Official EGwhaven thread.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

I am currently replaying WH2 using this port and I found a weird issue (that also happens in the original game binaries). This is running under dosbox.

The game's framerate seems "capped", BUT if i open the map it runs smooth as silk. Also empty slots in the potions UI flickers when I open the map. Even when setting the viewport to full screen, the game will run at ~20-25fps until I open the map. Weird. Any ideas? A bug? Something on my end?

Please try the next-to-last EGwhaven version for WH2 and see if that works better. The capped framerate was introduced in the latest one as an attempt to address some other difficult problems in the game, but I'm not convinced it's the correct solution. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find much motivation to work on the EGwhaven stuff lately.

But I do remember flicker with the potions on the hud. Not sure if it was fixed in EGWH or not, you'll have to take alook at EG's web site for his comprehensive bug list.

Potions flickered on the HUD in WH2 if you were in SVGA mode and died. That one should be fixed in EGwhaven, it was a matter of passing an additional flag to the sprite drawing routine there as I recall.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

At long last I'm working on EGwhaven again, mostly aiming to get Witchaven I up to speed, but plenty of stuff for Witchaven II came up in the process. As usual you can find it on my site at http://ettingrinder.youfailit.net .

==============================================================================
What's new in EGWH1 v0.2
==============================================================================

- Some improvement to clock speed fixes.
- Fix to compatibility with vanilla savegames.
- Projectile traps do really hurt now, and related fixes.
- Fixes to submenus responding to arrow keys.
- Fixes to invulnerability cheat mode (some things got through before).
- Don't run in hyperspeed after loading a saved game.
- Don't erroneously get ornate horn powerup when loading game.
- Bridge footstep sounds should play more consistently.
- GOTHMOG, SPINACH and DARKNESS cheats from the "cheat version" return.
- Fix to monsters sticking in attack animation when fleeing.
- Fix to sounds getting stuck in loop mode when they shouldn't
(Some ambient sounds may continue playing in areas they aren't meant to,
but this should be limited to situations of map design error)
- Adjustments for better movement (Slipperiness fixes from EGWH2)
- Don't let gibs stick to the sky.

==============================================================================
What's new in EGWH2 v0.7
==============================================================================

- Some improvement to clock speed fixes.
- Fix to compatibility with vanilla savegames.
- Fixes to invulnerability cheat mode (some things got through before).
- Don't run in hyperspeed after loading a saved game.
- Don't erroneously get ornate horn powerup when loading game.
- Invisible savegame names in SVGA mode fixed.
- Bridge footstep sounds should play more consistently.
- Same sound looping safeguards as the WH1 version.
- Gasping sound when running was disabled.
- Adjustments for better movement (You can run as fast as was allowed in WH1)
- Spike through heart animates correctly even if you restart level and then
get spiked again.

[Corak]

Hi ETTiNGRiNDER. Thank you for your excellent reworked patch-port of the game. I played it on v0.5 - and MouseLook worked perfectly, but when you forked to EGWH1 and EGWH2 - mouselook seems lost - it just dont work, even in v0.7. How could it be lost or it's removed? It was ultra useful.."

[Corvin]

I just ran EGWH1 and the mouse settings I had setup for stock WH, vanished, it defaulted. It also gave me the "Center the stick" Instruction error at the top of the page, like I'm useing the wrong SETUP.EXE for the game.
Perhaps I need to delete my Setup.dat file again and reconfigure from setup.exe?

I guess from testing, the code is from the VFX1 patch or the Dwango/VFX1 combo patch as I had to use the SETUP.EXE (8-31-1995) 2 button mouse setup with EGWH. That means that EGWH does not support the 3 button mouse configuration.

Either way I was unable to have the standard mouse look control that was added to EGWH2.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

I can check if there's any disabled code pertaining to the 3-button mouse version of WH1, but I believe that feature existed only in that one particular version and the code has been lost. The "cheat version" code was lost too but that was easy enough to re-implement based on the other cheats that still existed, I'm not sure if mouse button code is something I can re-create quite so easily. Digging into the code for the WH1 config utility is on my TODO list, but right now I'm not even 100% sure it will compile without problems. At least I've learned over the course of this project a few more tricks that can help with that. It's also worth noting that I'm working on a new, more convenient (plaintext based) config format for EGwhaven, so it may come to pass that you won't be using the vanilla config files in EGwhaven at all any more, though right now the dev version only uses the feature to store the type of config that normally would go in PREFS.DAT.

Mouse look probably got temporarily disabled while I was re-fixing things to use Adam Biser's new solution to the speed problems, I think I got rid of a lot of altered movement code that I had hacked up with other attempts at controlling those that were no longer valid in the new system. There's no reason I can think of for mouselook not to come back, I probably just forgot, so I'll put it in the TODO; shouldn't be hard to recover and adapt from an older EGwhaven source.

I'm trying to do a fast push for a new version since I've already discovered a few more bugs in the current one, including a severe (game crashing) one in EGWH2 that can happen if you use Nuke against a big enough group of enemies due to a change in the sound code that turned out to be a bad idea (turns out the WH1 sound priority feature was removed from WH2 for a reason!) I also have some long-planned new features that I'm implementing since I think things are getting pretty close to v1.0 once these last issues are sorted out. The last couple of truly aggravating bugs from vanilla (sound looping and wrong vampire time) seem to be well and truly gone now, and the long break seems to have helped with picking out some of the more minor ones in a fresh light as well, so it's not all bad it seems.

Please continue letting me know if you find anything else strange. Thanks!

Edit: I've looked into the mouse look part, that's done and will be in next release.

[Corak]

Oh, thanks, i'll be waiting then. Also - there is some serious bug in WH1 original code - there is mouselook already (pressing/pushing down F button if it's set in hidden setup option), but when it's toggled - hero movement are also significally increasing (nearly 1.6x times) and also most sad - he starts to slide. I tested your port for WH1 - it's absolutely identical to original code there - same sliding and same speed issue. Could you look how to fix it?
When we made Witchaven DeHacker - we fixed also strife movement and mouselook speed, but @Cheater couldnt find how to fix sliding and speed movement .

[Corvin]

Thanks EG for the explanations.
To bad about the sound priority conflict, hopefully some day those can be restored.

Thanks Corak for the work with dehacker for WH1, it helped alot in the mean time.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

I looked into the mouselook speed bug in Witchaven, which had me scratching my head for a bit, since the code in Witchaven II looks pretty similar here--they must have changed something somewhere else in the file. Anyway, I went ahead and put in the most straightforward fix for the next version.

Original code looked like this:

Code: Select all

          if (keystatus[keys[KEYLOOKING]]) {
               i=plr->horiz;
               i+=(mousy>>4);
               if(i < 100-(YDIM>>1)) i=100-(YDIM>>1);
               else if(i > 100+(YDIM>>1)) i=100+(YDIM>>1);
               plr->horiz=i;
          }
          else {
               i=v;
               i-=(mousy*mousyspeed);
               if (i < -128) {
                    i=-128;
               }
               else if (i > 127) {
                    i=127;
               }
               v=i;
          }


Basically the "not mouselooking" block was imposing a cap on variable v (via variable i), which pertains to the player's forward/back velocity. If you had mouselook mode on, that capping didn't take place. Moving the cap on v outside of the else block fixes it.

The problem with sliding is a clock speed thing... depending on your machine speed vanilla behavior can have you slide just a little bit on a slow machine (what's supposed to happen, more or less) or a lot on a fast one. That's why it's not something that can be patched so easily in a compiled EXE. It shouldn't happen in EGwhaven but if your speed gets excessive I can see how it might. I still decelerate the player in steps, since I imagine the programmers at Capstone were trying to imitate Doom where you skid just a bit after running, it just ended up being buggy. If it's happening excessively during normal movement I might have to adjust it some more.

I don't know yet what's going on with the sound priority thing in Witchaven II. I just checked the JOESND and it does have valid priority values still, so it doesn't appear to be that. I can investigate it some more some time but not having it isn't really hurting anything it seems (and having it did, for whatever reason).

EDIT: SETUP.C from the Witchaven I source dump compiles fine without any alterations it seems, so as long as nothing's too obtuse in how it works, I should have a custom setup program for the next EGwhaven release, too.

[moggimus]

Thanks for your continued work on this! Here are some issues I had after trying out 0.7 last night:

* Mouselook did not work as mentioned previously in the thread
* AutoRun seems to not work. I couldn't get a response from pressing CapsLock at all.
* The "use" or "open" key would not work on either keyboard or mouse. I normally use right click on the mouse.

Again, thanks for your continued work. For now I'm sticking with 0.5 as that's always been the most functional for me.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Thanks for your continued work on this! Here are some issues I had after trying out 0.7 last night:

* Mouselook did not work as mentioned previously in the thread
* AutoRun seems to not work. I couldn't get a response from pressing CapsLock at all.
* The "use" or "open" key would not work on either keyboard or mouse. I normally use right click on the mouse.

Again, thanks for your continued work. For now I'm sticking with 0.5 as that's always been the most functional for me.

The capslock thing has always been broken, but it may be broken differently now. I'll take a look.
The use key thing seems very strange however. I'd recommend double checking your setup and making sure that you don't have any keys bound to more than one action (it doesn't automatically clear them and keys being bound to two different things can make the associated actions fail.)