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The third Odamex 0.6 preview, "Rock The Vote", details Odamex's exciting new voting system.


Make sure to leave comments, feedback, and check back every Monday for exciting new information!

Today we are glad to announce the first of many Odamex 0.6 previews. Every Monday, we will be posting a new video showing off what players can expect leading up to Odamex 0.6. Today's video, "A Comfortable Migration", covers some of Odamex's new settings that should make playing more familiar to veteran players coming from other similar engines.


Make sure to leave comments, feedback, and check back every Monday for exciting new information!

Hot on the heels of last week's 0.5.5 release, Odamex 0.5.6 has been released to correct a number of critical errors found within the last week. These fixes include correcting a miscommunication between certain servers and the official Odamex launcher, a number of crashes and client disconnects found during last weekend's Saturday Nitro event, and a number of other fixes related to smaller issues with netdemos and client-side prediction.

This update features more than fixes however. Along with improved Unlagged, Odamex 0.5.6 offers a new server feature called sv_ticbuffer. Enabling sv_ticbuffer on the server will place incoming ticcmds into a buffer and process one ticcmd per gametic for each player instead of processing all the player's incoming ticcmds. The result is that the player's movement will skip less and appear "smoother" when there is network jitter. This has been tested on a number of high latency connections in cross-continental play and has received a lot of positive feedback.

For clients, the new variable cl_updaterate allows clients to specify how often they wish to receive updates of the positions of other players in the game. The default value of 2 implies the client would like to be updated every other tic, or 35 / 2 times a second. A value of 1 implies the client would like to be updated every tic, or 35 times a second. This can be adjusted through the Network Options menu and we encourage all players to take a look at these settings and see what works best for your connection.

As always, there are more detailed changes than those listed above and they can be found through the Release Page or the svn changelog.

Since this release has come so quickly after the release of Odamex 0.5.5, the team recommends that you take a look at the Odamex 0.5.5 release announcement for any other fixes or features that you may have missed.

Odamex 0.5.4 is a rather hefty release that will ultimately serve to bridge the gap between the 0.5 series and 0.6. Along with the usual bug fixes, it features a number of experimental features expected to be complete for the 0.6 release.

Odamex 0.5.4 features a number of important fixes over the last official version. A bug introduced by the client "death camera" causing incorrect spawn angles has been fixed. Issues that occur specifically in CTF such as ghost flags and the sound origin bug have been fixed as well. Other similar changes include improvements to the scoreboards, improved ZDoom compatibility, and changes to default settings.

The most notable of the new features found in Odamex 0.5.4 are both the inclusion of unlagged support and early net demo support, both of which have been a long time coming. These features are both currently in experimental stages, so while we encourage you to give them a try, we also encourage you to report any issues or bugs that you run across while using them so that the Odamex team can do its best to stamp out these issues going into our next major version.

Odamex 0.5.4 adds options for a number of ZDoom competitive standards as well. The addition of the new cl_nobob and sv_allownobob allows players to turn off the swinging of the hud weapon if the server allows it. Another new server variable, co_zdoomsoundcurve, increases the distance players can hear sound to that used in ZDoom engines. The existing co_zdoomphys server variable now also adds support for two-way wall running. As always, these enhanced features all defaulted to off in a default server configuration.

Other changes and additions for players include the ability to turn the music system off entirely through the sound menu (snd_nomusic). This should serve as a temporary remedy for players who experience music issues on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Odamex 0.5.4 also features support for 5-button mice.

For a more in-depth look at the changes in Odamex 0.5.4,  check out a more extensive list on the release page or the complete listing using our svn changelog.


There are two changes in this release that server administrators should take note of.

1) Odamex will be phasing out the -config command line moving toward our next major version. This is likely the last official release that will support it. Please begin using the new +exec parameter to read from configuration files.

2) There was a very important change to our CTF system in this release. The cvar ctf_flagtimeout, which determines how long it takes before an untouched dropped flag returns to its pedestal, underwent a significant change in this version. Originally, ctf_flagtimeout was measured in 'tics'. The default was 600 tics. To streamline this cvar to be more inline with our other variables, the unit of measurement was changed to seconds. Although the new default is 10 seconds, this change will not take place unless you update your configuration. IF YOU DO NOT UPDATE YOUR CONFIGURATION FROM 0.5.3, IT WILL TAKE 600 SECONDS FOR THE FLAG TO AUTOMATICALLY RETURN TO THE BASE. Please take note of this and make the appropriate changes where necessary!


The Odamex project is still very much in need of updated documentation and encourage anyone with the time and desire to help to get in touch with us. Experience with editing wikis is preferred but certainly not a requirement. If you feel that this is something you would be interested in, please do not hesitate to contact me through our IRC channel (irc.oftc.net #odamex) or through a forum private message.

We would also like to again remind our users that the Odamex project thrives off of user input, particularly when it comes to resolving bugs in the engine. If you would like to be involved in helping Odamex's development move forward, please take a moment to sign up for the Odamex Bug Tracker. The team refers to the bug tracker to determine how development should move forward. If you come across something odd or broken that is not already listed or resolved in the tracker, please submit as much information as you can! Odamex can only succeed with the help of dedicated users!

If you are interested in tracking official Odamex news more easily, you can subscribe to updates in a variety of ways:

1) Subscribe to the new Odamex Mailing List, which will give you immediate updates on Odamex bugs and their status as changes occur. You can do this by signing up here or email odamex-bug-reporter-request@freelists.org with "subscribe" in the subject field.

2) You can subscribe to the Odamex releases rss feed.

3) You can receive email alerts on official Odamex releases (requires a sourceforge account or an openid).

I recently got Odamex installed on this machine and I have tried connecting to a server. However I am unable to. Every time I try, I get an error message.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Inferdramon/Doomdoesnotwork.png

I have allowed the program to go through my antivirus and firewall and it still does not work. I was suggested to toggle port, but I do not have access to my router from this computer as it is installed on my brother's computer. So I am unable to toggle port.

Is there anything else I can do to get Odamex to work for me?

   Over the past few months, Odamex development has come to a grinding halt as our lead developer and other notable people who worked on the code have been caught up with other things. The Odamex team is looking for someone to join up and be able to take the reigns on a project with so much potential. This person should have a solid grasp of C++ and, experience with net code, not easily defeated by frustration, and as a plus, knowledge of the Doom engine.

   Odamex is the most popular client/server Doom engine that is licensed under the GPL. Founded in 2005, Odamex still does many things that the other popular multiplayer engines do not, including but not limited to, on-the-fly wad loading (allowing for servers with an infinite number of maps in rotation) and wad downloading. Odamex has been ported to just about every platform that supports SDL, even including consoles like the XBox.

   Ultimately, I'm making the post because there is a significant player base looking for Odamex to be better. The players want it, but Odamex is not where it needs to be yet to support them. The engine is in a good position but still needs work put in to make it as great as it can be.

   As far as immediate concerns, Odamex needs to get to version 0.5. There's a list of bugs that we wish to have closed before 0.5 is released. We are seeking patches for all of these bugs.

   If you feel that you can help the Odamex project and its community, please contact me by email, through our message boards, or through irc (irc.oftc.net #odamex). There are many players that need your help!

It's that time again to look through the Bug Tracker, only this time we're gonna try and squash as much as we can. The Bug Tracker Cleanup Initiative which promotes community and personal involvement and investment in Odamex. This will hopefully lead to a healthier, more manageable project for our programmers and encourage project growth.

The way to get involved is easy! All you have to do is use this compiled list of currently outstanding bugs and attempt to reproduce any of the bugs in the list that haven't been tested yet.




Your job is to identify or try to reproduce the bug in your current client. PLEASE SPECIFY YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM AND THE REVISION YOU ARE RUNNING ('version' command in either client or server will output this information).


If during your testing, you have any new information on how to reproduce a bug, you should report any new findings to both the bug tracker and this thread immediately.

If you cannot reproduce the bug but are not sure that it is corrected, please specify that you cannot reproduce. This may or may not be the most common response we'll receive. We'll have to see how this goes.

While it is important to find any new information on a bug, it is not the main goal of this program. The main goal is simply put to determine the legitimacy of any bugs still in the tracker (some of which have been open for over 3 years!). However if you do find new information pertaining to an outstanding bug, PLEASE REPORT IT!

Do not waste your time with any grayed out bugs in the list as they are usually enhancement bugs or something similar that detail implementation of a feature rather than an existing issue.

The projected goal is to report and complete the status of all current open bugs on this list by February 5th. Let's see if we can pull together and help get the ball rolling even faster towards an Odamex 0.5 release.

The cross-platform server browser, Doomseeker, has been updated to include even more support. With the release of the Doomseeker 0.5b beta (revision 364), the powerful browser now has Mac OSX support thanks to the efforts of our Hyper_Eye.

On top of support for Mac OSX, Doomseeker also has improved stability among a variety of other changes.

The changelog,download links, and discussion for this beta of Doomseeker 0.5b can be found in this development blog.