Live data from Hacker News

“Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#31
I played a bit of it, it's pretty interesting parts look really good while others not as good with a bunch of bugs here and there. I think I still prefer the original graphics, but with more development and tweaking this could be a good way to replay doom.

I recorded a little of gameplay on max settings, it brings my 2080 ti down on rare occasion with 2 light pass, I also did the optional DLSS it offers, not sure if that does anything to performance: https://youtu.be/61x-AKLRoFo

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#33
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a bit like sticking the newest, biggest, fanciest engine you can find in the 30 year old car in your garage without any doing further modifications as part of it. Sure, the engine itself is impressive... but the car as a whole is now so unbalanced and hacked together it is worse off than before you messed with it.

Well, I certainly applaud anyone wanting to raytrace doom, but take it from this old code monkey, I've spent my entire adult life in dm-1, and a program like this one can do more harm than good. If you only develop one part of your renderer (and that's all a single exercise like raytracing is going to do for you), you're setting yourself up for artefacts down the road. I've seen it a hundred times. It's like putting…

I prefer not to tell people what they can and can't do with their spare time. This hack was probably a blast to write. Let people make fun things.

Ironically, your advice is essentially "make an indie game", but it's way easier to get noticed by writing impressive hacks that excite people than by developing yet another indie title that's overwhelmingly likely to just get buried on Steam. The vast majority of indie titles will never attract articles on Ars Technica. So this is poor advice even if your goal is to optimize for maximum audience.

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#34
post #4

Is it okay if I occupy the following ideological niche: 1. I love original doom. 2. I am very excited about what ray-tracing can do for games. 3. I have a ton of respect for doom modders and the doubtless huge amount of effort that went into this project. 4. I hate how this looks and wouldn't play it except as a curiosity To me, the original doom was a piece of art, tuned by artists (I'll say it!) to look a certain w…

RTX Doom isn't an exercise in art direction any more than the Cornell Box is an exercise in art direction. If you want an experience shaped by an art director, pick up your favorite title on Steam.

This is a hack that was probably a lot of fun to write and a lot of fun to look at. Hacking support for bleeding-edge GPU technology into a engine from 1993 that doesn't support 3D meshes at all is an impressive feat. I'm glad people are having fun writing such things and don't see the need to critique the aesthetics.

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#35
post #6

Been waiting for someone to do this for a while. Really want to see this section in e1m2 https://youtu.be/lNT0fHva724?t=62 raytraced. That place really scared me when I was a kid.

I realized I've basically only played e1m1. Might explain why I enjoyed UT more than FPSes with storylines.

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#36
post #4

Is it okay if I occupy the following ideological niche: 1. I love original doom. 2. I am very excited about what ray-tracing can do for games. 3. I have a ton of respect for doom modders and the doubtless huge amount of effort that went into this project. 4. I hate how this looks and wouldn't play it except as a curiosity To me, the original doom was a piece of art, tuned by artists (I'll say it!) to look a certain w…

As someone who didn't grow up with the original Doom, I frankly think it looks like an incomprehensible jumble. That's not a knock against the artists - I think the technological limitations simply made a readable 3D game impossible. I'm not saying this is any better, but I think your impression is being colored more by your gameplay experience and nostalgia than by how the game actually looks.

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#37
post #4

Is it okay if I occupy the following ideological niche: 1. I love original doom. 2. I am very excited about what ray-tracing can do for games. 3. I have a ton of respect for doom modders and the doubtless huge amount of effort that went into this project. 4. I hate how this looks and wouldn't play it except as a curiosity To me, the original doom was a piece of art, tuned by artists (I'll say it!) to look a certain w…

As someone who didn't grow up with the original Doom, I frankly think it looks like an incomprehensible jumble. That's not a knock against the artists - I think the technological limitations simply made a readable 3D game impossible. I'm not saying this is any better, but I think your impression is being colored more by your gameplay experience and nostalgia than by how the game actually looks.

It's quite possible that the way you played Doom was not ideal. Chocolate Doom is a project focused on making vanilla Doom look and feel right on modern hardware.

https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/About

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#38
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I certainly applaud anyone wanting to raytrace doom, but take it from this old code monkey, I've spent my entire adult life in dm-1, and a program like this one can do more harm than good. If you only develop one part of your renderer (and that's all a single exercise like raytracing is going to do for you), you're setting yourself up for artefacts down the road. I've seen it a hundred times. It's like putting…

I prefer not to tell people what they can and can't do with their spare time. This hack was probably a blast to write. Let people make fun things. Ironically, your advice is essentially "make an indie game", but it's way easier to get noticed by writing impressive hacks that excite people than by developing yet another indie title that's overwhelmingly likely to just get buried on Steam. The vast majority of indie ti…

You are replying to an satirical comment (obvious to those familiar with the kind of car show it is referencing but perhaps not to anyone else)

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#39
post #4

Is it okay if I occupy the following ideological niche: 1. I love original doom. 2. I am very excited about what ray-tracing can do for games. 3. I have a ton of respect for doom modders and the doubtless huge amount of effort that went into this project. 4. I hate how this looks and wouldn't play it except as a curiosity To me, the original doom was a piece of art, tuned by artists (I'll say it!) to look a certain w…

As someone who didn't grow up with the original Doom, I frankly think it looks like an incomprehensible jumble. That's not a knock against the artists - I think the technological limitations simply made a readable 3D game impossible. I'm not saying this is any better, but I think your impression is being colored more by your gameplay experience and nostalgia than by how the game actually looks.

As another person who didn't grow up with the original Doom, I think its beautiful. Something about it just feels/looks good.

Re: “Can it run Doom” will never be the same, thanks to new ray-tracing mod

#40
post #11

From looking at the trailer, some of the scenes kind of seem 'worse' from an art perspective. Not sure how to put it, kind of like when a cartoon includes some live-action art / 3D model or just cheap CGI in general, just feels 'off'. Still, great job by the devs.

There's not enough information in the original maps to truly exploit all the features of a raytracing and global illumination engine. None of the textures have normal maps for example, so all of those beautiful bricks and such look flat as a board. Lighting was only defined ambiently at the entire sector level (think shapes on the map) so there's no information on light source locations, direction, spread, etc. So you're really just left with some fancy dynamic lighting and shadows--which IMHO still looks pretty cool (love the shadows and green glow as a BFG ball whizzes by) but yeah it doesn't look anything like a game designed with these features in mind from the start.
Post reply on HN