Extending some engine limits

[Arkshine]

It would be a good opportunity to slightly increase some max values.

Proposed limits are based on http://code.google.com/p/sing-engine/. Relevant limits and value would be :

• MAX_MODELS 1024 (default: 512)
• MAX_SOUNDS 1024 (default: 512)
• MAX_BEAMS 256 (default: 64)
• MAX_TEMPENTS 1024 (default 500)
• MAX_MAP_MODELS 512 (default: 256)
• MAX_MAP_LEAFS 16384 (default: 8192)

I think it's fair values. Of course higher values are welcomed (like Sing) but as it is it would be already really useful and awesome.

It will contribute to make everyone happy : the mappers would be able to do better maps (larger/more detailed/etc..), the coders will have more room to do custom stuffs, the admins will see their servers crashing less often, and the players will see their gaming experience improving.

Thanks for considering those changes, which are, I think, quite reasonable and realizable.

[ghost]

So we have a reverse-engineered hlds and a replacement half-life engine as options. Why not just open source the rest of the Half-Life code (i.e. the engine, hlds, ...)?

Having this repo has allowed lots of people to submit fixes for the SDK (and it would be even more useful if anyone was maintaining it). Wouldn't it be nice to update the engine and hlds the same way? It's not feasible for me to switch my mod over to using some guy's untrustworthy server and some guy's untrustworthy engine.

What's the legality of using an alternative Half-Life engine when the real engine is closed source and you have to buy it from Valve? Seems like a bit of a tricky situation.

[tschumann]

@Mu1Sa12 the latest Sven Coop is available on Steam I think.

[tschumann]

Interesting reading here anyway: http://forums.svencoop.com/showthread.php/43228-A-very-technical-explanation-regarding-the-engine And as alluded to in that thread, you can't mount mods in Sven Coop (technically you sort of can but not everything can be overridden - the .dll files for one).

[ghost]

What good is any of that to someone maintaining a Half-Life mod that people play through Steam?

Why don't the Sven co-op developers with engine access help improve hlds and the hl engine? Why have there been no commits on this repo since December 2014?

[ViBE-HU]

@johnstt cause HL1 support ended. CS:GO = bunch of money. and you know, money talks. that's the priority.

[ghost]

So why not leave it up to the community, then? Not just the sven co-op community, mind you...

[justgo97]

any news on this after the last update ?

[SamVanheer]

I don't see any increase in engine limits. It's not a critical issue so they didn't touch it.

[TatuEugen]

Please increase precache limit to 2048 :D :D :D

[brlight]

3 Years and nothing was done.....

cause HL1 support ended. CS:GO = bunch of money. and you know, money talks. that's the priority.

[zapy85]

@alfred-valve anything you could look in to? still a great game and a big modding community!

[gtteamamxx]

What about it ? :) Please , make this happen.

[exzey]

@alfred-valve We want an increasment for the limits again... Or make an option to make it editable for everyone... Please we beggin you ?

[ENTPRESTIGIOUS]

Anything new?

[SmiteIsTrashBro]

Valve won't touch anymore in any goldsrc game, at least for those who are developers and/or server owner. You still didn't understand why? They want to kill goldsrc games and keep only source games alive, otherwise people is going to make amazing mods for goldsrc games without pay anything instead of buy paid source games at steam.

If we had source code, we could fix these issues ourselves, but the probability of they share it is 0,0001%. There is the option of reverse engineered, but it is not allowed by Valve and is there limitations due client-side that we cannot change.

The only option we have is optimize the resources of server the most we are able (models added as sub-model, sprites as frames, sounds packed...) or develop a poor mod.

[hogsy]

I've been watching this thread for a while and I'm not too sure what people are expecting.

@CrazY770 your comment is especially unhelpful and paranoid.

They want to kill goldsrc games and keep only source games alive [...]

It's not like they're extending engine limits for Source Engine games on request. If you didn't notice, the Source SDK 2013 hasn't been updated in a long long time and it's probably never going to see an update again considering Valve are moving internally to their new Source 2 Engine.

I think you need to understand that extending engine limits requires a developer within Valve to take the time to do it and then takes several people to ensure nothing was broken in the process.

Compared to other projects that Valve have on-going, the request to increase the engine limits for GoldSrc is like a drip in the ocean - why are they inclined to bother?

[...]otherwise people is going to make amazing mods for goldsrc games without pay anything instead of buy paid source games at steam.

Not even sure what you're trying to say here.

If you're referring to licensing, as far as I understand it, Valve don't have a licensing team for the Source Engine anymore - but you're more than welcome to develop free games using the Source Engine anyway.

[...] or develop a poor mod.

Several GoldSrc mods, such as Counter-Strike and Natural Selection, would like a word with you. If you're trying to create something outside the scope of what the GoldSrc engine can do, you should probably consider using the Source Engine instead.

[ghost]

ns is under active development, and I bet they would prefer to have an open/updated engine.

The same goes for any other mods still in development - all are limited at some level by the closed-source engine (either limits like the number of entities, or just unfixable bugs).

The rest of what you said is exactly right - there is not enough incentive for someone at Valve to spend time on this, so they are not.

[hogsy]

If you're choosing to develop with an older engine, I don't really get how you can then complain about being technologically constrained.

Nobody is forcing you to use GoldSrc, and if you want to do more, well, use Source.

Part of the fun of working with older tech is working under constraints.

On Mon, 10 Dec 2018, 23:08 aaaaaaaaa <notifications@github.com wrote:

ns is under active development, and I bet they would prefer to have an open/updated engine.

The same goes for any other mods still in development - all are limited at some level by the closed-source engine (either limits like the number of entities, or just unfixable bugs).

The rest of what you said is exactly right - there is not enough incentive for someone at Valve to spend time on this, so they are not.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/issues/12#issuecomment-446009316, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB2y_vAX2WpaYDcikzj6YIlIjUBV-6Y8ks5u3umJgaJpZM4Abqh2 .

[ENTPRESTIGIOUS]

The point why I still like using the old goldsrc engine is that it is compatible with AMX MOD X and you can add weapons unlike the other games with NST plugin

[SmiteIsTrashBro]

I'm not talking about goldsrc/source mod, you should first make sure to after start to say bullshits, but anyway yes, my post is unhelpful as every other posts that was did here, because goldsrc stay same and will not be updated only because people is complaining, that's what I wanted to point here.

[SamVanheer]

If you're choosing to develop with an older engine, I don't really get how you can then complain about being technologically constrained. Nobody is forcing you to use GoldSrc, and if you want to do more, well, use Source. Part of the fun of working with older tech is working under constraints. … On Mon, 10 Dec 2018, 23:08 aaaaaaaaa @.*** wrote: ns is under active development, and I bet they would prefer to have an open/updated engine. The same goes for any other mods still in development - all are limited at some level by the closed-source engine (either limits like the number of entities, or just unfixable bugs). The rest of what you said is exactly right - there is not enough incentive for someone at Valve to spend time on this, so they are not. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#12 (comment)>, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB2y_vAX2WpaYDcikzj6YIlIjUBV-6Y8ks5u3umJgaJpZM4Abqh2 .

I'm having a lot of fun completely bypassing the engine limits by making an engine-as-a-mod. It's a challenge, but it's possible.

[ENTPRESTIGIOUS]

The engines don't work. It has problems with my client.dll

[WaLkZa]

@mikela-valve up

[voed]

up

[TatuEugen]

up, make it happen pls

[2010kohtep]

Dear @mikela-valve, please, make it happen. :)

[metita]

@mikela-valve is this going to be discussed in the near future? or is not going to happen? We would like to know about this top-tier feature request :)

[Matiarguello]

Please, increasing the limits is the only thing that the community has wanted all these years ... make our wish come true

[ENTPRESTIGIOUS]

Yes, I agree. We should all make this happen and potentially make this game stand out from the rest of the other games.

[CS-PRO1]

I wonder if 8-bit limit for .bmp textures of models could be removed, or at least moved to 16-bit..

[SamVanheer]

No, it's part of the model format and can't be changed.

[BlackShadow]

@mikela-valve removing 512x512 texture resolution limit from models (weapons/player) and map textures will open gates to many new things. Limit should be 4096x4096 if that's reachable.

[TatuEugen]

Please don't forget about precache limit 512, increase to 2048 at least, because servers can't use too many things cuz this error...

[seypaa]

precache limit can be changed ?

[ChakkiSkrip]

What about to increase value -num_edicts from 900 to max value? Players with server can sweep with an error Host_Error: CL_EntityNum.

[ChakkiSkrip]

@mikela-valve removing 512x512 texture resolution limit from models (weapons/player) and map textures will open gates to many new things. Limit should be 4096x4096 if that's reachable.

If you want to make skins from cs go, maybe it's better to cut them? My personal opinion, more than 512x512 do not need, it is not important. For this engine 512x512 is quite enough for many people. There has to be a balance between architecture detail and texture quality, you know?

[BlackShadow]

No i said it should be 4096x4096 because it's the probaly highest limit Goldsrc can reach. But yet again, even if the limit was 4096x4096 somebody can still do textures with 512x512. So the upgrades are always appricated.

[afwn90cj93201nixr2e1re]

Fix fps issues with TE_DLIGHT

[JohanCorn]

So? Dear Developers, I have only 2 questions for you. Is it possible to extend the limits? If the first is true: Will you extend them in the future? I just want clear answers from the real workers. Thanks!

[metita]

@JohanCorn This is already considered to be implemented in the near-future, there are more important features/bugs/security fixes to add before starting improving/extending the engine.

[JohanCorn]

@basuritashka Thanks for the hope!

[afwn90cj93201nixr2e1re]

Also we should create separate buffer for map .res files. Coz they r take some space in model buffer with .bsp file.

But at start we should refactor OpenGL rendering. Coz now its just piece of shit.

[SamVanheer]

So? Dear Developers, I have only 2 questions for you. Is it possible to extend the limits? If the first is true: Will you extend them in the future? I just want clear answers from the real workers. Thanks!

1. Yes, but doing so will break compatibility with older clients, such as No-Steam/cracked clients. That's a big decision to make.
2. This issue is a candidate for a future release so it's pretty likely.

The network protocol will need a major revision to support higher limits since even the current limit can't be fully utilized. See #2534 for that.

[CS-PRO1]

I guess it's far enough for non-steam clients dominating the game and servers. They either have to purchase the legal steam version or update theirs (which is unlikely). I really hate how servers that use cracked version are using old un-compatible sprite files for smoke puffs and others so I can't join them.

[sw5ciprl]

@mikela-valve Have you considered increasing GoldSrc limits in CSO or CS:NZ?

[SamVanheer]

Neither of those are created by Valve, other companies manage those engine forks.

[sw5ciprl]

Neither of those are created by Valve, other companies manage those engine forks.

Errr... Has NEXON considered making the forks open-source? If yes, can I get a link?

[SamVanheer]

Neither of those are created by Valve, other companies manage those engine forks.

Errr... Has NEXON considered making the forks open-source? If yes, can I get a link?

Not as far as i know of. I'm not a lawyer but i think any open sourcing would require approval from both Id Software and Valve, and if Valve were to permit it it they'd probably do it themselves first.

[sw5ciprl]

Neither of those are created by Valve, other companies manage those engine forks.

Errr... Has NEXON considered making the forks open-source? If yes, can I get a link?

Not as far as i know of. I'm not a lawyer but i think any open sourcing would require approval from both Id Software and Valve, and if Valve were to permit it it they'd probably do it themselves first.

Why id Software? I thought GoldSrc was made from scratch.

[tschumann]

GoldSource is based heavily on the Quake engine - lots of the internals are similar or the same but stuff like coloured lighting, per-texture palettes and client and server .dll files were added.