Wolfenstein 3D

[Chilly Willy]

Yeah, BSP, which is what DOOM, Quake, and I think the Jag version of Wolf use. A lot of games that derive from the Quake engine(s), like CoD and anything by Valve, still use BSP too.

 

I finally watched the video and I thought it was funny what he said about only testing certain levels over and over, and never actually playing the whole game. I do that with a lot of projects I've worked on too...heck, I've never even played Nexuiz... ¬_¬

 

Thanks. And its a faster technique than raycasting?

 

Raycasting is done with BOTH. BSP is a method of looking up what the cast rays intercept while consuming less memory than the straight map lookup that Wolf3D uses. Wolf3D uses a 64 by 64 map for each level; while raycasting, it turns the ray position into an index into the map to see if anything was hit. A 64 by 64 map like Wolf3D's uses 4KBytes of memory. It also constrains everything to blocks. When he moved to Doom, Carmack got rid of the map and went to full coordinates for things in the level, constrained to 65536 by 65536. If you made that a table, it would take 4 GBytes of memory - way too much for computers of the time (even today it would be silly to use a 4 GByte table). Instead of making a table of every possible location, you have a linked list that holds everything and where it is. There are many different ways you can build lists, and some are faster to look through than others. BSP is a method of putting things into a list such that you can quickly go through said list to find what's at a particular location. And THAT is what Doom does to look up what is where the ray currently is while raycasting rather than a table like Wolf3D.

 

A simple table lookup like Wolf3D is much faster, but consumes too much memory or limits you to small, blocky levels. BSP is slower than a table, but consumes far less memory, allowing for far bigger levels not constrained to blocks. So it all depends on what you want to do, and what limits you are willing to live with.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Chilly Willy

[spiffyone]

I would say Jag Wolf 3D was the best for sure, only the 3DO version was close due to the extra levels and music.. but I still think the Jag one looks and plays a little nicer.

 

Gotta disagree here. The 3DO version is, IMHO, overall better than the Jag version. Extra levels, really awesome music tracks and sound effects, and, IMHO, slightly better control.

 

As far as Doom, that's more debatable. The Jag version is certainly ONE of the best.. PC version is still better, but as far as consoles, PS1 gives it a good run. All other console versions though (SNES, Saturn, 3DO, 32X) versions are pretty terrible in comparison.

 

The 3DO version was developed in 10 weeks, apparently. Really bad, really rushed port.

 

The Jag version, IMHO, is actually among my favorite versions. I actually prefer the fact that it doesn't have music, as it feels a bit more on the scary side. Matter of fact, when I played DOOM 3, I was struck by the thought midway through that "hey...this reminds me of JagDOOM". As an aside, I really think DOOM 3 is wrongly judged. No, it's not a guns blazing FPS, but, IMHO, it's a damned good "survival horror" action/adventure game.

[Austin]

As far as Doom, that's more debatable. The Jag version is certainly ONE of the best.. PC version is still better, but as far as consoles, PS1 gives it a good run. All other console versions though (SNES, Saturn, 3DO, 32X) versions are pretty terrible in comparison.

 

The 3DO version was developed in 10 weeks, apparently. Really bad, really rushed port.

 

There's a thread over at the 3DO Zero forums that talks a lot about this version of DOOM. If I recall correctly, I think there was a mention along the lines of them losing the original project data partway into development, and then they had to scrap together another version in order to get it released on time (which is the one we got). Something like that anyway (*I will have to dig through the thread to double check). Link: http://3do.cdinterac...?t=1784&start=0

 

Funny thing about that thread, I believe someone posted a scan of an article where the head of the company was talking up the 3DO version like it was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's a hilarious read, considering how the game actually turned out.

 

*edit: No, I'm mistaken, they didn't lose the game data. They did have build it from the ground up though on their own engine supposedly. Delays occurred, apparently, so I don't think it took just ten weeks to make.

 

Matter of fact, when I played DOOM 3, I was struck by the thought midway through that "hey...this reminds me of JagDOOM". As an aside, I really think DOOM 3 is wrongly judged. No, it's not a guns blazing FPS, but, IMHO, it's a damned good "survival horror" action/adventure game.

 

I agree. And when you crank that bad boy onto the hardest skill mode, there is plenty to shoot at. Great game, IMO, and still looks awesome today on the "Ultra" setting. Oh, and

is probably the greatest game mod that ever was and ever will be created. Edited May 16, 2012 by Austin

[atarilovesyou]

I can't get the free online version of Wolfenstein to work...just a black screen. Anybody else try it out?

[82-T/A]

yeah, the Jag version of Wolfenstein was amazing. When I saw the updated graphics with new guns, richer colors, and the insane framerate, I was in awe. The PC looked archaic with its lego block guns. I still can't believe the delusional 3DO people who thought the 3DO version was the best. It's only good in that that version had more levels. But it wasn't a richer experience.

 

Doom on the Jag was great but it was definitely not near the PC version. But then again, like Carmack said back in the day, the performance he got out of a $200 Jag matched what would cost thousands of dollars for a PC. I know my 386SX PC that cost $2500 couldn't run Doom as well as the Jag. Though my 486 kicked ass. I just wish the network code was debugged. My friend and I were so excited to play networked Doom only to have it crash out every couple of minutes.

 

Do you mean network Doom on the Jaguar? Network Doom worked great for me back in the mid 90s on the computer. We bought a bunch of LinkSys 16-bit ISA 10baseT ethernet cards, and just used a token ring connector. We'd load Ether.com and LSL.COM and IPXODI.COM and then it would just work... we didn't really do anything else. I'm sure it probably crashed now and then, but I can't for the life of me actually ever remembering it crashed, and we played it constantly... so it couldn't have been that bad. We also did it over a null-modem cable when it was just one other person.

 

Never played network doom on the Jaguar, although I do have the Jag-Link, two Jaguars, and two copies of DOOM. Just never gotten everything together to do it.

[Austin]

Do you mean network Doom on the Jaguar? Network Doom worked great for me back in the mid 90s on the computer.

 

Yeah, he's talking about Jag DOOM. The networking is a mess in that game.