[XxMiltenXx]

XxMiltenXx, on 12 September 2017 - 04:21 AM, said:

Also MIDI Synth selection isn't working for me. If I e.g. select "Midi Mapper" or "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" music will be disabled and I cannot enable it (even thoguh they are working correctly in other programs/games). If I select my external MIDI keyboard I can enable MIDI again, but it'll use play via "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" instead.

I can provide further information with my MIDI playback issue.
In the attachment, you can see all my available MIDI-Devices:
https://forums.duke4...55290_thumb.png

As I said before, if I select "MIDI Mapper" or "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" i cannot activate music at all. That is because, even if I select "Real time Sequencer", it'll actually play "3- UM-ONE", if I select "MIDI Mix" it'll play "Creative Synth B". So whatever I select, it'll play the device 2 entries above it (and that is why the first 2 aren't working at all, as their "ID" will be negative.
If I disconnect my "MIDI Mix" and "3- UM-ONE" (which are external MIDI devices) the selection works properly, and if I select only one of them , all the devices will be offset by 1 instead. So it's either an issue with "too many" MIDI devices or external MIDI devices. The issue only persists with BloodGDX, other games (e.g. GZDoom) handle the external MIDI devices just fine.

Attached File(s)

•  midi selection device.png (49.55K)
  Number of downloads: 8

[Zaxx]

XxMiltenXx, on 09 October 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

I can provide further information with my MIDI playback issue.
In the attachment, you can see all my available MIDI-Devices:
https://forums.duke4...55290_thumb.png

As I said before, if I select "MIDI Mapper" or "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" i cannot activate music at all. That is because, even if I select "Real time Sequencer", it'll actually play "3- UM-ONE", if I select "MIDI Mix" it'll play "Creative Synth B". So whatever I select, it'll play the device 2 entries above it (and that is why the first 2 aren't working at all, as their "ID" will be negative.
If I disconnect my "MIDI Mix" and "3- UM-ONE" (which are external MIDI devices) the selection works properly, and if I select only one of them , all the devices will be offset by 1 instead. So it's either an issue with "too many" MIDI devices or external MIDI devices. The issue only persists with BloodGDX, other games (e.g. GZDoom) handle the external MIDI devices just fine.

Your pic gave me an idea: from the list of devices it seems like you have Munt installed just like I do. Tried the MT-32 emulation because I was curious how Blood's MIDI soundtrack sounds like and wow... it's just terrible.

CD music support can't come soon enough.

[XxMiltenXx]

Zaxx, on 09 October 2017 - 01:14 PM, said:

Your pic gave me an idea: from the list of devices it seems like you have Munt installed just like I do. Tried the MT-32 emulation because I was curious how Blood's MIDI soundtrack sounds like and wow... it's just terrible. :DCD music support can't come soon enough.

Haha, yeah, I do. Unfortunately Blood doesn't support MT-32 as it is not General-Midi Compatible. You could rearrange the instruments in order to make it sound better under MT-32 (Munt), but the options are limitted and it is rather redundant. Foobar however has a MIDI-Plugin that does that automatically: play GM-Midis with their corresponding MT32 instruments.

[Zaxx]

XxMiltenXx, on 09 October 2017 - 01:24 PM, said:

Haha, yeah, I do. Unfortunately Blood doesn't support MT-32 as it is not General-Midi Compatible. You could rearrange the instruments in order to make it sound better under MT-32 (Munt), but the options are limitted and it is rather redundant. Foobar however has a MIDI-Plugin that does that automatically: play GM-Midis with their corresponding MT32 instruments.

Thanks, I may look into it if I have the time though I'm not a huge MT-32 fan, basically the game I installed Munt for was Prince of Persia 2 because on every other sound device the game just sounds like crap.

I mean this is the basic Sound Blaster sound:


And this is what you get with Munt's MT-32 emulation:


The difference is night and day. The game has a great soundtrack, too bad that back in the day you needed very expensive hardware to actually hear it.

[J432]

Zaxx, on 09 October 2017 - 01:39 PM, said:

The difference is night and day.

There are more games with MT-32 support like that. For example Gods, Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - The Case of Serrated Scalpel, Companions of Xanth or some Sierra adventures.

[Phredreeke]

Zaxx, on 09 October 2017 - 01:14 PM, said:

CD music support can't come soon enough.

Oh yes please... that'd be the feature I want the most.

[Devon]

Phredreeke, on 10 October 2017 - 05:56 AM, said:

Oh yes please... that'd be the feature I want the most.

+1 for mp3/ogg support

[Emmanuelexe]

It was to know, is there the possibility to fix the color problem (different of the dosbox version) for BloodGDX?

[Phredreeke]

TBH I had to take screenshots and load into an image editor to tell a difference. BloodGDX seems to have a slightly more yellowish tint while the original is more towards pink.

[JOHN007]

Hello.

Eternally grateful for the epic mod that is BloodGDX. Absolutely world class.

May I ask if anyone has this slight problem with random FPS drops.

Basically I could be for example just walking down a corridor and the FPS instantly reduces to round 15FPS even though the built in FPS reader is stating 60fps when it clearly isn't?

I have a 4.8GHZ 8core and an HBM graphics card the machine is lightning fast.

If I repeatedly tab out and tab back in multiple times it does fix itself and goes back to 60FPS.

Tried many options and no luck I'm afraid. I even ran bloodGDX in 4K.

Looks like the GPU is going into some low power state and the GPU usage is round 3% ingame.

Thankyou for your time and hope to speak soon this is one EPIC mod!

[Jim]

Blood E2M6

Attached File(s)

•  blood e2m6.jpg (355.7K)
  Number of downloads: 42

[Devon]

Jim, on 14 October 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

Blood E2M6

Same issue here.

[Devon]

JOHN007, on 14 October 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

Hello.

Eternally grateful for the epic mod that is BloodGDX. Absolutely world class.

May I ask if anyone has this slight problem with random FPS drops.

Basically I could be for example just walking down a corridor and the FPS instantly reduces to round 15FPS even though the built in FPS reader is stating 60fps when it clearly isn't?

I have a 4.8GHZ 8core and an HBM graphics card the machine is lightning fast.

If I repeatedly tab out and tab back in multiple times it does fix itself and goes back to 60FPS.

Tried many options and no luck I'm afraid. I even ran bloodGDX in 4K.

Looks like the GPU is going into some low power state and the GPU usage is round 3% ingame.

Thankyou for your time and hope to speak soon this is one EPIC mod!

I would highly recommend using the launcher fps cap (240-540 seems to be a sweetspot for me) and turn vsync off.

Run the game in windowed mode and use borderless gaming program to get windowed fullscreen.

For me this results in no tearing and alot better performence.

[Phredreeke]

This sounds weird but...

I kinda wish there was an option to set a fps cap that is disabled while the screen shaking effects happen

[JOHN007]

Thankyou for the reply.

The theory was to increase the skybox textures to 2048x2048 which sometimes it worked but many sprites onscreen reduced the FPS, I think its the 36MB limit I'm not sure? Could the Memory allocator be increased is that possible?

I remember purchasing the Duke Nukem Megaton edition on Steam and it had the exact same problem. Then the last update fixed the strange FPS drops. I wonder if we could back engineer the Steam version and figure out how they did it?

Blood is one of my favorite all time games ever, I even have a mint in box Blood game cost me 50GBP, now I was on Steam Store and was browsing the Blood Steam discussions and discovered that many threads were BloodGDX related.

I didn't know what BloodGDX was so when I searched a video on Youtube I was like,, ''oh my lord!!!!!''

How have I missed this world class mod? Its beyond genius. It even works in surround sound!!! In 4K its glorious!

One more theory if I may add...

I have a Megadrive emulator which if you leave the AA settings disabled the FPS will drop, there is a setting in the options for 64x AA which sounds overkill but keeps the GPU usage at a good % that keeps the FPS at 60FPS.

I would imagine that Duke Nukem implemented a similar 64x Anti Aliasing to boost GPU usage?

Thankyou for your time and hope to speak soon.

[Phredreeke]

My understanding is the build engine is mainly CPU bound

Strange what you say about that emulator, it shouldn't be affected by GPU at all. What are you measuring its FPS with?

[JOHN007]

Hello,

If you don't activate the 64x AA the GPU is around 500mhz and the FPS goes to 30FPS, its the same with BloodGDX.

Its the GPU going into a low power state I've seen this many times. Using Fraps it states 30FPS, the BloodGDX FPS counter states 60FPS? How strange?

When you activate the AA setting the GPU goes to 1150mhz HBM speed, 4096bit.

I have an idea...

I'll create a GPU profile with all AA, AF, maxed out and force the settings, see if I can raise the GPU usage.

You say that the engine is CPU bound? This is strange?

On BloodGDX I've monitored the GPU usage and It does jump from 500mhz to 1150mhz?

I've already disabled all low power states on the CPU. Rendering BloodGDX on a single core causes desync with sound so I left the affinity settings default.

I'll report back the findings thanks for the reply.

[JOHN007]

Devon, on 14 October 2017 - 11:21 PM, said:

I would highly recommend using the launcher fps cap (240-540 seems to be a sweetspot for me) and turn vsync off.

Run the game in windowed mode and use borderless gaming program to get windowed fullscreen.

For me this results in no tearing and alot better performence.

Thanks for the reply.

If all else fails sure its a workaround, but 4K fullscreen is so good. Just Epic.

[Phredreeke]

What OS are you using? I know some emulators have issues with Windows 8 and later because they use the old DirectDraw API.

[Devon]

JOHN007, on 15 October 2017 - 01:02 PM, said:

Thanks for the reply.

If all else fails sure its a workaround, but 4K fullscreen is so good. Just Epic.

no problem!

Btw i got a decent enough rig to run this in 4k myself, not that you need anything overkill to do it.

msi Gtx1070
4790k 4.6
32gb 2133mhz
840 pro ssd


I cant see any difference in bloodgdx from fullscreen too windowed fullscreen with borderless gaming.

4k looks just as good to my eyes using borderless mode.

Some games look bad when using this method as the AA and other effects dont work as they are suposed to do.

BloodGDX looks and feels great however.

I highly recommend you trying it out earlier than just as a last resort.

And please let me know the results.

Also i forgot a setting i have to use to get the game to run smooth all the time and it is the (maximum prerendered frames 4) for some reason it makes BloodGDX run alot better over extended periods of gameplay.
Witout the prerendered frames the game gets jittery from time to time. and with the setting turned on it almost gets rid of it all more or less-

this jitter...stutter...framepacing or whatever seem to be normal in some of the other build engine source ports.

[m210®]

J432, on 02 October 2017 - 12:34 PM, said:

E2M8 of Death Wish - Black tower.

In BloodGDX 0.779.

I made a tweak for palette 1 in Polymost renderer. Not sure about other places, but in DWE it's looking good now

Attached File(s)

•  scree0000.png (119.25K)
  Number of downloads: 39
•  scree0001.png (133.28K)
  Number of downloads: 41
•  scree0002.png (146.12K)
  Number of downloads: 40

[SonicB00M]

Wow, you are fast Can't wait to try it out! May this tweak cause errors in the original game?

[m210®]

SonicB00M, on 01 November 2017 - 03:49 AM, said:

Wow, you are fast Can't wait to try it out! May this tweak cause errors in the original game?

This tweak I made in Polymost, I do nothing with map files

[Phredreeke]

Since you mention Polymost renderer specifically... does this mean you are working on an alternate renderer?

[m210®]

No yet

[Phredreeke]

The weapon cycling underwater is still off. it will skip half the weapons depending on which way you cycle it. it either skips from napalm launcher to pitchfork or from tesla cannon to remote detonator

[m210®]

ok, I will add this in todo list

[Nachuro]

Unfortunately, it appears as though the palette 1 fix does not apply to the hi-res skyboxes included in the skyboxes folder. Removing the "skyboxes.def" line from bloodgdx.def results in the stretched skyboxes reappearing with the palette fix.

This is a prominent example from E3M1 of Death Wish.

Hi-Res:
 BloodGDX 0.780 Hi-Res.PNG (1.05MB)
Number of downloads: 13

No Hi-Res:
 BloodGDX 0.780 No Hi-Res.PNG (983.31K)
Number of downloads: 15

None of the altered palettes apply to this particular skybox (E2M8, for instance). I was wondering if the palette fix could be applied to the hi-res skyboxes.

[Phredreeke]

When a tile is defined for pal 0 it overrides all palette variations. So what I think one has to do is create a new skybox and define it as pal 1.

I could look at it tomorrow.

[Nachuro]

Phredreeke, on 09 November 2017 - 05:35 PM, said:

When a tile is defined for pal 0 it overrides all palette variations. So what I think one has to do is create a new skybox and define it as pal 1.

I could look at it tomorrow.

That would be much appreciated. Thanks!