GMDXv9.0 Release

[Made in China]

My most recent experience was with beta 3, which is largely outdated by now - but framerates there were consistent and high. I tested it on both a low-powered laptop (Lenovo Z41) and a gaming rig. You aren't pushing the rendering engine to its limits, if that's what you're worried about.

The relevant Lenovo Z41 specs:
CPU: i7-5500U (lobotomized CPU) - note that it is prone to heat throttling
GPU: AMD R7 M360
RAM: 8GB running at 1600 MHz

[Cybernetic pig]

Personally I get drops in specific areas on my toaster. But I'm talking two or three areas and not something I'd sacrifice for toasters. It's not just rendering though. Garbage collection constantly at work, multiple NPCs going over more involved state code, things being called every tick, Generally anything that requires lots of CPU or GPU in a short time frame, and perhaps stuff that can be optimized via refactored code if it were to pose a problem.

You aren't pushing the rendering engine to its limits, if that's what you're worried about.

Not worried about it, as it is far from desired. It would only be worth pushing the engine to its limits if there was worthy content to do it with, as in new post-processing effects and massively enhanced artistic direction with the help of a dedicated art team, not just mostly the same levels but with 40% more detail as it is now in v9.0 current. But that's not giving myself enough credit, as the intention is to have GMDX be the best looking DX experience regardless of a lack of those things, and it really does look good right now.

[Defaultplayer001]

Check DX lore. SecurityBot3 is considered a low-end bot:

"An inexpensive security bot, a favorite of Third World countries and corporate security divisions. Not so mobile, but don't be fooled: we've lost plenty of agents to its well-armored assault gun. Like other bots, it's difficult to damage with ordinary bullets."

Who has the order to disable it without destroying it and then transporting it back to base? Is it even worthy of salvage? Speaking of, how'd they get it down all those stairs?

After that got curious and typed in Givemedeusex.com, which as it turns out, led nowhere at all, so I googled it and the domain was free and open for sale! And cheap!
Was surprised by this so I got it via Google Domains (only 12$/y!) and set it up with a redirect to the GMDX site.

I can transfer the domain ownership to Cyber/+have the domain ownership set up for the next few years anytime.

Hey, thanks! Very kind of you. Inspires me to get to work on the mod today. PM me whatever it is I need to do for the website port to the new domain.

NP at all! Very happy to help, the porting process should be incredibly simple, as google domains support's Wix by default, it should be incredibly easy to transfer. If you'd like, an really simple way to do that would be to make a copy of your Wix site template (Which is confusingly called a transfer? https://support.wix.com/en/ticket/3ed50 ... 175776031b) , which I can then put on my existing ad-free Wix account, and then bada-bing bada-boom ad-free GMDX site.

Alternatively I created a Gmail account (GMDXshared@gmail.com) I can transfer the domain to, give you the password, the template can be transferred simply as above, and I can take care of the Wix account as normal?
Alternatively alternatively I could transfer the domain to you (https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251236?hl=en), you could link your WIx account to it, and paypal or something for the ad removal? Or we could just keep with ads if your not comfortable with that.
Also working on that GMDX moddb page based on the one you linked me, and also those couch textures too, though tbh not happy with the quality so far.

Sorry for the delay! Been unexpectedly busy. Should have a lot more focus to dedicate now.

[Cybernetic pig]

Like I said, was thinking of ditching the website as it is sub-optimal and a misrepresentation of the quality of GMDX itself. But if you've invested money I'll definitely keep it and I/we'll work on making it better and more presentable.
We'll do the transfer/first suggestion if that's the best. Take this to PM?

Of primary concern, though, is definitely the moddb page. Would be very happy with some custom CSS there!

Thanks for your efforts. v9.0 will not disappoint. There's something for everyone and is executed with few downsides, now more than ever.

[Defaultplayer001]

Sent you a pm with the relevant details, ideally it should be incredibly quick.
As far money it's not much at all (less then my netflix lol) so nbd if you eventually want to ditch it. I def don't mind taking a crack at giving it a refreshed look(after doing the moddb page ofc).
I can def prioritize the moddb page if you think that's a better platform!

Np still ofc! I'm just thrilled tbh to contribute to a project I'm such a big fan of.

[RoSoDude]

My old laptop from 2012 gets 57-60 FPS at all times in GMDX v8.0. I never experience any frame skipping or stutter except rarely from menus and loading. Since my laptop model is known for overheating after several years, my core temp jumps to 91°C from a baseline 65-75°C, but even with that GMDX v8.0 runs with zero problems on my machine. Specs are:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3615QM quad-core, 2.3 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 M (roughly equivalent AMD R7 M265, worse than Made In China's Lenuvo)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (1600 MHz)

I now play on desktop computer which is a monster by modern standards, but if you want me to compare v9.0 on the laptop I'd be happy to load up the saves and do an informal stress test.

My other benchmark for mod performance is the time it takes to load the levels on my laptop's HDD. Revision took as bad as five minutes to load UNATCO and NYC, which indicated the sheer level of bloat and pointless additions like trashbags, reflective surfaces, and orange lighting everywhere. There was no noticeable difference between GMDX v8.0 and vanilla in this regard (never worse than 20s or so for entirely new maps, under 1s to reload the same area).

[Cybernetic pig]

Thanks for all your support and input guys, sincerely. And that goes for anyone who has made meaningful contributions over the course of 4.5 years of development. I still wish I had extensive artist support beyond the current contributions and a tech/engine genius backing the project with regular support, but this is exactly what I've always wanted for GMDX. With support we can just accomplish more, and truly push the legendary DX to its potential.

[Cybernetic pig]

So I looked into the HDTP vending machine texture, and it looks like there's no identifiable lemon lime flavor (going off of color-coding alone) that could possibly be located next to an orange flavor. And it doesn't look like there was vanilla either. In fact, the HDTP tex is possibly an improvement, as the buttons display the in-world brands rather than seemingly generic ones that vanilla tex displays.
Perhaps Kim Wincen was overly heavy-handed with HDTP criticism there.

[RoSoDude]

So I looked into the HDTP vending machine texture, and it looks like there's no identifiable lemon lime flavor (going off of color-coding alone) that could possibly be located next to an orange flavor. And it doesn't look like there was vanilla either. In fact, the HDTP tex is possibly an improvement, as the buttons display the in-world brands rather than seemingly generic ones that vanilla tex displays.
Perhaps Kim Wincen was overly heavy-handed with HDTP criticism there.

I think his argument to that would be that when you have low resolution textures, your mind can fill in the blanks and it doesn't matter if the details are consistent (because they are too fuzzy to make out as it is). Thus, even if the HDTP texture is better, it can't make any mistakes like that without breaking immersion. Same goes for whether the vent textures are visibly dirty or clean.

I personally disagree, and think a high-resolution texture is better even if it commits a small error like this. I mean, if you actually went and looked after talking to Gunther, great, but I don't think it's a huge loss compared to the gain of better-looking textures.

[Made in China]

Lemon lime is generally green, maybe mixed with blue and with drops of yellow - Sprite's color scheme being the most well-known example of that.
The video w/ timecode where Kim references that, and tries to identify the soda flavors in both the vanilla and HDTP textures: https://youtu.be/jScXFj2V-3E?t=399

As a side note, I agree that the HDTP texture doesn't have any clear-cut lemon lime soda, as the one Kim identified is green, silver and orange. And easy fix is to take the two labels closest to orange (blue with yellow middle part), and tint their blue to be green. It might be a bit on-the-nose but tinting only one half instead of both will fit Sprite's color scheme perfectly.

[Cybernetic pig]

So I looked into the HDTP vending machine texture, and it looks like there's no identifiable lemon lime flavor (going off of color-coding alone) that could possibly be located next to an orange flavor. And it doesn't look like there was vanilla either. In fact, the HDTP tex is possibly an improvement, as the buttons display the in-world brands rather than seemingly generic ones that vanilla tex displays.
Perhaps Kim Wincen was overly heavy-handed with HDTP criticism there.

I think his argument to that would be that when you have low resolution textures, your mind can fill in the blanks and it doesn't matter if the details are consistent (because they are too fuzzy to make out as it is). Thus, even if the HDTP texture is better, it can't make any mistakes like that without breaking immersion. Same goes for whether the vent textures are visibly dirty or clean.

I personally disagree, and think a high-resolution texture is better even if it commits a small error like this. I mean, if you actually went and looked after talking to Gunther, great, but I don't think it's a huge loss compared to the gain of better-looking textures.

Yeah, and your mind can still fill in the blanks with the HDTP tex anyway, as we have no idea what those flavors are just as we had no idea vanilla, and it's still rather blurry up close anyway. Still, his general point does apply: if you're adding detail, be sure that detail takes the game's fiction, design practices, engine limitations and such into consideration.
I'm hoping to recruit him for a run through of v9.0 whenever the test build is finally ready, purely as quality assurance.

[Cybernetic pig]

New/domain-transferred and ad-free website is up, courtesy of a defaultPlayer001: http://www.givemedeusex.com/

Much thanks!

[Defaultplayer001]

I also made some experimental changes to the look, let me know what you guys think! I can revert anytime to the default look.

The old website is still up at http://genericname112.wixsite.com/gmdx so you can use that to compare! Also I believe I mentioned this before, but please don't touch the original site for now Cyber, as the transfer only transfers the template apparently, all images are still hosted on your copy of the site and will be removed if your copy is.

I have the whole site and it's images backed up ofc, so if this happens I can fix it in a matter of minutes, and I do intend to simply to prevent the issue, but am simply prioritizing other things.

Edit : Also forgot to mention, the /r/gmdx sub is just about complete as well.

I created a new simple text logo for the sub, so it syncs between /r/dx1 and /r/dxarchive, which use minor variations of the naut theme I've customized for GMDX.
I do like the cleaner look personally, but please let me how you guys like it again. It does lack some of the charm of the OG.

Oh and the changes might still take another 24 hours to kick in everwhere, so if you get an error when trying to reach the site please wait another day.

[Cybernetic pig]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gmdx/ is looking sharp.

Newly transferred website changes look better. I think removing the "A Deus Ex Advancement Mod" text under the logo would give it a further cleaner look.

[Defaultplayer001]

Removed the "A Deus Ex Advancement Mod" text, I agree it does look cleaner!

Also updated the site with the most recent news from the Moddb page, along with other various minor changes.