[Aristotle Gumball]

Just tried the Preview Campaign, but it runs slow (down to 5fps) even in "classical mode", especially the part where you crawl out of the vent and end up in a large area for the first time. Specs: AMD FX4100 3.62ghz, 8gb RAM, Nvidia GTX 650TI. Will performance eventually improve or is this what I can expect with the full release?

[Hendricks266]

It sounds like you are not using the latest update.

[Phredreeke]

thricecursed, on 22 May 2018 - 10:21 AM, said:

Just tried the Preview Campaign, but it runs slow (down to 5fps) even in "classical mode",

Unless you're running at a very low resolution, OpenGL will likely be much faster than the classic renderer.

[Jimmy]

Sanek, on 20 May 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

If any other studios show interest in the engine, I'm positive that they'll not use Eduke32...unless Voidpoint will be involved in the development.

They'd be fucking dipshits not to.
This includes an unnamed major studio who owns a popular intellectual property.

[Sanek]

Jimmy, on 22 May 2018 - 09:27 PM, said:

They'd be fucking dipshits not to.
This includes an unnamed major studio who owns a popular intellectual property.

Yeah - they must use it, but they will not. I don't know what's exactly going on behind the scenes but as I understand, it's very hard to do business with Voidpoint - either they want way too much for the port, or the unnamed studio itself don't want to be affiliated with another party. So it makes sense when a new edition of the old game arrives with a port of it's own.

[Zaxx]

Sanek, on 23 May 2018 - 01:10 AM, said:

Yeah - they must use it, but they will not. I don't know what's exactly going on behind the scenes but as I understand, it's very hard to do business with Voidpoint - either they want way too much for the port, or the unnamed studio itself don't want to be affiliated with another party. So it makes sense when a new edition of the old game arrives with a port of it's own.

Guess that from the perspective of Gearbox the problem was that EDuke32 is not multiplatform in the sense that it doesn't support current gen consoles. That's a biggie for a multiplatform publisher / developer.

[Phredreeke]

But the original Duke3D didn't support current gen consoles either, and devs have to target two different APIs for Xbox One and PS4 anyway.

I think it's that Gearbox didn't want to open source or pay for a different license

[MusicallyInspired]

Bingo.

[Sanek]

"PC Exclusive" doesn't mean anything these days?

There's a lot of reasons and Phredreeke's post is spot on, but I think that the main reason is the money reason. These big software houses have the budget to make the port of their own, they don't want to be THAT obligated to a 3rd party, constantly sharing profits or smth like that. EDuke32 is more like a tool for the indie developers, yet there's only 1 commerical game after like 18 years of it's existense thanks to port guys.

[Phredreeke]

TBF, for many of those years, Build would have been seen as old tech, yet at the same time not old enough to be considered retro. Also, I'd be surprised if many devs even knew licensing eduke32 was an option. Now that Ion Maiden is coming out hopefully that will change.

[Kyanos]

Phredreeke, on 23 May 2018 - 10:19 AM, said:

Also, I'd be surprised if many devs even knew licensing eduke32 was an option. Now that Ion Maiden is coming out hopefully that will change.

I'm curious about how all that works, is it just through 3D Realms? or 3DR + Voidpoint, and others?? Silverman? JonoF? Saettler?... it could be a very long list.

[Zaxx]

Drek, on 23 May 2018 - 11:54 AM, said:

I'm curious about how all that works, is it just through 3D Realms? or 3DR + Voidpoint, and others?? Silverman? JonoF? Saettler?... it could be a very long list.

Well this is what IM's legal info says:

Quote

Ion Maiden
Copyright © 2018 Voidpoint, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.

Build Engine used under commercial license.

Ion Maiden uses open source EDuke32 technology. The following terms apply only to the Ion Maiden game executable:
Engine code available under the Build License. See buildlic.txt.
Game code and supporting libraries available under the GNU GPL v2 with a linking exception for the Build Engine. See gpl-2.0.txt.

So buildlic still applies to the code but when it comes to the commercial license of Build it doesn't say where that comes from. Guess it's Silverman or 3DR, most likely 3DR. Since Ken made Build for 3DR while also being an employee of 3DR I'd say the engine belongs to 3DR but the 90s was such a wild time in terms of legal stuff that I could be mistaken.

[Hendricks266]

The DOS engine source and Polymost belong to Ken. Subsequent modifications belong to JonoF and Voidpoint. You can talk to us and we'll handle the legwork.

3D Realms is not a party at all.

[Wild Dog]

I just Ion Maiden at the Steam sale. So far i like what i see, also the nod to Wolf3d/Doom when she smile when using the chaingun is a nice touch BUT
I got a question, is my PC or there is a performance issue with the game preview at the moment ??? I'm using OpenGL and the game goes from 200 fps to 10 fps, then back to 30 fps. Also is can't change palette emulation, anisotropy and texture mode.

[Micky C]

The preview is a fair amount better in terms of performance than what it was initially. There is probably still room for improvement. You can't switch off palette emulation because it offers the most accurate / best looking experience, and there's no performance gain anymore from switching it off.

[Wild Dog]

Micky C, on 21 June 2018 - 04:13 PM, said:

The preview is a fair amount better in terms of performance than what it was initially. There is probably still room for improvement. You can't switch off palette emulation because it offers the most accurate / best looking experience, and there's no performance gain anymore from switching it off.

That's good to now. I been playing a bit more and it extreme fps drops only happen in the outdoor areas.

[MusicallyInspired]

Micky C, on 21 June 2018 - 04:13 PM, said:

The preview is a fair amount better in terms of performance than what it was initially. There is probably still room for improvement. You can't switch off palette emulation because it offers the most accurate / best looking experience, and there's no performance gain anymore from switching it off.

Really? I noticed when you could turn it off that it revealed more shades of colours used in the textures that get omitted in palette emulation. But it does indeed look better with it activated.

[NightFright]

Are there any screenshots with this turned on and off? I'd like to see the difference, if possible.

[MusicallyInspired]

I still have a version where it's disable-able. I'll take screenshots after I get home from work. Unless someone else does first.

[MusicallyInspired]

I had some time before work. (left palette emulation enabled, right disabled)

[Mark]

Left/right?

2nd and 4th pic look better to me. Wider range of colors. If thats disabled I prefer that.

[Phredreeke]

Open console (shift+the key above tab, the character on it varies between different language keyboards but what matters is the position not what character is on it), enter r_texfilter 2 (or 1 if you for some reason prefer blurry textures) and now you can turn off palette emulation (it looks pretty dull without it, I can see why they disabled the option) and change anisotropy settings (which to my layman understanding only makes sense if you have texture filtering on anyway)

[Forge]

Mark., on 22 June 2018 - 05:27 AM, said:

Left/right?

2nd and 4th pic look better to me. Wider range of colors. If thats disabled I prefer that.

seems to be more 'definition' in the textures as well.
It's pretty easy to see in the large grey and brown wall panels on either side of the opening in the 1st and 2nd screenshot. The first looks all blurred out, while the second has more prominent streaks.

[MusicallyInspired]

Ah. On my monitor they're side by side. The 1st and 3rd are enabled. The colours are more vibrant with it active, though, but I guess that's not easy to tell in these darker gray areas. I didn't have much time before work. I'll take better screenshots in more colourful areas. They are more drab and diluted when disabled. I wish we could have the best of both worlds.

[MusicallyInspired]

Still not a good comparison. The difference is mostly in the shading. There's more contrast I guess. You can really see the dilution in the menu text. 1 & 3 enabled, 2 & 4 disabled:

[oasiz]

Without emulation you get old lazy palette swaps from early GL days. Emulation simply emulates how it would look on classic (proper look).
While some things might look better/different, some can be very off. We use quite a bit of transparent blending in places and those will look more or less quite bad.
Most recent versions made the option obsolete, the choice only existed due to performance reasons.

Usually the saturation is way toned down from vibrant hues with tge option on.

[Honza]

I had recently chance to play the preview beta from start to finish - let me share some thoughts:

Design of levels, enemies, weapons and items:
* Levels are generally interesting - reminds me of DN3D though it seems "too empty" compared to say games like SiN, Unreal or Quake 2.
* Enemies were probably the biggest disappointment - the way they shoot their guns and look is too simple, it felt like I was fighting two enemies the whole time - the guys in coats and the spiders. Compare it with the clearly distinctive enemies DN3D or SiN had. The boss felt like last minute decision "we need a boss" - who do we assign for this job? Oh here comes Joe let's put him in charge...
* Weapons - good job, even the basic pistol is very strong and decent, the guns are powerful, and have the right kick. The ball grenade was amazing. I didn't like the looks of the shotgun - like the pump action ones the most.
* Items - they really could use quite some improvement, ie. every time I picked up ammo for pistol I felt I'm picking up a keycard.

Graphics, performance, sounds and music:
* Graphics are way too simple and dated to my taste - what I like is the current eduke32 with HDR - this is perfectly fine for me and happy to live with this engine for another 10-15 years (or really anything on level of Quake 1/2 and above), if you could go with the polymer I would be super excited about graphics. I'm sure a good licensing deal with guys who developed the eduke32 could be made. These kind of graphics in my opinion could be a commercial problem - and this comes from someone who loved DN3D and doesn't mind Quake 1 graphics that are 20+ years old.
* Performance was quite sad - played on Core i7 4x 2.5 GHz, 16 GB RAM with Radeon HD 7770/2GB in 1920x1080 on Windows 7 x64 - it was definitely playable but comparing the looks of the game and the overall performance - really not OK and needs lots of polishing.
* Sounds were really good - I liked the gunshots and the environment sounds (ie. explosions), not much love for the enemies though.
* Music - definitely my cup of tea - thumbs up.

Am I your target audience? Should you care about my opinion? - You tell me.
I loved: DN3D, SiN series, Unreal series.
I liked: Half Life series, Quake 1 & 2, Kingpin, Far Cry 1 & 2. Shadow Warrior 2013. Counter Strike series up to Source. Doom 2. Left 4 Dead series. SWAT 3 & 4. Postal 2.
I kind of enjoyed: Call of Duty 1/2/4, Bulletstorm, Serious Sam, Duke Nukem Forever. Crisis. Hard Reset. Stalker series.
I didn't like: Call of Duty series after MW. Unreal Tournament 3. Doom 3, Quake 4.
I buy mostly the old games I didn't have time to play previously or want to re-play them. I bought about 5 games that are from 2010+ era but I own lots (if not almost all) FPS from 1990s and early 2000s (my steam folder and GOG installations backup is in total about 1 TB).

[Phredreeke]

Honza, on 30 June 2018 - 08:41 AM, said:

* Graphics are way too simple and dated to my taste - what I like is the current eduke32 with HDR - this is perfectly fine for me and happy to live with this engine for another 10-15 years (or really anything on level of Quake 1/2 and above), if you could go with the polymer I would be super excited about graphics. I'm sure a good licensing deal with guys who developed the eduke32 could be made. These kind of graphics in my opinion could be a commercial problem - and this comes from someone who loved DN3D and doesn't mind Quake 1 graphics that are 20+ years old.

You do realise Ion Maiden and eduke32 have the same developers? As for polymer read on...

Honza, on 30 June 2018 - 08:41 AM, said:

* Performance was quite sad - played on Core i7 4x 2.5 GHz, 16 GB RAM with Radeon HD 7770/2GB in 1920x1080 on Windows 7 x64 - it was definitely playable but comparing the looks of the game and the overall performance - really not OK and needs lots of polishing.

2.5GHz is pretty low. Build isn't multithreaded BTW, so the extra cores or threads don't add to the game's performance, and AMD GPUs performs poorly in general with OpenGL which both IM and eduke32 uses. With Polymer your performance would be even lower.

[TerminX]

Do you have the current version of the game, Honza? I have no problems maintaining framerate here anymore, at 2560x1440, on an AMD CPU from 2012.

[Forge]

i run a fx 8320 @ 3.2 ghz & a 650ti 2gb, 1920x1080 native
with the last update:
the core game runs fine. Probably not a sky-high framerate, but without any noticeable lag
my comp only bogs down after half a dozen or so queen of the hill levels when there are a lot of enemies on the screen