Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

TDM after D3 Source code release


Shadowhide

Recommended Posts

Yes, the Quake 3 engine was ported to D3D:

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=232437#p232437

 

(see the ETXreal link at the bottom).

 

How did the 2009 Wolfenstein game perform?

 

That has Id Tech 4 with a DX9 Deferred Renderer (supposedly the biggest performance opportunities for the renderer).

 

(I'll have to test the demo: http://www.fileplanet.com/198909/190000/fileinfo/Wolfenstein-Demo )

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, somebody has ported id Tech 3 to D3D, but I'm quite sure that in case of id Tech 4 the work will be much more harder. Yes, Raven has made it, but they are professionals who work for money. So, who will perform this work for free?

Edited by MoroseTroll
Link to comment
Share on other sites

AFAIK, only Tr3B has offered that he is planning to do this work. I would be happy with the OpenGL version anyway.

 

Looks like Wolfenstein 2009 was mostly GPU bound so the renderer changes paid-off (they said insane amounts of lights were possible because of the deferred renderer). Though they kept stencil shadows and blurred them... most of the shadow options disabled the shadows so I think they were still CPU calculated (but at least they didn't need to use a wasteful z-pass render for soft-shadows like Sikkmod does :laugh: It pays to have source code access ;) ).

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I'm glad that Tr3B is brave enough to port id Tech 4 from OpenGL to Direct3D just because the OpenGL drivers are not as perfect as the Direct3D ones. I'd like to wish him luck in such a hard work :). Given his success with the XreaL renderer, I think the porting (and implementing all other things in his wish list) will take at least one year, maybe two.

Edited by MoroseTroll
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Shamefully (given the Beta testing I needed to do) I let curiosity kill my cat and installed the Wolfenstein demo.

 

Very smooth even though I'm 200mhz below the 3.2Ghz CPU requirement (they've likely left some margin of error on that like good engineers ;) ).

 

Even with the shadow detail at high the performance didn't dip that much but... many many lights appeared to be set to noshadows. Views seemed pretty large... at least as large as some of the largest views I've seen in Doom 3 mods. One scene with walkways over train-tracks seemed to have insane amounts of alpha-test for chain-link fences etc and just generally had lots of peek-through between planks etc.

 

Geometric density was a little lower on some objects than HL2 and oddly reminded me of the feel of HL2 perhaps because of the way it lagged (Doom 3 always seemed to slowdown differently than HL2) (could be D3D having an effect on that feel). Bloom effects, SSAO, etc, were all lending the scenes a "next-gen" look but it seemed a bit overdone as if to prove a point rather than tasteful. Specular was particularly overdone yet weak visually... almost a step back from default Doom 3's speculars (though I must admit that Maha_X, JC Denton and Sikkpin have spoiled me with their improved specular shaders...) I don't know why anyone with access to the render source would stand for DX8 (or lower) quality specular rendering. (Especially since Sikkpin showed that you can do HL2 ambient cubemap style specular contributions without source access...)

 

I (shamefully) got hooked into the COD style set-piece sequences that were pretty well done but obviously were following the mold of consolized titles like modern COD variants.

 

Still, I found the performance of the scenes in this demo to be surprisingly good and I am hopeful that some of the beneficial changes made by these guys can be worked-out for an OpenGL update of the Id Tech 4 renderer.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking at the 3D Vision site I can see that there is a list of 3D Ready games. This implies that support is a bit more involved than just switching to a DirectX rendering path.

 

Well, you can play older games as well. Sometimes they have a few glitches, but it works, so most of the work is taken by the driver and the information sent to the gfx card. Application support might be helpfull in some cases, but not abvsolutely neccessary.

 

It seems TDM would have to handle locking the framerate and alternately rendering left and right images. If that's the case you might as well scratch maintaining two separate render paths and just figure out how to send a timing signal to the glasses. A quick google search suggests that enough information is available.

 

Well, that sounds quite easy. :D Where did you find that info?

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

German magazine SPIEGEL Online posted an Interview with John Carmack. There is an interesting section on stuff like the release of source code an such..

 

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Id Software veröffentlicht den Quellcode von Spielen nach ein paar Jahren. Werden Sie das weiterhin tun, nachdem ihr Studio von Zenimax aufgekauft wurde?

 

Carmack: Das war eine meiner größten Sorgen vor dem Kauf, dass die Anzugträger sagen würden: "Warum zum Teufel sollten wir etwas verschenken?" Ich war deshalb froh, als ich ein Argument fand, als wir "Doom" für iOS bauten. Statt unseren eigenen Code zu benutzen, baute ich es auf einer Open-Source-Codebasis auf, auf dem weiterentwickelten Code, den wir damals veröffentlicht haben. Es ist fantastisch, wie die Leute das Spiel 15 Jahre lang lebendig und aktuell gehalten, es verbessert haben. Ich konnte das benutzen und es als Open Source Code wieder zurückgeben. Ich habe noch keine Erklärung unterschrieben, dass wir die id Tech 4 Engine veröffentlichen können, aber es würde mich wundern, wenn es nicht dazu käme.

 

Translation

 

SO: Id software releases the source code of its games after a few years. Are you going to continue that practice, now that you have been bought by Zenimax?

 

Carmack: Before the acquisition this was one of my greatest concerns, that the suits may say "Why, in god's name, should we give something away?" I was glad that I found a valid argument while we were porting "Doom" to iOS. Instead of using our own code, I've rebuild it on the base of the improved Open-Source-Code, which orginated from the original code that we had released earlier.[..] So far I haven't

signed any kind of statement that we actually can release ID Tech 4, but I'd be suprised if it won't be happening.

Edited by Chiron
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder how long it will take for the code to come out. Rage is due out on Oct 4, and they said to expect it this year, but after Rage ships. Does that mean in a couple of weeks, or some time in December (hopefully not)? Also, any plans on when TDM 1.07 will be released? Is it remotely close? This will probably be the last version of TDM to come out without having Doom 3 code access.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder how long it will take for the code to come out. Rage is due out on Oct 4, and they said to expect it this year, but after Rage ships. Does that mean in a couple of weeks, or some time in December (hopefully not)? Also, any plans on when TDM 1.07 will be released? Is it remotely close? This will probably be the last version of TDM to come out without having Doom 3 code access.

 

TDM v1.07 will need a few weeks at minimum, because the I18N effort is not yet 100% complete, and it needs lots of testing, too. Also graymans AI changes are currently work-in-progress and need more testing, too.

 

So I'd wager that v1.07 is not out before Novemeber. And yes, I don't think the source code will change anything for v1.07 - we need to read and integrate it into our source first, which is expected to be a lot of work.

 

And there are only 3 active developers left :o

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, you can play older games as well. Sometimes they have a few glitches, but it works, so most of the work is taken by the driver and the information sent to the gfx card. Application support might be helpfull in some cases, but not abvsolutely neccessary.

OpenGL by default supports stereoscopic rendering via anaglyph colorcoding, so extending that to support active shutter glasses like nVidia's 3d Vision or passive polarized glasses shouldn't be much of a problem. The only hard task in this case would probably be getting the driver to work and the link rich posted seems to show a solution to this problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think you'll be able to use that with non-professional active shutters (since that's what the support was designed for - and I remember something about the nvidia 3dvision stuff not using it... but I really don't watch it much). You might be able to use it with passive however.

 

In all, it's almost certain that the time could be better spent elsewhere -- and without possible complications.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would this then work with ATI too?

If we can get it to run with openGL and if we get a decent driver for the IR-dongle, it should be possible.

 

@Serp: I don't know what you're referring to exactly, but 3D Vision uses shutter glasses at 120 Hz, alternating between left and right field of view with 60 Hz per side. And the articles rich posted are exactly dealing the this technology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I googled "Nvidia shutter glasses timing signal" and "Nvidia shutter glasses OpenGL" and found these...

 

Building your own IR Dongle

 

Using the bundled dongle with Linux and OpenGL

 

Thanks! That looks intersting, especially the second link. So it seems doable to get OpenGL support as well. I guess I should get back into system programming and see if I can make something usefull out of this. I would love to have support for Nvidia Glasses on TDM. :)

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OpenGL by default supports stereoscopic rendering via anaglyph colorcoding, so extending that to support active shutter glasses like nVidia's 3d Vision or passive polarized glasses shouldn't be much of a problem. The only hard task in this case would probably be getting the driver to work and the link rich posted seems to show a solution to this problem.

 

What I currently not understand is, how to incoroporate it into the games. I suppose the reason why Nvidia has a special driver for this is, so applications don't need to implement it each seperately. So it should be possible to make it work for Doom 3 and TDM, but this would be a standalone solution (though still desirable if just a proof of concept :D). Making it more generic would mean to hooking it somehow into the OpenGL implementation, right?

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If it gets Sparhawk coding again... I say you should humor his tinkering with stereoscopy etc :laugh: ...

Well, I must say, this definitely caught my attention. :)

 

But I must also say that I'm really rusty on C++ development at the moment. I was coding the last years primarily in Java, which is a fine language for application development, because my work doesn't need me as a C Programmer at the moment :(. So currently I started to get back into C++ and I'm shocked how much I forgot. Well, most of programming is not syntax anyway, so this is not really a big problem, but it costs time.

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we can get it to run with openGL and if we get a decent driver for the IR-dongle, it should be possible.

 

I think with the information from that link this should be not so hard to do. The drawback is that it would be implemented inside TDM and not in a generic way, unless there is some way to hook into the OpenGL driver directly to get the information how to sync.

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 0 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...