PNOCOMP Research and Notes

[chris]

PNOCOMP.EXE - Ongoing Research

Pie seems to have shipped at least a dozen versions of PNOCOMP from the start to the end of 1995.

Date: 1995-01-08 [CRC: 77A0F69A]
Games: GCSAct, GCSXmas
Comment: This seems to be only from pre-release GCS demos.

Date: 1995-01-19 [CRC: 1417460F]
Games: None released(?)
Comment: This is from the GCS 1.11 binary in the w*rez version of the GCS from a Russian CD. The date and CRC are unique which is interesting, but I don't believe there's a virus in it, I think it's just very old.

Date: 1995-02-09 [CRC: 6CB3278D]
Games: Eternal Prison, Terror
Comment: The earliest 3rd party GCS games known to be released

Date: 1995-03-20 [CRC: D76473AE]
Games: Egg Hunt, Gaia, Subterraneans (not sure if game actually uses it)
Comment: Curiously this engine is translated to German, but the games appear to be from the US. I think this version was mistakenly shipped to US customers.

Date: 1995-04-02 [CRC: 64A89415]
Games: Attack of the Genetics Bugs!, Deer Napped, Dungeon of Terror, Freedom, Narc, Outlander
Comment: N/A

Date: 1995-05-08 [CRC: 304B03EB]
Games: Burnt Toast, Gore Galore, La Cosa Nostra, Man in the Mirror, Pleiades, Space, Terrorist, Zone Force
Comment: GENMIDI.IBK begins to be used

Date: 1995-06-17 [CRC: 1ED7B138]
Games: Castaway, Escape from Gaza, Industrial Killers (B), Infiltrator, Rapid Fire
Comment: This is the point where PNOCOMP.EXE file size goes from 161 to 164kb, I would assume a great number of things changed in the engine starting with this version. Notably, cheat mode appears and grenades move faster. Downgrading PNOCOMP versions past this one and you may start to have stability issues. Enemies walking through walls, etc.

Date: 1995-08-07 [CRC: 4D1A6FD6]
Games: Reap, Troubled Tower
Comment: N/A

Date: 1995-08-15 [CRC: 3D730062]
Games: Comicworld, Soeren
Comment: German release. Came just a week after the last version so safe to assume not much has changed but the language.

Date: 1995-08-15 [CRC: 6AA40435]
Games: Avenger, Chemical Warfare, Deadly Tecknology, Demon, Meltdown, Ninja Commandoes, Ninja Wars, Red Babe, SCUD
Comment: N/A

Date: 1995-10-09 [CRC: 1843EA68]
Games: (over 40+ titles)
Comment: Most releases are from this version, the 1.3 release of the GCS.

Date: 1995-11-02 [CRC: 1B7A3C03]
Games: D-Day, Earth, Elapse, Jack West, Kill, Pastor, The Return, UFO, Wing Do
Comment: German version, probably not much of a change besides language. Last release of the engine.



Uniques:
These are all Pie in the Sky games and all have unique signatures.

Industrial Killers [88F4CC76]
Meltdown [631E0CFD]
Terminal Terror [51CE1EC4]
Santa's Rescue [16297D4E]

Of all of these, Santa's Rescue might be most significant. On the surface I don't notice anything different (other than the screen fades to blue when you die), but the PNOCOMP date is 11/27/96, making it the latest known version of the DOS engine.
Of note: Gary Acord's games are all contain hacked PNOCOMP.EXE files with the Power 3D text modified.


P.EXE
In the engine directory you might notice the P.EXE file. This seems functionally identical to PNOCOMP as both P and PNOCOMP are capable of both testing levels and running compiled games.

ENGINE.EXE
GCS for Programmers uses ENGINE.EXE instead of PNOCOMP.EXE. The idea is the same and the executables seem to be for the most part compatible. You can even use it in place of P.EXE to test games, though there are issues with platform height, weapons, and probably other things.Swapping out PNOCOMP for ENGINE however is not plug and play. Engine uses .ENG files for compiled levels, which seem to be a completely different format than .SAC or .BIN files. I've had no luck getting ENGINE.EXE to compile .ENG files.


PNOCOMP Command Line (also for P.EXE and ENGINE.EXE)

pname	Specify subdirectory name to use for all universe data ("data" usually for a compiled game)
d	Compile final game files. Runs through THEATERS.TXT
f	Load precompiled universe info from .bin files
c	Clear *.bin files for running with clean slate (GCS Menu runs this when starting a new game, otherwise you'd resume)
g	God mode, invincible player
x	Assume video in mode X. Useful if you're running an exe beforehand that is already in DOS video mode X
j	Use joystick for control
m	Use mouse for control
l	Fatbits for slow computers (shrinks the screen draw size, really janky)
sn	Specify sound support type. s1=Sound Blaster, s3=PC Speaker (s2 presumably Adlib, removed?)
t	Play music if sound blaster selected. (use with 's1' option)
unnn	Specify which univ??.txt file to load (nnn is decimal number)
onnn	Specify which objdef??.txt file to load (nnn is decimal number)
bnnn	Specify which backg??.vga file to use, and which p??.pal
ennn	Specify which entry point in theaters.txt to start at
annn	Specify which universe attribute bits to use
hnnn	Specify difficulty level 0 (hardest) through 3 (easy) Def=0

Typically if you're testing a level with P.EXE, the command line will look something like this:

o1 u1 b1 pMYGAME m a64 s1 g

If you're running a final game, the command line looks more like this:
f pdata c x s1 t m (Start a new game)
f pdata x s1 t m (Resume game)

[lgb3d]

I love that you're doing this.

The deepest I got was taking a known game with modified HUD and trying to swap around the engine. EXE like you described yeah it's not Plug and Play and I noticed the file format was different and threw my hands up in the air.

But although reading about this before in the C programmers documentation your thread here gave me an idea of either cracking the code of GCS menu allowing the player to select difficulty or through a modified batch script that operates before menu loads, example which difficulty would you like one two or three..

I know my current game is challenging I would not say it is broken, and definitely needs beta testers but I know it has a high level of difficulty compared to other GCS created games of the past. So giving the player the option of a low level of difficulty or playing it again wanting a higher level of challenge sounds like an interesting aspect to incorporate.

I know you've been tweaking around with the guts of the program and I look forward to what you find discover produce, but have you ever looked at the menu itself because some of those command lines that would be entered at DOS prompt could easily be incorporated into a batch file but could it be made more user-friendly through GCS menu. Do you think there a way for us to tweak GCS menu creating essentially a different button set simular to sound on music on, example difficulty 1 2 3?

[chris]

I don't think difficulty can be adjusted using GCS Menu, unless you pre-empted the Sound/Music/Mouse toggles, then used the stub PNOCOMP idea to read GCS.CFG I think to read the status of those selections, then reroute to the real PNOCOMP with the command line modified. I wouldn't really recommend that, that's super hacky and you'd lose the ability to change audio and control options.

However. Santa's Rescue comes with an extended menu system that might be useful for that. SANTA3D.BAT calls a menu called MNMNU.EXE with the arguments "m fx.crd". If you take a look at x.crd you'll see a text file you can edit that defines VGA images to display, sounds to play, keys to press that jump to additional screens or menus, warning notices for trying to run in Windows, ASCII screens to display, and EXE files to run. I'm pretty sure you could steal this and use it to add an additional menu before GCS Menu to set the difficulty level, but even then that might take some hackery with PNOCOMP.

Here's what I'd suggest, something like how you select difficulty level in Quake. Have a level 0 where you can walk through a simple corridor, or you can take a middle path that might have a jumping puzzle or something. Then Another corridor that will absolutely kick a noob's butt if you try to go down it. If you survive those corridors, that's the difficulty you start at for the rest of the game I know there's a fluid command that sets the difficulty level on the fly so you could try that out. You would of course wanna give some feedback like put up signs marking the corridors, or put up a message to tell the player what they're in for.

[lgb3d]

I forgot about that fluid command you're right. But if I wanted to make it simplistic for the player to just select by pressing a numbers ie123.. I guess it's a modified batch file that would prompt the player? I know I was doing a bit of that with my Windows 95 project because I did not have a menu program for it so I was creating one with a batch file.

It's been awhile since I looked at the batch file of a GCS game with menu.. I know it's achievable by being able to read write modify. But my thought is even if the player was to select before menu loaded that does not change that command line created when player select start button in menu so that's why it would require the batch file user input to be capable of reading the GCS menu program and rewriting part of it. So both for Creator and user to achieve a difficulty setting yet might take some hackery but I just see it would be so simplistic if achievable to be able to toggle difficulty in GCS menu.

Your idea was the best and cleanest using a fluid file in a game level, and that would probably be nostalgic for some game players as a nod to quake.

Here in Mendocino County California getting blasted by a storm I am not motivated to go to work and brave this weather, so I'm taking some time this afternoon trying to tweak with fourth script for pickup object, that was a pretty exciting conversation yesterday.

[chris]

Yeah that was a pretty cool trick with Forth, just wish I knew how the old code worked to pick up the clothes and leave the body behind. Without the second line I added you can press enter over the body and crash the game, so it is successfully flagging the body as a pickup but I don't know what the heck pickup code it's setting (null? 0?), so I'm setting it to 16 in the next line to make it a shotgun. It's possible the engine no longer supports the clothes stealing pickup logic which would be unfortunate. I did notice there's a way to dump debug data to the screen so I might try to read the pickup code and go from there.

I suppose one could do what I suggested with the projectile solution and use that to drop a weapon. But you would have to pair an enemy with another enemy and tell it to be a pickup, it would be pretty complicated and use up enemy slots so I'd only recommend that for minibosses or something.

But yeah for difficulty setting you could definitely just write a batch file or modify go.bat or whatever. The Santa3D frontend is essentially a visual batch type deal and might do the job too, but the reason I recommend making difficulty an interactive setting in the actual game is so that you can also set some universe registers while setting the difficulty parameter. That way you can make fluids behave differently based on difficulty level as well.

Stay safe out there dude

[Mystery]

So v 1.3 seems to be the most popular one and v 1.11 is the other one we have.
But I've noticed something: lgb3d Greg, you mentioned v 1.13 in some of your YouTube videos. Is that a different GCS version that might be an addition to the archive for preservation or do I have the version numbers mixed up?

[lgb3d]

I'm pretty sure I have the version numbers mixed up

[Mystery]

Another mystery solved

I was just browsing your videos (so much great stuff there, really really awesome) and noticed the version number.

[lgb3d]

Yeah 1.13 is the first release of Windows on that CD we all got as kids. I forget the number of the Dos version.. but I swear it's something odd like 1.3 or something like how does 1.3 come before 1.13.

Glad you enjoy the videos. At first I was just making short clips to accompany tutorials. Was a little bit easier to show things that way compared to uploading various pictures having web hosting links Etc whereas videos show and tell a lot and YouTube is free video storage.. anywhere else you try storing the videos you would run out of space quick and they would ask you for money.

Somehow I fell off the tutorial aspect of documenting discoveries. But I'm getting pretty close to a milestone on my project I literally spent today playing with Autodesk animator creating a few new fli videos for cutscenes. There's definitely a learning curve to that software but if you're patient you can pull off some pretty cool stuff. That was really impressive software for the time