DOOM Retro v5.3 (updated March 3, 2024)

bradharding said:

Just been quickly experimenting with MAP01 in Alien Vendetta: if you're referring to this level, the first couple of zombiemen you encounter won't react until you shoot or move into their periphery. I'm not entirely sure why the imps in the pool in that room don't react, as there appears to be no sound blocking linedef, and they're not deaf, but the same thing occurs in Chocolate Doom. Also, the first door you encounter opens as you approach it due to a line trigger. Are there other examples you can point me to?

Maybe something like this?

Gez said:

Maybe something like this?

Nope. That's not it. Fixed this long ago.

Edit: Oh, and I just checked: Same behavior in PrBoom+.

Hey Brad, been awhile since I played this port. I like visiting the homepage for this project and seeing all the cute art from Nanka (are you collaborating with her?)

Anyways, I updated to a newer version and started playing. Stellar job. I love the shadows below the monsters and items, the fixed translucent effects and all the Doom style blood. You absolutely nailed it.

I deleted my old Doom Retro settings folder from my Local folder in AppData, just to have a perfectly fresh install. It got my resolution correct right off the bat (with a bit of black baring on the sides, but that's fine since it's a wide display.) I also noticed that it doesn't seem to use AppData anymore, so that's another plus I guess (not necessarily a bad thing, but having all Doom Retro stuff in one folder helps people not familiar with AppData.)

Only one thing I noticed; a good deal of lag when monsters are on moving floors. A good example would be Doom 2 MAP:30, turn on god mode, grab a drink and come back in 10 minutes and start hitting lifts and you'll see what I mean.


Other than that, I'm really happy to see this project really develop and bloom. Stellar job man.

EDIT: Do you think that maybe one day you can add support for linedefs and other such things that Boom can handle? It's annoying to have some really good map sets rendered unplayable because of this limitation.

Platinum Shell said:

Hey Brad, been awhile since I played this port. I like visiting the homepage for this project and seeing all the cute art from Nanka (are you collaborating with her?)
...
I deleted my old Doom Retro settings folder from my Local folder in AppData, just to have a perfectly fresh install. It got my resolution correct right off the bat (with a bit of black baring on the sides, but that's fine since it's a wide display.) I also noticed that it doesn't seem to use AppData anymore, so that's another plus I guess (not necessarily a bad thing, but having all Doom Retro stuff in one folder helps people not familiar with AppData.)

Only one thing I noticed; a good deal of lag when monsters are on moving floors. A good example would be Doom 2 MAP:30, turn on god mode, grab a drink and come back in 10 minutes and start hitting lifts and you'll see what I mean.
...
EDIT: Do you think that maybe one day you can add support for linedefs and other such things that Boom can handle? It's annoying to have some really good map sets rendered unplayable because of this limitation.

Welcome back! ;) It has been a while since the .cfg file was in AppData... there have been many versions since then! I did ask for Nanka's permission before putting her artwork up, as I'm a fan of her work. She even submitted bug report at one point.

Just investigated the lag on moving floors: ouch! It lags quite a bit, doesn't it? After some experimentation it comes down to a big bottleneck in P_ChangeSector() in p_map.c. Because of the large number of monsters and the even larger number of bloodsplats, it's doing quite a lot in that function. I think I've managed to simplify the code quite a lot, which fixes the lag, with (so far) no adverse side effects. Thank you very much for this!

As for Boom support: yes, eventually! But its no easy task, as it will require many changes. The first bit of Boom support is in (Dehacked patches with Boom extensions), but generalized linedefs, etc. are to come at some later stage. I do especially want DR to be able to run Freedoom.

Thanks for the quick reply! If I notice any more oddities I will report them.

I totally understand that adding in such support is daunting and time consuming at the moment, so take all the time you need. How good is Free Doom by the way? Maybe I should give it a go.

Platinum Shell said:

How good is Free Doom by the way? Maybe I should give it a go.

It's pretty good from what I've played of it. But the fact that it is completely free content is why I want to support it. You can get it here: http://freedoom.github.io/.

bradharding said:

Just been quickly experimenting with MAP01 in Alien Vendetta: if you're referring to this level, the first couple of zombiemen you encounter won't react until you shoot or move into their periphery. I'm not entirely sure why the imps in the pool in that room don't react, as there appears to be no sound blocking linedef, and they're not deaf, but the same thing occurs in Chocolate Doom. Also, the first door you encounter opens as you approach it due to a line trigger. Are there other examples you can point me to?

I watched some youtube videos of AV and Darkening where the doors also appear to auto open. I guess this was just a design feature of the levels. I had just not seen it before and haven't played those particular wads in quite some time so I guess I just assumed it was an engine bug. There was one other example of the enemies not responding but I can't remember which wad it was at the moment. In the level I came across a circle of demons and none of them reacted when I cam into view or really close. I will try to figure out which wad it was and double check it.

And I'm rather fond of the splash screen.

bradharding said:

To appease the critics, the next version of Doom Retro will support this. And you're welcome...! :P

I'm not beta testing this.

Brewtal_Legend said:

There was one other example of the enemies not responding but I can't remember which wad it was at the moment. In the level I came across a circle of demons and none of them reacted when I cam into view or really close.

Pretty sure that's Requiem map02, the Demons in the Stonehenge-like circle. Their behaviour is intentional, at least it's as you describe in both Choco and Prboom+.

AV, Darkening, Requiem... you are playing the right WADs, my friend. :)

The imps at the start of AV map01 are in deep water. Sector 25 is self-referencing, which fools (some?) reject lump builders into making the sector blind to all others. Similarly, the imps in the soulsphere secret do not wake up until you step out of the nukage. There's a map in Memento Mori which does this deliberately (among many others, but it was the first which came to mind).

bradharding said:

I personally don't want every source port out there to be the same

pfft how dare you not make DR exactly like ZDoom; check your coding privilege, shitlord.

Henceforth all source ports shall be properly referred to as 'ZDoom clones'. Naturally this subforum will have to be renamed.

bradharding said:

I personally don't want every source port out there to be the same, so I really don't get this "wah, but other source ports don't do it that way" mentality.

^This so much. People should just play the source port that offers the features that they seek instead of complaining about how another source port doesn't have feature X. Even worse is when they keep nagging a source port author about adding in feature X when that feature is not part of what they are trying to do with the source port to begin with.

SuperflyJohnson said:

pfft how dare you not make DR exactly like ZDoom; check your coding privilege, shitlord.

Henceforth all source ports shall be properly referred to as 'ZDoom clones'. Naturally this subforum will have to be renamed.

^Win

Krazov said:

I'm not beta testing this.

I will!!!! :P

fabian said:

Pretty sure that's Requiem map02, the Demons in the Stonehenge-like circle. Their behaviour is intentional, at least it's as you describe in both Choco and Prboom+.

AV, Darkening, Requiem... you are playing the right WADs, my friend. :)

You're right! It was Requiem.

Requiem and Darkening are some of my favorite wads from years ago. Classics. Only just now getting into AV though. All great.

Been a while since I played this close to pure vanilla though and enjoying it quite a bit with Doom Retro.

Brewtal_Legend said:

I will!!!! :P

Don’t overuse a chainsaw.

think you might add "a secret found" sound? Dunno if it's possible, but that was one of those little features from zdoom that I rather liked. I find it pretty satisfying to hear it when finding a secret in zdoom. Just one of those nice little extras.

Krazov said:

I'm not beta testing this.

Awww... why not? You can't be a true Doom fan then, Jon! :P

Krazov said:

Don’t overuse a chainsaw.

Yes, you wouldn't want to chip your teeth. :P

Brewtal_Legend said:

think you might add "a secret found" sound? Dunno if it's possible, but that was one of those little features from zdoom that I rather liked. I find it pretty satisfying to hear it when finding a secret in zdoom. Just one of those nice little extras.

I've been contemplating doing this for a while. This includes centering the message and displaying it in yellow. But I'll need to source a notification sound to play that's public domain, because presumably I can't just rip it from ZDoom or whatever...

bradharding said:

...Just investigated the lag on moving floors: ouch! It lags quite a bit, doesn't it? After some experimentation it comes down to a big bottleneck in P_ChangeSector() in p_map.c. Because of the large number of monsters and the even larger number of bloodsplats, it's doing quite a lot in that function. I think I've managed to simplify the code quite a lot, which fixes the lag, with (so far) no adverse side effects. Thank you very much for this!

Just a word of caution, from someone experienced in this very bug:
I played around with some code to spawn tons of blood objects, in my home port, and, yes, when this happens on a plat, it can cause a huge slowdown.

I finally came up with a fix that I could live with, that did not cause other problems. To fix the issue in my port, I "drain" the blood into the floor (~90% of blood actors disappear from plats when they start moving). This eliminated the issue for me. My word of caution: Please be VERY CAREFUL changing P_ChangeSector, as it can cause some really subtle, difficult to notice/debug problems in maps. I had trouble with Doom, E1M5, on that diagonal floor with the imp that raises out of the nukage.

I can't give you any real specifics, I can only suggest to be suspicious of modifying the iterators too much. I learned the hard way.

kb1 said:

Just a word of caution, from someone experienced in this very bug:
I played around with some code to spawn tons of blood objects, in my home port, and, yes, when this happens on a plat, it can cause a huge slowdown.

I finally came up with a fix that I could live with, that did not cause other problems. To fix the issue in my port, I "drain" the blood into the floor (~90% of blood actors disappear from plats when they start moving). This eliminated the issue for me. My word of caution: Please be VERY CAREFUL changing P_ChangeSector, as it can cause some really subtle, difficult to notice/debug problems in maps. I had trouble with Doom, E1M5, on that diagonal floor with the imp that raises out of the nukage.

I can't give you any real specifics, I can only suggest to be suspicious of modifying the iterators too much. I learned the hard way.

Thanks for this. I've done a ton of playtesting since making this change, and can't seem to find any weird stuff happening. And checking E1M5 just now, I can't seem to find any probs there either. I'm planning on releasing a new point release very soon, so I guess I'll find out if someone comes across something...

I've just released v1.6.3 of DOOM RETRO. Although yet another point release, and only less than 3 weeks since the last one, it contains a significant amount of improvements. As always, visit doomretro.com to download and check out the release notes.

That's a lot of patching :-D

Groovy! The quick changing weapons alone makes a big difference to my netbook playing chops. :)

Thanks for your continued work on this.

Won't get to check it out and try for myself till later, but, I didn't see it posted in the change log, but just curious. Were you able to tweak the joystick speed/sensitivity/acceleration/threshold by chance?

VGA said:

That's a lot of patching :-D

Yes! I was busy!

Average said:
...Thanks for your continued work on this. [/B]

You're welcome!

Brewtal_Legend said:

...Were you able to tweak the joystick speed/sensitivity/acceleration/threshold by chance?

No, I did look into it briefly, but other things ended up taking a priority. I'll get to it, I promise!

And guys, if you find any issues, please let me know. A better way for me to keep on top of things is if you could please submit issues here: https://github.com/bradharding/doomretro/issues.

posted a more thorough explanation of the joystick control issue on the github page.

Didn't think it warranted posting an issue on the github page, but think there is a chance of adding a doom 64 style hud? That would be really nice since it is a nice simple style of hud that has the most immersion and give all vital info.

Brewtal_Legend said:

Didn't think it warranted posting an issue on the github page, but think there is a chance of adding a doom 64 style hud? That would be really nice since it is a nice simple style of hud that has the most immersion and give all vital info.

No, I don't think so. Doom 64 is something else entirely, and so wouldn't want to emulate it in any way. And I'm quite happy with the HUD in DR as it is now.

I meant as an alternative to the original not a replacement. All cool though. I can see why you wouldn't want to. Been playing through a bunch old classic vanilla mods with DR and having a blast. Looking forward to boom compatibility. Thanks for the cool port.

*Edit:
Possible bug. I was trying to play Crusades ( http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom/a-c/crusades.zip )which I do believe is a vanilla wad, but there seems to be issue with sound clipping. On the pistol firing sound and menu sound. Not sure if it is engine or wad issue

Also, there is a crash when using this supposed vanilla dehacked patch. It crashes during the shotgun reload. http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=utils/exe_edit/patches/rebalanc.zip

**Edit to first edit:
The crash only seems to happen when using Ultimate Doom. The author might have made it exclusive to Doom 2? So it may not be a DR issue with dehack support?

Hi all. To coincide with DOOM's 21st birthday (and DOOM RETRO's first!), I've just made another point release, v1.6.4, available. As always, visit doomretro.com to download. Thanks!

very nice. gamepad works great now.