The Dark Mod released!!

Tels on 18/10/2009 at 16:06

Quote Posted by Hiatus

congrats on the release, guys :)

Q's:

1) does the mod (properly) make use of multi-core CPU's for performance boost?

Doom3 does not use them properly, so the mod can't use them either. We hope that the source code for D3 goes open source sometime later and then we can fix that hopefully.

Quote:

2) training map loads over 10 minutes on my rig (C2D class CPU, 2GB RAM, Radeon ATI X1950 GPU /w 256MB vRAM, WinXP, latest drivers), which is disappointing. How to speed up the map loading & on what it depends (CPU raw speed, amount of RAM, GPU power, amount of GPU video RAM etc?). AFAIR, it had sth to do with "image_*Compression" variables. How they should be set (what values)?

Do you have an anti-virus running in the background? Other programs like ICQ, torrents etc?

As for the compressed textures, check this enty in the FAQ:

(http://modetwo.net/darkmod/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#The_game_is_very_slow.21)

You could also experiment with the usepreload" setting and see if it helps (but it might introduce stutter)

Quote:

5) what are recommended (not minimal) hardware reqs to be able to play comfortably with max graphics settings and constant 60 fps in 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 resolutions (with AA and AF on/maxed)? Better to invest in:

a) faster GPU and which one/what class (how much of vid MEM?)
b) faster CPU (how many cores?)
c) more RAM (how much should be enough?

2Gbyte memory should be enough, D3 should us between 400 and 700 Mbytes, depending on map and level. Faster CPU won't help much, a faster GPU is the way to go. 512 Mbyte vram help a lot over 256Mbyte (as it avoids costly swapping to main memory when space is tight) and more shader units help for the higher resolutions.

Thanx for your feedback!

Bulgarian_Taffer on 18/10/2009 at 16:07

Quote Posted by Tels

If you see anything as black, except the torches, than that means you do not see compressed textures.
Either, you card does not support them - then you are out of luck without buying a new card. It won't be possible to uncompress the textures as they would not fit into your video memory. You might have luck with uncompressing, then downsizing them. Maybe it is even possible with the right settings in DoomConfig.cfg (meaning the engine does it for you, not you do the uncompress/downsize manually)..

My God, this is probably what happens...

I remember black textures occured in Saint Lucia in the beginning, but I uncompressed a lot of stuff manually. And I started to see textures, but the AIs still looked transparent.

Obviously I'm right and this video card just can't do it.

Springheel on 18/10/2009 at 16:16

Quote:

Either, you card does not support them - then you are out of luck without buying a new card. It won't be possible to uncompress the textures as they would not fit into your video memory.

What about Thief's Den? Didn't we use compressed textures there? If he could run that, then video memory can't be a barrier to playing smaller missions like Outpost.

Gecko on 18/10/2009 at 16:20

i´ve made a short video =)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83gpjfd3Ftw&fmt=22) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83gpjfd3Ftw&fmt=22

videocard: ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Driver: Catalyst 9.9

i had to disable the point "Catalyst A.I" in the Catalyst options!!! when this was enabled "dark mod" crashed after loading the mission...

Resolution: 1920 x 1200 (16:10), AA x16
System: Windows 7 x64
8 GB Ram
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 - 4 x 3,2 GHz

noisycricket on 18/10/2009 at 16:22

I wonder if this might have to do with improperly setting Doom 3 itself to Ultra quality, where it is not supposed to be for proper TDM functionality. That does still matter, does it not?

noisycricket on 18/10/2009 at 16:25

I used to get crashes near the rope section of the training map, but only when having loaded my system from sleep (S3 suspend). It did not seem to occur after a fresh reboot. This was the only time i ever crashed beta testing or otherwise.

Tels on 18/10/2009 at 16:25

Quote Posted by Springheel

What about Thief's Den? Didn't we use compressed textures there? If he could run that, then video memory can't be a barrier to playing smaller missions like Outpost.

Back then, we only used a few compressed textures,so most things were uncompressed. However, the mission is so small and uses only a handful textures, it wouldn't have mattered.

So in a nutshell, yes, if you uncompress all textures and play a small mission, it *might* work.

However, I am not sure if you need to uncompress them manually (or if D3 can do that when loading them) and I am not sure you would need to downsize them, anyway.

Unless you are on a laptop stuck with your card, a new graphic card is definitely the easiest and surest way.

bikerdude on 18/10/2009 at 16:28

COUGH!... I almost spat out my tea out when I read this...!!!

AWESOME...!!!

Tels on 18/10/2009 at 16:28

Quote Posted by noisycricket

I wonder if this might have to do with improperly setting Doom 3 itself to Ultra quality, where it is not supposed to be for proper TDM functionality. That does still matter, does it not?

If the zero-byte sized file "config.spec" is there, D3 is supposed to NOT mangle the settings.

However, if you incorrectly install TDM (by not using tdm_updater, or something) and then start it without config.spec being there, it might well happen it mangles the DoomConfig.cfg.

(It might also happen on other occurances, but I don't know. Frankly, there are a lot of things we don't know about D3, and they are undocumented and we cannot change many things as it is not open source yet. We also miss all the experts and the support force - we are a small team after all :)

Bulgarian_Taffer on 18/10/2009 at 16:31

Quote Posted by Tels

OK, Then I have a very constructive suggestion:

1. Let's make a list of all video cards that have trouble with playing The Dark Mod

2. Let's put solutions (or list them as unsupported) in the wiki.

3. Let's decide what to do later - will they be supported later? If not, people should be informed.

This could be a showstopper for me, for example. After all- why create a FM that won't be played well.