Elementalism, an ambitious GZDoom mapset, Phase 1 out now!

[Rachael]

If the early screenshots blew you away, they only got better since.

The amount of work that went into polishing this must've been more than I can imagine. The perfect blend of music, textures, mapping, and sound really makes each place describe itself in a way that surpasses Doom by so much, that I even dare to say it doesn't even fit Doom. Every area looks and feels like what it wants to be.

This isn't a Doom mapset. It is an artwork masterpiece that happens to have Doom monsters in it.

[ActionAlligator]

Hey, I downloaded latest version of GZDoom and your mod and just had couple of question if you don't mind dev

1) are there any special gameplay/graphical settings or anything that you recommend enabling/disabling? like, do you intend for jump and crouch to be used for example? any particular lighting type (doom, dark, etc.) you recommend? and so on
and 2) I'm already lagging some in the intro level (uh oh... not good sign for me lmao), so do you happen to know which settings, other than resolution, are the biggest fps killers?

thanks in advance! and it probably doesn't mean much right now, but so far the intro level looks spectacular! tons of atmosphere and good choice of music my dude. looking forward to trying more =D

[Graf Zahl]

and 2) I'm already lagging some in the intro level (uh oh... not good sign for me lmao), so do you happen to know which settings, other than resolution, are the biggest fps killers?

The maps are very demanding, if you are already lagging it may only get worse. Even on my brand-new super-fast system it barely manages 60 fps in many places, so anything even a bit older may struggle with the frame rate.

The mod also pre-sets all relevant game options like light mode. So default settings would be the right one.
(Actually, map E4 is missing the light mode definition, it looks like an oversight as all other maps have it set)

[ActionAlligator]

Ah ok, darn. Well, so far I've completed two water episode maps and the frame rates are definitely playable, just not smooth unfortunately. Sorry for repeating noob question, but which settings are the hardest on systems besides resolution? I was hoping to maybe adjust other things first and see if it smooths it before adjusting res.

And to authors, so far the map design is very good and very gorgeous and the gameplay is great! Music great too! =D Kind of reminds me of Age of Wonders for some reason. Really like the addition of the two ultra-violence alternative modes!

[Remmirath]

Ah ok, darn. Well, so far I've completed two water episode maps and the frame rates are definitely playable, just not smooth unfortunately. Sorry for repeating noob question, but which settings are the hardest on systems besides resolution? I was hoping to maybe adjust other things first and see if it smooths it before adjusting res.

And to authors, so far the map design is very good and very gorgeous and the gameplay is great! Music great too! =D Kind of reminds me of Age of Wonders for some reason. Really like the addition of the two ultra-violence alternative modes!

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Glad you're enjoying it!

About the framerate issues, can you tell me your hardware specs (CPU and GPU, more specifically).

When we optimized the project, we targeted 30FPS as the bare minimum playable framerate.

[ActionAlligator]

CPU: AMD FX-8300 8-core
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series 3gb (CPU-Z won't tell me precisely which model it is and my memory won't either, sorry)

Old hardware that I need to get around to replacing, I know, lol.

[Rachael]

That's actually really not a bad system - are you running OpenGL or Vulkan? That'll make a massive difference on that system.

[Remmirath]

CPU: AMD FX-8300 8-core
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series 3gb (CPU-Z won't tell me precisely which model it is and my memory won't either, sorry)

Old hardware that I need to get around to replacing, I know, lol.

That CPU, along with the rest of the FX line, is notorious for having terrible single threaded performance. Rachael's suggestion of enabling Vulkan over OpenGL is very valid. It should give you a relative performance boost.

[ActionAlligator]

Ahhhh; so, anything that doesn't take advantage of multi-core is going to suffer a lot? Is that what you mean by "single threaded performance"?

I'm running OpenGL; I thought Vulkan was buggy and/or for Linux? Sorry, I'm a big tech noob. I'll try it out and see if it helps! Are there any differences between OpenGL and Vulkan that affect display settings or the like that I should know about? Or is it just flipping a setting and everything should basically be the same? Thanks again for your guys' help!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

The maps are very demanding, if you are already lagging it may only get worse. Even on my brand-new super-fast system it barely manages 60 fps in many places, so anything even a bit older may struggle with the frame rate.

What the hell? How come GZDoom would be so much more demanding than the original Crysis?

[Remmirath]

Ahhhh; so, anything that doesn't take advantage of multi-core is going to suffer a lot? Is that what you mean by "single threaded performance"?

Yes, exactly. GZDoom, like any id tech 1 source port, doesn't take advantage of multi core rendering when it comes to BSP traversal (which is what allows GZDoom to render the map on screen by looking at the compiled nodes). That operation is purely single threaded. That means, even if you had 32 cores on your CPU, each with poor single threaded performance, you'd still get low framerates.

I'm running OpenGL; I thought Vulkan was buggy and/or for Linux? Sorry, I'm a big tech noob. I'll try it out and see if it helps! Are there any differences between OpenGL and Vulkan that affect display settings or the like that I should know about? Or is it just flipping a setting and everything should basically be the same? Thanks again for your guys' help!

Vulkan is basically an evolution of OpenGL. It has less overhead and is generally more optimized. It's highly recommended you use it over OpenGL nowadays.

And yes, it's just a setting, flip it to Vulkan and everything'll be the same.

[Graf Zahl]

What the hell? How come GZDoom would be so much more demanding than the original Crysis?

It isn't - but these maps are huge and were designed for modern computers.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

What the hell? How come GZDoom would be so much more demanding than the original Crysis?

It isn't - but these maps are huge and were designed for modern computers.

Well, the original Crysis had huge maps too in addition to photorealistic graphics and complex AI. Are modern computers nowadays capable of running it at a stable 60 FPS?

I am asking, because at the end of the day, Elementalism is still a Doom mapset with sprite-based assets and such, so I am confused as to why it would so demanding in 2022.

[Graf Zahl]

In the end it boils down to the maps being wide open areas, which is something the Doom engine does not handle well. There's spots where more than 15000 linedefs need to be rendered, that simply takes its time.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I see what you mean there: it is more or less like trying to turn an old refurbished car into a Formula 1 car!

Still impressive that Remmirath was able to accomplish this much with GZDoom.