Texture filtering default discussion

[Bauul]

Personally, I don't get why texture filtering has become the poster-boy for "we're doing things differently".

This Doomworld thread gives an indication of the overwhelming preferences of the community: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/1 ... y-default/

It's become a poster-boy because it's the simplest example of a change that 9 in 10 users wanted, but was prevented from happening due to the personal opinion of one person.

[Enjay]

This thread has been split from the important announcement thread: viewtopic.php?t=80996

I made a comment there, but I don't want the thread to be derailed by less important discussions, so I've split them off.

Bauul's post was in answer to this:

Personally, I don't get why texture filtering has become the poster-boy for "we're doing things differently". Is it merely a "Graf insisted on it, so we're changing it" thing? I find it far nicer to have it on and I do worry that a person coming to Doom from more modern games, and using UZDoom to try out this old game that they've heard so much about will be hit by (as I see it) the eyesore of 90s pixellation (albeit in hi-res) and just bail then and there. An experienced Doomer should know that there is an "off" somewhere, and be able to find a toggle for it, but a first timer sees what they see. Either way though, it is just a preference toggle that anyone can change - provided you know to look for it - so I don't get why a big deal has been made about it. Surely almost everyone changes several preferences with a new install anyway? I know that's not the main issue, but it was in the post soooo, there's my £0.02

[Enjay]

It's become a poster-boy because it's the simplest example of a change that 9 in 10 users wanted, but was prevented from happening due to the personal opinion of one person.

And that's precisely my point: it's a preference that the entire community knows about, and can therefore change easily (when they install and would be changing stuff anyway), but a new user doesn't. It's also worth acknowledging that it's 9 out of 10 members of the vocal community at purist central (Doomworld), but not necessarily 9 out of 10 users - the several thousand who download GZDoom and never say anything.

Whatever, IMO, it's an insignificant "issue" and easy to change (which is mostly why I don't get the fuss). I mean, it's probably years since I last set my preferences and I have a default ini with my preferences in it anyway. So, I can just delete and recreate an ini at the drop of a hat. If that's what the community wants then so be it, but for it to become a hill that some people are prepared to die on when it's so easy to change? I don't get it.

[Enjay]

To clarify, we're actually defaulting the filtering to None (Trilinear) since in our experience we feel this is the best balance. Crisp pixels up close and on the HUD/weapons, filtered pixels at a distance so it doesn't turn into unreadable mush. We're gonna be tweaking a few other defaults, but all of them are aimed at making GZDoom feel more vanilla out of the box instead of needing to tweak a bunch of obscure parameters (which can also hopefully be fixed in 5.0 with the addition of tooltips). It'll be a mix of modern hardware advancements with that distinct software aesthetic.

I guess your experience and mine are different. "None (trilinear)" looks absolutely awful to me. Personally, I left "more vanilla out of the box" behind a long time ago. If I want vanilla, I play vanilla, or a port that aims to be vanilla like. A big part of why I play (G)ZDoom is that it's not vanilla. I can get vanilla elsewhere. (G)ZDoom gives me something else. I guess that's part of why I'm out of step with many of the people at Doomworld. So many of them seem to want every port to be as close to vanilla as possible and I just don't get it. There are ports specifically designed for that, and ports that are not. That's the beauty of several ports and lots of options to me.

But, whatever, like I said, it's easy to change and I have to change preferences in a fresh install anyway because there are several defaults that are not how I like/need them, and which are unlikely to change to my preferences anyway.

My original comment was more about why has the texture filtering default become such a battle-cry, when it's so easy to change to your own preference anyway, and not so much about what preferences is "best", because that's purely subjective. It's more a sociology question than a question about the preference itself.

[MartinHowe]

I hated it because it was on by default as soon as GZDoom took over from ZDoom and made it look awful, sloppy, yuck, as if somebody has smeared grease all over the screen.

For me, it should never have been on by default; GZDoom was supposed to be a "better" ZDoom, not a worse one.

That, I think, is why the strong feeling. And yes I turned it off as soon as I found out one could

[drfrag]

On LZDoom the default texture filtering is none. Y wenas.

[bimshwel]

Back whenever I first tried gzdoom I likely assumed it was just default for anything that used newer graphics rendering since doomsday also defaulted to that, if it even allowed disabling, and the MAME emulator also switched to that at some point. golly beets that was ugly. and not easy to locate the setting for and disable, since I think mame might have referred to it as "direct draw" and i had to look that up separately and turn it off in a text .ini file. I did not assume "everything blurry" was called "texture filtering" either but at least inside the program in most cases it is safe to switch through the options and see what happens.
There is ONE renderer option that totally broke gzdoom for me and required messing with an ini file but that might just be a me problem.

[SanyaWaffles]

For me, I think Baaul and MartinHowe said it best.

Some insight as a dev myself though, as I've been thinking about it a lot the past two weeks since all this happened (and before hand, incidentally). I hope it's not too off topic.

I find settings are difficult to gauge a good default without extensive testing. For both my games, I default subtitles to off as most people seem to prefer them off. Then I encountered two people in testing who went "where are the subtitles?". When enabled, they asked "why isn't it on by default". I had to calmly explain to them that subtitles are off because some people found them distracting unless they needed them. They were surprised they weren't on by default.

The thing I had to consider was this was two people over a bigger sample (I think a dozen plus?) testers for Project Absentia. In testing I listened to feedback extensively to make the user experience more seamless, cuz that's what you do with a game you're trying to sell, let alone get people to play you game. I haven't heard anyone not in testing raise a concern about the subtitles, so idk.

I personally don't like subtitles being on by default in my own game - but if an overwhelming majority of people were commenting "turn them on by default", it might be a good idea to listen. (As an aside, I myself am becoming more hard of hearing as time goes on due to lifelong chronic ear infections, so maybe my preference of having subtitles will change).

Another setting that's hard to do right is colourblind options. I wish I knew more about how the engines I use (previously GZDoom, and now UZDoom and Godot) worked so I could fine tune certain things for this, as many of my friends and colleagues (and my publisher too) are all colourblind. I read the whole "four colourblind filter modes" options is divisive at best, so I wanna remove it while looking into some better options - but I worry it might be of use to someone despite how half-assed it might be? I see many people - hell, a lot - say how useless a basic colourblind filter is. But a few people found it genuinely useful... I dunno, I'm conflicted. Don't have enough data or an idea of the best course there.

Defaults for features are an important thing to know. And not everyone wants to go four menus deep to find these settings. It's why I revamped my menus to be simpler and more... modern for lack of better word. People were tired of the stock menus. I think that also played a part in why people were so divisive over the bi-linear filtering.

On the subject of why I find the texture filtering off to be better? It's because bi-linear texture filtering genuinely looks terrible to me. Like the nice crispy pixel art is smeared in lube, frankly. I find it icky and unpleasant, and it sucks to have to turn it off for every game I play. Yeah, it's not a deal breaker, but imagine you having to go 4+ submenus deep to just turn off one setting.

Also - Yeah, some mods with higher res graphics might look good. Same with games - I've been told my own games look better with the filter on due to the cartoony 512x512 base res graphics and the less detailed textures on the walls and floors mostly.

But it ain't Doom outside the engine it uses. It's not a mod nor a TC - its unique.

Anyhow, I'm babbling.

Point is, default settings discourse is a fuck. Game dev and programming is a fuck.

[Bauul]

It's become a poster-boy because it's the simplest example of a change that 9 in 10 users wanted, but was prevented from happening due to the personal opinion of one person.

And that's precisely my point: it's a preference that the entire community knows about, and can therefore change easily (when they install and would be changing stuff anyway), but a new user doesn't. It's also worth acknowledging that it's 9 out of 10 members of the vocal community at purist central (Doomworld), but not necessarily 9 out of 10 users - the several thousand who download GZDoom and never say anything.

I looked through some non-purist-central discussions on the topic to see if it is just a Doomworld thing. From what I found pretty much anywhere the change was mentioned, it was always in a positive light. A few examples I found:

- On the Reddit post about this on r/games (about as non-niche a subreddit as you can get) the second most upvoted comment is specifically about texture filtering being now off by default.

- On Twitter, this post from the doom_txt account about turning off texture filtering by default got over 2,000 likes.

- This Techspot article calls out the change to remove texture filtering as a positive step, and that its inclusion was "a feature many consider unsuited for Doom's original art direction."

In fact if you go on something like Twitter or BlueSky and search for "GZDoom filtering" (or similar) it's obvious pretty quickly the vast majority of the comments are critical of its inclusion.

Also you hit the nail on the head when you say "the entire community knows about... but a new user doesn't". New users don't realize a graphical setting that changes the look of the game has been turned on, or how to turn it off. I don't think anyone would say it's an unreasonable opinion that settings that have a large impact on the how the original assets of Doom are displayed should be up to the user to turn on, rather than up to the user to learn how to turn off.

[Enjay]

Point is, default settings discourse is a fuck. Game dev and programming is a fuck.

That sounds like it came from the heart.
It's funny how default preference threads are often some of the longest on any game forum, and feelings often run high.
I guess I've also just answered my own question as to why the default for texture filtering is such a big deal.

The subtitles, and sample size stuff you mentioned is interesting.

I'm definitely someone who wants subtitles on. I don't need them for hearing purposes, but I just find it easier to have the audio and the text. I'm less likely to miss something if I get distracted for a moment if I have two inputs, and I just like the "security" of the audio and the text confirming each other (or not, as the case may be - looking at you CDPR). So, if a game has a subtitles toggle, they are on for me. However, I also get that other people might find them distracting/annoying or just unnecessary .

I honestly don't feel that any Doom survey can accurately collect a representative sample of opinions about any preference. So, best default will always be a judgement call based on the data that exists, and personal preference will also play a part. You're never going to get huge numbers, and unlikely to meet the criteria for a true representative sample. All you will ever be able to say is what the most popular choice was from the group prepared to express a preference, and they may, or may not, be representative of the wider player population.


Coming off of this, I'm actually quite intrigued as to what people do when they install a new game (not necessarily Doom). Perhaps because the default movement and mouse options never suit me, when I install a game I always go into the settings and check through all of the options. I will always need to change the keybinds, because games are never set up for left-handed people who use a left-handed setup, and my early gaming in mouse-driven flight sims* has meant that an inverted Y axis for the mouse is my preference too. So, I'm always going to need to check those settings, and I might as well check everything else while I'm there. There's a very good chance that I will spot something else that I want to change while I'm doing so. That's probably why I don't see default settings as being that important - I'm always going to look at them and change a few. That's my default. It boggles my mind that people just accept the defaults, regardless of how well they suit them. I never just fire up a game for the first time without checking the preferences.

*I played the snot out of F-19 Stealth Fighter, and later F-117A in the late 80's/early 90's. They were a couple of the few PC games at the time where the mouse was quite important, and they used an inverted Y axis. So, I just got into the habit of "pull the mouse back, view looks up - push it forward, view looks down".

So, defaults aren't that important to me, but the real bugger is when some of them can't be changed. The important things usually can these days, but I've played a few games in the last couple of years where the [use] key was perma-bound to F. Fine if you use WASD, pretty useless if you have a left-handed setup and use the arrow keys for movement. Suddenly trying to find a tiny key in the middle of all the others on the wrong side of the keyboard, with the wrong hand does not make for smooth gameplay. Even Cyberpunk 2077 didn't allow rebinding of the [use] key when it first came out (though, that was one of the lesser issues with the CP2077 release).

[SanyaWaffles]

Addendum: I do admit some people just meme on texture filtering and the like for the "lulz" (I admit also I was one of those people initially with the GZDoom/UZDoom split... a bit of venting frustration at the time on my part as two of my games depend on upstream fixes). While I am sure a lot of people are definitely genuinely wanting this change, I'm sure some bad actors spring up here and there. Just the nature of life. After the memeing settled down though, I am coming here from a place of genuine wanting to move forward, just wanna state that.

So, defaults aren't that important to me, but the real bugger is when some of them can't be changed.

Oh god I agree. I imagine coding a game in something like Unity and Godot must be nightmare for figuring out what settings need a toggle and what don't. Hell, it even is with my GZDoom/UZDoom derived engine games because I'm having to replace the menus and picking what settings should be there and what shouldn't be there is difficult at best.

It also doesn't help with some games and websites and apps change UI/UX experience overnight. Discord and YouTube are most guilty of this I find.

[Enjay]

I looked through some non-purist-central discussions on the topic to see if it is just a Doomworld thing. From what I found pretty much anywhere the change was mentioned, it was always in a positive light. A few examples I found...

Interesting input, and thank you for doing that reading into the topic.

Perhaps I'm just in the minority then. I find the harsh, unsoftened pixels genuinely hard to look at: ugly and confusing, just a mess. I really don't care about the default though. If I don't like it, I'll change it. So, I'm not sure why so many people are so passionate about it.

What I would say, however, is that any place where playing GZDoom is being discussed, is unlikely to be that uninvested in the topic. Everyone commenting at least has some interest in retro gaming. It's a niche thing to be doing; perhaps a relatively big niche, but still a niche.

Fair point about the whole community versus new users thing too. Just two different ways to look at the same problem and come up with different answers. Again, it seems like my thoughts on the matter might well be the minority.

I did find amusing that the doom_txt post that you linked to is a good example of exactly what I was asking about though:
"UZDoom's first "real" commit: turning off Bilinear Filtering by default."
Just the way it's phrased says to me it's precisely that thing that so many people apparently find so important; that it is the "poster child" of the move to UZDoom, and I just don't really get why it's become such a big deal. It can't just be the preference itself. There's more going on.

[Enjay]

I am coming here from a place of genuine wanting to move forward, just wanna state that.

That was never in doubt.

[SanyaWaffles]

Honestly, and I say this as respectfully to all involved as I can, I think people were fed up with GZDoom to such a degree that this was a sign things were going in a different direction. A very clear and concise statement imo.

I don't think it's any deeper than that, but I could be wrong.

[bimshwel]

I don't know much about the inner workings apart from the recent excerpts but Mr. Zahl himself (and others who don't necessarily come around anymore) was unpleasant beyond what was called for if I raised an issue and he was among the respondents so I can easily believe having to deal with him more regularly would wear on a person over time. Maybe that's just how "code guys" are but they don't need to be that way. gzdoom itself i like but it doesn't always seem like it wants to be liked.