculated each time that block of code runs, would be a lot of redundant calculation. Does the compiler notice this, and optimize it down to a single one-time pre-calculation, or is it actually calculating this stuff over and over? I guess I'm wondering if a variable should get declared, and the TILE_SIZE * 8 and the TILE_SIZE / 2 should get calculated once and used wherever those parts are. Maybe it's written the way it is, b/c it's a case of losing precision due to floating point error? (IE: creating a var would "round" the result and create erroneous results, which is why the calculation is done each time it's needed?) I don't know. I'm a nub on that, too.. but from doing shader work, I learned that sometimes it's better to let a redundant calc run multiple times to avoid precision error. I'm not even sure if the code is being used.. but I was just looking at various files, and noticed some had redundant calcs. I was wondering if this was something I could tweak and submit changes for? Coming from the shader side of things, there's the push to reduce calculations as much as possible to prevent shaders from bogging down the FPS. IE: reduce instruction set use, use intrinsic functions, move as much stuff to vertex side instead of pixel/fragment. Having some redundant calculations in a global var the game engine calc's once before piping to shaders or something doesn't make any impact. But, having a shader-like function called many times to generate vertex / pixel could create performance impact with redundant calc's.

Not so long ago I found what could make a pretty good profile picture and decided to try it out on these new forums. But I couldn't find a button anywhere that would let me change it. I asked on Discord and it seems Spooks also couldn't find anything anywhere. So I logged into an old alternative account and, lo and behold, that account has a button. This is on the first screen I get when I: 1) click on my account name in the top-right of the browser -> 2) click on 'profile'. Compared to my actual account: Are you also missing this button on your account? It'd be very much appreciated if that functionality could be restored to any of the affected accounts.

Hi, I need to know what the code is to use Spoiler Tags. I am using my tablet and I don't have the options to use anything, like spoiler tags, quote tags, text changes etc. Thanks

While still working on Doom3 i also pitch in on several other projects where i found i could do some good. One of those projects i happened to chime in on was Open Watcom. Open Watcom was in its days considered the best compiler avaliable and the price tag certainly showed that At one point the comany was bought up by a company named sybase and updated for better support of windows (by that time it was win 3.11). Sadly microsoft by the time of windows 95 caught up and started rolling out there MSVC compiler which was a chore to work with compared to the aging Watcom compiler which btw was used to build Windows 95 in the first place, but Watcoms ide was rather hard to work with compared to MSVC's besides that it still produced higher quality programs but in the end MSVC due to its ease of use won out and Watcom slowly bleed out. At some point sybase threw the blanket and opensourced the watcom compiler minus all the microsoft owned property and a new project was born named Open Watcom which had the goal of creating a good opensourced alternative to the microsoft versions. For a few years everything worked out and the compiler was updated considerably by using mingw's windows API it could once again create windows programs allbeit with some difficulty. A developer then created a new Windows API built specifically for the watcom from scratch unfortunatly it needed some housecleaning which i helped with while also learning a bit more about the inner workings of a compiler. Sadly the original site is mostly dead now but work is still ongoing and help is wanted and appreciated. So if anyone here wants to help with the project here's an official invite . Open Watcom as of now also supports 64 bit OS but still produces 32 bit executables due to the lack of a 64 bit API so thats one thing that could use some work. Quake builds and works with it both dos winquake and OpenGL versions. It has some pretty impressive optimizations compared to pretty much any other compilers like clang. So if you have spare time and or would like to help on development visit here https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2and become a member. Btw Open Watcom supports other OS as well, like linux OS/2 haiku and it can still create programs for windows 9x and DOS.

Hi guys, through the "cheats" topic I got the idea, that it would be quite useful, if there were tags for missions (the post was about removing the killing restriction in some missions to suit the prefered play style). I don't know how easy or difficult this is, but with them, it would be quite convenient to pick missions with playstyles, environment, etc one does want to use. This could also be expanded to other mission properties. I remember a discussion about climbable drains, handles on doors, that cannot be picked and other things the map author chooses for himself. That way these things would be clearer and as I said before, it is easier to choose missions with playstyles that suit oneself. What do think?