The GPU Renderer itself is somewhat of a strange beast, it doesn’t really act like a modern game renderer. It takes the idea of the 1d-zbuffer in Jedi and extends that to 2d, all the while supporting being able to look straight up and down like a modern renderer. There is no sector triangulation involved, it directly extends the original algorithms into 3d. So what does this do? It allows the renderer to act in a very similar fashion to the software renderer, no sprite or object clipping issues with the floor and ceiling, sprites sort in front of or behind walls like in the original. Portals behave properly, allowing for all sorts of non-euclidean effects. Lighting and shading match the original - even the dithering on 3D objects, which shows up best at low resolution. Color map effects are preserved.
The Force Engine - New Dark Forces Sourceport
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Re: The Force Engine - New Dark Forces Sourceport
This is broached in the "retrospective and plans" article:
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Re: The Force Engine - New Dark Forces Sourceport
This is key. The legacy to support is simply the original game and mods made for it. And this is why I was pretty picky on how the renderer was designed and how well it matches the software renderer. I wanted to avoid building up that legacy baggage and do it right from the beginning.

A while ago, I wrote a blog post going over the near-term plans for TFE (only covering early 2023): https://theforceengine.github.io/2023/0 ... -1-02.html
A lot of progress has been made towards Version 1.02 - 23 out of 32 issues and improvements have been completed. The number of issues the build was meant to address increased significantly due to new bugs being found, mostly with mods. However, even with that increase, the release is about 70% complete.
Improvements include making several custom levels completable that either crashed or had INF errors, improving the mod loader so that it shows correct names far more often, greatly improving the keyboard input when using the PDA, fixing rendering issues such as sprites not always lighting up properly when firing and 3DO PLANE surfaces using the wrong texture offset, greatly improved autoaim, and more.
It is difficult to predict exactly when the release will be ready, but I think sometime this week is likely.
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Re: The Force Engine - New Dark Forces Sourceport
Version 1.02 Release
After a lot of bug fixes, mostly with custom levels, the version 1.02 Release is finally ready.
Download: https://theforceengine.github.io/downloads.html
Blog Post: https://theforceengine.github.io/2023/0 ... -1-02.html
Quality of Life Features
After a lot of bug fixes, mostly with custom levels, the version 1.02 Release is finally ready.
Download: https://theforceengine.github.io/downloads.html
Blog Post: https://theforceengine.github.io/2023/0 ... -1-02.html
Quality of Life Features
- Alt+Enter will toggle fullscreen in addition to F11.
Frame limit options added to the Graphics UI.
Load added to the main menu.
The Mod Loader will now return to the main menu if escape is hit.
The Mod Loader will close mod descriptions is escape is hit.
A System Menu has been added with two options:
An option to return to the main menu if you Quit a game.
An option to return to the Mod Loader if you Quit, if you loaded a mod (assuming the first option is enabled).
The Audio system will try multiple sound APIs, including Direct Sound, if the default fails.
You can now select the output audio and midi devices.
- Fixed a crash when playing Evacuation of Hoth custom level due to a frame scenery object being destroyed.
Fixed a bug where levels wouldn’t load if they had spaces in front of certain keywords - such as Mission 2 of Don Sielke’s.
Fixed a bug where items would be despawned in some cases where the sector heights were too small.
Fixed a bug where briefings could be skipped in some mods due to an order of operations error.
Fixed a bug where sprites didn’t always light up correctly when attacking.
Fixed a bug where the Probe Droid would stay fullbright after firing.
Fixed a bug where autoaim wasn’t working with 3D objects like turrets and welders.
Fixed a bug where autoaim targeted farther away items instead of closer items in some cases.
Fixed a bug where the player could save while dying and then be invulnerable on load until they healed.
Fixed crashes when INF sectors don’t exist in custom maps.
Fixed a bug where jumping up to sector second heights isn’t as forgiving in TFE as DOS, resulting in custom level progression issues.
3DO PLANE projection when using the GPU Renderer now matches the software renderer for non-flat polygons.
Fixed a bug where the top and bottom textures were drawn even with the “no wall” flag set instead of showing the sky when using the GPU Renderer.
Fixed a bug with crouch jumping that kept the player from fitting into small places, blocking progression in Boba Fett’s Revenge and other custom levels.
Fixed bugs with exterior adjoins that caused walls to be incorrectly drawn where there should only be sky.
Fixed a bug with INF messages using invalid delay values behaving different in TFE than DOS, making switches in some custom levels work incorrectly.
Fixed a bug with invalid INF message types (such as “done”) being treated different than DOS, breaking different triggers and elevators in custom levels.
Fixed bugs with Gas Mask rendering when using the GPU Renderer at 320x200 resolution.
It is now possible to hold ALT and move, and use ALT for crouch and slow actions.
Improve Mod Loader text file parsing so it can be reliably extract the mod names.
Improved PDA input and fixed layer keys being swapped.
Fixed another PDA input issue, where the mouse location could effect hotkey results.
Fixed a bug with keyboard input on the Agent menu, where scrolling downward would not wrap if all levels are complete.
Secret Percentage update after loading from a save, fixed LADATA save percentage issue.
The GPU renderer now properly emulates several stretching mid-texture effects (these worked in the software renderer).
Fixed a sky texture offset bug using the GPU renderer that caused the incorrect part of the sky to show up in part of Stars End.
Saved games with no name given are now assigned a default name, so that they can be selected and loaded.