wHeretic v0.5a Build 9 README

wHeretic v0.5a Build 9

This a WIN32 version of Heretic that I've called wHeretic for now. You need at least DirectX version 3 for this to work. It runs fine on NT4 SP6a and Win9X.

For info on the development of wHeretic visit the homepage, http://www.raven-games.com/wheretic

Running this thing

Throw wHeretic.exe and A3DAPI.DLL into your Heretic directory (shareware is fine) and run it.

A3DAPI.DLL must be present even if you don't have an A3D product!

wHeretic defaults to 640x400 but other video modes are available through the -width and -height command line options.
Use the setup program that came with your original Heretic to set up your keys.
Sound hardware is automatically detected (use -nosound to disable it).
Music hardware is automatically detected (use -nomusic to disable it).
Mouse support is automatically detected (use -nomouse to disable it).
Ken Phipps has written a front-end for wHeretic. Head over to Dark Worlds to download it. While you're there, grab some more single player levels :]

Network Play

wHeretic is a peer-to-peer network application and not a client-server application. In order to play you need to have matching startup commands on both machines.

Example 1. The following will search the local IPX network until it finds 2 nodes.

wHeretic -net

Example 2. The following will search the local IPX network until it finds 3 nodes.

wHeretic -net -nodes 3

Example 3. The following will search the local UDP network until it finds 4 nodes.

wHeretic -net -udp -nodes 4

Example 4. The following will connect to the computer at 192.168.1.2 for net play (obviously you'll need to substitute the appropriate IP addresses...).

wHeretic -net -udp -connect 192.168.1.2

On the other PC you'll have to run

wHeretic -net -udp -connect 192.168.1.1

There are issues with multi-homed systems. If you know enough to set up a multi-homed system, you shouldn't have any problems with wHeretic though.

wHeretic specific config file parameters

Option	Description
vid_width	Sets the default resolution width. A value of -1 reverts to the default value that is hardcoded in wHeretic [640]. Used in conjuction with vid_height
vid_height	Sets the default resolution height. A value of -1 reverts to the default value that is hardcoded in wHeretic [400]. Used in conjuction with vid_width
vid_vsync	Wait for vertical retrace toggle. A value of 0 disables it and a value of 1 enables it. Also available from the OPTIONS - VIDEO menu.
crosshair	Crosshair toggle. A value of 0 disables it and a value of 1 enables it. Also available from the OPTIONS - MISC menu.
autoaim	Autoaim toggle. A value of 0 disables it and a value of 1 enables it. Also available from the OPTIONS - MISC menu.
mouse_look	Mouse look toggle. A value of 0 disables it and a value of 1 enables it. Also available from the OPTIONS - MOUSE menu.
mouse_invert	Mouse invert Y-Axis toggle. A value of 0 disables it and a value of 1 enables it. Also available from the OPTIONS - MOUSE menu.
snd_mididevice	Forces wHeretic to use a particular MIDI device. Valid values will depend on the number of MIDI output devices in your system. If you have 3 MIDI devices listed then values from 0 to 2 will be valid, etc. A value of -1 reverts to the default MIDI mapper. You shouldn't need to mess with this unless you are having problems with MIDI.
snd_2dvolume	Sets the volume level for non-positional sound sources. Valid values are in the range of 0 to 15. Also available from the OPTIONS - AUDIO - ADVANCED menu
snd_3dvolume	Sets the volume level for positional sound sources. Valid values are in the range of 0 to 15. Also available from the OPTIONS - AUDIO - ADVANCED menu
snd_distancescale	Sets the volume attenuation for positional sound sources. Valid values are in the range of 0 to 15. Also available from the OPTIONS - AUDIO - ADVANCED menu
mmx_enable	set to 1 to enable the use of MMX instructions in the drawing code.

wHeretic specific command line parameters

Option	Parm1	Parm2	Description
-connect	ip address 1	ip address n	specify a list of IP addresses to connect to for multiplayer gaming. Used in conjuction with -udp and -net
-udp			Use UDP/IP instead of IPX. Must specify -net as well.
-net			Enable network play.
-nodes	number		Specify the number of network nodes for LAN play. wHeretic will automatically look for number nodes on the local network.
-port	number		Use an alternate network port. Useful for running multiple games on the same local network [default:34460].
-width	pixels		Sets the resolution to pixels wide. Used in conjuction with -height
-height	pixels		Sets the resolution to pixels high. Used in conjuction with -height
-maxdemo	size		Allocates size kilobytes of memory for demo recording [default 128KB]

Original command line parameters

Option	Parm1	Parm2	Description
-nosound			Disable sound support
-nomusic			Disable music support
-nojoy			Disable joystick support
-nomonsters			Play without monsters
-respawn			Monsters come back to life after you kill them
-ravpic			Take screenshots with the F1 key (name hrticNNN.pcx). Now supports an unlimited number of screenshots (up to 2 billion).
-noartiskip			Whether shift-enter skips an artifact
-config	file.cfg		Use a specific configuration file
-file	file1.wad	file2.wad...	Add files to the WAD list
-debug			Debug mode
-debugfile			Enables per player debug files (debugN.txt where N is the player number)
-recordfrom	N		Loads savegame number N and starts recording a demo. Used in conjunction with -record
-record	demo		Record a demo to file
-playdemo	demo		Play a demo from file (can't be used with -timedemo)
-timedemo	demo		Play a demo from file and provide perfomance info (can't be used with -playdemo
-deathmatch			Enables multiplayer deathmatch mode
-skill	N		Set skill level from 1 to 5
-episode	N		Jump to episode N
-warp	E	M	Jump to episode E, mission M
-loadgame	N		Loads the game previously saved in slot N

Hopefully that's all of them. Please let me know if you feel that I've left any important ones out!

Fixes/improvements included in version 0.5a

Network play!
Fixed part of the drawing code that I broke when I converted it to ASM.
Fixed part of the screenshot facility that would cause random crashes while taking screenshots. While I was at it I changed it to support up to 4 billion screenshots (or a full harddrive, whichever comes first, muhahaha).
Oh yeah, it isn't going to take longer and longer to take a screenshot depending on how many files are on the disk (well, maybe for the very first one but you'll probably delete all your old screenshots before you start... (as of Build 2).
New sound engine scheme.
A3D 2.0 support! Although wHeretic currently only supports the distance model, this change paves the way for support of reflections and occlusions. It also means that the software fallback renderer is Aureal's A2D implementation and not Microsoft's DirectSound3D HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer). Because of this, sound volume control now works on NT. This change is in addition to the new sound engine scheme implemented in Build 1 (as of Build 2).
Added a debug console and altered the way player messages are handled (as of Build 4)
Zone memory now automatically grows as needed. With guys with mad map skillz like Ken Phipps, this is a big plus (as of Build 4).
Patched up part of the automap that I didn't get right the first time around (as of Build 4)
Resolutions up to 1600x1200 now supported. I doubt anybody will actually use it though... (as of Build 4).
Fixed V_DrawFuzzPatch and V_DrawShadowedPatch which a) didn't look correct and b) were corrupting the memory heap (as of Build 5). Thanks to Ryan for pointing out the problem.
completed the overhaul of the sound engine (as of Build 6).
fixed a bug in the network code which prevented it from working with more than 3 players (oops) (as of Build 6).
tweaked the video handling for improved speed (as of Build 6).
converted the last of the column drawing funcs to ASM (as of Build 6).
added the option to use MMX in the drawing funcs (as of Build 6).
tweaked the keyboard code to work properly on Win9X (as of Build 6).
disable artifact skipping when "always run" is enabled.
screen border and status bar drawing is fixed (I missed a few things when I optimised the code) (as of Build 7).
true looping sounds implemented. This greatly reduces the load on the system for lifts, doors, waterfalls, wind, etc (as of Build 7).
option to disable autoaim (this has obvious repercussions on demo recording/playback). This also required a reorganisation of the menu items and such (as of Build 7).
vissprite limit removed (as of Build 7).
visplane limit removed (this could stand to be optimised a little more to bring the memory usage in line with the resolution in use. visplane->top and visplane->bottom array widths are currently hardcoded to 1600 which means 64 planes take up ~400K of memory. This should be made a little more dynamic but at least this is a step in the right direction) (as of Build 7).
squashed some bugs the sound engine (as of Build 8).
optimised the sound engine (as of Build 8).
added more options for the sound engine in the AUDIO menu (as of Build 8).
added menu support for the sixth episode! Thanks to Sailorscout for providing names for the episode and its levels (as of Build 8).
fixed a minor problem in the console (as of Build 9).
fixed the looping sound on crushing ceilings (as of Build 9).

Fixes/improvements included in version 0.4a

Music!
Joystick!
Crosshair!
Always run through the use of the CAPS LOCK key!
Reorganised the OPTIONS menu a little to include some of the new features.
Removed -minvert and -mlook command line parameters. Use the options menu instead.
crosshair, mouse_look and mouse_invert now saved to config file.
Fixed some problems with 3D sound on systems with hardware support (as of Build 2).
Added a whole stack of config file options (as of Build 3).
Recoded R_DrawColumn and R_DrawSpan in assembly to speed things up (as of Build 3).
Added wait for vertical retrace (vsync) toggle to the in-game menu. (as of Build 3).
Re-worked the MIDI device auto-selection code (as of Build 3).
timedemo now reports frames per second when it's done (as of Build 3).
mouse cursor no longer randomly appears (in theory) (as of Build 4).
fixed some of the sounds which started to "buzz" after a while (as of Build 4).

Fixes/improvements included in version 0.3a

Sound through native DirectSound3D and A3D 1.0 support.
Tweaked some of the sound stuff.
Mouse through DirectInput. ~~Use -mlook for mouselook and -minvert to invert the mouse y-axis.~~
Changed the approach used to compensate for lookup/lookdown range/speed at different resolutions. This seems to have corrected problems with demo sync.
Added "-maxdemo xxx" option to set max size of demo file [default 128KB] eg wHeretic -maxdemo 1024 (allocates 1024KB of memory for demo)

Fixes/improvements included in version 0.2a

Resolved bug in the DDRAW code that basically didn't UnLock() the display surface after a level change.
Extended the visplane drawing code to support screen height greater than 255.
Changed the lighttable generation so that the game wouldn't get "brighter" at higher resolutions.
Adjusted patch (HUD, menus, messages) and psprite (weapons) code so that they scale to the screen dimensions.
Fixed border drawing for "viewable area" less than 100% at high resolutions
Made a few changes in the automap to support higher resolutions.
Adjusted lookup/lookdown range and speed determination to support higher resolutions.
Tweaked sky drawing for high resolutions
Added command line arguments for width and height eg wHeretic -width 640 -height 400
Fix for E3M8 crash (provided by Vedran Rodic, taken from work by Lee Killough on BOOM)

Known issues

The only known issue right now is that sometimes when you ALT-TAB out of wHeretic it will "randomly" crash. My guess is that if you happen to ALT-TAB while the offscreen buffer is locked, Windows invalidates the pointer to it (the buffer is in video memory in my case) and hence, access violation (kaboom). It isn't clear to me if this is a Windows/DirectX problem or a problem with my video driver (ATI). I'd appreciate it if people would let me know if they see the same problem on their system (with a brief description of their video card and OS). Of course, I could just be missing some important detail...

What's next?

Get the improvements working reliably.
Include object velocities in the 3D sound engine (for doppler effects).

Special Thanks to (in no particular order)

Raven Software for creating Heretic and releasing the source. (www.ravensoft.com)
id Software for developing the DOOM engine. (www.idsoftware.com)
William "Phoebus" Mull, Spencer "Flashlight" Jones and the crew at Raven-Games for making the hosting of my site possible. (www.raven-games.com)
Dave "NivRaC" Turner, beta-tester, advisor, demo recorder at large! (Dave's Heretic and Hexen Resource)
Gaston "Mordeth" Lahaut at DoomWorld for spreading the word and mirroring the binary. (www.doomworld.com)
Micah Mason at Aureal for taking good care of me and my drivers.
Everybody who took the time to write in with feedback and words of encouragement! You know who you are!
All of the news sites who have supported my efforts by telling the masses, especially those who have been there since wHeretic was just a port wannabe.

|-----> !Thanks! <-----|

Legal stuff

By using this program you agree not to blame me if your computer bursts into flames or if your dog gets dutch elm disease as a result of using this program. You may not include this as part of any package for resale and you may not charge any fee for this program either. It may be distributed via the web provided this package remains intact.

"THIS MATERIAL IS NOT MADE OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION."

Robin McLeod [rmcleod@raven-games.com]
http://www.raven-games.com/wheretic

"Refuse to be bound by the limitations of your humanity".