Version 1.9.8

The second stable release of the 1.9 series.

In 1.9.8 we have refactored some of the core components of the engine. We are no longer relying on the rather limited SDL framework for operating system services. Instead, we are now using Qt and C++. This should bear important long-term benefits as we now have a lot of functionality at our disposal in a platform-independent manner. We have also refactored the map data structures with higher-precision coordinates and improved the BSP builder in preparation for the future.

• Revised, Qt-based application core, window manager, OpenGL drawing surface management, keyboard/mouse input, and low-level networking (including master server comms). Addresses bugs: 2158271 3499504 3496945 2536269 3496085 2267127 2646011
• Runtime full-scene antialiasing (FSAA) and monitor vsync configuration. Both are enabled by default. If you have an older or mobile graphics card and need extra performance, disabling FSAA is probably a good idea (in the Control Panel, or using the vid-fsaa and vid-vsync variables).
• The game window can be resized in windowed mode.
• Several bugs fixed (see below and the detailed notes).

Closed bugs for the 1.9.8 milestone

• enable_c_ for developing new code in C++ without messing up the existing C code
• use_qt
• audio_interfaces_from_multiple_plugins
• adapt_changes_from_the_mapcache_branch
• double-precision_coordinates: BSP builder and map objects
• optimize_performance_bottlenecks (minor optimizations for dedicated servers)

See: Open bugs in the deng Bug Tracker

If you are upgrading an existing installation of Doomsday, note the following:

• The default bindings for F11 (F11=toggle fullscreen, Alt-F11=release mouse pointer) are created only after you reset bindings with the defaultbindings command. Alternatively, you can copy this to your configs/(game)/player/bindings.cfg:

bindevent "global:key-f11-down + key-alt-down" "releasemouse"
bindevent "global:key-f11-down" "togglefullscreen"

• On Windows, the PrintScreen key will not save a screenshot as a file to the runtime folder but will instead copy it to the clipboard. To create screenshots as files, you can bind another key to the screenshot command in the Controls menu (e.g., a key on the numpad).

The network protocol is incompatible with the one in 1.9.7, so after you upgrade you can only connect to servers that run the same version as you (1.9.8).

For more information about multiplayer, see the previous release's notes.

• detailed_list_of_changes_in_doomsday_version_1.9.8