[Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony] v3.1 released (p204)

[Scuba Steve]

Anti alias that thing so it matches the rest of the gun...

[Andretti]

What's the cheat code for level warp? I missed the secret level in C1.

[lizardcommando]

isn't it "mapchange (level name, no parentheses and no quotation marks)" in the console for level warp?

[Ozymandias81]

Type listmaps to show which are map names, then use map c#m* where # is episode number and * is the level number. You just have anyway to type on the relative map name after "map" word, so secret C1 level should be just map c1m0. Btw by cheating you will potentially fall on plot/map breaking issues, so do it with keeping this in mind.

[Rex705]

dang, the 2nd map is super laggy even with settings turned down.

[0mnicydle]

So I revisited the sound hitching thing I was talking about in my post here. So at the point I left off I still didn’t know if the mod was precaching sounds properly and ogg playback in general was a problem, or if ogg was only a problem on the RAM drive because normally with proper precaching the ogg file would be decoded on cache, not playback. Well after some further experimentation I’ve determined ogg playback is fine as long as the sounds are properly precached. How did I arrive at this conclusion? Well I looked into how you actually precache sounds on the wiki, and as an experiment loaded all the thunder and radio sounds in the mapinfo gameinfo block, and yeah… it totally fixed the issue with those. Now thunder and radios aren’t the only sounds causing hitching (hell radios are optional anyway), I just picked those because they were easy to experiment with. The point is there is a TON of room for improvement here in terms of optimization and getting this mod to run with less asset related hitching, and I really hope the authors consider putting in that extra effort.

As another experiment I added the globe model textures in the same way so I could test that intermap stutter right at the start, and I’m talking the original humongous globe textures, not my optimized textures, and yeah… HUGE difference. If everything was being properly precached, you could totally get away with those huge textures. Now maybe you don’t want your map loading to take a long time or something, but I’m sure I’m not alone in being more than happy to make that trade off. You have to wait one way or another, either all at once at the start, or little by little as you play, and the latter for me is quite unsatisfactory to say the least and I know I can't be alone.

Anyway, just something to think about, please. Even if it’s just an optional mapinfo for people to use if they want. And for all I know there is some better way to go about it entirely than the brute force method I was experimenting with. The point is, the game could perform so much better than it does now. Precache all the things!

Oh yeah, it also seems I can't disable the post process heatwave effect; the menu option seems to be non-functional. I expect that to turn off the effect when I'm near lava or shooting the flame thrower, but I'm stuck with it no matter what I do.

EDIT/ And actually now that I'm thinking about it, maybe there could be some engine level option for people with tons of RAM to just load every damn sound and texture in any loaded wads that the engine can identify. I would freaking LOVE that option. I can't overstate how much I would love and appreciate that option. I've got 64GB of RAM and 12GB of VRAM here, let me use it

[Ozymandias81]

dang, the 2nd map is super laggy even with settings turned down.

What are your pc specs? Do you have active apps in the background? Are you using our shipped version of GZDoom within the standalone version?

[Andretti]

dang, the 2nd map is super laggy even with settings turned down.

What are your pc specs? Do you have active apps in the background? Are you using our shipped version of GZDoom within the standalone version?

I am also having terrible FPS on some maps. Even with the potato settings. Though lowering the graphics does help. And then going through the options manually to turn off/ down any settings that could cause problems. C2M3 had the worst FPS problems so far. FPS problems seem to happen mainly in large open areas.

Windows 10 64 bit, i5 4570, RX 590, 16GB DDR 3 RAM. Using the GZDoom from the standalone version.

Yes, I tried with and without background programs. Didn't notice a difference. Yes, I restarted the PC before starting the game without background programs. My CPU and GPU are not fully utilized. For some reason the game does not want to fully use them. Yes, I disabled vsync and the frame cap. I get at most 90+ FPS in the least intensive areas.

[Rex705]

dang, the 2nd map is super laggy even with settings turned down.

What are your pc specs? Do you have active apps in the background? Are you using our shipped version of GZDoom within the standalone version?

I'm using the standalone version. I run Windows 10 64bit, AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 16-Core, AMD Radeon VII, 128GB Ram.

[Rachael]

[
I am also having terrible FPS on some maps. Even with the potato settings. Though lowering the graphics does help. And then going through the options manually to turn off/ down any settings that could cause problems. C2M3 had the worst FPS problems so far. FPS problems seem to happen mainly in large open areas.

Windows 10 64 bit, i5 4570, RX 590, 16GB DDR 3 RAM. Using the GZDoom from the standalone version.

Try Vulkan. Run gzdoom -norun +vid_preferbackend 1, let the init go, and then when it gives you the option to exit do so. Then launch the mod again.

[0mnicydle]

Here, I made a mapinfo that precaches all the model textures because it literally only took a minute or two to do. So you can see the kind of improvements that are possible...

This is to be used with the initial BoA C3 release only! Put this in your [WolfenDoom.Autoload] or drop in on your boa.exe (won't work with the launcher exe)

EDIT/ Link removed in favor of new post.

The hilarious thing is, I can't even really perceive a difference in loading time. Maybe initial startup time yes, but not level loading.

I might consider doing some kind of quick and dirty fix for sounds later too, we'll see.

EDIT/ Alright here's another literally 2 minute fix. I took the sndinfo and used notepad++ and did some find/replace to strip anything that wasn't the name of a sound definition and to get it formatted correctly and pasted into mapinfo.

So here's some stats on this: before precache game startup took about 5 seconds. After full preload of all model textures and all sounds, 20 seconds (and level loading remains snappy). Um, yeah that's a price I'll pay to get rid of all model texture and sound related hitching, are you kidding me? Total RAM consumption after launch with the precaching I'd estimate at 2GB.

Again, this is for initial BoA C3 release only, and you choose either this one for sound and model textures or the previous one for just model textures. I'll clean this post up later and also point my old fix post to this one. Yay no more compromising the model texture artists' vision.

EDIT/ Link removed in favor of new post.

[Ninlhil]

Um.... Did anyone else encounter a 30 foot tall Nazi guard in the desert in Tunis? Took a bunch to kill and dropped a whole bunch of stuff, so I'm not sure it was a glitch, but I figured I'd ask.

[salahmander2]

I was always wondering if it was a one off thing to kill in that level, I never came across anything like it in any level since as far as I know.

[doomjedi]

Um.... Did anyone else encounter a 30 foot tall Nazi guard in the desert in Tunis? Took a bunch to kill and dropped a whole bunch of stuff, so I'm not sure it was a glitch, but I figured I'd ask.

Not a glitch, Easter/Pun.

[0mnicydle]

Here’s an updated guide for those with high end systems (and high end systems only--you have been warned!) who want the absolute best possible experience with the BoA C3 initial release utilizing the custom mapinfo I made earlier today (which forces all model textures and sounds to be precached, resulting in an absolutely monumental reduction of asset related frame time transients), in addition to all the other methods of “ensmoothening” the experience I’ve discovered thus far.

• 1. Download initial BoA C3 release package and extract to its own (empty!) directory.

• 2. Download the three packs I’ve linked below (one for scripts, one for forcing precached assets, and one for config files), and drop all three packs as-is into the same directory as the boa.exe.

• 3. Inside the config pack is an 0mni.cfg and gzdoom.ini; extract these files to the same directory as the boa.exe. It is very important that if you did not follow directions and aren’t starting with a fresh install that you delete any personal ini files with your username that already exist here so that a new one is created using the autoload defaults I’ve provided.

• 4. Launch the game either via boa.exe or the launcher. Please keep in mind that your game will take longer to startup now and that is perfectly normal. On my system startup time went from 5 seconds to 20. Trust me, if you want the smoothest experience it is very much worth it.

• 5. Open the console and type “exec 0mni.cfg” without quotes (and that's with a leading zero, not the letter O), at which point my recommended default settings will be loaded and the game will exit to force you to restart it. The game will now be using Vulkan, so if you can’t use Vulkan, well then I guess you didn’t pay attention when I said this was for high end systems only.

• 6. Enjoy this freaking amazing mod that’s so good it got me to go through all this effort to get it running this way!

A note about my config: Normally I also have SSAO cranked to max, bloom enabled, and shadowmaps enabled, but since they’re expensive they aren’t on by default in the config. Turn those on if you have a good rig cuz it all looks great in this, but do not enable any BoA specific post process effect I haven’t turned on. Also I have a VRR monitor so vsync is enabled; if you don’t like vsync turn it off. I also have some aliases, with “lodtoggle1” bound to the V key. Bind it to something that suits you better, but use this for low fps situations to get a big fps boost.

I will be making an updated precache pack as the mod is updated as needed if the mod authors do not take it upon themselves to include it as an option (because it’s super easy to make), but as soon as the next release comes out the script hacks will for sure no longer be necessary. Also, my cfg already includes the cvars being added to future versions which will address the issues the hacks were created to circumvent in the first place. See this post if you are interested in what the script hacks are doing exactly, but ignore anything about texture resizing; it’s no longer needed now that we are precaching.

If you’re curious about the most important settings in my cfg that affect smoothness in the current version, off the top of my head they would be:

gl_precache "true"
vid_preferbackend "1"
boa_mblur "false"

But there may be something else in there having an effect I’m not aware of, so just in case there’s some magic combo going on here I felt it important to include the exact setup I’m using for reference as a fallback.

EDIT/ Oh yeah, if you want one more little reduction in interruptions go ahead and disable autosaves, though beware it seems some autosaves (picking up clues for instance) can't be avoided even if you have this set to never.

DOWNLOAD: Script Hacks
DOWNLOAD: Precache Pack
DOWNLOAD: Config Pack