DOS ain't dead - Hammer of Thyrion 1.5.2

Rugxulo

Usono,
09.04.2012, 23:57

Hammer of Thyrion 1.5.2 (Announce)

On 04 Apr 2012, the developers of Hammer of Thyrion (HeXen II) released version 1.5.2.

Noticeable changes:
===================
* All platforms: Incremented versions for the hexen2 engine to 1.25, hexenworld engine to 0.25, gamecode to 1.25 and the gtk-launcher to 1.0.7.
* All platforms, gamecode: Fixed occasional crashes in the original hexen2 game with the Paladin's axe.
* All platforms: Added support for transparent console in the software renderer, controlled by new cvar "contrans". Valid values for contrans are 0 (solid), 1 (transparent) and 2 (very transparent).
* All platforms, software renderer: Fixed wrong transparency issue with certain models when not using the x86 assembler drawing routines.
* All platforms: Added on-screen fps counter to hexen2 (do "showfps 1" from the console). Updated existing showfps code of hexenworld.
* All platforms, input: Discard mouse/joystick motion when in cameramode. Discard the accumulated mouse motion when starting a game or when loading a saved game to prevent any unintended viewangle changes.
* All platforms: Revised the cross-episode demo recording and playback behavior, allowing the intermission screens to be displayed.
* All platforms: Majorly revised the support mechanism for different versions of progs. Added old v1.03 progs support to hexen2, added old v0.11 and v0.14 progs support to hw.
* DOS: Added WatTCP (WATT-32) networking support for hexen2 internet play.
* DOS: Added experimental DOS support for hexenworld using WatTCP library. (doesn't work yet due to WatTCP bugs.)
* DOS: Added "-nogus" command line option so that UltraSound initialization can be skipped by the user if necessary.
* Miscellaneous source code cleanups.

Website: http://uhexen2.sourceforge.net/
Full changelog: http://uhexen2.sourceforge.net/ReleaseNotes-152.txt
Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/uhexen2/files/Hammer%20of%20Thyrion/1.5.2/

RayeR

CZ,
10.04.2012, 00:24

@ Rugxulo

Hammer of Thyrion 1.5.2

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I wonder if author will integrate WSS library and bring HDA sound support. I noticed him about available code but seems it's not a priority.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Rugxulo

Usono,
10.04.2012, 00:32

@ RayeR

Hammer of Thyrion 1.5.2

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> I wonder if author will integrate WSS library and bring HDA sound support.
> I noticed him about available code but seems it's not a priority.

He's probably just busy. You only mentioned it fairly recently, so he probably hasn't had proper time. He does seem interested in keeping the DOS port alive (and I've sent him various emails about it), but if you check the "full" changelog (snipped above for brevity), you'll notice that usually he/they work on other things and platforms for most things (e.g. OpenGL).

P.S. Adding support for MIDI in DOS (via Allegro) is less urgent as you can "rip" the CD music and encode to .OGG, which will work in the current DOS port. I've done this (via Linux), so I consider that less a priority. Though obviously, yes, you have to use something like DOSBox or DOSEMU to emulate Sound Blaster as HDA is admittedly still lacking. But hey, it's better than nothing. I think he still uses an old P166 to play in DOS. Honestly, I think the DOS (re)"port" was only for nostalgia for him. (And DOSEMU gets a better framerate than natively anyways, at least for me, for good or bad.) I halfway joked he should add PC speaker support! ;-)