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Author Topic: Reasons for text-mode interface  (Read 15182 times)

slave

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #15 on: October 15, 2012, 09:55 »

I don't think it would matter much to me. The console mode has a certain technical coolness factor, but pseudoconsole can look visually cool enough to be worth it.

Unfortunately ChaosForge non-console versions don't run on my computer (Win7, Intel graphics). I think it's a driver issue, because they work when I switch to software rendering (although it makes DoomRL unplayably slow). There are a lot of games that don't run (and a lot of games that do run), so this problem is in no way specific to ChaosForge.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2012, 09:56 by slave »
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raekuul

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #16 on: October 15, 2012, 17:26 »

No, it's not as aesthetically pleasing as the graphics and tiles, but I for one find Console mode to be a more responsive than Graphical mode. No lag while I'm waiting for all the sprites to slide around.

And now I'm wishing POWDER came in a true Console mode.
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AJBuwalda

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #17 on: October 16, 2012, 01:45 »

I don't think it would matter much to me. The console mode has a certain technical coolness factor, but pseudoconsole can look visually cool enough to be worth it.

Unfortunately ChaosForge non-console versions don't run on my computer (Win7, Intel graphics). I think it's a driver issue, because they work when I switch to software rendering (although it makes DoomRL unplayably slow). There are a lot of games that don't run (and a lot of games that do run), so this problem is in no way specific to ChaosForge.
Windows 7 seems to be bothering alot of software. Luckily I only have to work with it when I'm at work. The lack of a clipboard also pisses me. If you have no reason to run it, you might want to think about installing an older version of Windows. Otherwise it will probably take a couple of month for all things to sort itself out.

No, it's not as aesthetically pleasing as the graphics and tiles, but I for one find Console mode to be a more responsive than Graphical mode. No lag while I'm waiting for all the sprites to slide around.

And now I'm wishing POWDER came in a true Console mode.
I have no lag and love the DoomRL tiles so I just go with the standard of the version. I would not mind eitherway, really. I would like a tileset for AlienRL or DiabloRL so people have a choice. But the work that goes into that must be extensive. I think it would pull more of the mainstream into the RL genre which would be great.
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rchandra

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #18 on: October 16, 2012, 12:59 »

my monitor doesn't display blues all that well, console mode lets me easily redefine what "blue" means to a new rgb value.
I also generally find console games more responsive than pseudoconsole - probably moreso on weaker computers.
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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #19 on: October 16, 2012, 15:02 »

    To clear up what appears to be a common misconception, I'm almost positive that Kornel is removing console compatibility from Chaosforge games entirely. The objective of this discussion, then, is to figure out what parts of the console are important or critical enough to be implemented into the pseudo-console mode. So, going off of this:
Raw text mode is like running a roguelike from the bare code?

I understand that running it "pseudo-console" means it'll still look the same as playing it with only ASCII characters (ie classic style), and that graphical tilesets are "console mode" but what is the real difference?

Rather than why it is an issue for us on the player side, what is the advantage for you to make all future releases console-only? I'm curious now!
By "raw console mode", Kornel means that part of the output is designed to work specifically with a console or console emulator (modern Windows, for instance, has Command Prompt). However, now that the graphical interface of Chaosforge games is becoming more and more complete, it's obvious that there are a number of things consoles can't do that would be very useful. By removing console compatibility, there's no need to worry about those constraints, and the pseudo-console would run essentially as an ASCII tileset (with special modification functionality such as font size and RGB values). AliensRL's standard mode of execution is done in this way, if you want an example.

  • Supports at a minimum display resolution of 800x600 pels (80x25 tiles) without any information loss.
  • Have comparable running speeds on machines which do not have high end graphics cards.
  • Have a means of altering the gamma/brightness of the game.
To be fair, the last two considerations should be in the graphical mode anyway. At the very least, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some inefficiencies in the current engine (that cause one of my CPU cores to churn away at maximum capacity 100% of the time). The first one SHOULD be doable as long as the tilesets can be non-square (graphical version is completely square ATM with the current tileset).

5- Fear that this is the first step in what will ultimately remove the console view in favour of the tileset (which I absolutely hate, btw. Not that it's not a great tileset, simply that unanimated grid-based sprites are no more convincing than letters, but have the potential to look far more tacky, and always do to me. )
The main reason Kornel brought this up was to ensure that there WOULD be a console view (albeit an emulated one) that meets the demands of hardcore console players. Unfortunately there some casualties regardless of the enhancements brought by the pseudo-console (like standardized remote access and use of console recorders) but we'll have to make do.

...but I for one find Console mode to be a more responsive than Graphical mode. No lag while I'm waiting for all the sprites to slide around.
Yeah, at the moment the time it takes to do just about anything on the game screen can throw off console users quite a lot (myself includes). It shouldn't be much of a problem to have options to remove movement and/or firing animations, which I think is the only real issue in this case.

Using the current posts, this seems to be what is desired for pseudo-console operation to be on par with a real console (that is also feasible with regards to its implementation):
  • ASCII tilesets of variable, non-square sizes
  • Ability to control color of ASCII tilesets (i.e., defining RGB values of color presets in addition to continued use of color.lua customization)
  • Minimize processing intensity

The rest of the suggestions tend to depend on Kornel's own design choices IMO. 'Course I could be totally wrong! Kornel is, however, a graphical engine designer, so this direction seems awfully natural for his projects.
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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #20 on: October 17, 2012, 01:07 »

Ah Game Hunter, those conditions I put were what I want to see before we scrape pure console completely.  But other than that, you have interpreted what I said fairly accurately.
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Kornel Kisielewicz

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #21 on: October 18, 2012, 05:22 »

Ah Game Hunter, those conditions I put were what I want to see before we scrape pure console completely.  But other than that, you have interpreted what I said fairly accurately.
So, is AliensRL and DiabloRL BETA pseudo-console a good replacement? Is there something missing?
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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #22 on: October 18, 2012, 05:28 »

So, is AliensRL and DiabloRL BETA pseudo-console a good replacement? Is there something missing?
...There is pseudo-console? o.o
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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2012, 12:54 »

I don't like the font/tileset in the pseudo-console for those two games, personally. I would rather see something like the characters used in Dwarf Fortress. (I don't know if that's psuedo console or not). Nice and raw. AliensRL is too smooth.
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thelaptop

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2012, 14:10 »

"Pseudo console" is Kornel's version of a fpcvalkyrie specific console emulator akin to PuTTY/win32 console, except that it is using actual graphics as opposed to emulating any of the TTY display standards in existence.

Frankly, I don't have any qualms with that as long as the pseudo-console does not require drastically more powerful hardware than the old text-based consoles that are in existence.  I mean, we need to acknowledge that the times are changing and "pure/raw" console is starting to be neglected/phased out in Windows land, which is the O/S of choice for many users.  Ideally, the font/tileset can be changed easily, perhaps with true TTF/raster font support as opposed to specialised bitmap tiles, but that might be too much to ask for for a game as opposed to a full terminal emulator.
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Ashannar

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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #25 on: November 02, 2012, 01:17 »

I'm cool with it. I hope fonts will be customizable enough to prevent scrolling in 80x25 maps, but if not, I won't shed a tear or anything.

I feel like many people would be more amenable to the change if we knew how it would make your life easier. If it's so that you don't have to have two different codebases for the same game or to introduce a level of standardization among your games I think that's something we can all understand and sympathize with.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2012, 01:20 by Ashannar »
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Re: Reasons for text-mode interface
« Reply #26 on: November 12, 2012, 17:00 »

It seems that making this change before the eventual source-code release (of DoomRL) might also make the resulting source a little less useful for other people's projects.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2012, 17:01 by AtavisticPuma »
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