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Other alternate engines for games?
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Gez
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Jan 02, 2009 03:12    Post subject: Other alternate engines for games? View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Do you know of other projects that are similar to DarkXL in that they attempt to replace the engine of an old (or recent, actually) game but are made from scratch rather than based on the original source code?

I know of:
- ScummVM and FreeSCI for many point'n'click adventure games
- XU4, Nuvie, Exult, Pentagram for the Ultima series
- Underworld Adventures and Labyrinth of Worlds for the Ultima Underworld games, sadly both unfinished and abandoned
- Crystal Scrolls and OpenMW for Morrowind, both still in alpha


What else is there?

klasodeth
Trandoshan

Joined: 03 Mar 2008

PostPosted: Jan 02, 2009 07:39    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

There was a remake for Privateer. As far as I know it does not use source code from the original game.

Privateer Gemini Gold

lucius
DarkXL Developer
DarkXL Developer

Joined: 17 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Jan 02, 2009 08:06    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Yes I'm not the only crazy one. Laughing

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

sweatervest
Ree-Yees

Joined: 22 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Jan 03, 2009 01:00    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

lucius wrote:
Yes I'm not the only crazy one. Laughing



I wish there were more crazy people like you Very Happy ! Someone needs to do this with Blake Stone.

What would really be crazy (in an awesome way) would be adding modern effects like per-pixel lighting, HDR and motion blur to games like Doom, ROTT, Marathon, etc. I hope to one day be crazy enough to try those things myself!

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Jan 03, 2009 06:13    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

http://clonekeen.sourceforge.net/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/sith2/ (unplayable and dead)

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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan

Joined: 01 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Jan 03, 2009 06:41    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
http://clonekeen.sourceforge.net/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/sith2/ (unplayable and dead)


Oooh, nice . . . too bad about the dead Sith2 engine, that would have been fun.

EDIT: I don't know of any projects myself, but I remember seeing something a few years ago - I think it was a 3D remake engine for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun . . . I wish I could find it again, but I really don't know much about it. Maybe I'll do some more searching, now that I've started playing the game again.

Gez
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Jan 03, 2009 16:15    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

sweatervest wrote:
lucius wrote:
Yes I'm not the only crazy one. Laughing



I wish there were more crazy people like you Very Happy ! Someone needs to do this with Blake Stone.



And Shadowcaster, and the X-Wing series, and Frontier: First Encounters... Very Happy

Emon
Ree-Yees

Joined: 10 Aug 2007

PostPosted: Jan 04, 2009 23:51    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

There are quite a few remakes for the Doom games, some for Duke 3D and other Build games, and several modifications of the various Quake engines.

klasodeth
Trandoshan

Joined: 03 Mar 2008

PostPosted: Jan 05, 2009 00:11    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Emon wrote:
There are quite a few remakes for the Doom games, some for Duke 3D and other Build games, and several modifications of the various Quake engines.



Those all had the benefit of source code. The topic is about scratch-built engines.

sweatervest
Ree-Yees

Joined: 22 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Jan 05, 2009 16:50    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Emon wrote:
There are quite a few remakes for the Doom games, some for Duke 3D and other Build games, and several modifications of the various Quake engines.



Speaking of Quake engines, ever heard of Tenebrae? It's Quake with real-time shadows, bump-mapping, reflective water, etc. It is what got me so interested in updating old game engines Cool .

XDelusion
Ree-Yees

Joined: 18 Oct 2003

PostPosted: Jan 07, 2009 07:07    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

I'd like to see an engine for System Shock 1, especially for the Nintendo DS which seems to have been made for that game...

...to dream.

ZOmegaZ
Dianoga

Joined: 28 Jan 2005

PostPosted: Jan 08, 2009 22:05    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine_recreation

I've toyed around with a Wing Commander remake. Got as far as decoding several file formats and writing code to translate them to and from convenient data structures. I could draw basic images, too. My talking heads actually worked quite well.

sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan

Joined: 01 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Jan 08, 2009 23:40    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

ZOmegaZ wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine_recreation


Somebody add DarkXL Smile

C. Zoui
Ree-Yees

Joined: 03 Aug 2008

PostPosted: Jan 16, 2009 20:53    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Gez wrote:
Do you know of other projects that are similar to DarkXL in that they attempt to replace the engine of an old (or recent, actually) game but are made from scratch rather than based on the original source code?


klasodeth wrote:
Emon wrote:
There are quite a few remakes for the Doom games, some for Duke 3D and other Build games, and several modifications of the various Quake engines.



Those all had the benefit of source code. The topic is about scratch-built engines.


ZOmegaZ wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine_recreation


So it is correct to say that DarkXL is not a source port?

For the record, Lucius, do you see any advantages to not using any part of the code from the original game engine? It actually easier for you build it from scratch for what you want to accomplish?

lucius
DarkXL Developer
DarkXL Developer

Joined: 17 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Jan 16, 2009 21:16    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

C. Zoui wrote:
So it is correct to say that DarkXL is not a source port?

That is correct, DarkXL is not a source port. Now before continuing there is one thing that needs to be clarified, this is important: there is no source code available for the Jedi Engine or Dark Forces. This, I believe, is the primary reason that DarkXL is the only available port/faithful remake (although it isn't done yet obviously). Compare that to Doom, for example, with its multitude of source ports. And this is why I've written/am writing the game, engine and tools from scratch. Since the idea is to completely support Dark Forces and all the mods I think of it more as an extended port rather then a remake, but really it is a remake done in the spirit of a port. (And before anybody mentions it, I am aware of Dark3D and CDark - but since they were never publicly available and have been discontinued years ago they don't count)

C. Zoui wrote:
For the record, Lucius, do you see any advantages to not using any part of the code from the original game engine? It actually easier for you build it from scratch for what you want to accomplish?

As for your question: I'd say yes, there are advantages to not using the original code (even if I had access). Don't get me wrong, if I had the code I'd definitely use it as reference. The renderer wouldn't be all that useful - it needs to be quite a bit different to do in true 3D with perspective on GPU hardware - but I'd love to see their A.I., player physics, and so on. However, even so, I'd still probably write it from scratch. I fully understand my code, I can organize it as I see fit, I can optimize it for modern architectures (I'm sure that there's plenty of optimizations they made that were perfectly valid on that era of hardware that would actually needlessly complicate and slow down the program on today's hardware for example), I can write it in C++, I can easily expose elements through scripting and so on. But as I stated above, I don't have a choice in the matter. Crying or Very sad

_________________
DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

Gez
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Jan 17, 2009 12:27    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Yeah, if the source code were available, it would be handy for getting an exact emulation of physics and AI. The aforementioned Doom source ports, for example, are usually perfect for these things in that they give exactly the same feeling as DOOM2.EXE did, down to the glitches (wallrunning, etc.). Or, when they fixed those bugs, they allow you to keep them anyway as an option (compatibility settings).

But the amount of commercial games with available source code is very small. Doom was a pioneer in that domain, thanks to John Carmack's support of open-source; so the phenomenon mostly affected first-person shooters. Outside of id Software's old titles (currently going from Wolfenstein 3D to Quake 3, and including Raven titles from Heretic to Hexen 2), there's a couple of Build games (Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, plus some whose source seems more "leaked" and less "officially released") and what else? Revolution Software contributed part of their code to the ScummVM team to help ScummVM support some of their old games. There's probably more, but not much more. If you look at the partial list of engines listed on that wikipedia artice cited by Zomegaz, none of the games they support has had its source code released in any way.

Usually, when source code is available, it is used, even if only for some elements. Game logic tends to be kept, while mouse/keyboard/joystick input and audio/video output are often rewritten entirely from scratch so as to better adapt the game to modern hardware and drivers.

(Remember how you used to have to tell your DOS games what soundcard you used for sound and music, with their port, DMA and IRQ? All this code is now completely useless. Likewise, any code whose aim is to make the DOS go into protected mode is to be tossed aside. Remember those "DOS4/GW" messages when starting a game, and those "transfer stack overflow" crashes sometime where the DOS went into 40-columns mode before freezing completely? Ah, those were the days.)

There are exceptions, for example Doom.NET is a clone based on specs, ostensibly without using code from Doom itself or one of its many advanced source ports.

sweatervest
Ree-Yees

Joined: 22 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Jan 17, 2009 17:59    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Don't forget the Marathon trilogy. Not only did the Marathon 2 engine source get released for free, the trilogy itself also got released (you can download the scenarios off Bungie's site, including a port of Marathon 1 to the M2 engine).

Darth Oosha
Trandoshan

Joined: 24 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Mar 29, 2009 23:56    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

To add to the original list, Zelda Classic is another good one, possibly excluded from the Wikipedia list because it doesn't use the original game data.

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Mar 30, 2009 17:48    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Oh I forgot about that one. Zelda Classic is good.

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GreggD
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 02:10    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Doomsday Engine (plays all original Doom games plus Heretic and Hexen): http://dengine.net/

eduke32 (Duke 3D port): http://eduke32.com/

DXX-Rebirth (first two Descent games): http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

If I find more, I'll post them. (I use all of the ones I've posted here, and they all work great)

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"If they were created by man, then we can solve them by man." -Tim Sabien

Darth Oosha
Trandoshan

Joined: 24 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 02:30    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

This page calls Doomsday Engine a source port; is that wrong? And the other two are described as source ports on the pages you link.

lucius
DarkXL Developer
DarkXL Developer

Joined: 17 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 02:49    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Doomsday Engine, eduke32 and the Descent ports are all source ports.

_________________
DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

GreggD
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 03:05    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

lucius wrote:
Doomsday Engine, eduke32 and the Descent ports are all source ports.

Wait, this isn't what the thread is for?

_________________
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"If they were created by man, then we can solve them by man." -Tim Sabien

lucius
DarkXL Developer
DarkXL Developer

Joined: 17 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 03:10    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

GreggD wrote:
lucius wrote:
Doomsday Engine, eduke32 and the Descent ports are all source ports.

Wait, this isn't what the thread is for?

No, it was about alternate engines without the source - like DarkXL.

_________________
DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 04:35    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

http://alister.eu/jazz/oj/ Physics don't feel right, but I love the high resolutions.
http://opensnc.sourceforge.net/home/index.php Feels like Sonic, although the "extras" make me pause a bit. Not that I care for classic Sonic games anyway (can't see where I'm going!)

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GreggD
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 14:14    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

lucius wrote:
GreggD wrote:
lucius wrote:
Doomsday Engine, eduke32 and the Descent ports are all source ports.

Wait, this isn't what the thread is for?

No, it was about alternate engines without the source - like DarkXL.

Oh, crap. Not only did I mistake this thread, I've been mistaking DarkXL this whole time...Sorry, Lucius.

_________________
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"If they were created by man, then we can solve them by man." -Tim Sabien

Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon

Joined: 28 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Sep 15, 2009 17:42    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

GreggD wrote:
lucius wrote:
GreggD wrote:
lucius wrote:
Doomsday Engine, eduke32 and the Descent ports are all source ports.

Wait, this isn't what the thread is for?

No, it was about alternate engines without the source - like DarkXL.

Oh, crap. Not only did I mistake this thread, I've been mistaking DarkXL this whole time...Sorry, Lucius.


This is why a majority of us have built shrines in Lucius' honor in the corner of our bedrooms or closets (...or that may just be me).

(and accidentally without knowing it I edited GreggD's post like 5 times before I realized I hit the edit post button instead of the quote button. This is going to take some getting used to, my bad Laughing )

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I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

StrikerMan780
Dianoga

Joined: 29 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Sep 25, 2009 03:53    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Man, I would pay a decent amount of money per month for someone to do something like this for TRI's HellBender. (Or 3D Realms' Terminal Velocity, which runs on an older version of the same engine). At least with that game, the model format is already reverse-engineered and the specs can be found.



Seriously, one of my favorite games of all time.

lucius
DarkXL Developer
DarkXL Developer

Joined: 17 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Sep 25, 2009 05:30    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

I never played HellBender but I did like Terminal Velocity. Smile

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

Nottheking
Kell Dragon

Joined: 29 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Sep 26, 2009 02:48    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

One of my favorite engine replacements on that Wiki page is OpenTTD, having played Transport Tycoon for lengthy periods of time.

I've also seen a number of "remakes" that weren't necessarily "add-on engines" that used all the original game data. (one example is Privateer Gold, which is an all-in-one thing) I played a remake of Millenium: Return to Earth (I think called Millenium 2300 in Europe) that was, however, buggy as hell to the point of being unplayable.

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