openDarkEngine

[ZylonBane]

an application that is REALLY multithreaded can do multiple things at the same time.

I know that. I never said you couldn't. I was not disagreeing with that part of your post. That's why, in previous posts, I've specifically stated "single-core" when saying a CPU can only do one thing at a time.

You don't need operating system support.

And I know that too. That's exactly why I said multithreading is a "convenience" provided by the operating system. In that, it's "convenient" to have, but not necessary. Obviously when you dispense with the operating system's help you can implement whatever CPU-molesting scheme you want.

The article doesn't tell anything new to me

That link was specifically addressed to "anyone", not just you.

So are you still clinging to your position that anytime anyone uses the term "system" in a computer science context, they're talking about a thread?

[Luthien]

Wow, you people seem to have problems that I never imagined possible.

The original statement was "it's impossible to write an engine that emulates the DarkEngine with 100% accuracy". This is actually a void statement as any software that behaves exactly like the DarkEngine is just a copy of the DarkEngine (whatever the definition of the DarkEngine may be).

The correct reply to this is: nobody gives a shit (it is even undesirable to have a perfect emulation as this would rule out running in 32 bit mode or high resolutions). Many emulators of machines like the C64, Amiga and other old machines have proven that a group of dedicated volunteers can do amazing things.

If an engine can be written that runs the official campaings while not emulating some of the weird bugs (rope rocketing, SHAS, door/ai/...-jumping, elevatoring), many people will be happy, as some future version of windoze will undoubtedly stop to run the T1 and T2 games (it's already difficult to make them run on XP). If that engine eventually even emulates these bugs I and maybe a couple of other freaks would be delighted. If that engine can run the thief games on Unix, I'll mark the day in my calendar as this means that windoze will be deleted from my hard disk forever

Of course suggesting people who would make such an effort are just idiots who can not see the one true light is counter-productive.

[Ajare]

I love it when people can't let something lie, and just have to have the last word, because what the other person said was only 99% accurate.

[ZylonBane]

The original statement was "it's impossible to write an engine that emulates the DarkEngine with 100% accuracy". This is actually a void statement as any software that behaves exactly like the DarkEngine is just a copy of the DarkEngine (whatever the definition of the DarkEngine may be).

Good god, now you're doing it too.

My original point was that the Dark Engine can be exceptionally flaky in how it runs a mission, and because of this most missions have been written around that flakiness, in many cases depending on it in order to run correctly. So a reproduction of the Thief engine would have to implement this flakiness in order to preserve backward compatibility (which would be its entire reason for existing).

[Gestalt]

The one example you gave is a peculiarity that would be undesirable to emulate anyways. Mind Master didn't rely on the engine messing up on slow machines, that was something that broke it. It's a quirk of the Dark Engine, yes, but one that it would be preferable to eliminate.

[hopper]

And how is this possible? Because those applications use the operating system's threading functions.

That's exactly why I said multithreading is a "convenience" provided by the operating system. In that, it's "convenient" to have, but not necessary.

ZB, am I being dense here, or are you making distinctions only Bill Clinton's lawyer would understand?

[JACKofTrades]

You don't need operating system support. I can easily write my own multithreading myself, and I have done so when there was no Windows around and programs run under DOS, where not multithreading was built into the oparting system.

Examples please.

[Domarius]

..."it's impossible to write an engine that emulates the DarkEngine with 100% accuracy".
...
The correct reply to this is: nobody gives a shit...

Yep. It's been done before many times (Duke Nukem 3D -> jDuke, Doom Hexen Heretic -> Doomsday, and so on), and there's no reason why it can't happen to Thief as well.

Heck, I read the post mortem of Hexen, and Raven actually admits that they relied on hacks to get certain effects in the levels, and Doomsday still emulates it flawlessly. The Thief 1 and 2 missions have very rigid systems in place, so the chances of sucess should be even BETTER than Doomsday.

However, Thief also appears to implement a huge amount of self-adjusting optimization code to keep itself playable even on low-spec systems.

This is not anything special. Games have been interpolating movement between frames at low frame rates for years and years, and still do this. It's just about calculating how much time has passed between frames, and how far the object should have moved in that time, and consider any collisions along the way.

...So a reproduction of the Thief engine would have to implement this flakiness in order to preserve backward compatibility (which would be its entire reason for existing).

I totally understand this - but with my experience with DromEd, is its not that big of a deal - the OMs didn't actually rely on any weirdness, they pretty much did everything very strictly. it's only the FMs that are exploiting weird things in the DarkEngine to get cool things happening.

As far as the OMs go, the basic principals just have to be recreated, it doesn't matter how really. You walk into a zone, you trigger this, etc.

And as for the FMs, its a matter of continually working on the program and experimenting with different FMs to support the features the FMs are using.
LOL - the Mind Master thing you posted is the extreme of this!! Hardly likely this is the norm for Thief missions

It's the same with all the other engine re-makes and emulators. Some emulators actually have built in hacks just to support one specific game. No one cares, it works. Eg. EarthWorm Jim has a very unique sound system - so the author of ZSNES put in support for that game (and only really this game was the big exception) directly into the emulator,so that the sounds would play properly.

[ZylonBane]

Yep. It's been done before many times (Duke Nukem 3D -> jDuke, Doom Hexen Heretic -> Doomsday, and so on), and there's no reason why it can't happen to Thief as well.

Those are bad examples, because they're all source ports. We don't have that luxury with Thief, sadly.

Even if they weren't source ports, Thief's AI is astronomically more complex than the "move toward player and shoot" AI in those type of games. If they screw it up a little, it's doubtful anyone would care or even notice.

[ascottk]

I remember one duke 3d version that worked before the source opened.

[Domarius]

But I think the main reasin they needed the source for those was for the renderer. Sector based rendering is a very strange and unique concept.

Thief (like quake) was the first true 3D game, where there are no wierd rules, its just normal 3D space (in comparison to sector based rendering which is actually 2D maths with some tricks to make it stretch into 3D). So we can use any renderer. What I'm saying is that most of the work on those FPS games was in getting the game to render properly.

The main work for Thief is interpreting the maps properly. Game logic is not nearly as complex. Like I said, its just triggering things when they enter a zone, etc.

[sparhawk]

So are you still clinging to your position that anytime anyone uses the term "system" in a computer science context, they're talking about a thread?

I never was maintaing that position. My notion abuot using threads came from 'simultanously' not from systems. I never encountered anyone calling a particular modul 'system' but that doesn't mean that I automatically associate it with a seperate thread or process. It doesn't really matter wether you call it i.e. Physics System, Physics Engine or Physics Module, because these terms just indicate a well defined interface exists and is not just mingled in with the rest of the code, but obviously it doesn't define wether this engine runs on it's own or in the context of another thread or process. So I guess we have cleared this now.

[sparhawk]

Examples please.

You don't really think that this code still is around as I don't even have any DOS box anymore for a long time. I remember that there were some libraries for just that, which used to work with TurboPascal and Borland C at that time.

The implementation of simple multitasking is pretty simple though. If you want I can tell how it is done. In fact the complexity of programing multithreading is not because the contextswitching is the hard stuff, the big problem is for the applications to properly behave and synchronize. We are not talking about swapping though, because this adds an additional layer of problems. The contextswitch is pretty easy and I already implemented this on the C64 back then to see if this works.

[Luthien]

I'm still puzzled what the origin and definition of multitasking, multithreading, multiprocessing, multi-system'ing and multi-blahblah'ing have to do with anything.

I just hope that one day a free replacement for thief.exe becomes reality.

--

Linux is obsolete
(Andrew Tanenbaum)

[New Horizon]

I'm still puzzled what the origin and definition of multitasking, multithreading or multiprocessing have to do with anything.

I just hope that one day a free replacement for thief.exe becomes reality.

I still think a massive campaign to have Eidos release the source code would be best. Other companies do it...why is Eidos so hesitant and greedy?

[ZylonBane]

I'm still puzzled what the origin and definition of multitasking, multithreading or multiprocessing have to do with anything.

I said that Thief has multiple systems running at once (you know, AI, sound propagation, physics, yadda yadda), and this statement somehow convinced Assisdragin that I was saying Thief was multithreaded, since anyone using the word "system" MUST be talking about multithreading.

[Ominous cowl]

'Open' is great! This zombie is 'open':



We opened it to look what happens... Alas, we weren't satisfied with the result.

[Luthien]

Reminds me of the time when the netscape source code became open source. I think people would have preferred the "open zombie" back then

@ZB: Given the amount of strange humour you spread here, your ability to recognize it in other people's postings is remarkably under-developed.

(Hm, maybe they do not even notice I'm making fun of them?)

[ZylonBane]

Umm, okay. Which post by whom was intended as a joke?

[Luthien]

Just look at the posts as if you were looking at a mirror and you will know. Hint: Sometimes it's a good idea to take a break, step back a couple of steps and then look again. (The whole thread past the first post is one big joke. Glad there are no virtual baseball bats on ttlg to sort out differences in opinions.)

[Renzatic]

I still think a massive campaign to have Eidos release the source code would be best. Other companies do it...why is Eidos so hesitant and greedy?

I'm pretty sure I've heard this here, considering that 99.9% of all my information I learn about the goings on in the Dark Engine world is garnered from these boards...but I think it has to do with the fact that they can't find the source code moreso than any weird example of corporate greed or paranoia.

It's less a "NO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, IT'S MINE" situation and more a "eh, can't be bothered".

[ZylonBane]

I seem to vaguely recall that Ion Storm had access to the source while they were developing TDS.

[David]

I believe they know exactly where the source code is and that it was in use during the development of Thief 3 as, I believe, it was used for compare and contrast.
If they were using it at that point then it still has value to it meaning they are less likely to give it away.

efb;

[oDDity]

Releasing it isn't gong to stop them from making use of it agian at some point, it just stops anyone else making use of it.
So basically, they'll only release when they think it's of zero value to anyone - at which point they decide just to destroy it instead, for the same reason.

[Gestalt]

I think I recall one of the former LGS (or maybe ISA) employees stating that it's most likely sitting on a hard drive in a dark warehouse somewhere. I'm too lazy to find the post, though.