DSN - Damn Small Nexuiz

Damn Small Nexuiz (DSN) is a project targeted towards computers with limited performance/disk space. It's goal is to bring a somewhat playable Nexuiz version to the popular netbooks.

--- Download ---
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsn/

--- Screenshots ---

sounds like a interesting concept. Screenshots ?(really wana see those sprite items)

[[-z-]]

- All playermodels are replaced with the PB box.

!!! LOL!


I too would like to see some screenshots. This sounds awesome

This should be official.

(vid_pixelheight 0.8 is the cause for the stretched images)

what about you useing itemmodels like this?
http://gfx.quakeworld.nu/details/98/
simple boxs

oh apparently I read the forum very actively:

http://www.alientrap.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4095

Good job getting it down to 56MB. You're more thorough than me, looks like I forgot the map sources.

Other than that, the microscopic textures & 2d models will surely give it the edge in performance too.

Nice work.

Nice work!

Items are replaced with 2D sprites

I would like to have it in nexuiz too: r_simpleitems 1

I would like to have it in nexuiz too: r_simpleitems 1

+1, but better sprites (correct sizes, medium armor/large armor right [they changed places in mine])

[[-z-]]

Diggity check this




edit:

Don't know what you're saying. There's more tho:

http://prophets.aforumfree.com/developm ... x-t227.htm
http://www.alientrap.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4095
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69452
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_GplmfSTwI

There's certainly a demand for such a thing, surely we could make an official unofficial lighter Nex?

1337 - nice

Hmm interesting. I couldnt use this, but im sure someone else could.


[-z-] is 1337

There seems to be a great demand for this indeed, so we should perhaps work together on this and not waste our time reinventing the wheel

I think THE netbook version would additionally:
- have optimized maps with extra details removed, if possible: no lightmap at all except vertex lighting.
- have _very_ lowpoly edition models of the current playermodels (not just a box like i have)
- have sounds (4m's version does not >:) )
- have (good) simple item sprites
- perhaps have optimizations in the engine to make it run faster on slow hardware? They mentioned T&L hardware support on ubuntuforums.com for example. However, I have no idea how easy/difficult it would be to add support for this. Wouldn't modern hardware get a performance boost from that too?

Good points.

I hadn't thought of the maps, I'll fire up Netradiant on Warfare later, see if there's anything to be gained with simple build options.

Low-poly models are a must, they slow down even the best rigs. Not something I can do myself but there's a lot of people in the Nexuiz community that could.

I thought about not providing any engine binary but leaving the source & a build script so that custom cflags could be applied. Doubt there'd be much gain but it wouldn't hurt & you'd shave a few KB.

Good points.

I hadn't thought of the maps, I'll fire up Netradiant on Warfare later, see if there's anything to be gained with simple build options.

I'm tuning aggressor and soylent, you don't need to fix those.

I thought about not providing any engine binary but leaving the source & a build script so that custom cflags could be applied. Doubt there'd be much gain but it wouldn't hurt & you'd shave a few KB.

But then the user will need to download all dependencies, which in the end might use quite a lot of disk space...

I'd do the models if I had any idea how to open them in Blender and export them to .zym after that.

I had a quick attempt with build settings on Warfare, the size is down by 14%, unfortunately the performance takes a 7% hit.

Have a look: http://omploader.org/vMWljaA/warfare.pk3 - looks like sh1t.

I was hoping for a simple soloution that could be scripted. Let us know how you get on with aggressor and soylent & what you did if you see an improvement.

I had a quick attempt with build settings on Warfare, the size is down by 14%, unfortunately the performance takes a 7% hit.

Remember, performance over size...

Thank you FruitieX for making this , much appreciated. I might be getting back a P2 333mhz with a Voodoo 3 soon that I gave to my grandpa about 7 years ago that still works, so maybe I'll try this on it for fun (as well as make a small Linux home server box out of it) when I get it back hehe.

Remember, performance over size...

That goes without saying.

How're Soylent & Aggressor coming?

Is it possible to replace the character and weapon models (not the drop model ones) with sprites? If so I'd like to try doing that.

D'oh! i didn't know the demand was so high.... thanks FruitieX for creating my thread.

My plan was to either host DSN on OUNS or start a new site. (didn't bother uploading anything since i'm not finished, yet. Still over 100 MB.)

Is it possible to replace the character and weapon models (not the drop model ones) with sprites? If so I'd like to try doing that.

replacing item models with sprites would be awesome for the "retro-mode" !

rough to-do:
* create "shrinker" script,
* seperate downloads for Linux, Windows and Mac

This looks GREAT! The only con I have is the playermodels being boxes >.>

That should be optional and as a "worst-case-scenario", so to speak.
Imagine you're on a map with boxes. If the players also look like boxes and someone is standing still next to a box that's part of the map you will not know which box to shoot!

oh, and on Linux, Nexuiz creates a /.nexuiz folder to store the settings and DSN creates the same, overriding it (or writing into it). i guess we should fix that.

Fruitie, you really did a great job. i almost get 300 FPS! XD

D'oh! i didn't know the demand was so high.... thanks FruitieX for creating my thread.

My plan was to either host DSN on OUNS or start a new site. (didn't bother uploading anything since i'm not finished, yet. Still over 100 MB.)

Is it possible to replace the character and weapon models (not the drop model ones) with sprites? If so I'd like to try doing that.

replacing item models with sprites would be awesome for the "retro-mode" !

rough to-do:
* create "shrinker" script,
* seperate downloads for Linux, Windows and Mac

It'd be like back in the days of Marathon and Doom. I'm not so much good at coding/scripting in any language, but I'll try to get some sprites made in my spare time that people can toy around with if they feel like it. The sprite creation alone may be a little challenge for a noob with little time like me since each character will have to have eight (unless we want ambidextrous players) sides, and on seven of those sides be shown with the weapon they're carrying, not to mention there's always movement and crouching... Should be a fun little starter project for me. If I get anything made I'll post it on this forum and it'll have the same license as everything else in the official Nexuiz release.

By the way, if somebody is a good coder and has too much free time, there is always the possibility to recreate at least parts of the content, like textures, with procedural code. For example fxgen.org does this. but they seem to change into a C# project, what a shame.. the prime example is of course http://www.werkkzeug.com/ and the game based on it http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger

I've not used this yet, but have some ideas:

- Rebuild the binaries. If any of the netbook distros fell interested in picking this up, they should build it for the processor architectures they are using which although not powerful, have a lot more instructions available than i686 with MMX. Using -Os would also be a good idea as it will reduce the size of the binary and may run faster on netbooks and older computers with less CPU cache.

- Any TGA textures without alpha channels should be converted to JPEG.

- As well as making this test build available, can you also produce some kind of script that converts the stock Nexuiz to DSN. This means it's fully documented and any netbook distro can pick this up for their build process.

Is it possible to replace the character and weapon models (not the drop model ones) with sprites? If so I'd like to try doing that.

Character sprites are a bad idea that I already have tried, because they look very flat from the top. From the right angle you won't even see them, and this is very annoying. A 2d sprite for the first person weapon model is a cool idea, you should try doing that!

[morfar]

Btw. I'd like to mention that using this build is considered cheating.
So it can't ever be used in ladders or tourneys. And only be used on really really bad computers.

rough to-do:
* create "shrinker" script,
* seperate downloads for Linux, Windows and Mac

Adding these to my todo list. I will start working on the script right away. 4m, feel free to start from my DSN version, no need to do the same things again! (It's fully gpl_v2)

each character will have to have eight (unless we want ambidextrous players) sides, and on seven of those sides be shown with the weapon they're carrying, not to mention there's always movement and crouching...

But how are you going to just stick them on a box? Each side will either need a black background or look ugly with transparency, because you will also see the sprites behind the ones that are facing you!

I'd say the best way to go right now would be to create a lowpoly version of one of the current playermodels, and maybe in the future from all of them. Just... who would do this? (I don't know much about animating stuff in Blender). This model would not need to look good, nor does it need any textures or UV mapping, because these will be gone with r_showsurfaces 3 anyway. The only texture it needs is a 1x1 _shirt.tga texture.