Post by: Hyper_Eye on June 24, 2011, 11:32:00 PM
This release breaks save game compatibility. This version of Odamex will not load saves from previous versions of Odamex.
I have updated the included freedoom.wad to the 0.7 version. This wad is a complete Doom2 replacement wad and can be used to play Odamex and load doom2-based wads and modifications if you do not own Doom2.
Because the README did not change between the previous announcement and this one I ask that you refer to the included README files.
0.5.3 Changelog
CODE
Odamex 0.5.3 (r2284)
Odamex 0.5.3 was released on June 24th, 2011.
Features
Emulate vanilla Doom bug: respawning cube-spawned monsters at map location (0, 0). This should fix desync of 30nm4048.lmp
Restored dead player's view following the actor who killed them.
Bug Fixes
Sometimes players would make a death scream when switching to spectate. Fixed.
Some video modes were duplicated under video mode options. Fixed.
Fixed a crash that would occur when a client attempts to download a wad when the server had sv_waddownload disabled.
Fixed trash information spamming the console when launching odamex from odalaunch under linux.
Players would play the 'oomph' sound when they landed from jumping in place. Since this is probably vanilla behavior, this was edited for co_zdoomphys since it was particularly noticeable and annoying for CTF.
Player death scream wouldn't be audible if the player respawned instantaneously. Fixed.
Fixed issues with rightalt, rightctrl, and rightshift showing up as numbers.
Reuse any thinker for a particular sector when opening a door like vanilla Doom. This fixes the demo desync with ep1-0500.lmp.
Vanilla demos were parsing the demo type incorrectly, so altdeath demos would run in normal deathmatch. Fixed.
Display names should only target living players. Fixed.
-fork would crash. Fixed.
Odamex 0.5.3 was released on June 24th, 2011.
Features
Emulate vanilla Doom bug: respawning cube-spawned monsters at map location (0, 0). This should fix desync of 30nm4048.lmp
Restored dead player's view following the actor who killed them.
Bug Fixes
Sometimes players would make a death scream when switching to spectate. Fixed.
Some video modes were duplicated under video mode options. Fixed.
Fixed a crash that would occur when a client attempts to download a wad when the server had sv_waddownload disabled.
Fixed trash information spamming the console when launching odamex from odalaunch under linux.
Players would play the 'oomph' sound when they landed from jumping in place. Since this is probably vanilla behavior, this was edited for co_zdoomphys since it was particularly noticeable and annoying for CTF.
Player death scream wouldn't be audible if the player respawned instantaneously. Fixed.
Fixed issues with rightalt, rightctrl, and rightshift showing up as numbers.
Reuse any thinker for a particular sector when opening a door like vanilla Doom. This fixes the demo desync with ep1-0500.lmp.
Vanilla demos were parsing the demo type incorrectly, so altdeath demos would run in normal deathmatch. Fixed.
Display names should only target living players. Fixed.
-fork would crash. Fixed.
0.5.2 Changelog
CODE
Odamex 0.5.2 (r2241)
Odamex 0.5.2 was released on June 14th, 2011.
Features
Much of the code is now shared between client and server. It is much more manageable and less desync prone
Platforms are now much better optimized
Co_boomlinecheck- Off by default, allows additional silent BFG tricks and the "oomph" sound on two-sided lines.
The Hexen map format is now supported for experimental ZDoom compatibility. Several ZDoom 1.22 things work now, including zdoom water, gravity, physics, PIT_RadiusAttack (for rocket jumping), aircontrol, friction, bridge things, ambient sounds, and the earthquake.
Co_realactorheight has been restored with EE's P_ThingInfoHeight. Off by default.
Restored the original vanilla coop scoreboard. Uses the original player colors as well until we can get square coloring to work. It will show up if you are connected to a server with maxplayers < 5.
Added UPnP. Automatically opens up the port on a UPnP compliant router. Toggled on server start with sv_upnp
Added -fork to control the PIDfile of a server. Defaults to doomsv.pid.
Added co_zdoomswitches to flip between vanilla behavior (0) and a more advanced behavior whereby "switch sounds attenuate with distance like platforms and doors."
Bug Fixes
Screenshots broke in 0.5.1 due to the directx transition. Fixed.
Ag-odalaunch could not handle paths that had spaces in them on Xbox. Fixed.
Items did not respawn in co-op despite sv_itemsrespawn being true. Fixed.
Clients could be kicked for exceeding "netids" due to there being many projectiles. Not exactly fixed, but it should no longer kick clients.
Several vanilla demo desyncs are fixed.
Weapon changing desyncs are fixed.
Sometimes you would see the flag while you carried it. Fixed.
320x200, 320x240, and 640x400 have been restored. Make sure to use r_detail 1 for them.
Fix crashing when transitioning intermission > next level with certain pwads (occurs with gcc optimizations).
Clients could be kicked with "szp pointer was NULL," randomly in games with many players.
The CTF HUD display broke in 0.5.1. Fixed.
Projectile sounds (Player and Monster) would play multiple times online. Fixed.
Fixed the wrong light levels on some orthogonal linedefs.
The marine death animation played too fast online. Fixed.
Doors would play multiple sounds online. Fixed. Also Emulation of vanilla Doom bug where closing a blazing-door plays sounds twice in a row and blazing-door will play the slow-door's sound when it re-opens has been fixed.
Notables
Xbox chat macros have been modifed. See README.Xbox.
Co_zdoomphys is off by default. Remember, Odamex aims for Vanilla compatibility and mechanics.
Gravity defaults to 800 on ZDoom maps, same as ZDoom default.
Co_zdoomphys will always be 0 when playing back vanilla demos.
Odamex 0.5.2 was released on June 14th, 2011.
Features
Much of the code is now shared between client and server. It is much more manageable and less desync prone
Platforms are now much better optimized
Co_boomlinecheck- Off by default, allows additional silent BFG tricks and the "oomph" sound on two-sided lines.
The Hexen map format is now supported for experimental ZDoom compatibility. Several ZDoom 1.22 things work now, including zdoom water, gravity, physics, PIT_RadiusAttack (for rocket jumping), aircontrol, friction, bridge things, ambient sounds, and the earthquake.
Co_realactorheight has been restored with EE's P_ThingInfoHeight. Off by default.
Restored the original vanilla coop scoreboard. Uses the original player colors as well until we can get square coloring to work. It will show up if you are connected to a server with maxplayers < 5.
Added UPnP. Automatically opens up the port on a UPnP compliant router. Toggled on server start with sv_upnp
Added -fork to control the PIDfile of a server. Defaults to doomsv.pid.
Added co_zdoomswitches to flip between vanilla behavior (0) and a more advanced behavior whereby "switch sounds attenuate with distance like platforms and doors."
Bug Fixes
Screenshots broke in 0.5.1 due to the directx transition. Fixed.
Ag-odalaunch could not handle paths that had spaces in them on Xbox. Fixed.
Items did not respawn in co-op despite sv_itemsrespawn being true. Fixed.
Clients could be kicked for exceeding "netids" due to there being many projectiles. Not exactly fixed, but it should no longer kick clients.
Several vanilla demo desyncs are fixed.
Weapon changing desyncs are fixed.
Sometimes you would see the flag while you carried it. Fixed.
320x200, 320x240, and 640x400 have been restored. Make sure to use r_detail 1 for them.
Fix crashing when transitioning intermission > next level with certain pwads (occurs with gcc optimizations).
Clients could be kicked with "szp pointer was NULL," randomly in games with many players.
The CTF HUD display broke in 0.5.1. Fixed.
Projectile sounds (Player and Monster) would play multiple times online. Fixed.
Fixed the wrong light levels on some orthogonal linedefs.
The marine death animation played too fast online. Fixed.
Doors would play multiple sounds online. Fixed. Also Emulation of vanilla Doom bug where closing a blazing-door plays sounds twice in a row and blazing-door will play the slow-door's sound when it re-opens has been fixed.
Notables
Xbox chat macros have been modifed. See README.Xbox.
Co_zdoomphys is off by default. Remember, Odamex aims for Vanilla compatibility and mechanics.
Gravity defaults to 800 on ZDoom maps, same as ZDoom default.
Co_zdoomphys will always be 0 when playing back vanilla demos.
This post has been edited by Hyper_Eye: Jun 25 2011, 06:37 AM
Post by: Master13 on June 25, 2011, 01:49:00 AM
Post by: weinerschnitzel on June 25, 2011, 03:00:00 AM
Post by: bigby on June 25, 2011, 09:10:00 AM
Post by: Hyper_Eye on June 25, 2011, 12:41:00 PM
If you have a USB keyboard plugged in you can pull down the console (back button on the controller, ~ on the keyboard) and type 'r_detail 1' to change it back to the way it used to be.
If you do not have a keyboard you will have to pull down your config file and modify the value. In the README.Xbox you will find directions for changing your player name which includes pulling down your config file. Get the config to your computer as those instructions direct. In the config file find the variable 'r_detail'. Change it from a 2 to a 1. Upload the config file back to your Xbox.
After this you should find the pixelation to be the same as it was in previous versions. Hopefully we will have a menu option for this setting in the next version.
Post by: NobodyHere on June 25, 2011, 09:18:00 PM
Other than that, great news. I'll test it out soon.
Thanks.
Post by: bstbyguy on June 25, 2011, 11:29:00 PM
Post by: Clockface on June 26, 2011, 08:49:00 AM
Has anyone made available levels and mods that will run with Odamex that won't run with DoomX, either as a single big archive file, a web page with all those files on, or even just a list of the mods and levels? I ask as, like (I imagine) many of us, I have a fair few levels on my XBox's hard drive already, but only ones that work with DoomX, so I don't know which ones to download that will benefit from Odamex's higher compatibility.
If possible, it would be brilliant if there was a single archived file to download that, when unZIPped into Odamex's XBox directory would contain all of the working mods and levels (or at least many of the best ones), so that we don't have to download them singularly or mess about with .DEH and other hacking stuff ourselves, as some of us (me, for a start) don't know anything about setting up hacked levels.
Thanks for any answers.
Post by: sirlemonhead on June 27, 2011, 04:08:00 PM
Post by: Mega Man (?) on July 02, 2011, 02:20:00 AM
Hyper, you have done some awesome things man...
I love all the custom doom's (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
keep up the good work..and here is hoping for better SD support (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)
...and maybe
a slick xbox gui (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)
Don't get me wrong... the current gui is solid...
I would just love to see previews, info and such like in some of our current emus. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Cheers!
Post by: Clockface on July 02, 2011, 08:06:00 AM
QUOTE(Mega Man (?) @ Jul 2 2011, 09:20 AM) 
...
a slick xbox gui (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)
Don't get me wrong... the current gui is solid...
I would just love to see previews, info and such like in some of our current emus. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Cheers!
For me the Doom engine you've given us is great, but the frontend isn't perhaps all it could be, at least not for those of us who navigate it using a joypad. Moving the cursor around with the joypad is a little annoying - can you perhaps add support for joypad buttons on the launch menu, so that the user can press predefined buttons to perform certain functions, such as where it says 'LAUNCH' and the user has to (at present) move the cursor to the LAUNCH text, and press A (on the joypad), the text will read 'LAUNCH (START)', with the 'START' referring to the way the user can just press START on the joypad and then the game will launch, regardless of where the cursor was when the user presses START?
Likewise, instead of FILE, ACTION, TOOLS, ADVANCED, HELP
the menu items would read FILE (X), (ACTION (Y), TOOLS ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif), ADVANCED (BLACK), HELP (WHITE)
and pressing the associated button would bring up the menu, and so on. And please could you alter the file browsers so that when in there the joypad DPAD-UP and DPAD-DOWN will move up and down, DPAD LEFT and DPAD DOWN will move up and down ten places, Left Trigger goes to the top of the file listing, and Right trigger goes to the botton of the listing, A selects the highlighted file, and B cancels and closed the file list.
ODamex is really good, but the frontend just isn't joypad friendly at the moment, and because of that I still prefer to use DoomX.
Post by: Hyper_Eye on July 02, 2011, 11:40:00 AM
I know the kind of launcher people in the scene want. That kind of launcher is a lot of work in itself. I was never interested in providing a show piece launcher or for Odamex to be a showpiece port. My intention was always to provide a functional port of a great client, with online play, that can be built right out of our source repository that all PC platforms build with without any modification to the code required. That is what I have done. When it came to the launcher I knew I would have to write a new one. I did not have time to create my own widgets and API. So I used a cross-platform GUI library that relied only on libraries the Xbox could run. The gui library turned out to be agar and the libraries turned out to be SDL, FreeType (both already ported), and pthreads (which I had to port myself.) This brought the timeframe on the task down to something reasonable where it was worth pursuing. I was able to write it even faster because the portability of the library meant I was able to write it in Linux with the tools I am comfortable with (vim, gcc, gdb, etc.) and test it running on a platform that had long been supported.
I have done what I can to accommodate people who don't like the launcher. First the sensitivity of the cursor scales pretty well. Pushing the stick to variable degrees while moving the cursor goes a long way. It doesn't take much time with it to get pretty comfortable with the analog movement. I also added the ability to do most things without the cursor. It is all documented in the README.Xbox. Another thing that I did was add support to the Odamex client to take arguments from the XBMC dash using the <game> tag. This can be used to create shortcuts that launch directly into the type of game someone wants including loading different iwads, pwads, connecting to online games, etc.
See this xbmc4xbox wiki link: http://xbmc4xbox.org/wiki/index.php?title=...s_to_.xbe_files
See this Odawiki link: http://odamex.net/wiki/Command_line_parameters
Using this feature allows people to create shortcuts that skip the launcher completely. There is a lot that someone could do with that.
Also, everything the Odamex team does is open-source including the launcher currently used on Xbox. Anyone can make a launcher and I have said in other parts of the community that I would be happy to see someone create a launcher with the things that people in this community like to see such as preview videos and graphics honed specifically to the Xbox. That is something I simply can't justify doing on the Odamex team but someone in this community could do it.
Anyway, the most important part of the whole thing to me is the client. The launcher, to me, is simply a tool to launch the client with the necessary options to play the game I am interested in. I put as much time into the client as I could to make it integrate with the Xbox in the best way possible. That included things like honing the controls, using good defaults, saving games in a way that allows them to be viewed in the save game manager and transferred with memory cards, high definition support, and even adding the macro joystick shortcuts for communication. The end result is, in my opinion, the best Doom port on Xbox and, overall, a port that is more polished than most. I am proud of what I delivered. The idea that someone doesn't use it at all only because the launcher isn't really what they want is pretty disappointing to me. I would rather someone curse the launcher on their way to playing the client which is the part that actually has a game in it and the part that I really want to continue investing time in.
There will be some changes to the launcher over time but you will never see me producing the madmab edition launcher. It is up to a madmab-like dev to come around and decide it is worth their time to tackle the task.
Post by: Hyper_Eye on July 02, 2011, 12:57:00 PM
QUOTE(NobodyHere @ Jun 25 2011, 10:18 PM)
Has there been any work on supporting the last version of DeHackEd, version 3.1?
You should be able to load dehacked 3.1 patches with Odamex. Is there a particular patch or wad that you are unable to load?
QUOTE(bstbyguy @ Jun 26 2011, 12:29 AM)
great work as usual, any idea if this will ever be fully working on xbox360 game loads and plays amazingly, but will not save if i try to load a saved game odamex crashes, also odamex will not download anything when playing online. my guess is that it's looking for the original xbox dive\folder structure which is not there on the 360. any way to fix this (is there a way to define custom paths) or could at leas a custom save path option be added in future releases. again great work love the game just can't save lol
You are the first person I know of to verify Odamex working on the 360. I assume it is working through the Xbox emulation layer. I do not have a modded Xbox 360 so I do not know why it would fail to handle save games properly. It sounds like you are saying the save games get created and you can see them in the list but the failure is in loading the saved game. While the filesystem on the 360 may be different the emulation layer will provide the appearance of that file systems existence. If the game works I would expect things like saved games to work as I am saving to the location provided by the Xbox to save games as most retail games do. It could be possible that there could be some endianness issue in the object winding/unwinding related to file storage.
Ultimately I would like to build a native 360 release. I need hardware to develop with first and that hardware doesn't run cheap. One day I hope to have it. Of course anyone that wants to contribute to Odamex to help with acquisition of such needed components is welcome to do so by hitting the donate button on the Odamex website. It is not common for people to do so and certainly not common for us to mention it.
QUOTE(Clockface @ Jun 26 2011, 09:49 AM)
Has anyone made available levels and mods that will run with Odamex that won't run with DoomX, either as a single big archive file, a web page with all those files on, or even just a list of the mods and levels? I ask as, like (I imagine) many of us, I have a fair few levels on my XBox's hard drive already, but only ones that work with DoomX, so I don't know which ones to download that will benefit from Odamex's higher compatibility.
If possible, it would be brilliant if there was a single archived file to download that, when unZIPped into Odamex's XBox directory would contain all of the working mods and levels (or at least many of the best ones), so that we don't have to download them singularly or mess about with .DEH and other hacking stuff ourselves, as some of us (me, for a start) don't know anything about setting up hacked levels.
If possible, it would be brilliant if there was a single archived file to download that, when unZIPped into Odamex's XBox directory would contain all of the working mods and levels (or at least many of the best ones), so that we don't have to download them singularly or mess about with .DEH and other hacking stuff ourselves, as some of us (me, for a start) don't know anything about setting up hacked levels.
This is definitely a community project. I have no problem with someone implying an intention for a pack to be used with Odamex so long as it does not include any illegal wads (retail wads or iwads that illegally used id IP.) Also keep in mind that many wads have terms for distribution and the accompanying text files should be read to ensure compliance.
Post by: NobodyHere on July 03, 2011, 01:27:00 PM
QUOTE(Hyper_Eye @ Jul 2 2011, 07:57 PM)
You should be able to load dehacked 3.1 patches with Odamex. Is there a particular patch or wad that you are unable to load?
No particular. I'm just unable to load dehacked files I've customized. It's mostly music track replacements that gives me problems. For some reason, I can load them in Chocolate-Doom, but not Odamex. It must be something simple, like slightly out of spec MIDI files. Thanks for the heads up.
QUOTE
Has anyone made available levels and mods that will run with Odamex that won't run with DoomX, either as a single big archive file, a web page with all those files on, or even just a list of the mods and levels? I ask as, like (I imagine) many of us, I have a fair few levels on my XBox's hard drive already, but only ones that work with DoomX, so I don't know which ones to download that will benefit from Odamex's higher compatibility.
If the features advertised as supported in Odamex are there, why would you need someone to put 'compatible' mods together?
Simply browse the /idgames archive HERE, and read the descriptions to determine what source ports they will work with. It should got without saying that any Vanilla compatible mod will work, with the exception of any that used an older dehacked format. Older deh files will more than likely need to be converted to one of the later versions of DeHackEd. I'm also guessing that a lot of the BOOM format mods will work as well.
What won't work are mods made for Edge, Legacy, Skulltag, ZDoom...
Post by: Hyper_Eye on July 03, 2011, 02:14:00 PM
QUOTE(NobodyHere @ Jul 3 2011, 02:27 PM)
What won't work are mods made for Edge, Legacy, Skulltag, ZDoom...
Slight correction... zdoom has been supported more and more with each release. Check out the changelogs.
Post by: bstbyguy on July 03, 2011, 07:53:00 PM
QUOTE(Hyper_Eye @ Jul 2 2011, 02:57 PM)
You should be able to load dehacked 3.1 patches with Odamex. Is there a particular patch or wad that you are unable to load?
You are the first person I know of to verify Odamex working on the 360. I assume it is working through the Xbox emulation layer. I do not have a modded Xbox 360 so I do not know why it would fail to handle save games properly. It sounds like you are saying the save games get created and you can see them in the list but the failure is in loading the saved game. While the filesystem on the 360 may be different the emulation layer will provide the appearance of that file systems existence. If the game works I would expect things like saved games to work as I am saving to the location provided by the Xbox to save games as most retail games do. It could be possible that there could be some endianness issue in the object winding/unwinding related to file storage.
Ultimately I would like to build a native 360 release. I need hardware to develop with first and that hardware doesn't run cheap. One day I hope to have it. Of course anyone that wants to contribute to Odamex to help with acquisition of such needed components is welcome to do so by hitting the donate button on the Odamex website. It is not common for people to do so and certainly not common for us to mention it.
This is definitely a community project. I have no problem with someone implying an intention for a pack to be used with Odamex so long as it does not include any illegal wads (retail wads or iwads that illegally used id IP.) Also keep in mind that many wads have terms for distribution and the accompanying text files should be read to ensure compliance.
thanks a bunch for actually coming back and checking in to answer my question, and yes it does actually write the save but it won't load it and yes everything else works perfectly just not being able to load saves really hurts, where exactly are the save files located anyway, i would like to do some tinkering if i could. btw i wanted to let you know i've thrown about 30 pwads at it as well and they all worked fine, even a compilation of all of the master levels joined into one megawad, and i play every megawad with a a psxmusic.wad loaded at the same time to replace the doom music with the psx music and that works as well. just some info incase you ever get to dive into the 360 version :-) good luck and great work!!!
Post by: Hyper_Eye on July 03, 2011, 09:55:00 PM
QUOTE(bstbyguy @ Jul 3 2011, 08:53 PM)
thanks a bunch for actually coming back and checking in to answer my question, and yes it does actually write the save but it won't load it and yes everything else works perfectly just not being able to load saves really hurts, where exactly are the save files located anyway, i would like to do some tinkering if i could. btw i wanted to let you know i've thrown about 30 pwads at it as well and they all worked fine, even a compilation of all of the master levels joined into one megawad, and i play every megawad with a a psxmusic.wad loaded at the same time to replace the doom music with the psx music and that works as well. just some info incase you ever get to dive into the 360 version :-) good luck and great work!!!
The saves go to the games udata directory. I gave the game the TitleID 0x4F444D58 (use a hex to ascii converter to know how I came up with that value) so it would be E:\UDATA\4F444D58. If you can see the save games then the files are getting saved and the path is working. I would think it more likely that the problem is related to writing or reading the contents. What is the exact behavior when you attempt to load a saved game? One thing you could try is pulling the save over to a computer to make sure there is content in it. An even more interesting experiment would be attempting to load it with Odamex on a PC (Windows, Linux, Mac... whatever.) I may even be interested in a copy of one.
Also, does the launcher configuration seem to be saving correctly? When you add a wad path does it persist after you quit and reload?
I'm surprised it is saving games that turns out not to work on 360 as opposed to the launcher kicking off the client. That was the code I suspected would be the most likely to fail as I used undocumented API and my own launch data structure to do it. I'm glad it works though.
Post by: Clockface on July 11, 2011, 07:43:00 AM
QUOTE(Hyper_Eye @ Jul 2 2011, 06:40 PM)
I get a lot of conflicting opinions about the laucher. Some people love it and others hate it. The launcher is functional. It was made to be functional. It was also made to be cross-platform and that is important to us. Any large effort that targets a specific platform, especially a console that was end-of-life'd 6 years ago, is something we put serious consideration into and it is not something we are likely to go for. Odamex takes a lot of work overall and we all have limited time to work on it between our families, jobs, and other responsibilities. We have to pick tasks that benefit Odamex as a whole.
Fair enough, mate. You (and everyone else connected with XBox homebrew) put in a lot of hard work for no renumeration at all, and I do appreciate it, as I'm sure we all do. Please don't think I'm complaining, Odamex is great, and the Launcher works fine - I'd just like to see it perhaps a little more user friendly to those of us using only joypads, although of course improvements to the launcher aren't nearly as important as improvements to the Doom game/engine itself, or to added features or compatibility.
QUOTE
I know the kind of launcher people in the scene want. That kind of launcher is a lot of work in itself. I was never interested in providing a show piece launcher or for Odamex to be a showpiece port. My intention was always to provide a functional port of a great client, with online play, that can be built right out of our source repository that all PC platforms build with without any modification to the code required. That is what I have done. When it came to the launcher I knew I would have to write a new one. I did not have time to create my own widgets and API. So I used a cross-platform GUI library that relied only on libraries the Xbox could run. The gui library turned out to be agar and the libraries turned out to be SDL, FreeType (both already ported), and pthreads (which I had to port myself.) This brought the timeframe on the task down to something reasonable where it was worth pursuing. I was able to write it even faster because the portability of the library meant I was able to write it in Linux with the tools I am comfortable with (vim, gcc, gdb, etc.) and test it running on a platform that had long been supported.
As someone with no coding ability or talent, I'll just nod whilst reading that, in the hope that I'll fool people into thinking I understood what you were saying (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
QUOTE
I have done what I can to accommodate people who don't like the launcher. First the sensitivity of the cursor scales pretty well. Pushing the stick to variable degrees while moving the cursor goes a long way. It doesn't take much time with it to get pretty comfortable with the analog movement. I also added the ability to do most things without the cursor. It is all documented in the README.Xbox. Another thing that I did was add support to the Odamex client to take arguments from the XBMC dash using the <game> tag. This can be used to create shortcuts that launch directly into the type of game someone wants including loading different iwads, pwads, connecting to online games, etc.
Oh yes, like I said it is OK now, it's just that it could be better, but then you can say that about anything. There's nothing major or urgent about the Frontend that needs fixing.
I've never tried to use command line arguments on the XBox - I might try it though, as it will be interesting to do. I do love how *everything* on the (modded) XBox can be run from the hard drive, I hope the hackers who made that possible know how grateful us end users are. My XBox is my media centre, I use it to play music and video files, although I don't use it to play DVDs, as although XBMC is a *superb* DVD player, I don't want to wear out the DVD drive (I'm no my second one already), so I use a cheap (£30, I think) supermarket bought standalone DVD drive to play physical DVDs, as it does everything I want. I FTP media from my PC to the XBox, so the DVD drive in the XBox sees almost no use, except to install games.
QUOTE
See this xbmc4xbox wiki link: http://xbmc4xbox.org/wiki/index.php?title=...s_to_.xbe_files
See this Odawiki link: http://odamex.net/wiki/Command_line_parameters
Using this feature allows people to create shortcuts that skip the launcher completely. There is a lot that someone could do with that.
Also, everything the Odamex team does is open-source including the launcher currently used on Xbox. Anyone can make a launcher and I have said in other parts of the community that I would be happy to see someone create a launcher with the things that people in this community like to see such as preview videos and graphics honed specifically to the Xbox. That is something I simply can't justify doing on the Odamex team but someone in this community could do it.
Anyway, the most important part of the whole thing to me is the client. The launcher, to me, is simply a tool to launch the client with the necessary options to play the game I am interested in. I put as much time into the client as I could to make it integrate with the Xbox in the best way possible. That included things like honing the controls, using good defaults, saving games in a way that allows them to be viewed in the save game manager and transferred with memory cards, high definition support, and even adding the macro joystick shortcuts for communication. The end result is, in my opinion, the best Doom port on Xbox and, overall, a port that is more polished than most. I am proud of what I delivered. The idea that someone doesn't use it at all only because the launcher isn't really what they want is pretty disappointing to me. I would rather someone curse the launcher on their way to playing the client which is the part that actually has a game in it and the part that I really want to continue investing time in.
There will be some changes to the launcher over time but you will never see me producing the madmab edition launcher. It is up to a madmab-like dev to come around and decide it is worth their time to tackle the task.
OK mate. Thanks for answering, and for all of your hardwork. Doom is a timeless classic, and it's brilliant having such a compatible version on the XBox (DoomX is brilliant but of course it can't use hacked .wad files). I do play on Odamex (offline, I've never been an online player, and I've not linked up the XBox, so it's single player Doom mods only), but when my nephew (nine years old, and a better gamer than me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) ) is around I put on DoomX (he loves Doom and Duke Nukem on my XBox, but doesn't play them on his PC* even though I've put them on for him) as the frontend is quicker to use.
* Isn't it amazing how much the world has changed - I'm 41 now, and when I was a kid, being sent to your room was a punishment. My nephew (who's parents are far from rich) has an XBox 360, a PC, a Nintendo DS, mobile phone and probably (I'm not sure) satellite TV.
I had a portable TV, then a Spectrum. Technology has changed so much for so many people.
Post by: xboxmods2977 on July 11, 2011, 10:48:00 AM
Can this port (or any port of Odamex, for that matter) have the option to support Skulltag servers? If so, is it just a matter of adding skulltag servers to a list somewhere on the HD and go?
Hyper_Eye: Hows the overscan correction progress for the launcher coming? If Any?
This post has been edited by xboxmods2977: Jul 11 2011, 05:49 PM
Post by: Hyper_Eye on July 11, 2011, 06:19:00 PM
I have not yet worked on variable overscan in the launcher. It is on my list of things.
Post by: XDelusion on August 05, 2011, 03:42:00 PM
http://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/
One Total Conversion of interest would be Rex's: Star Wars - Darkest Hour which you can find here:
ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/msdos/games/idg...-f/darkhour.zip
http://doomnexus.drdteam.org/DH_Pix.html
I've not played it all the way through on the XBOX yet, but thus far everything seems to work as it should!
Enjoy!!!!!
This post has been edited by XDelusion: Aug 5 2011, 10:43 PM
Post by: XDelusion on August 06, 2011, 03:48:00 AM
http://youtu.be/QZyDU4x4HxI
Post by: Clockface on August 06, 2011, 09:00:00 AM
I'm not well up on running hacked Doom levels (and I imagine quite a few of us are the same here) so a downloadable archive of pre-sorted levels would be fantastic.
Post by: XDelusion on August 06, 2011, 09:26:00 PM
QUOTE(Clockface @ Aug 6 2011, 05:00 PM)
XDelusion, thanks for the links, but can you put together a .zip file of mods that work with Odamex, all sorted into whatever folders need to be present for them to work in Odamex, please?
I'm not well up on running hacked Doom levels (and I imagine quite a few of us are the same here) so a downloadable archive of pre-sorted levels would be fantastic.
I used to have such a site for the Dreamcast, but it has long since vanished.
Now a days I devote most of my energy to Amiga and other hobbies, but...
Will try to set aside some time and see if I can't throw together a quick pack for you guys.
Btw, Odamex does not yet support sloped surfaces so Darkest Hour may not be completable.
Post by: Clockface on August 07, 2011, 05:04:00 PM
QUOTE(XDelusion @ Aug 7 2011, 04:26 AM)
I used to have such a site for the Dreamcast, but it has long since vanished.
Now a days I devote most of my energy to Amiga and other hobbies, but...
Will try to set aside some time and see if I can't throw together a quick pack for you guys.
Btw, Odamex does not yet support sloped surfaces so Darkest Hour may not be completable.
That'd be great mate, thanks.