Network test success. Slowly lifting the GZDoom netcode curse. Ongoing behind the scenes netcode improvements, and improved it has. 6 players across the world, no connection troubles (OGs remember the struggle), SMOOTH prediction (feels like playing single player), no jitter/rubberbanding. #GZDoom - ThreadSky

nashmuhandes.bsky.social • 16 days ago

Network test success. Slowly lifting the GZDoom netcode curse. Ongoing behind the scenes netcode improvements, and improved it has. 6 players across the world, no connection troubles (OGs remember the struggle), SMOOTH prediction (feels like playing single player), no jitter/rubberbanding. #GZDoom

Comments

lpavone.bsky.social•15 days ago

The only time I've gotten GZDoom to play nice over network was at a LAN party in 2014, using ZDL to launch a network game of Reelism 2 and make 4 other players connect to my game with it too. Playable and enjoyable once set up.

I'm looking forward to the process being optimised and streamlined!

immorpher.bsky.social•15 days ago

Oh I am surprised this isn't in VKDoom first.

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•15 days ago

Since this part of the backend is shared by both VKD and GZD with no bespoke changes on the former; it makes sense to put it into GZDoom first, /then/ later we pull it into VKDoom :D

immorpher.bsky.social•14 days ago

This makes a lot of sense!

tehrealsalt.bsky.social•15 days ago

I am so freaking EXCITED for this!!

goldenaxedoom.bsky.social•16 days ago

so we can have like, coop mode for GZDOOM mods?

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Coop has technically always been in ZDoom/GZDoom, it was just PAINFUL to get a game going at all. People have been rightfully shitting on it for decades because the experience has been pure dogshit. I say this as an advocator; I love it and want it to improve, but it was just so BAD! lmao

slogstin.bsky.social•15 days ago

Ooooh i always wanted to play Hideous Destructor with more than just one other player, so this would come in clutch.
And even when we're not that far apart, there's sometimes those strange connection issues that may hopefully be history soon.

travitherabbi.bsky.social•16 days ago

As someone who grew up on doom, that sounds awesome. 🤘🏼

eyeballtank.bsky.social•15 days ago

History is being made.

playe.bsky.social•15 days ago

YES! HA HA, YES!

sillystarsarse.bsky.social•16 days ago

This is so cool!

peccatummihzamiz.bsky.social•16 days ago

Thanks for all the hard work to all!

I'm aiming to release a GZDoom map set with full co-op support next year January. Would be great if players can do easy co-op on GZDoom then or further down the line 🖤

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

We'd love to improve the QoL aspect of this stuff too - would be nice to set up GZDoom lobbies in something like DoomSeeker (an already existing and popular ecosystem), and have players just click on a game in that and be good to go (including auto-downloading the necessary mod files)

doomrater.bsky.social•15 days ago

I long for the day I can just play DoomVengers with my friends

davidaug.bsky.social•16 days ago

eidolon.photon.institute•15 days ago

all I can say is, impressive, and good luck 🫡

metal-invader.bsky.social•16 days ago

This is so exciting!

davidxnewton.bsky.social•16 days ago

Amazing work! Are you aiming to get it away from strictly peer-to-peer, or is that not part of this update?

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Currently we got an actually-functioning packet server mode, as well as the OG P2P is still there (except it's now more competent). We found that depending on the distances involved between players, either of the 2 modes are preferable so there's no 1-size-fits-all. 1/2

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

In-progress joining with the 2 existing net modes is definitely planned.

Actual client/server probably won't happen for a few more years, though. But the architectural work laid down now will help with that goal eventually 2/2

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

(oh yeah BTW; one of the several motivations of our rework here is so that we'd get to play RAMP24 in coop over the internet lol, so thanks for your amazing work)

davidxnewton.bsky.social•16 days ago

Ahaha, thank you - that sounds amazing! I say it in my videos all the time, but it's incredible the amount of shared talent and work that goes into making Doom what it is today.

boondorl.bsky.social•15 days ago

It'll unfortunately remain P2P for the foreseeable future, but packet server mode can mimic client/server pretty well and will see tons of future improvements (like stutter reduction). Eventually I'd like to add a game master mode for GZDoom to emulate a fake client that simply runs the game.

simonnovak.bsky.social•14 days ago

Finally

Co-op myhouse.wad

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•14 days ago

I've been told it's already possible and some people have already tried it and got to the end lol

barryburtonr4l.bsky.social•16 days ago

Super promising work here, great job to you and your team!

stagefatality.bsky.social•16 days ago

Very exciting to see! DRLAX + Corruption Cards is one of my favorite coop experiences to play with friends, but the technical difficulties and jitter have made it cumbersome some times, if it's not straight up desyncing.

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Should be much better now; matter of fact, for our next testing sessions, I think we'll be trying these mods specifically, so thanks for mentioning them!

stagefatality.bsky.social•15 days ago

Follow up question: Are any of these netcode changes on the current SVN builds? Or is this strictly private testing?

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•15 days ago

Currently just internal testing as it's still not quite ready yet (a whole bunch of other issues still need tackling) 🙏

I'll post when it's ready to be tested publicly (it will go into GZDoom first, then later VKDoom)

stagefatality.bsky.social•15 days ago

Understandable. Thanks for the response!

riversalmon.bsky.social•15 days ago

During the test, GunBonsai worked as-is. So I have hope for drlax and corruption cards working better now

wlivi.bsky.social•16 days ago

Oh, this is exciting!

hexanyives.bsky.social•16 days ago

Nice! Can't wait to be able to play Hideous Destructor coop without nasty lag and "out of sync with 1"

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Yeah it should play much smoother eventually. BTW we fixed the out of sync message so it actually shows the player name you are out of sync with, instead of just a number

therealcockatrice.bsky.social•16 days ago

You keep picking the worthiest of battles. Good luck sir, I'll be checking this out for sure.

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Thanks man🙏 Still some mileage left in this old engine for sure lol

ggbonnd.bsky.social•12 days ago

I can finally connect with my three friends online on Hideous destructor This is really amazing

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Still a few issues to iron out, but we're dedicated to fix the "GZDoom netcode bad" narrative. Will lay out the plans as and when. Watch this space. I'll be talking about this a lot this year.

meson.ninja•16 days ago

will this wind up finding its way into raze's codebase as well?

nashmuhandes.bsky.social•16 days ago

Oh jeez, that would be a dream come true. The code/backend will land in Raze, for sure, but it's more of a manpower thing to actually hook up the 4 or 5 games or whatever to actually use the netcode. Raze's devs are spread thin as is. Would love to see it happen in my life time though :P

meson.ninja•16 days ago

heck yeah

thanks for taking this on

boondorl.bsky.social•15 days ago

Not immediately since a lot of it is still GZDoom specific, however I'm decoupling some things from GZDoom so they can be smoothly moved over to Raze eventually

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