4 hours ago, Optimus said:
New version is out! This is focused on external WAD loading. Simply throw your wads to the wads folder in the CD, select them from the modmenu and pray they will just not crash :)
I've managed to through oldschool things like Fava Beans there and play through 3-4 maps before the next ones would crash. Then even managed to load Alien Vendetta and maybe MAP01 or 02 would load, very very slow play, crash at some random time. This is a simple WAD loader btw, loads the 10 lumps from the WADs, converts them back to the structure the 3DO expects (32bits for 16bit values, big endian, indices instead of 8 char string for texture IDs, and more), so it's a map loader, not a texture resource loader (for this I'd have to convert the 8bit palette Doom PC textures to the different CEL formats on the 3DO, a work for the future), so when some WADs have texture IDs that don't exist in the limited Doom 3DO resource, I do a manual mapping based on some binary data tables and where with my eyes I matched certain 3DO textures with certain texture IDs in PC Doom 1/2. This way, you can load some maps and things seem consistent even if textures are different. I loaded oldschool stuff like Acheron, Fava Beans (but others like UAC Dead just crashed on me) or even the whole Doom1 or 2 IWAD and things sometimes looked still ok.
Secondly, I did a lot of special fx on the sector types unused bits, like RGB colored sectors, fog effect, warp/scroll floor/ceiling, distort framebuffer when inside sector, etc. I present some test WADs I made with Doom Builder and updated cfg files (which I'll release on a website with tutorial on how to do maps for OptiDoom 3DO specifically), some test maps and one full level using these features as much as it can (but I went overboard with the detail for the 3DO at least and it can drop very low and have freezes because of memory). Lot's of cool stuff there and I have timestamps on the video with the various test maps. Finally, more minor things, fixes, microoptimisations, and 3DO mouse support which is rather good especially if you use the Phoenix emulator which supports it, map the DPAD to WASD, turn up the overclock and enable it, among with always run, mouse slider for speed, etc.
http://bugothecat.net/releases/3DO/optidoom/optidoom_main.html
p.s. I think I'll had my fun with these gimmicks and the loader, I might try to focus exclusively to optimize the engine for 0.3, many people have asked me, some nagged why I do these gimmicks and not focus on optimizing the engine for good in this one. I guess I'll change my direction and focus entirely to that, even though I don't really know when the next version will be out and this one will be done when it's done as it's a daunting task to get some good framerate with this (and more issues to fix like memory hickups/micro freezes).
External wad loading? Got to test it tomorrow :D
