What would you guys say it's the most stable build of FTE? 

Clean Win64 install from fresh download today, plugins such as the Quake Injector one don't want to load, "plug_load qi" returns "Couldn't load plugin qi". Something I'm missing? 

Aha. Plugin items reappear in menu with 5529 update. Quit the game, reload FTE, they're gone. Disable/reenable in updates+packages brings them back and seems to be only way to do it ("plug_load" doesn't work). Quit, gone again. 

I'm having a problem with a level that I'm creating, and I'm not sure whether it is the level, or FTE. Note that I don't have this issue with Darkplaces or Quakespasm.

The problem is that at some places (often the same places), the sound starts to stutter. More specifically, some of the sound effects have the last one second repeated a few times. While the sound is repeating, the game keeps running and the other sounds are occurring normally.

The framerate is at its lowest 30FPS. I've tried more complex levels, and not been able to replicate this problem. Even in a large level, like those in Ter Shibboleth, which brings FTE to a crawl, the sound doesn't repeat. The level I am is using progs_dump, if that makes any difference.

Any ideas on how I might be able to troubleshoot? 

A clarification. What is occuring, is the entire sound effect is being repeated. I put snd_show to 1, and it appears that as the sound is being repeated, is is registering as an additional sound being played. 

BoraxMan, regarding the fact that this is a progs_dump map, would you be able to give a bit more info about what entity (or entities) are generating the sound effects which are repeating?

I'm particularly wondering whether it's an entity setup involving any of the "new" features of progs_dump which weren't in vanilla Quake?

In terms of debugging, one way you might be able to definitely rule out progs_dump is to load up your map without progs_dump and see if the problem persists.

To do that, just copy the .bsp file into your id1/maps directory, then start FTE without progs_dump, and play your map. I assume the gameplay of the map will be more or less broken depending on how heavily it relies on the mod's features; however, you should still be able to use noclip to get around. If the sound problem is still present, that would mean it's definitely nothing to do with progs_dump. 

The problem still persists. I'm suspecting there is something structurally wrong with the map? It might possibly exceed the 4096x4096 size limit or there might be invalid brushes.

I note that FTE gives this error many times (hundreds) in less than a minute of gameplay.
AL lib: (WW) alSetError: Error generated on context 0x556480415e50, code 0xa005


Whereas for other levels, it might only appear a few times. So I'm now thinking it is my level at fault here. 

I found that removing all the wall torches solved the problem. So perhaps there are too many of them, as each wall torch contributes a sound?

I should note here, that in the areas where the sound was repeating, there were not necessarily many, or ANY wall torches in the nearby area. There were only 5-7 sounds playing at a time in these instances.

There are 171 in the level, though all spread out. It is a large level. I might remove some, but I'm not sure why this should be a problem in areas where there are not many within earshot. 

 

Normally I test with a fast vis, but one of the first things I tried when I noticed the problem was a level 4 vis, as I thought it could simply be performance. The problem exists with it fully vised. 

For what it's worth, the 0xa005 error code appears to be the audio library reporting that it's run out of memory. So it makes some sort of sense that having a lot of something would cause that error (in this case I would guess it's all the simultaneous sounds from the wall torches and other entities).

BoraxMan, I don't mean that to sound like your map is at fault. From what you've said it sounds like this is an issue that affects FTE but not other engines. I'm unfortunately not familiar enough with the code to be able to say exactly why this is happening. You might need Spike or someone else knowledgeable to weigh in on this.

In the meantime, you could try confirming the problem by testing another map that has a large number of wall torches. One such map is bbin1 which has 198 wall torches (according to a quick grep). As indicated above, I doubt it's wall torches specifically that are the problem (I would guess it's the number of simultaneous sounds), but either way, I suspect that bbin1 might give you the same sound issue? If it does, you'd at least know it's not just your map. 

I run into an error, "No Free Edicts" when trying it. I tried to use -num_edicts 2000 and higher values, but I don't think FTE supports this parameter?

For what its worth, I tried my level on a Windows machine I borrowed, and the problem didn't come up. I use Linux, so perhaps this problem is specific to the Linux client (both 32 bit and 64 bit clients were tested and the error was replicated).

Lastly, I understand that you didn't mean that my map was at fault. It was me that brought up this possibility, because I do have a weird clipping issue on a specific stair I can't get rid of, and Quark reports a few invalid brushes, though I can't seen to find where they are because Trenchbroom and QBSP see no problem. BSPUTIL --check reports some clipnode problems (though I note other maps also have this). It's a guess that perhaps this might be resulting in something screwy, I'm not sure.

I'm going to be putting the level up for Beta testing soon, so perhaps that will be a good opportunity to see if anyone who happens to use this engine also experiences the same.

I have some programming knowledge, so I might have a look through the code see if anything pops out at me. 

Few FTEQW/QuakeC Questions [EDIT]
Posted by 3t0 on 2020/03/25 10:58:25
As I broke my leg very badly in february and as whole city got quarantined due to infection, I was "given" some time to mess with Quakes again. For now I left my Doom "experimentation" on back-burner.

BTW, congratz to Trenchbroom team for releasing QT port, it seems to work awesomely!

Normally I am Quakespasm Spiked user, but recently I got to compile FTEQW (finally found the compile instructions). So far it seems to work rather well, besides one most annoying glitch ever.

What is driving me insane, gameplay wise, is that when I am riding a vertical platform (or a lift) in FTEQW, whole object is "jumping" and stepping along the path like crazy (like in old Half-Life/CS, and I don't play HL/CS anymore, so I am not sure if that one got fixed, but it used to be as horrible as here). In both Quakespasm and QSS, movement of platform under player is silky smooth. Am I missing something, like some cvar or what? Is FTEQW (which seems otherwise incredibly capable) missing platform movement interpolation, or is it something else? This seems to be happening with AD as well as with Copper and vanilla.

After dissecting some mods and doodads from internet, it appears that FTEQW is indeed very powerful. Seems like good basequake to mess with, to try hack together quake-like "games". What I am always interested in most engines is skeletal model format support (due to reasons). FTEQW natively supports awesome Cube2/Sauer's IQM model format which is great. What I would really like to know, is if anybody had some luck in using IQM attachments to bind things together?

Second thing is QuakeC. It seems it moved forward quite lot, especially in FTEQW. From my initial spelunking, it seems that one can finally do "modern" C function prototypes with `funcname(args...)` which I am more used to. Does anybody knows whether FTEQW really has JITs interpreter for QuakeC code? QCJIT conditional in codebase suggests there is support for that, which sounds awesome, but maybe it's just a scaffolding for something unfinished? JIT referencing chunks of code seem rather small.

Finally how can one get hold of this demigod Spike? I guess it would be much saner and polite asking him these stupid questions privately, than to spam this forum.


#1 posted by chedap on 2020/03/26 10:52:05 spam
AFAIK platforms are a framerate/physics issue. Try setting "cl_maxfps 72" in FTE, should behave same as QS. QSS and vkQuake have physics independent from framerate.

Can't help much with IQM/QC.

#2 posted by misc_ftl on 2020/03/26 14:28:35 spam
the only thing that bothers me with FTEQW is the huge amount of unused code everywhere, tons of conditionals like that one you mentioned and, well, just cruft. It feels like a lab experiment. An awesome one, but kind of messy to base your stuff on.

I highly recommend using QSS. It feels leaner and has all the goodies from FTEQW without the cruft.

Another interesting base is this: http://fte.triptohell.info/moodles/junk/onedraw.zip

i think that's Spike's attempt at a minimal engine 

Just asking.
FTE always was intriguing too me, yet, as mentioned above, always made a very experimental impression.

Thats why i stick with darkplaces. 

For all your webassembly mp needs: https://github.com/coturn/coturn 

I've been trying out FTE over the last few days.
I stumbled into a weird bug with AD in ad_swampy. Whenever I fire the SSG I get a huge drop in fps for just a few ms. It remains playable but it's not optimal.
I've set the fps counter to show the worst fps and indeed it shows drops from 150fps to 20/25fps when I fire the super shotgun.
I don't have the issue in the start map or in sepulcher, which is super strange to me.

I'm using the spasm graphic preset but I have tried messing around with the settings but nothing fixes it.
I even tried with no audio because I also have another issue where the underwater sound is way too loud.
On a sidenote it seems the audio output device menu is bugged when there are spaces in the device name (the console says the engine tries each part between spaces in turn before reverting to default device)

I have tried versions 5660 and 5529 of FTE.

Any idea what might be causing those problems? 

I don't get the FPS drops. Try with "impulse 130" (hitscan shotguns), would that fix it?

The issue with spaces is specific to OpenAL I think. So is the weird loud underwater reverb. I've found that you can use e.g. "s_device dsound" to set the device from autoexec or console, without the exact device name.

Note also that music is going to sound bad regardless of chosen device, unless the sound frequency matches the one in the music files. FTE defaults to 48khz, commonly shared ogg and mp3 rips are 44.1. Especially obvious in the E1M1 track. 

I have tried with the hitscan shotguns but it gives me the same issue. I've also tried deactivating AD particles (with the temp1 cvar flag), but that does not do anything.
I've tried a minimalist quake install (with only pak0.pak and pak1.pak in id1 and fresh AD 1.70 folder) with the "-nohome" argument. It's a little better, with dips into the 30/40 fps range when I fire the SSG (I also have the issue with the shotgun but to a lesser extent).

Thanks for the snd_device command. It did work with my minimalist install, but does not work with my main quake folder, I don't know why (snd_restart gives me no sound with s_device = "dsound").

I seem to also have the issue BoraxMan mentioned above where the game gets slower at I spend time in a level.

I guess I'll stick to QSS for AD for now.
I still think FTE's a nice engine with cool features for a lambda player like myself. 

Hi,
I've been trying out FTE over the last period. I like it very much. An engine capable of dealing with huge single player maps and, at the same time, providing access to quakeworld multiplayer network!

However, I've a problem with Rhoenie's built for Mac. MWHEELUP and MWHEELDOWN can be assigned, for example for changing weapons, but they do not work.

The same config works perfectly under windows.

Regards 

bind mwheelup "impulse 10"
bind mwheeldown "impulse 12"

? 

yes the binds are there. They work under Win but not in OS. This is why I'm reporting! thanks 

Tried func_detail, func_detail_fence, nothing. Both with color index 0 and 255.
Is it even supported at all in Hexen? 

Func_detail is a compile parm specific for quake compiling. Nother sure if HexenII compiler can use it. 

There is a func_detail and a func_illusionary for HexenII (in Trenchbroom) as well though.
I'll take a look at the source. 

I twisted map compiling with code compiling.