Splitscreen

[4avenger5]

Zandronum team, please please please, put in 4 player splitscreen and allow people to play online or lan while using splitscreen.

[Wartorn]

Would this even be feasible to implement? I've heard that there's issues with rendering limitations based off a vague search on the ZDoom forum implying that this isn't going to be very easy to implement or even maintain (Nothing concrete though in the technical side of things other than "This can't be done").

Still, while the idea isn't bad since multiplayer is part of the scope of the port itself, I can imagine a lot of performance choking rendering 4 screen sessions at once with the kinds of projects modders dish out and in the end probably not something worth the effort for the little gain it does give the port. The time used to implement it is probably better served elsewhere.

[NeuralStunner]

Also, why would you want to play splitscreen over LAN? :P

[Ænima]

People need to stop asking for split-screen. This is like the 100th time now.

[Ijon Tichy]

[quote=Gez, on the old forums,]
You don't see the coder's side in that.

Doom has never been written with split-screen in mind. The entire code is littered with assumption that there is only one player by game.

If you do change all that, not only will it be a massive effort for a very small reward (a couple people are happy, 99% of the userbase doesn't care), but it will also make it harder to port new ZDoom features as the codebases will have diverged too much.
[/quote]

(lol capital W)

[Stru]

There are other things they should work on first before touching that. It'd be a cool feature and all, but I don't see much of a purpose.

In the future, possibly. Right now, no. It's not worth it.

[Reach Term]

If this were a console game, then I don't see why people ask for it. However, this is a computer game. Something that requires a keyboard and mouse. Splitscreen is something I've not seen on a PC game,* because it's completely useless and not really wanted. How can 2-4+ people can play a single game on a computer monitor... I can give you that answer, you can't. Not only they'll have to rewrite the whole program but even the game itself and believe me, that is something they don't want to do. For me,
PC Game with Splitscreen is a oxymoron.

* = Based on personal facts that was not researched and check prior before posting.

[Qent]

Also, why would you want to play splitscreen over LAN? :P

2 computers 1 screen.

But yeah, this would be cool, but it's too much work for too little gain. On the old ST forums there was something about this assumption throughout the code that exactly one consoleplayer exists on an instance of the program. That and ZDoom has way more controls than Doom, so you wouldn't be able to reach all players with the splitscreen feature.

[Dusk]

The engine has copious, copious amounts of code, all of which assumes that there's only ever one consoleplayer.
Good luck implementing this.

[Mr. Chris]

How exactly would you do that with a keyboard, mouse and only a few USB ports for controllers? No thank you, stick to the internet/LAN so everyone has a full screen and not a portion of it.

[Theshooter7]

What would be an interesting workaround though is to allow multiple instances of the game to run together without having to be in focus. For example, being able to have two instances of the game have a functioning renderer context (assuming OpenGL; I haven't a clue how the Software code works), so that both can show the game actively (at current, multiple instances of the game will only show the last drawn frame and the game "in focus" will function normally). Perhaps then a way to assign particular controls schemes or configs to different instances would allow one player to play using a controller and the other to play with mouse/keyboard. Or any setup for that matter (2 controllers, etc.).

Just an idea for a workaround, but probably not worth the time overall.

[mr fiat]

I really don't understand WHY people want this, its rather pointless to do as everyone else has already pointed out.

however tho...

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The [video] tag is deprecated, please use the [media] tag

[Nati46]

This makes me think about another feature which may be possible : Demos in 1v1 showing the other player's view in a small square on the top right corner (Like in ZDaemon, shown here). Will the fact that Zandronum uses a newer version of ZDoom than ZDaemon does make this any harder to implement than in ZDaemon?

[Ivan]

If this were a console game, then I don't see why people ask for it. However, this is a computer game. Something that requires a keyboard and mouse. Splitscreen is something I've not seen on a PC game,* because it's completely useless and not really wanted. How can 2-4+ people can play a single game on a computer monitor... I can give you that answer, you can't. Not only they'll have to rewrite the whole program but even the game itself and believe me, that is something they don't want to do. For me,
PC Game with Splitscreen is a oxymoron.

* = Based on personal facts that was not researched and check prior before posting.

Some very old PC game called Whacky Wheels features this and allows 2 people to play from same computer ! Up to 4. But it's a more imaginative Mario Kart so, it's not like Doom and it might make sense that it has such a feature.

Now talking about Doom, this game REALLY does NOT need this feature, at all. It didn't even exist in vanilla and it's such a useless feature to MANY other users, it's not worth adding in.

EDIT : Also I bet I'm not the only person who's bored of seeing all these split screen request threads...

[Llewellyn]

If this were a console game, then I don't see why people ask for it. However, this is a computer game. Something that requires a keyboard and mouse. Splitscreen is something I've not seen on a PC game,* because it's completely useless and not really wanted. How can 2-4+ people can play a single game on a computer monitor... I can give you that answer, you can't. Not only they'll have to rewrite the whole program but even the game itself and believe me, that is something they don't want to do. For me,
PC Game with Splitscreen is a oxymoron.

* = Based on personal facts that was not researched and check prior before posting.

Some very old PC game called Whacky Wheels features this and allows 2 people to play from same computer ! Up to 4. But it's a more imaginative Mario Kart so, it's not like Doom and it might make sense that it has such a feature.

Aww come on you couldn't think of a newer one? Serious Sam 3 :D

[Ivan]

If this were a console game, then I don't see why people ask for it. However, this is a computer game. Something that requires a keyboard and mouse. Splitscreen is something I've not seen on a PC game,* because it's completely useless and not really wanted. How can 2-4+ people can play a single game on a computer monitor... I can give you that answer, you can't. Not only they'll have to rewrite the whole program but even the game itself and believe me, that is something they don't want to do. For me,
PC Game with Splitscreen is a oxymoron.

* = Based on personal facts that was not researched and check prior before posting.

I would if I had played it :p
Some very old PC game called Whacky Wheels features this and allows 2 people to play from same computer ! Up to 4. But it's a more imaginative Mario Kart so, it's not like Doom and it might make sense that it has such a feature.

Aww come on you couldn't think of a newer one? Serious Sam 3 :D

[Tomthetom]

This isnt logical. You could get better result by simply connecting two computer to your Lan. Why split-scree ? Developers have more important things to do than adding a feature that is totally useless.

[Llewellyn]

This isnt logical. You could get better result by simply connecting two computer to your Lan. Why split-scree ? Developers have more important things to do than adding a feature that is totally useless.

Well it isn't totally useless, obviously someone wanted it.

[Guest]

Because playing on a computer connected to HDTV through HDMI with friends, joystick and no lag is more fun (and simpler) than playing over lan and having to buy one more HDTV for kickass gameplay. Imagine what if you could coop spy one, two, up to three of your team mates in coop, survival or team dm.

Also, it's more energy efficient.

[Ijon Tichy]

but it, oh, you know, requires a whole damn ENGINE REWRITE to support

yeah, not happening