Favorite Source Port? (Multiple Choice Poll)

What makes Eternity better for "General purpose dooming" than prboom?

lament said:

What makes Eternity better for "General purpose dooming" than prboom?

This ol' hunny dripper hasn't gotten around to trying prdoom yet...I will sometime son though, I hear good things about it. Just like I hear those never-ending voices in my noodle...

lament, not much in respect to being able to play "normal" WADs, or even boom-compatible ones. Its console and few additional features (mlook, obituaries, etc.) might attract some people, though. Otherwise that could mean "being able to run a broad range of available WADs" in which case you could say it adds the smmu or eternity WADs to those prboom can play. But in this respect zdoom and legacy would have a broader range of playable WADs to choose from.

lament said:

What makes Eternity better for "General purpose dooming" than prboom?

Nothing at all. PrBoom's a good choice too.

And myk, I wasn't "dissing" your post. The guy asked for opinions on ports. I gave mine and disagreed with yours. Deal with it.

Joel, yeah. I dealt with it, responding to your (derisive) disagreement.

All ports are good. I play ZDoom mostly, though.

myk: There's nothing obscure about the savegame bug Joel was talking about. Read the text files for levels like Vrack/Vrack2 and any of the newer huge levels. They will say "Don't even try to save using vanilla."

I even read about the savegame bug in levels from 1994/95 that weren't even really all that big.

I know about the savegame limit (on things on the map) which is not properly a bug anyway. He mentioned the "Venetian Blind" and described that it can happen on map30 (the savegame limit instead crashes without saving anything.) That's the "obscure bug" I meant. I'm not familiar with it.

By the way, and I'm not the 1st person to say this, saving and doom are incompatible when combined with the reasons that would make someone choose specifically doom and doom2 as preferred engines.

Uh... pardon the reference... but...
WHAT YOU SAY ? ? ?
But seriously, I didn't understand a word of that last sentence.

To be specific, it means that the main point in using doom instead of a more limitless or advanced port will most likely be to accentuate "gameplay" or the challenge of playing as opposed to admiring eyecandy, following some kind of story or experimenting a mood or evironment. In such a case playing through maps while saving to retry sections or to come back to exploring the WAD later makes little sense. Instead normally one plays each map from scratch to the end and then, when familiar with each map, possibly the whole episode or megawad. In other types of play a person may play through a WAD once or twice, possibly helping himself with savegames, and say he "beat it." He would then move on to another WAD.

Actually, playing like this means spending more time thoroughly playing specific maps, which might mean having to restrict the amout of maps one plays.

I don't mean one could not play like this using other engines, but if someone chooses to use doom2 over other engines in most cases, this is the reason, from what I know.

Thanks guys.....
I really appreciate this....

-Oxygenic

btw, I just can't wait untill Doom ]|[ comes out......

Some points that have not been addressed in this thread:

1) ZDoom v1.22 is LESS stable than ZDoom v1.23 beta 33, not more stable. People merely conclude that it's less stable simply because it's a beta and not a "proper" version. This is wrong.

2) It isn't only cards that aren't SB16 compatible which won't play sound in the original exe's. The SB Live! or SB Audigy are both SB16 compatible, yet they won't give you sound.

3) If you don't like wasting your time by messing around with programs like DeHackEd and DeuSF, use a modern port for a wad which contains sprites and/or comes with a deh files.

4) A Doom newbie will most likely want to save quite often, as they probably won't have developed the skills required to, say, play all the way through Requiem without saving. Combine this with what Myk himself said about not using the original exe's if you want to save, and it makes little sense for a newbie to use the original exe's :)

SlayeR said:

All ports are good. I play ZDoom mostly, though.

ditto.

(nothing else needs be said, cuz he already did)

NiGHTMARE:

2) Aren't those cards that can emulate SB16? I have a Creative SB16 card, but I also have a quite similar card by some more obscure producer which functions like a SB16 (but doesn't generally sound as good.) Oh, by the way, do you know if fully compatible SB16 cards can still be acquired (are still produced by someone)? I mean "fully" in this case by meaning it could run DOOM sound. As time passes changes in technology start to make ports a requirement, as hardware designed for DOS becmes scarce. Silly greedy industry!

3) Joel kinda said that already, but I guess you stated it more clearly as advice.

4) That's more likely if we take a "newbie" as a 2D being that is easily defined, or follow some sort of statistic to reach the answer to the question. But newbies come in all shapes and sizes. Many are already familiar with FPSs or otherwise adapt to playing decently quite fast. And savegames aren't much help if the newbie quickly becomes interested in the style of play that I mentioned. To get good at it he might not find it convenient to rely on handicaps he's going to have to get rid of anyway. Also, it's not like most maps for doom exceed the savegame limit, that is a minority. In addition, what I stated above was my opinion on the best port as requested, which isn't necessarily going to be the most versatile or anything. I added my opinion, which may help or suit some but not others. It isn't a simple yes/no question, to me.

2) Yes, that's what I meant, the SB Live! and Audigy are both supposedly 100% SB16 compatible, as they both come with an extra driver specifically dedicated to this function, but there's still not sound in the original .exe's. You also get no sound/heavily distorted sound in Boom, MBF, SMMU, DOS Eternity, etc.

Heh.
myk and Joel: can't we all just get along?! :P

Oxygenic: I would really suggest using ZDoom. It's the port I like the best, and therefore, also the one that I use the most. IMO, it's what the original .exe could/should of been like if the id guys had had time to implement that ZDoom boasts.

ZDoom all the way, ZDoom 2.0 pre(s) recommended if you can find any!

*coughcoughskulltagcoughcough*

My favorite source port is ALPHA 0.4.

Ultraviolent, I was fiddling a bit with that one the other day (the others too, actually.) 0.4 is apparently a purely technical try out, as the map it runs on (maps?) is very simple, though it shows some of the new features in relation to wolf3d.

I bet you run competitions with your friends to see who can get farthest without a crash... "hey I got to the 2nd bend!"

Gah! Stop calling me that! It's UltraviolET without any N anywhere.

1. Doom legacy
WHY: It's nice... Has lots of features, Fragglescript, and more.
2. Zdoom
WHY: Same as legacy
3. Jdoom
WHY: It's the one I've seen with the best md2 support! Though it's got lack of special features.
4. Skulltag
WHY: It's a nice port for bot matches :)

I tried the JDoom port, it somehow "lagged" my whole system. I don't know what's wrong with it.... I mean....... I should be able to play Doom ][ on my computer:

Intel Pentium III @ 500MHz
512MB Ram
Voodoo2 12MB
Microsoft Windows 98 SE

Anyway..... where can I get those md2 models???
I think I might try ZDoomGL.

-Oxygenic

Oxygenic said:
Intel Pentium III @ 500MHz
512MB Ram
Voodoo2 12MB
Microsoft Windows 98 SE

The Voodoo2 12MB is you problem.

Doomsday engine or Jdoom Md2 Support and eyecandy galore 0_0

Oxygenic said:

I tried the JDoom port, it somehow "lagged" my whole system. I don't know what's wrong with it.... I mean....... I should be able to play Doom ][ on my computer:

Intel Pentium III @ 500MHz
512MB Ram
Voodoo2 12MB
Microsoft Windows 98 SE

Anyway..... where can I get those md2 models???
I think I might try ZDoomGL.

-Oxygenic

OpenGL often causes tremendous lags on some systems. In this instance, use D3D instead.

The latest version of Jdoom coupled with DX8.1 ironed out this problem on my system (don't ask what it is, you'll prolly laugh).

Heh, on my video card, OpenGL runs faster than D3D. So much better to the point that I run UT on it's buggy OpenGL renderer, rather than D3D.

best port?

I like to use Prboom for general doom play.

but I found myself to be using Eternity a lot now. for both editing and doom play usage. I hope Quasar would fix that music problem with Eternity. Then that port will pretty much be the best doom port ever.


I can't stand open gl ports, they make doom look really ugly and cheap.

they are only good for TC or levels that has nothing but dynamic color sectors.

http://sdl-dc.sourceforge.net/ you can try prboom for dreamcast but it was test to see how SDL worked in dreamcast so that's basically It!

myk said:

I bet you run competitions with your friends to see who can get farthest without a crash... "hey I got to the 2nd bend!"

Try going through the entire 0.2 level without crashing.