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[Resolved in TDM 2.06] Is 64-bit version of The Dark Mod publicly-available?


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It's still a private branch. It has always been the case that upcoming features be kept internal until they are fit for public consumption. If you are interested in contributing we can discuss SVN access terms.

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I'm very eager to see this myself! I have a few issues (mainly sound) which I suspect might be caused by running a 32bit engine on a 64bit OS, and in any case x64 is newer and theoretically faster. Last winter there was talk of the 64bit TDM engine being almost there, so it's sad to hear it's still a private test branch today... at least it's happening though :)

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I'm very eager to see this myself! I have a few issues (mainly sound) which I suspect might be caused by running a 32bit engine on a 64bit OS, and in any case x64 is newer and theoretically faster. Last winter there was talk of the 64bit TDM engine being almost there, so it's sad to hear it's still a private test branch today... at least it's happening though :)

 

Afaik 64bits is not faster than 32bits when less than 4GB of memory is used, because TDM is not a open world game like Stalker or Crysis or others, a 64bits engine will not make a huge or even any difference, also i'm pretty sure your problems with sound are not because of you using a 32bit engine on a 64bit OS, if you are using linux it can be anything, lack of a 32bit sound codec package, bad sound configuration (alsa configuration), bad/buggy sound drivers, etc.

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Yep. 64-bit simply makes the executable more native to a 64 bit OS. Big performance changes would require either moving more operations to the GPU or possibly making the executable better at multi-threaded operations. All things on the to do list.

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I think one minor annoyance (not issue) with the 32bit engine was indeed that I had to install some compatibility libraries for it, which I prefer to ideally not waste space in my software packages with. As for the sound issues, they're in part related to PulseAudio, so maybe not an architecture specific problem like I thought.

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One of the biggest motivators to release a 64-bit build is to accomplish sound fixes for Linux users.

 

So one of the defining questions of the v2.04 release cycle is:

 

"Will TDM get major flack from the Linux community if yet another release cycle fails to have a 64-bit build? Is it better to delay v2.04 until that is ready

or would it be more beneficial to push 64-bit to a later release and get v2.04 bug fixes out which will benefit all OS'es?"

 

I am in the camp of "when it's done, it's done" but I don't really have any deciding vote or anything. If there is significant pressure to get a v2.04 in the short term

then it's almost guaranteed that 64-bit will wait for another day. Not an outcome that I'd prefer but there are a number of significant improvements and bug-fixes

that will improve that overall quality for TDM players. That said, not being able to hear ANYTHING because you can't get that part of TDM to work in your OS

would seem to trump the other quality improvements for affected users. I guess it's a matter of degree. How far do we cater to Linux users who are skilled enough

to install our package but not skilled enough to apply 32-bit workarounds?

 

It's admittedly a niche but some of the bigger Linux Gamer press has commented on it so it has an affect on TDM's public image even if it's a narrow group that's affected.

That and then as soon as you mention "not 64-bit" the uninformed masses will start screaming about how antiquated our code is (etc).

 

Just like you see "look game x doesn't use all my CPU cores and it's so slow!" comments where the commenters don't realize that the game x is GPU bound

and no amount of CPU Cores would help that. It's just a quick way for random internet denizens to decide "not worth my time. not optimized" and

is a potential bugaboo where astro-turfers and PR firms trying to sell products will use it as a negative attribute to say that our free "product" isn't worth anyone's time verses a commercial one.

 

This is my biggest concern. Eidos, or other AAA studios running around pretending to "review" TDM and saying all sorts of negative things about it. And likewise pretending

to be "end-users with technical problems" all in order to create FUD and discourage players from spending their time here. Now that there's so many "Free to Play"

games out there, Open Source projects are a threat because they represent mind-share that could be otherwise spent in front of advertisers or micro-transactions in

"free" commercial games.

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...)

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As I understand it, the 64-bit branch requires MSVC 2013. If it could be compiled with MSVC 2010, we wouldn't need to fiddle with precision problems

due to the deprecation of x87 FPU in MSVC 2013. That or fix the precision issues. Naga Huntress seems to have rooted out a significant amount of those

problems but there were some lingering questions about what the new compile method would bring. So it's either fix MSVC 2013 compiling or port Greebo's

branch to MSVC 2010.

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...)

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This is my biggest concern. Eidos, or other AAA studios running around pretending to "review" TDM and saying all sorts of negative things about it. And likewise pretending

to be "end-users with technical problems" all in order to create FUD and discourage players from spending their time here.

This is a bit disturbing, are there any verfiable examples of this happening..?

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This is a bit disturbing, are there any verfiable examples of this happening..?

It would be VERY disturbing.

 

I hope it's only a hypothetical scenario.

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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This is my biggest concern. Eidos, or other AAA studios running around pretending to "review" TDM and saying all sorts of negative things about it.

 

 

Eidos was quite complimentary about TDM, as I recall. I'm not aware of any AAA studios giving TDM a negative review (do studios make a habit of reviewing indie games?)

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I've seen similar smear campaigns over at Reddit. There are crazy things like vote brigades and bots and all sorts of messes out there. If we aren't succeptible

to Eidos or AAA studios directly, we are still "competing" against indie studios, kickstarters, etc. I'd love to be an idealist about this but there are plenty of bad seeds

out there who wouldn't hesitate to rain FUD on TDM. Inoculating against known criticisms is prudent.

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...)

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Eidos was quite complimentary about TDM, as I recall. I'm not aware of any AAA studios giving TDM a negative review (do studios make a habit of reviewing indie games?)

 

I've seen similar smear campaigns over at Reddit. There are crazy things like vote brigades and bots and all sorts of messes out there. If we aren't succeptible

to Eidos or AAA studios directly, we are still "competing" against indie studios, kickstarters, etc.

 

Gangs of Reddit ideologues with too much time on their hands and official smear campaigns from Eidos are two very different things.

 

Probably best to rein in the conspiracy theories unless there is some actual evidence. Not every negative comment about an independent game is part of a secret plot by Big Game Publishing to discredit their rivals. If you ever read the official forums of commercial games you will find that a lot of gamers are just twats, no matter who makes the game or how much/little the user paid for it.

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Yeah, admittedly my paranoia meter is going crazy lately. When I keep seeing threads where users cant even get the darkmod executable to download because of folder

permissions or security software it just seems too unreal like something intentionally submitted to make it look like TDM is "hard to install". Bah.

 

The latest Youtube video review in the "In the News" thread had my spidey senses tingling because his criticisms are almost a word-for-word refrain of the type of things that you

hear on TTLG from old-time TDM antagonists in the forums. FUD like "I doubt it's TDM's fault, the Doom 3 engine just can't be good at yada yada and never will be as good as the Dark Engine"

just rubs me the wrong way. Any honest reviewer would take 2 seconds to figure out this is an Open Source project and that ANYTHING can be fixed with time and effort.

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...)

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  • nbohr1more changed the title to [Resolved in TDM 2.06] Is 64-bit version of The Dark Mod publicly-available?

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