While I do have some issues with newer versions of DP (for example the Shambler lightning thing Kinn has mentioned), I have actually switched from using FitzQuake for testing my maps to DarkPlaces. I am not sure which version you were using, but the latest ones have definately much better lighting than any other NQ/QW engine I�ve seen to date. 

I think pretty much all of DarkPlaces' graphical "enhancements" can be controlled via cvars, but I agree, the documentation is pretty poor. What's turned me off recently though, is that I can't get any build of DarkPlaces after the 21may04 build to run properly on my system. Dunno why. Up-to-date vid drivers and all that. 

Shambler lightning has been fixed in latest DP build I believe. The player lightning is still bolloxed though. 

Do you mean the player shadow with r_shadow_realtime_world "1" ? If that's what you mean, the player shadow IS in the correct place. If you don't like the player shadow (I know I don't), you can disable it, leaving on everything else. 

I tried "The Abandon" with Darkplaces, and it skipped the grenadelauncher in "Facade".
Strange, because FitzQuake or Telejanos didn't.

Could there be a reason for it, ie. bouncing box to big for the used surounding space? 

One of my main design focuses in DarkPlaces is keeping down bloat, this is why all the features are integrated in the core of the engine, rather than just tutorials tacked on like some other engines, serving specific features with little consistency.

DarkPlaces was created for modders, that is its primary reason for existence, I made a promise to the quake community more than a year ago to maintain DarkPlaces to support the community for years to come, it delivers a consistent user and modding experience, rather than needing a custom engine for every mod, which was fragmenting the community (for example Tenebrae).

It's the only engine that tries to support every mod in one engine so that users don't have to deal with different hardware compatibility issues and different missing features in each mod, and that developers don't have to write their own engine for each mod.

This is why it greatly puzzles me that some modders want to use less featureful engines, often maintained by people who are less than appreciative of modding feature requests.

The worst part of this is that the released quake source is quite honestly outdated, it works (barely) on windows (for example too many GL extensions crashes glquake), not at all on Linux and MacOSX, and lacks multiplayer - nq borders on unusable for multiplayer due to incompatibility with the NAT routers most people use for broadband, combined with using too much bandwidth for dialup to be playable.

When I rewrote the networking it made all supported mods playable online, a rewrite that would not have been worth the trouble for just one mod's custom engine.

It seems many people just complain about darkplaces on forums I can't read regularly (it takes too much time to keep an eye on several forums just combing for complaints and suggestions).

Could people please email me about these things before they get upset?

P.S. What ever happened to extensions? If a minimal engine is really desired, make your own, with support for the specific extensions your mod uses, and darkplaces will have these same extensions, thus the users who can run your engine can use it instead of darkplaces if they wish. 

Player *lightning* - note the "n" ;)

I'm talking about the lightning gun beam. 

LordHavoc - like I say, I love what you did with DarkPlaces but, well, as I've mentioned before, my system has serious problems running all versions since the 21may04 build.

I've since been checking out FitzQuake, with the intention of using this as my "engine of choice". It's a fantastic engine that emulates Quake's original look and feel, whilst still providing the most important extra features to meet the demands of modern maps. If FitzQuake would allow me to replace my sprite frames with external .tga textures, it would be the perfect engine IMHO. 

Does it really have increased map/entity limits? I tried FitzQuake 0.75 in my spawning test map, and it hit "no free edicts" at about the same time as standard quake. 

well, if anyone cares, my ideal engine would be somewhere halfway between fitzquake and DP.

i need to try DP with sv_jump thing disabled and detail textures off though, i don't have the means to do that atm.

anyway, taking FQ as a base, i'd like to add:

-q3bsp format support
-any sized bounding box
-controllable particle effects, ie customizable TempEntity effects, not just the built in ones.
For example, TE_EXPLOSION2 has limited customizability in that you can specify the colours that it will use, but, you can't change the speed, duration, or behaviour of the particles at all.
-NOT have r_exp3.wav automatically played with explosion tempentities. sure, it makes sense, but it's also bad if you want to use the particle effects with a different explosion sound.
-Flying Monster BugFix
-TGA Sprites
-Model Interpolation
-Larger Edict Limit
-Larger BModel limit(or whatever it is) (i know this breaks compatibility for netplay, but i am talking from a purely SP pov. maybe have this setting optional via command line, so that you could still use the engine for netplay on maps that don't need the high limit, but on SP maps that require it, you turn it on)
-Stop Packet Overflows

..that's it for right now... writing this all down on the fly, so i might have missed something...

i'm starting to get the feeling that DP could be used with everything except what i'm talking about disabled... but i won't be able to tell until i can see a cvar list.

...hm, maybe the real reason people dislike DP is because there isn't any documentation to let people know that they can turn things off (like Nitin who couldn't turn off the bump mapping) 

ie: when i said "any sized bounding box" what i really mean is "no hulls" 

no, FQ doesn't have bumped edict limits, neither does it handle packet overflows differently from GLQ...

i find this is the major flaw of FQ atm... well, that and the skybox bug, bug that's fixed in the next version anyway. 

Necros, I'd probably say almost the same thing if someone asked me to describe my dream engine.

However, I'd settle for FitzQuake + increased entity limits + packet overflow reduction + tga sprites (Additive blend mode).

Q3BSP support is the holy grail of engine features for me though. I know DP has it, but I've already described the issues I have with DP. 

I went ahead and sent a copy of the extension list. It may be a little under documented but there is enough info there to get a grasp of the cvar settings. There is also a tutorial on Inside3d on modding for DP that can be useful as well.

On the general question; I am still using glquake/fitzquake for the next handful of levels that I'm pushing out the door because they are single map adventures (two very nearly finished, I'm just trying to improve my brush work and texturing at this point), but after that I'm going to need a custom engine and Q3 bsp capabilaties. 

Thanks for the nice comments on fitzquake, guys.

Jago: turns out i wrote most of fitzquake's core rendering stuff. I do have some darkplaces code in fitzquake, though it's mostly utility functions like frustum culling and vector math and that sort of thing.

Lordhavoc: darkplaces is extrememly customizable and I think it could satisfy most people if only they knew how to customize it. Lack of decent documentation is the biggest problem with darkplaces, in my opinion. 

Would you be willing to consider bumping up some of the map limits (like aguirRe is doing with his engines) for a future FQ release?

Pretty please? ^_^ 

but wouldn't that just encourage mappers to release maps that go over the limits? 

That's the point. Many mappers (me included) feel that it's time to push the boundaries/limits of the Quake engine. Now if only all engine writers could agree on BY HOW MUCH they should push them. 

tried the latest version, it actully works ok on my system and looks and runs better than prvious builds. I've got most the options the way I want (it took a lot of fiddling but anyway).

Can someone tell me how to revert the blood effects back to normal and also how to get the weapon and monster effects back to normal. Right now there's a big coloured glow on things like scrag attacks, rocket explosions etc.

Also, is it me or is the player turn speed and jump speed different than normal? 

and I'm happy that the DP software lighting now looks like fitz's. 

yes, i noticed the jump speed and turn speed too... not sure if it really is different or not...

also, disabling bump mapping really speeds things up, though the hell knight now has the cpu crusher attack added to his normal attack when using dynamic lights... :P it's too bad because the dynamic lights work fine for other monsters, but because the hknight shoots 5 projectiles at the same time, it starts hurting my vidcard. :P

also, why is the jumping messed up? when i jump, then hold down the jump button while still in the air, when i hit the ground, the jump sound gets made but i don't actually move up. is that a bug? 

... will encourage many mappers to start very huge map.. Engine limitation for sure limits mappers' creativity ;) 

I think limits create the necessary context for creativity. 

But what if someone wants to make a FarCry clone mod using FitzQuake? It would take several applications of Terragen per map to achieve those lush landscapes. It would be a pity to deny this well, likely non-existent person. 

why not have raised limits and then let the mapper decide whether he wants to make a humongous map or a standard map?