(Poll) Main reasons for using GLProQuake rather than DarkPlaces

[LordHavoc]

I made this poll to gather opinions about the major reasons some people prefer GLProQuake over DarkPlaces, with the goal of making DarkPlaces more desirable.

In addition to voting on the poll, please also post a reply describing your specific issues with DarkPlaces or suggestions for improvement over GLProQuake.

I'm not bashing GLProQuake, I'm genuinely curious what peoples' reasons are.

I considered listing Qrack and JoeQuake here but wanted to keep the poll simple. Please stick to the topic of GLProQuake vs DarkPlaces. More polls could be made for other comparisons.

Keep in mind that DarkPlaces can look/sound mostly like GLProQuake with these settings: cl_particles_quake 1;snd_soundradius 2000;r_fullbrights 0;r_coronas 0

[RocketGuy]

The main reason for me is no support for ProQuake rcon.

[LordHavoc]

The main reason for me is no support for ProQuake rcon.

Huh? DarkPlaces has qw-compatible rcon, and the ProQuake rcon looks the same from the web page's description of it, at least when on the server. Just join the server and set your rcon_password properly.

ProQuake gave qw's rcon_address cvar a different name for unknown reasons, but other than that, the same.

[RocketGuy]

Wrong
If I use rcon on a ProQuake server it kicks me

[ORL]

I use glpro mostly because it feels most like Quake. Other engines will crank it up on the graphics and special effects, and it just does not feel like Quake to me anymore. There are also very small things in Darkplaces I dont like.
The weapon movement. Before, when your player moved, the weapon moved back and fourth. In darkplaces, it moves left and right, like in the original doom. It looks good for doom, just not for quake.
Secondly, the brightness value never saves, so every time I load up DP I have to manually adjust it again.
On netquake servers, DP is not displaying the correct ping. Its either 0, 100, 150, etc.
And lastly, as good as my computer is, DP starts up and loads level very slow, compared to glpro.
But don't get me wrong, as far as advanced engines go, DP is no doubt the best. But it just doesnt feel like Quake to me.

[Baker]

For me, these 3 things bug me about DarkPlaces:

1. I wish tilde closed the console (cl_tidlemenu 1, heh). Yeah that'd take all of 5 minutes to fix, I'm sure.

2. On some maps, like DM4, there are things I can see in every other engine but I can't in DarkPlaces. The prime example is the Yellow armor on DM4 by the lightning gun, which is totally invisible in DarkPlaces but can clearly be seen in other engines. I notice this on Shmack sometimes too on maps like the Palace of Hate where I can no longer see an opponent because they are in the shadows but in another engine I would not lose track of them. I think Monster has noticed this sort of thing too. Not a "huge" thing.

3. Setup difficulties/menu too intimidating. This for me personally is the "big one". Everyone I know that has tried DarkPlaces ends up asking for a config or for help getting it to run smooth.

If the menu could be streamlined to have the following:

0. Go to Console
1. Restore Defaults
2. Video Resolution
3. Gamma
4. Contrast
5. Mouse Speed (sensitivity)
6. Sound Volume
7. Mouse Look (ON/OFF)
8. Always Run (ON/OFF)
9. Invert Mouse (ON/OFF)
10. Show Frames Per Second (ON/OFF) (Everyone cares about this)
11. Effects Level (Faithful -> Medium -> Full -> Full w/RTLights) similar to how EZQuake has it where they grouped settings together. (huge, it could default to Advanced)

And then maybe have an advanced option to take someone to the current menu.

I think getting lost and frustrated inside the DarkPlaces menu is to me one of the most intimidating things about the engine. If a new user could just go to an Effects Level setting and change it from Advanced to Medium or Faithful (or some sort of grouping of settings) it would help a lot.

On netquake servers, DP is not displaying the correct ping. Its either 0, 100, 150, etc.

In the October or maybe the August build I know it was working properly. Are you sure this isn't just when you are connected to DarkPlaces servers like Canadian Sniper's?

The weapon movement. Before, when your player moved, the weapon moved back and fourth. In darkplaces, it moves left and right, like in the original doom.

That can be turned off with a cvar.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I'll fill some of you in on what you might not know

@50,100,150 ping. A DP server does this until the map is up for a few hours. There might be a command to change this so I'm not quick to judge. This is when DP is the server ONLY.

@orl on having to save the brightness (and other settings) over and over. DP does save the settings you specify into your config.cfg file but will be erased when you load up any other engine (or atleast glpro).

@shadows. If you leave Brightness,Gamma,and Contrast (under Effects) alone and use the Scene Brightness (under Graphics) option instead, you shouldn't have a problem. The shadows are most likely done by the RT lighting so try disabling that. Setting Scene Brightness to 3 looks like glpro to me

LordHavoc can jump in to correct me on anything I said

[Baker]

@shadows. If you leave Brightness,Gamma,and Contrast (under Effects) alone and use the Scene Brightness (under Graphics) option instead, you shouldn't have a problem. The shadows are most likely done by the RT lighting so try disabling that. Setting Scene Brightness to 3 looks like glpro to me

As far as I can tell, a lot of the modern engines can't be setup without a friend, IRC or a forum thread because they have so many settings. This isn't good and is why I refer anyone new to ProQuake. You see Qrack Help Me! threads and DarkPlaces Help Me! threads, but never a ProQuake Help Me! thread.

If DarkPlaces had a single selector in the menu like Effects Level that lumped several cvar settings together, this would help so much.

"Faithful" - whatever scene brightness settings and the other things that made everything look pretty much like Quake.

Medium - Some of the stuff on so it looked better, but not so much on that the FPS is poor on 1.5 Ghz/GeForce 4 style machines.

High - More of the stuff on, but avoids the most FPS-penalizing settings so it should get excellent FPS on any machine with a good graphics card.

Full Effects - Everything on except Real Time Lighting. Blooms and so forth.

Full RealTime Lighting - Everything on including real time lighting.

I get lost in the DarkPlaces menu and can't tell what half of the stuff does and if I change the wrong thing and forget what it was, I'm in trouble! Plus there are so many menus and many of them scroll that I can't remember where a lot of things are.

If the current DarkPlaces menus were buried in an "Advanced Options" and if a much more streamlined Options menu was the "main one" then it would help greatly. I know I'd never change the Red/Green/Blue settings for example.

DarkPlaces has a lot of great things, the presentation and ease-of-use just needs worked on.

[scar3crow]

I will concur on the menus, as it is a bit daunting, but Im used to it and so it doesnt really impact me. But I can see where people are coming from on that.

Yes, the armor by the shaft in dm4 is silhouetted for me, not invisible, but I just see black with the armor mesh. Only place I experience this however.

I like the idea of the various effects levels "id, low, medium, high, Kedhrin's Toys" for example. Though I will say I am running a 1.4ghz machine, and a GeForce4, and I do run it just fine with all the effects on except rtlights. I do have real time lighting on dlight entities such as rockets and explosions, just not on world lights. I keep the bloom low though, just out of personal taste, so it only impacts things like explosions and such.

As far as the ping goes, Ive never encountered that... mine hangs around 70, but it uses real numbers, not increments of 50.

As far as saving the brightness and such... Sounds like either another engine is overwriting, or your config for some reason is read only. Once again, never encountered DP having trouble retaining any variables I changed.

but never a ProQuake Help Me! thread.

Thats because proquake does very little that involves player input. The problem with engine coding is its a three fold job - coding, testing, documentation. If you change very little, that minimizes all of those. LordHavoc is behind on the third one in question to an extent is all. He beats the hell out of anyone on the first and is the most eager individual ever to hear what people have to say on the second.

[Baker]

Yes, the armor by the shaft in dm4 is silhouetted for me, not invisible, but I just see black with the armor mesh. Only place I experience this however.

That is true. It isn't many places and it is pretty rare.

As far as the ping goes, Ive never encountered that... mine hangs around 70, but it uses real numbers, not increments of 50.

I'm certain this (the increments of 50 display) is only DarkPlaces clients to DarkPlaces servers. I see normal numbers like ProQuake displays on non-DP servers.

Thats because proquake does very little that involves player input.

That is true, but pre-defined combinations of settings for desired results would be very welcome to make setup more user-friendly.

I think players want to use more advanced engines, but want it to be easy and to perform as well as other engines. DarkPlaces is almost the equivalent of ProQuake in the "convenience features" department now but just needs to be easier to break in.

A lot of players that have tried DarkPlaces don't necessarily stop using because DarkPlaces can't do X, Y or Z but rather because they can't figure out how to do X, Y, Z (ORL's example of the weapon model bobbing side to side is example, it can be turned off but he didn't know that.)

[LordHavoc]

Wrong
If I use rcon on a ProQuake server it kicks me

I just looked at the proquake source and the rcon code is absolutely horrible, it doesn't even resemble the QW rcon system.

I'm not sure how I could support that stupid rcon implementation.

[LordHavoc]

I use glpro mostly because it feels most like Quake. Other engines will crank it up on the graphics and special effects, and it just does not feel like Quake to me anymore. There are also very small things in Darkplaces I dont like.

To me it feels more like Quake than GLQuake ever did. I played WinQuake for years.

The weapon movement. Before, when your player moved, the weapon moved back and fourth. In darkplaces, it moves left and right, like in the original doom. It looks good for doom, just not for quake.

cl_bobmodel 0 makes it not move at all, but I don't consider this a big deal.

Secondly, the brightness value never saves, so every time I load up DP I have to manually adjust it again.

Which brightness value is that? Nearly every graphics setting is saved, so which one is not so I can fix it?

On netquake servers, DP is not displaying the correct ping. Its either 0, 100, 150, etc.

Those are not netquake servers then, those are DarkPlaces servers, and that is the true ping, Quake averaged answers over the past few seconds to try to give a 'smoother' ping reading, DarkPlaces servers report the true ping exactly as received, they are more honest in other words.

And lastly, as good as my computer is, DP starts up and loads level very slow, compared to glpro.
But don't get me wrong, as far as advanced engines go, DP is no doubt the best. But it just doesnt feel like Quake to me.

Neither does GLQuake to me, washed out textures, and no v_contrast cvar (which doesn't wash out the screen like gamma does).

[LordHavoc]

For me, these 3 things bug me about DarkPlaces:

1. I wish tilde closed the console (cl_tidlemenu 1, heh). Yeah that'd take all of 5 minutes to fix, I'm sure.

Already exists - con_closeontoggleconsole 1. I chose to make it require escape to close the console as it makes `/~ characters something you can actually type. Also, on german keyboards that key is ^, which is useful for the Quake3-compatible color codes.

2. On some maps, like DM4, there are things I can see in every other engine but I can't in DarkPlaces. The prime example is the Yellow armor on DM4 by the lightning gun, which is totally invisible in DarkPlaces but can clearly be seen in other engines. I notice this on Shmack sometimes too on maps like the Palace of Hate where I can no longer see an opponent because they are in the shadows but in another engine I would not lose track of them. I think Monster has noticed this sort of thing too. Not a "huge" thing.

DarkPlaces uses the true light value, Quake never allowed things to become 100% black.

If you'd prefer I could make the r_ambient cheat work in multiplayer, but personally I think the map is just made wrong if it has any pitch black areas.

3. Setup difficulties/menu too intimidating. This for me personally is the "big one". Everyone I know that has tried DarkPlaces ends up asking for a config or for help getting it to run smooth.

I beg to differ, most people coming back to Quake for the first time in years don't mind the menu system at all.

It's only the people who are used to a useless menu system in other engines that ignore the DarkPlaces one, or are intimidated by it when they want to change the few settings that are accessible in other engines.

If the menu could be streamlined to have the following:

0. Go to Console
1. Restore Defaults
2. Video Resolution
3. Gamma
4. Contrast
5. Mouse Speed (sensitivity)
6. Sound Volume
7. Mouse Look (ON/OFF)
8. Always Run (ON/OFF)
9. Invert Mouse (ON/OFF)
10. Show Frames Per Second (ON/OFF) (Everyone cares about this)
11. Effects Level (Faithful -> Medium -> Full -> Full w/RTLights) similar to how EZQuake has it where they grouped settings together. (huge, it could default to Advanced)

And then maybe have an advanced option to take someone to the current menu.

I think getting lost and frustrated inside the DarkPlaces menu is to me one of the most intimidating things about the engine. If a new user could just go to an Effects Level setting and change it from Advanced to Medium or Faithful (or some sort of grouping of settings) it would help a lot.

This suggestion is really bothering me, I am not opposed at all to the idea of putting the most common settings in the main options menu, and having all the other menus still available at the top as they are now.

But the idea of a single advanced menu to get to the old options menu would just lead to people never visiting the advanced menu, losing all the functionality, and making the config situation WORSE, not better.

[LordHavoc]

That is true. It isn't many places and it is pretty rare.

I'm pretty sure that armor lighting is some sort of bug, I don't think the floor is actually pitch black there.

A lot of players that have tried DarkPlaces don't necessarily stop using because DarkPlaces can't do X, Y or Z but rather because they can't figure out how to do X, Y, Z (ORL's example of the weapon model bobbing side to side is example, it can be turned off but he didn't know that.)

shorty in #quake1 said upon trying darkplaces that it has no brightness settings (clearly wrong) and can't connect to any servers (maybe cheatfree ones, but it connects to all others for most people, Monster seems to have trouble sometimes though).

I'm saddened by people ignoring the menus when I worked hard to make sure they offer every feature, unlike all other engines where you're stuck reading a console guide on a forum thread to get 'the best' settings, or having a friend set it up for you.

I'm also saddened by people continuing to ignore the DarkPlaces readme, which is now not only included in the zip (darkplaces.txt) but also maintained on the website in a much easier to navigate form.

The DarkPlaces readme has graphics tips, network tips, and even trouble shoots a few common problems that are not DarkPlaces' fault. And still it gets ignored.

[LordHavoc]

3. Gamma

One thing I'd like to point out is that gamma doesn't actually work properly on Windows XP, it can only be set to a fairly tight range, and can't be emulated by extra OpenGL calls.

So I think people are usually after the r_hdr_scenebrightness setting, it makes the ingame view brighter without affecting the hud/menus, which is mostly what people use gamma for.

That said, on dark monitors the hud/menus can be hard to see, so some v_contrast or v_brightness is needed as well...

I would like to have one brightness setting in the menu, not three, any suggestions?