The Dark Mod 2.11 feedback thread

[nbohr1more]

Now that The Dark Mod 2.11 is out, please share any thoughts, issues, or well-wishes here.

Thank you!

[snatcher]

Being a little late to The Dark Mod (it's never too late, isn't it?) I didn't see the project grow and evolve and I don't want to miss this chance to congratulate and thank the dedicated and passionate crew (past and present) for the wonderful game they created and to this day maintain.

Thank you very much and congratulations on the release!

[chakkman]

Yay! Grats to the release.

[chakkman]

Just wondering, but... is it normal that the TDM configuration reset itself after the update? Don't think I had that before. I had to set all the ingame options again, as they were all on default...

[datiswous]

1 hour ago, chakkman said:

is it normal that the TDM configuration reset itself after the update? Don't think I had that before. I had to set all the ingame options again

Yes this is normal. Had to do this for all dev and beta versions.

Edited February 6 by datiswous

[stgatilov]

1 hour ago, chakkman said:

Just wondering, but... is it normal that the TDM configuration reset itself after the update? Don't think I had that before. I had to set all the ingame options again, as they were all on default...

There is a small sneaky button after tdm_installer ends, which says "restore config".
If you are confident that you won't get into some config mess, you can click it.

Also, all the config files that tdm_installer removes are stored in TDM directory, named like Darkmod_220709_094207.cfg.
So if you want it restored, just rename it back.
You can also run some diff tool (like WinMerge) and only merge the settings that are important to you.
 

[chakkman]

Thanks.  The most important settings for me to remember are the gamma and brightness settings, so, I'll just write the values down somewhere.

Any particular reason why the settings are defaulted? Potential new or changed configuration settings which might be messed up on an update?

If I recall correctly, the settings weren't set to default on former updates. I could be wrong.

Edited February 6 by chakkman

[stgatilov]

2 minutes ago, chakkman said:

Any particular reason why the settings are defaulted? Potential new or changed configuration settings which might be messed up on an update?

Yes.

Defaults change often, sometimes in such a major way that old defaults no longer work properly.
If you switch between major versions without resetting config, you might get in a situation where your version has several weird behaviors. We got too tired of debugging other people's configs during beta, so I added opt-out reset to the new installer.

Note that developers today often prefer making internal cvars archived despite player never touching them, like some mantling height or whatever.

[Xolvix]

Gonna give my well-wishes here too. I haven't updated yet, actually I haven't played TDM in a while because I got distracted with other games & life. But I'm gonna come back and finish those missions I haven't completed yet and the new improvements/features sound pretty cool. Despite my previous reservations, I'm eager to try out the new blackjack KO indicator feature - might actually result in far less savescumming if I know a KO is guaranteed now.

Anyway, great work as always!

[Loginnerer]

This sexy auto-frobbing feature is a godsend for dealing with piles of coins and lockboxes, so no more clicking 20 times in a row. Now I need something new to be frustrated about.

Much thanks and congratulations.

[wesp5]

Congratulation on the new release and many thanks for mentioning my Unofficial Patch on the ModDB announcement page! I'm busy adjusting it to the new version right now and noticed, that my implementation of the frob outline (which I replaced the pointless frob helper with, pun intended) isn't working as intended. It works fine, but always defaults to preset 1 while I wanted to use the dark preset 6. It's just a syntax issue probably, so how can I set "r_frobOutlinePreset 6" in the GUI files and if I can't, where should I do this?

Edited February 7 by wesp5

[Kopfrkingl]

Congratulations on the release and thank you for your hard work!

I see some sweet performance improvements and visual improvements on top of that. The improved shadows look really neat and my PC can handle them much better than it used to. I'll raise a glass to Master Builder and TDM team for that, great job.

Thus far I have only tried the new features very briefly. The auto-frobber is definitely a most welcome addition. The blackjack indicator, eh - I'll admit that after playing TDM on and off since it released standalone in 2013 or so, the new blackjack KO indicator is nice but I'll probably forget it exists as I already have my playstyle and this won't affect it. I can see how it can help new players though.

Thank you once again!

[STiFU]

Thanks everyone, for putting in so much work, especially our mighty @stgatilov, but also all the other devs and testers.

[chakkman]

Wow, the blackjack indicator is absolutely excellent, great job guys. This will make blackjacking a lot more reliable here. The animation is also very subtle, which I like.

Edited February 8 by chakkman

[lowenz]

So TDS was right about  (the blackjack)

[chakkman]

Well, unlike the original Thief's, the TDM blackjacking always has been ultra finicky. It's still finicky (obviously, as there hasn't been changed anything under the hood about the hit mechanics), but, at least you get a clue now. I still missed yesterday though, when suddenly and immediate, the blackjack went down again, and I didn't have any idea why, once again. But, it's an awful lot better than before, because I actually know and can see now when I can safely blackjack the guard.

TDS actually positioned the guard as well when you initiate the blackjacking. Not sure what the technical reasons behind that were. The hit box (if you can talk about that) wasn't nearly as precarious as in TDM as well. Now that you can see when you actually can safe knock out a guard in TDM, you can see how precisely the distance and angle has to be. Which is pretty awkward, considering that you can't really judge distances on a single monitor. It's not 3D in the same way as VR.

Edited February 9 by chakkman

[esme]

Congratulations on the release

Thanks for all the hard work the team has put in, it's much appreciated

[lowenz]

I don't think if FM-related (In Plain Sight) but this table lamp + shadow maps with high softness creates VERY BAD shadows  (low softness way less)

Edited February 9 by lowenz

[nbohr1more]

The shadow map algorithm tries to jitter all the samples and increasing the softness radius causes the samples to spread out instead of being jittered on top of each other.

The only way to improve this currently is to increase the quality which increases the number of samples and makes the gradient smoother over a larger area.

[kin]

Congratulations on the release. I haven't dived deep in to the 211 version yet but I noticed more screen tearing in older missions (hazard pay for example) with vsync off. With 210 I always had vsync off and no noticeable tearing. Could though be my configuration or the recent gpu driver update. I have my monitor configured to 75hz and an old card gtx760 (planning on updating to gtx 1660 ti this spring).

Edited February 10 by kin

[datiswous]

On 2/9/2023 at 11:00 AM, chakkman said:

(obviously, as there hasn't been changed anything under the hood about the hit mechanics)

I thought there actually had been. I thought @Obsttorte brought this change and some others for testing. I don't know if it all made it into 2.11 .

 

[datiswous]

Hey I miss here that shadow maps are enabled with volumetric lighting (always) even when stencil shadows are enabled. I think this is a feature for players who prefer stencil shadows.

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=What's_new_in_TDM_2.11#Graphics

[chakkman]

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

I thought there actually had been. I thought @Obsttorte brought this change and some others for testing. I don't know if it all made it into 2.11 .

 

Hmm.... then I must have misunderstood it. Thought the only change is the animation/indication.

Still seems pretty finicky though.

Edit: After reading a few pages of the linked thread, I must admit that I still don't fully understand what the changes are. Sounds like Obsttorte wanted to change the way the blackjack works directionally (i.e. that blackjacking from the front doesn't work anymore), but, it seems like some other members intervened and argued that the rules should not be changed, so, I'm puzzled about what has actually changed, apart from the indicator animation. From playing, I would say that the changes, if any, are very subtle.

Edited February 10 by chakkman

[datiswous]

See also here:

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4289

But I don't know if all that made it in 2.11

[Wallace]

Haven't tried the update yet... but can anyone give me a ballpark figure as to how much their FPS and/or load times has improved? (if at all)