32 bit? Coming soon or never?

[phi108]

Will zdoom support 32 bit color soon? I can't find any answers as to why it isn't 32 bit yet, but I suppose it's pretty hard to do.
The main reason I want it is for smooth fog. I checked out DelphiDoom, and its fog is pretty good, but I like zdoom for everything else. If/When 32 bit support is added, would it interpolate existing colormaps for fog, or would it use a new method?

Yes, I know GZdoom and Skulltag and ZDoomgl have 32 bit mode, but heres the secret: HARDWARE ACCELERATION DOESN'T WORK FASTER!! OK, this might be my GFX card's prob (GO 6150) but I have great memory and cpu, so i like software mode's speed.

Does the doom engine that zdoom is based on have big obstacles to making it 32 bit?

[Risen]

Does the doom engine that zdoom is based on have big obstacles to making it 32 bit?

In short, yes. Your best option is GZDoom.

[randy]

Does the doom engine that zdoom is based on have big obstacles to making it 32 bit?

No, it's just time-consuming. If I do do it, I will probably dump 8-bit mode entirely and go exclusively 32-bit just to keep things simple so that there's less code to maintain. That would increase the system requirements, but even a modest Pentium II would probably still be able to handle it.

[Graf Zahl]

Yes, I know GZdoom and Skulltag and ZDoomgl have 32 bit mode, but heres the secret: HARDWARE ACCELERATION DOESN'T WORK FASTER!! OK, this might be my GFX card's prob (GO 6150) but I have great memory and cpu, so i like software mode's speed.

What's a GO6150?

But for me hardware acceleration is definitely faster. It has been on my previous computer with a GF6800 and a P4 3.2GHz - depending on the maps there are significant differences in FPS.

[Trance]

What's a GO6150?

Nvidia GeForce Go 6100/6150

[Tiger]

Yes and those little buggers are not the best VGA chips neither are the 7100/7150 series either.

[skadoomer]

but heres the secret: HARDWARE ACCELERATION DOESN'T WORK FASTER!! OK, this might be my GFX card's prob (GO 6150) but I have great memory and cpu, so i like software mode's speed.

That may not be an entirely true statement. Software rendering can be just as clunky depening on how well its optimized. Vavoom is a good example of this. [/quote]

That would increase the system requirements, but even a modest Pentium II would probably still be able to handle it.

Who honestly uses a PII system anymore?

[Vaecrius]

My understanding is that "probably still be able to handle" on a generation N computer = "not a vomitous slideshow" on a generation N+1 computer.

I'm still in the 700s here so this is relevant to my interests.

[Graf Zahl]

Who honestly uses a PII system anymore?

Who knows? But the Doom community seems to be flooded with old and outdated systems.

[Nash]

I have an old Athlon XP 2000, 512 DDR and it used to have a GeForce 4 440 MX. I could only play OpenGL games (including Doom ports) at 640 x 480 maximum; anything higher than that is just unplayable.

I got rid of the MX card and replaced it with a GeForce 6600 GS AGP... suddenly, I found that I could bump GZDoom to 1280 x 1024, and the game was still super smooth.

[MasterOFDeath]

I have a 100 Mgz Pentium with 8mb of RAM that can run ZDoom.

...granted, not very well if you want to play something besides the stock maps.

[Graf Zahl]

I have an old Athlon XP 2000, 512 DDR and it used to have a GeForce 4 440 MX. I could only play OpenGL games (including Doom ports) at 640 x 480 maximum; anything higher than that is just unplayable.

That shows how bad the GF4 MX really was. I think this is something many people don't realize: A weak graphics card can cripple a computer's performance more that a weak processor.

[Woolie Wool]

The GeForce 4 was so bad it made nVidia lose the graphics card market lead to ATi.

[Graf Zahl]

The GeForce 4 was so bad it made nVidia lose the graphics card market lead to ATi.

The GF 4 was an excellent hardware for its time.

The GF 4MX was shit - and so was the GF 5xxx series - except for the GF5900 which came too late.

[zwouth]

The GeForce 4 was so bad it made nVidia lose the graphics card market lead to ATi.

How old are you? The Geforce4 series only solidified the Geforce3's lead. Which in plain speak is "It totally ruled the market"

ATi only came into play when they released ArtX's R300 design (Yea, Radeon 9700) - and that yes, was a completly awesome card (I bought one for a LAN party when my Geforce 4 4600 died unexpectedly - and I was blown away by the 9700)

I'm sorry but claiming that the Geforce4 Family was "so bad" is a travesty that I can't let it go uncommented. The GeforceFX series would probably have been successful except for the fact that the Radeon 9700 (9500) and Radeon 9800 (9600) pounded the FX series into the ground. (And for the extreme dullard, I'm no nVidia fanboy, the FX series was a JOKE until...)

The Geforce 6800, which was totally mind blowing when it came out. Too bad it cost you to require donating organs to nVidia. (Yet the early 6200 AGP + bridgemods/drivermods/biosflash however... never mind) Yea I'm old. I remember when the 6200 came out. It was/is yet another jump in video card evolutions.

But for f*ck sakes, DO NOT SHAME a real geForce4. Even the budget 4200 spanked the FX series in actual games, and yes a Radeon R300 derived core would spank it, but guess what? A GF4-4200 didn't cost $360. Plus if you couldn't figure out the built in driver level overclocking to get your games up to par, you REALLY don't need to be making judgments on hardware to begin with.

But unfortunately as Graf says, the GeforceMX4 is a joke and was a total cash in on the Geforce4 name. It's pretty much a Geforce 2MX rebranded. I so wish I could kick nVidia in the balls for that one, cause sadly the Geforce2 MX core was a good core until nVidia shamed it in the retail market as the clock bumped GF4MX so that OEM's would buy it!

</rant>

On a side note you can still play Prey on a Geforce 4. I know that yea; that's a biased example cause iD software is one of the few to create a base engine that supports OpenGL, but still...

the counterpoint is that yes, you can play F.E.A.R. on a Radeon 9700, but is the slide show worth it?