[Marscaleb]

I was thinking of these games the other week. I downloaded the files from Steam. I found the Steam version to be completely broken; the menus won't activate, after changing controls I am constantly stabbing (quick kick) for no reason...
Like, yeah, I was expecting to play some hot garbage here, but not THIS kind of hot garbage!

What are my options for playing a stable version of the games these days?

I remember being promised that certain source ports would work, but the ones I'm thinking of don't even run anymore.

[Lunick]

EDuke32 and Rednukem will both run those games fine

[X-Vector]

Raze supports Nam and World War II GI, according to the info page: https://raze.zdoom.org/about

[Marscaleb]

How do I set up eDuke32 to run NAM? I thought they made tweaks to the code beyond just the con files to get the weapons working like they do, and if the engine doesn't properly account for this it would cause problems.
But maybe I'm wrong; it's not like I've looked into the details.

Raze has me confused by its mere existence. It's talking like its a fork of GZDoom but it's running Build games. Sure, with enough editing I could make it run Unreal if I wanted to, but it would have shortcomings and take a lot of work. The best I feel I can hope for is "okay but why though?"

EDIT:
Also, which would be the easiest to run on a weaker system? I'm on vacation this week and I'd be running it on my tablet.

[Phredreeke]

I

Marscaleb, on 03 April 2024 - 06:48 AM, said:

How do I set up eDuke32 to run NAM? I thought they made tweaks to the code beyond just the con files to get the weapons working like they do, and if the engine doesn't properly account for this it would cause problems.
But maybe I'm wrong; it's not like I've looked into the details.

You're mixing it up with WWII GI. NAM runs on vanilla Duke. WWII GI runs on a sort of proto-EDuke. Rednukem (and Raze) runs WWII GI by only implementing the CON extensions utilized in that game. Anyway either game should run as is.

Marscaleb, on 03 April 2024 - 06:48 AM, said:

Raze has me confused by its mere existence. It's talking like its a fork of GZDoom but it's running Build games. Sure, with enough editing I could make it run Unreal if I wanted to, but it would have shortcomings and take a lot of work. The best I feel I can hope for is "okay but why though?"

it's Build games running on the GZDoom backend. Graf was displeased with how the EDuke32-family of ports did things, so he decided to do his own thing. There are advantages and disadvantages to it
+ Mac support, the Raze devs provide Mac binaries while for the EDuke32-family of ports users are expected to compile themselves. Also Apple's OpenGL drivers are pretty bad so on some hardware (this includes the new ARM Macs) EDuke32 is limited to running the software renderer
+ Raze is prebundled with widescreen assets for the games it supports, so users don't have to provide those manually
+ All supported games run from one executable. This is minor but I've seen people ask about it so I thought I'd include it here
- No EDuke32 CON extensions. While Raze initially forked the EDuke32 game code, this proved incompatible with Graf's design goals for Raze. So the game code for the Duke-based games comes from JFDuke and NukeYKT's reconstructed Redneck Rampage source. Of course this means it can't play Ion Fury
- No software renderer, this may not matter at all for some while being a dealbreaker for others.
- The game settings have been replaced by a generic menu. Again this is really minor but I know at least one person who is really bugged about it

Marscaleb, on 03 April 2024 - 06:48 AM, said:

EDIT:
Also, which would be the easiest to run on a weaker system? I'm on vacation this week and I'd be running it on my tablet.

If by tablet you're talking about an x86 Windows tablet, then either EDuke32 or Rednukem. If you're talking about an Android tablet then Zeta Touch is the only active port.

Also, running NAM on a tablet? What kinda masochist are you? lol


Edit: For what it's worth, I'd suggest using Rednukem for those games, for the simple reason that they aren't very popular, so if a commit breaks anything in either of them it is easy to go unnoticed.

[Morpheus Kitami]

Does Apple's OpenGL drivers being pretty bad also apply to Raze as well? If they're so bad that one port is only running in the software renderer, then the port that doesn't have a software renderer might be a really bad idea.

[Phredreeke]

Raze has a Vulkan backend, which is wrapped through MoltenVk to Metal. So it avoids OpenGL altogether.

It should be fixable though, here's what Hendricks said about it back in December on discord.

Quote

I'm sure we could perform better by improving our code. Desktop GL drivers pick up a lot of slack for us. The AGX is a mobile-derived GPU, and it exhibits the same performance issues that I found when porting to iOS years ago. I also have an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano, an ARM-based computer with a GL driver (not just GLES) and it too has similar issues.

[Marscaleb]

Phredreeke, on 03 April 2024 - 08:32 AM, said:

If by tablet you're talking about an x86 Windows tablet, then either EDuke32 or Rednukem. If you're talking about an Android tablet then Zeta Touch is the only active port.

Also, running NAM on a tablet? What kinda masochist are you? lol

Windows x84, really. It's a Surface. It's respectably powerful, but it's not built for high-end gaming, and I know some Duke ports like to add some crazy rendering features, and emulation and ports in general can sometimes be taxing.