I've been playing AD today and really like it a lot, but on certain maps (ad_azad, ad_tfuma, possibly others) my framerate crawls to an unplayable slideshow. I've tried it both quakespasm and dx9 MarkV with similar results for each. Is there a particular effect in those maps that would so drastically reduces FPS or what? Most of the time maps run with very high FPS. I've tried looking into settings to mess with, but admittedly I'm not very adept with this stuff. 

I also notice stuttering on tfuma, I think the size of these maps, and thus the amount of polygons being rendered is what is causing the fps to go down. My only suggestion is that you try to turn down screen resolution under the video settings. I am running a low level quad core Pentium with integrated graphics and my frame rate is ok, but only because my resolution is turned down a little. You can also try turning off vertical sync (in game) and anti-aliasing in your video card settings.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can help you more, sorry. 

QuakeC can also be a framerate killer.

If there are a lot of entities and if anything with exponential complexity is happening in QC, it can easily enough pull framerates down.

Have you tried disabling the AD particles? There's an impulse for this you should be able to find in the readme. 

Okay, so I installed Quake and AD in a Linux partition just now, and tried playing the maps again, and for whatever reason the framerate issues are gone. The game isn't going under 60 fps on either tfuma or azad. I'm not sure what the deal is really. Maybe the intel drivers in linux are just better than the one's in windows? 

who doesn't know that Windoze is a crappy OS? If only Linux was as user-friendly...

More seriously and on topic, from my absolutely not tech-savvy POV, I doubt it's a driver problem: one would think Intel would take at least as much care of their drivers for the (by far) most widely distributed OS as those for Linux. 

for Sock or any AD mapper who would know the answer: is it possible to build a ladder that could be climbed in one go just by simply pressing the forward key (like most other mods do) instead of the slower step-by-step approach? This is fine in more realistic games but in Quake it makes the player lose precious seconds that would be better used blowing things up and/or running the hell away from danger... 

Yes, make a very steep clip brush with increments of 2 Quake units steps the full width of the ladder.

All the classic era maps do this and you could build a ladder to a 2nd tier and it will be thin.

Limitation: It isn't practical to use this method for much more height than that. 

I knew about this method for having seen this done many times since Doom but I was hoping to make really vertical ladders, not what is basically a steep staircase.

Thanks anyway, Baker. 

each step needs to be <= 18qu high, and thanks to editors+qbsp compilers with non-integer verticies the horizontal distance can be 1/8th of a qu or so without any issues. Yes its not vertical, but can still be quite steep. That said, precision issues might favour sticking to 16:0.25 per step instead of 18:0.125
You could also sneakily angle the surface behind the ladder in such a way that the slope of the ladder is hidden somewhat.

that said, at high physics framerates it'll feel almost like teleportation... :s 

I'll try that and see how it goes. While you're here, I have a tiny OT question (sorry Sock) for you regarding QSS: is it possible to set water, dirty water, slime and lava alpha levels independently from each other? Also their respective opaqueness when the player is swimming under the surface? 

QS (and QSS) have r_wateralpha, r_slimealpha, r_lavaalpha, r_telealpha cvars. Also respective wolrdspawn keys without the "r". Can't have a different opacity above/below though. 

But there's no differenciation whatsoever between clear and dirty water, right? Also, I didn't meant "different opacity above/below" but "different opacity depending on fluid type". DP can do that, I was hoping Spike would have borrowed this feature... 

If you mean q3shaders then no, I didn't add q3shaders to QSS. Only FTE and arguably DP support q3shaders. On the plus side, you can get QSS to spew particles from your water... yay?
Quite frankly, q3shaders suck, which is how DP can get away with supporting them so poorly, while FTE's more complete support means that unmodified shaders end up with no specular/etc.

It would be nice to have some simple material script (instead of 'shaders') that specifies how to handle various textures without significant implementation differences, but that sounds too much like politics for anything to actually come from it. 

Small OT officially over. Since I had this question for you and we were already talking in this thread, I thought it unnecessary to move to the QS thread for such a small question. Should I have moved it anyway? Sorry if it bothered some people. 

You can make a staggered wall panel so steep it seems ridiculous that the Quake guy would walk up it.

Spike is right it's a mind-blowing 18 in the engine source.

It would be like walking up the side of a house, with some minimum size brushes. I think the minimum brush width is 2 units (?), but if I am correct the minimum placement unit is 1 unit?

1 unit is half as thick as the thinnest railing someone has ever made in Quake if the above is correct.

I imagine no one has tried to make a maximum abusiveness ladder because I don't think any discussion of the specifics has ever occurred. 

I have a duplicate of Tokay's Towers that I made for Quake. The ladders were recreated using thin clip brushes in front of the ladders. They're triangular from the top view and point out from the face of the ladder. I think they are only 1 unit thick at that point. The biggest problem is that the player moves up them nearly instantly. It feels very unnatural. 

"almost like teleportation", "nearly instantly"... Damn guys, that wouldn't do. How are ladders made in other mods vs. AD, then? 

@Rick ... good point.

@Mugwump ... generally there aren't. Rubicon2 has ladders, if I recall they require a use key.

Half-Life had ladders everywhere, but without checking I imagine they were special brushes and the engine has altered physics to accommodate. 

Ladders in HL are func_ladder brush entities applied in front of the actual ladder. 

I haven't played Rubicon2 yet but I'm almost 100% positive that I have played a few Quake maps/mods containing ladders that only required to press forward. Can't remember which ones, though.

I've just checked the AD readme. Ladders are entities. How could one modify the ladder entity so that it does what I want? 

almost 100% positive that I have played a few Quake maps/mods containing ladders that only required to press forward

If you can remember the names, I could probably tell you how they did them. 

Actually, I'd rather learn how to modify the ladder entity. It would allow me to play existing AD maps with ladders to my liking instead of only creating ones for my own maps. 

 

Actually, I'd rather learn how to modify the ladder entity. It would allow me to play existing AD maps with ladders to my liking instead of only creating ones for my own maps.

Please do it and let me know when it's ready. 

which is why I asked in the first place. Can someone point me to a tutorial or explain (in n00b terms) how to do it?