Mars City Security: "It's Done !", Releasedate and Current Build Testing

[oneofthe8devilz]

Thx for the review MrC 

I still am puzzled about how we survived the E1M1 Zombie Commando trap room on "Elite" difficulty without a scratch... 

Looking forward to fight with/against you again... (I still am pulling grenade shrapnels out of my butt from when you initially entered the Deathmatch session generously handing out grenades in great supply to every one connected to the server).

[argoon]

Thanks for your first quick review... the fact that the Sikkmod effects seem to run without issues on newer ATI hardware is hopeful...

Would you be so kind to write a detailed tutorial of the Doom3.exe renaming step to circumvent the Catalyst AI Drivers ?

No problem

About the renaming is nothing really fancy just:

1 -Rename the Doom 3.exe to Doom3.exe (without the space) or to DarkAtena.exe (its the name of the Riddick exe game), this last one supposedly also improves FPS's above disabling Catalyst AI but i'm not 100% sure.

2 - change your mcs .bat file to reflect the exe rename (need to untick the read only option) and that's it.


Like i promised here are screenshots so you can see if its looks as it should.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpNHVQVVBuc2ZJN3M/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpZmlMcU9nSkJXS00

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpaXJNN1dQbUlhejg

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpd3lfN1FpWVI4TVE

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpTTM5LVhLYl9nQzg

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpZC11YnhsVWk3bFk

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpNTE5SXcwdlMxMVU

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpVHlGMGZMcVRzclE

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpUVdSZFhHN1RMbzQ

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_xD8k_3dkNpeHV3aWR1Y2xUUDg

Performance on interiors is very good on exterior maps the FPS's vary a lot and like i said can go below 30.

Btw very good work, i like what i've seen so far, very professional and above all, fun.

[oneofthe8devilz]

@argoon

Thx for the tutorial, I will have other ATI users try it out and post feedback.

About your google drive screenshots, only the first one loads for me, all the other ones want to make me ask for permission to load them. Is that intended ?

Also I hope to see you soon online on the server aswell

[argoon]

Hum sorry about the screens will see if i can found out what's wrong i do see the link is different on the first one.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpZmlMcU9nSkJXS00/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpd3lfN1FpWVI4TVE/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpTTM5LVhLYl9nQzg/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpMnM1TEpqVjc1bmc/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpZC11YnhsVWk3bFk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpNTE5SXcwdlMxMVU/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpeHV3aWR1Y2xUUDg/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_xD8k_3dkNpVHlGMGZMcVRzclE/view?usp=sharing

Try this ones now

[oneofthe8devilz]

Try this ones now

Yep those work fine

[VGames]

I did as argoon stated and the Sikkmod effects work great and r_skipnewambient is set to 0 and the warping effects work too.

I set the name of the Doom3.exe file to DarkAtena.exe for the extra FPS. Don't know if this actually works but when I added a space in between the m and the 3 like I normally do and then changed the name of the exe file in the batch it could not find the file because of the space. So DarkAtena it was. Works great now.

ATI Radeon HD 5870 FOREVER!!!!

[oneofthe8devilz]

I did as argoon stated and the Sikkmod effects work great and r_skipnewambient is set to 0 and the warping effects work too.

I set the name of the Doom3.exe file to DarkAtena.exe for the extra FPS. Don't know if this actually works but when I added a space in between the m and the 3 like I normally do and then changed the name of the exe file in the batch it could not find the file because of the space. So DarkAtena it was. Works great now.

ATI Radeon HD 5870 FOREVER!!!!

AMAZING ! I will try and apply that fix to another ATI user's setup...

***update***

That really did the trick !!! 

Thx a lot to bkt and argoon, that ATI Catalyst AI Drivers circumvention info was priceless !

[caedes]

those screenshots look quite blurry and the colors look strange (even to me having red/green-blindness), is it supposed to simulate being on shrooms or is it a bug?

[oneofthe8devilz]

those screenshots look quite blurry and the colors look strange (even to me having red/green-blindness), is it supposed to simulate being on shrooms or is it a bug?

All visual effects are completely optional and can be disabled individually according to the user's taste:

Here a quick .gif comparison of the different quality settings:

(High Resolution GIF Link)

[The Happy Friar]

In Win 10 there's no option to disable Cataylst AI in the AMD drivers that I can see.  Anyone know the trick (or is it not used any more?).

[VGames]

That name change of the exe file should be enough. My drivers for win 7 don't allow the disabling of catalyst AI either.

[oneofthe8devilz]

In Win 10 there's no option to disable Cataylst AI in the AMD drivers that I can see.  Anyone know the trick (or is it not used any more?).

Friar, can you try out the ".exe" renaming and tell us if that workaround works for Windows 10 ?

1. Make a copy of "Doom3.exe" and name it "DarkAtena.exe".
2. Edit the "mcs_run_client.bat" in the "Doom3/mcs" folder to point to "DarkAtena.exe" instead of "Doom3.exe".
3. Start MCS by executing "mcs_run_client.bat" in the "Doom3/mcs" folder.
4. Set the quality setting to "Medium/High/Ultra" in the "Main" or "Multiplayer" menu.
5. Start a ListenServer via the "Multiplayer -> Create" menu and let me know if the Sikkmod rendering for "HDR", "DOF" and "Heathaze with chromatic aberration" is rendering properly.

[argoon]

Yep those work fine

Ok good to know 

those screenshots look quite blurry and the colors look strange (even to me having red/green-blindness), is it supposed to simulate being on shrooms or is it a bug?

The blurriness is because of the depth of field effect the colors i assume is because of the color grading effect and HDR. I personally disable most of it, but add them all on just for testing purposes.

In Win 10 there's no option to disable Cataylst AI in the AMD drivers that I can see.  Anyone know the trick (or is it not used any more?).

No there's no way to deactivate Catalyst AI from the AMD drivers CCC, there used to be but they disabled it, it disables crossfire and special optimizations they do to games and that was something they didn't wanted i assume. The only way to disable it fully is using RadeonPro, for Doom3 the renaming does the trick, because CAI can't find the game and so it doesn't apply the special optimizations to the ARB code but only the generic profile, using the DarkAtena name fools the drivers into thinking is the Riddick game and so it applies the existent profile for that game, as DarkAtena is also a OpenGL game it works fine.

[VGames]

U could try this method. I use to use it before I found out about changing the exe name.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/perfected-doom-3-version-500/features/how-to-disable-catalyst-ai-with-the-latest-ccc

[The Happy Friar]

Screenshot 3 = disabling Caty AI via the xml method
Screenshot 4 = renaming D3.exe to mickeymouse.exe

Renaming the EXE can have sideffects.  If the game you rename to has an optimization that doesn't work with the game you're actually playing things can break.  We might not see it until later, but the better fix is to get Caty AI disabled.

Better yet, game companies use 100% standard code & don't use any hardware specifics.    AMD/Nvidia/Intel do this junk so that gamers don't think it's THEIR fault.