Heretic 2 OS4 and WarpOS Version differences

Hi!

I was asked what is the difference between the two versions, the one from 20 years ago and the newly released OS4 version.

Here we go:

- H2 for WarpOS (20 years ago version) is not PPC native, but uses the context switch mechanism of WarpOS while H2 for OS4 is fully PPC native

- The new version offers GL4ES so it runs on newer (Warp3DNova) 3D Cards also while the old one only runs with MiniGL (the new version supports both MiniGL and GL4ES - and SW Renderer too which the old one also did, old one did MiniGL and SW Renderer)

- Much newer version of MiniGL which supports multitexturing while old version didn't - multitexturing speeds the game up and improves effects. Also old version had some graphics errors on some 3D HW due to the MiniGL version used there still an old version of MiniGL while now for the MiniGL renderer the latest version is used (a version which was not yet available back then)

- Multitexturing basically means several texture unit of the 3D Card can calculate at the sae time, can be up to 25% speedup in H2

- Higher resolutions - 1920x1080 and 4k supported (1920x1080 runs 97 fps on a x1000 with RadeonHD)

- The way the WarpOS version dealt with CD Audio no longer works with more recent CD Drives. The way the OS4 version does it always works. And also offers playing from mounted ISO instead of from a physical CD. Also it is no longer required to put the CD in drive during playing. CD is only needed during installation (and CD2 for CD Audio but if you leave it out the game does not complain, it just skips the CD Audio then)

- full AmigaInput support - you can set 3 sources for every action (mouse, keyboard, gamepad for example)

- The installer of the old version caused problems for some people. These problems have been fixed (it is a complete new installer, Commodore installer no longer used). Also no problems about "low on stack" anymore.

- The WarpOS version sometimes had some rare crashes. This has been fixed in the OS4 version.

- For multiplayer asides from the built in multiplayer there is THF 3.0 (sadly not 5.0 as the 5.0 source code is not available). The OS4 version of THF has bugfixes the WarpOS version of the Addon did not offer. Also the OS4 version works with all maps from THF5 (even though not all features from THF5 are supported). I hope I might still manage to get Grinbots integrated into the OS4 THF 3.0 build, but might be some time till I find time for this.

- Packaging and printed manual in much higher quality

The port was basically redone from scratch

Features only in the WarpOS version:

- PSX Port and other classic-only input-hardware (but there are AmigaInput Drivers for PSX Port etc., so it is also supported for Classic machines)
- AGA Mode (not sure if this was in the release version of H2 WarpOS, I think it was but not sure right now) with HAM8. OS4 H2 requires Graphics Board.

Best regards,
Steffen

@TheMagicSN

did you compile it with the latest available MiniGL or do you use your own build, with patches not in the main minigl tree?

@TheMagicSN

Good summary, I hope more people will buy it when they see the advantage.

Tomorrow, at 19:00 UTC I will do a live stream on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/walkerogr) where I will start with the presentation of the new release and playing the game on my X5000.

This will be the start of a new series of streams, which will be about gaming on AmigaOS 4. Join me if you want to see how Heretic 2 plays.

@Raziel

I used the latest publicly available MiniGL. When i
got it i was surprised it supported multitexturing now
and backported the multitexturing code from gl4es
to the MiniGL renderer so in the released version both
have multitexturing

Where i did custom modifications was with gl4es
as it used
a) it was not compatible to be run from inside a so library,
i fixed it
b) it used a generic function name somewhere and h2
used the same generic function name somewhere i
fixed this

I gave the changes back to the gl4es project months
ago though and AFAIK they integrated it into their
code.

Best regards,
Steffen

Ah i changed one thing in MiniGL - to be able
to compile MiniGL and gl4es on the same system
I had to rename the directory name of some includepath,
Renaming GL to GL2 for MiniGL (as GL is the one for
gl4es) and all occurences of it to be able to compile
with it with the same compiler installation.

@TheMagicSN

thanks a lot

@TheMagicSN
Quote:
The HOL entry says AGA or graphics card so it was probably in the release version as well. Out of curiosity how did the conversion work?

Thanks Steffen! I will surely buy it for my Sam440ep!

Does anyone know if there is an FPS limiter built in? Or an option for VSync? I know this might be strange when most people just care about showing as many FPS as possible, but if we're talking 1080p @ figures like 180fps on an X5K with RX580, that's likely going to represent GPU heat, and GPU heat = GPU noise.

Not a show stopper, just curious if there's either a vsync option or an fps cap option?

It's also looking like extracting the 2nd CD in bin/cue format on Apple Silicon Mac is likely to be problematic too but hopefully I can tackle that in my Windows Arm VM if needed.

@TheMagicSN

I also have a quick question about Heretic2 and I just can't get CD-Audio to work. As you recommended I copied the CD 1 to 1 to be able to insert it under AmigaOs4.1 as an ISO image.

Diskimage lists the ISO as unit 4 and I have also set this in the sound settings under Heretic2, but no background music plays in the game. Or have I misunderstood something and Heretic2 supports CD audio, but does not provide background music on the CD .... so that it needs other audio CDs?

@Maijestro
Quote:Does the AmigaOS 4.1 port use an ISO9660 data CD with something like mp3 files for the music instead of a CDDA audio CD?
If not you can't use an ISO image file, which is only usable for data CDs/DVDs, but would need something like CUE instead, or any other image file format supporting CDDA and which is supported by diskimage.device.

@Maijestro

The audio tracks are on CD 2, not on CD1. You
copied the wrong CD. And i am sorry,
seems documentation was unclear here.

Myselves i use a nrg image to play them with
Heretic2 using diskimage.device, but .bin/cue
works too i was told. But of CD 2.

@TheMagicSN

Sorry for my mistake, I didn't know about a 2 audio CD that is also in the Heretic2 box Maybe I should have checked from the beginning.

I checked and it works.

Np should have made it clearer. Geeat that it works!

Hi Steffen,
did you receive my answer to your email?

I don’t think i did. From
Which email address would that have been and what day?