prboom-plus / News: Recent posts

Changes from v2.5.0.1 to v2.5.0.2

[+] Support for DeePsea's tall patch method: Now it's possible to use patches of any height.
[+] Support for hi-res textures in wads. You should place them between HI_START/HI_END markers.
[+] Fog in "gzdoom" lighting mode.
[+] High Quality Resize modes. Scale2x/3x/4x are supported. Thanks to Benjamin Berkels.
[+] An alternative way of sky drawing was added. "Sky Mode: Skybox". It's slower than the "Standard" method, but looks better if you use mouse look. Also, it's the only way to see skies properly on old hardware, like 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics, ATI 3D Rage Pro, and others which don't support "Environment Mapping".
[+] Added a "gl_clear" config variable for clearing the screen between frames. This is only necessary when developing a map, to see HOMs.
[+] Added a "gl_ztrick" config variable for very old hardware, like 3Dfx Voodoo, NVidia RIVA128, etc. If this toggle is enabled the game will not clear the z-buffer between frames. This will result in improved performance (~10%) but might cause problems for some display hardware. Makes sense with gl_compatibility 1 and gl_clear 0. Do not use it with TNT2 or better, as performance will be slower.
[+] Now PrBoom-Plus can save all necessary playback information at the end of demos without loss of compatibility. With such demos you just need to type "prboom-plus demoname" or click on a demo from your browser, archives manager or explorer and prboom will make any additional work by itself without any assistance. PrBoom-Plus will check for a demo footer and if it is present, will read which IWAD, PWAD and DEH files were used for recording, will try to download necessary add-on files from the Internet and will play the demo for you.
Currently, PrBoom-Plus saves the following information (with demo_extendedformat 1):
- VERSION - version of DemoEx format (1.0)
- PORTNAME - port name and version (PrBoom-Plus 2.5.0.1)
- PARAMS - iwad, pwads, dehs and critical for demos params like -spechit
- MLOOK - mouse look data
For the automatic downloading of files, one must specify the getwad_cmdline parameter in the PrBoom-Plus config file. Examples:
getwad_cmdline "D:\games\Doom2\getwad\getwad.exe"
getwad_cmdline "C:\my_cool_app -download_pwad_from_somewhere %wadname% -here c:\doom2"
[+] PrBoom-Plus can now apply Boom colormaps to hires resources.
[+] Supports independent OpenGL filtering methods (nearest, linear, etc) for textures, sprites and patches.
[+] It's now possible to change screen resolution from the GUI.
[+] An option to see any monsters that are still alive through walls. By default it's toggled with "Numpad /". It has two modes: All sprites with living monsters or living monsters only. Works only in GL mode.
[*] PrBoom will attempt to play a DEMO4 lump present in a wad immediately after DEMO3, but without exiting with the "W_GetNumForName: DEMO4 not found" error that the Plutonia and TNT executables get. This makes sense for Plutonia 2, which includes a DEMO4 lump that is played back during the demo cycle by vanilla Plutonia.
[*] "PrBoom-Plus" title instead of "PrBoom" on the CREDITS screen page.
[*] Doesn't alter the default skill level when the difficulty skill is selected from the New game menu. An explicit default skill option was added instead, shoehorned into the misc section of page 2 of the General menu.
[*] Smoothing for the edges of textures with holes. (And not only for sprites, as before.)
[*] Screenshots in "gzdoom" lighting mode use current gamma.
[*] Reconfiguration in menu.
[*] Better and faster mipmapping for modern hardware. Support for GL_ARB_TEXTURE_NON_POWER_OF_TWO extention.
[*] Two service variables for developers were added: gl_color_mip_levels and gl_fog_color.
[*] PrBoom-Plus doesn't use detail texture over hires textures.
[*] Textures are reloaded after changing the "Override PWAD's graphics with Hi-Res" option.
[*] Smart algorithm for more seamless flats drawing. In some situations this removes seams from hires flats (between sectors 125 and 126 on map20 @ doom2.wad, etc).
[*] Speed improvement in OpenGL mode.
[*] Can play any episode with The Ultimate Doom, Final Doom, Doom95 and DosDoom compatibilities and -warp command line switch. Now you can play E5M1 @ 2002ado.wad with "-warp 5 1 -complevel 3". The (vanilla) Ultimate Doom executable also allows this.
[*] Some interpolation code was optimized. This fixes slowdowns on the beta of ndcp2.wad map02.
[*] Speed improvements. Some timedemo examples for my hardware (Intel Core2Duo 3.0, NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS):
Command line: [port] -geom 640x480 -window -nosound -file [pwad] -timedemo [demo]
port epic.wad nuts.wad dv.wad
glboom 2.5.0 126 53 560
glboom+ 2.5.0.1 234 130 640
glboom 2.5.0.1.fast 277 134 705
glboom+ 2.5.0.2 362 149 834... read more

Changes from v2.4.8.5 to v2.5.0.1

[!] Updated to the latest prboom 2.4.8. (SVN build, revision 2936)
[+] New hardware-mode algorithm for drawing flats into holes left by missing textures, greatly improving compatibility with software mode. This requires a stencil. This revision fixes at least one billion HOMs on various levels which use this software trick. Eternal.wad map28 as example. Old algo will be used with gl_compatibility 1 in cfg. Thanks to GrafZahl.
[+] Experimental cygwin/mingw32 compilation support.
[*] Resolution limitation is removed. Memory usage has decreased as a bonus. 7 mb instead of 8 on map01 @ doom2.wad and 14 mb instead of 18 on map05 @ epic.wad at 640x480.
[*] launcher_enable variable now has three values: "never", "smart" and "always". "Smart" behaviour was default earlier.
[*] Attempt to optimise screen pitch to reduce CPU cache misses in any resolution.
[*] Do precache level with normal demo playback if level_precache 1
[-] Fixed rare crash in FixedDiv introduced in Boom.
[-] Status Bar was affected by light level of the sector on some on-board Intel video cards.
[-] PrBoom will not try to show (with following unexpected exit) the fourth episode menu item for pre-ultimate iwads. Makes sense for doom.wad v1.2, DOOM 1 shareware and DOOM 1 registered. (introduced in 2.4.8.3)
[-] Re-fix vanilla imprecise calculation (vibrations) of the texture coordinates for flats in software renderer.
[-] Fixed wipe in software.

bugfix release

[!] Updated to the latest prboom 2.4.3.
[!] PRBoom-Plus is now available on UNIX, Linux, and other POSIX systems and also on Mac.
[+] Several predefined cfgs and batch launcher for them are included.
[+] Simple aspect ratio adjustment made posible in OpenGL. It may be useful for people with unusually shaped monitors. Some usage examples:
glboom-plus.exe -aspect 320x240
glboom-plus.exe -aspect 2x1
[*] Changes in processing of spechit overflow for correct playback of some Xit's demos on scythe2.wad\map02.
[*] Roll back to old SDL library. Some people had some problems with new.
[*] The maximal supported resolution is increased from 1600x1200 up to 2048x1536.
[*] GLBoom will try to set the closest supported resolution if the requested mode can't be set correctly. For example glboom.exe -geom 1025x768 -nowindow will set 1024x768. It affects only fullscreen modes.
[*] The maximum walking side speed for strafe50 is 0x19.
[*] The prboom's savegamename mask "prbmsav" was renamed to "prboom-plus-savegame". Also:
prboom_server.exe -> prboom-plus_server.exe
prboom.exe -> prboom-plus.exe
glboom.exe -> glboom-plus.exe
prboom.cfg -> prboom-plus.cfg
glboom.cfg -> glboom-plus.cfg
prboom.wad -> prboom-plus.wad.
[-] Fix from Eternity (adapted by RjY) for ancient doom software render overflow that happens when the player goes over a linedef between two sectors of extreme height. There are no more crashes on thespir2.wad.
[-] At use of the keyboard or joystick for strafing, prboom+ always generated strafe50 tics on turns independently of value of a corresponding option.
[-] The launcher did not select last entry from history after start.
[-] Problems with sky on thespir2.wad in opengl.