A way to for mods to detect OpenGL version?

DnB-Freak · Post by **DnB-Freak** » Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:42 am

I tried playing my mod on a crappy pc at the work and no matter what options i set, it looked like shit, so...

I'll need to create a startlock in case the vendor's opengl version is below the minimal for what is required to get a good atmosphere, but I can't.
I need to ask these questions:

•Is there a way for a mod to detect glversion upon startup?

•Could it be a feature to prevent hd mods from being spoiled and ruined on a crappy pc

wildweasel · Post by **wildweasel** » Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:56 am

This is inadvisable. Some people may be more tolerant of something "not looking right" to be able to play it. Locking them out entirely is excluding those people and limiting your audience in a bad way.

Post by **Caligari87** » Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:31 am

"Inadvisable" is a pretty mild way of putting it. A more accurate suggestion would be "DON'T DO THAT!"

Renderer lockout is a bad idea, especially considering how quickly the renderer is changing these days. A few years ago, 3D floors and dynamic lights didn't work in software mode and so people would do hacks and CVAR checks to do renderer lockouts. Guess what works in software mode now? 3D floors and dynamic lights. Also, I think some of those old mods are partially broken because the renderer detection checks they were using don't apply anymore and the authors haven't updated.

Let your players know what's recommended, but don't break their game, or possibly risk having your mod broken by future updates.

Marisa the Magician · Post by **Marisa the Magician** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:23 am

I think there could only ever be one reasonable use case for getting user hardware features and that would be an ui-side function to check if shaders are supported. That way a mod could decide on whether to use shaders for a specific effect or some cheaper screen api substitute if these are not available.

Post by **Caligari87** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:06 am

A minimally invasive soft method could be a GameInfo / Mapinfo block that specifies which features or functionality the mod optimally requires. The engine could have an internal list of which features are fully-supported, partially-supported, or not-supported by the current renderer / hardware. In the case of a conflict, the engine would display some kind of warning message on startup, perhaps provide a suggestion like "change to this renderer", and ask the user if they wish to continue anyway.

Of course the onus would be on the modder to properly document their feature use, but if the info is missing the engine would work exactly as it does right now.

Post by **Chris** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:23 am

Chickenlegz wrote:•Is there a way for a mod to detect glversion upon startup?

•Could it be a feature to prevent hd mods from being spoiled and ruined on a crappy pc

These are orthogonal issues. If you want to prevent your mod from looking crappy due to the lack of certain effects, you want to test for the lack of those effects, not just what you think doesn't support those effects (and even then, locking out isn't the first course of action to take). There's nothing to say whatever GL version you try to lock out now won't get support for whatever is missing later on.

Also, "looked like shit" is in the eye of the beholder. To many people, Doom's paletted renderer looks like shit, while other people like the imperfections and see it as giving character to the scene. One man's garbage is another man's treasure. Just because you think it looks like shit doesn't mean everyone else will.

ZDoom