Doom Textures Missing From Doom 2 IWAD

It's always bugged me that certain textures from Doom were never included in the Doom 2 IWAD. Some of the Doom-exclusive textures were great and their omission from the sequel seems unnecessary. A quick search yielded now answer, so if anyone has an answer, I'd appreciate it.

This is why:



From the compressed install files included on the floppy disks (in .lzh format):

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO METHOD CRC     STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]              6712307 14604584  46.0% -lh5- f0be Feb  1  1995 doom2.wad

Size of a 64x128 texture in the IWAD is 8776 bytes = ~4KB after compression.

1.44MB / 4KB = 360

That means that each one of those floppy disks can store 360 textures. Fewer if they're 128x128 textures or have transparency, and the more textures you have, the fewer sprites are available for Doom II's new extensions to the beastiary.

Either that or you add more disks, and Doom II already takes one more disk than Registered Doom 1 took. More disks means lower profit margins and more annoying install time for users. Is it worth it for a few more textures?

I guess that's because Doom 1 had more techbases, while Doom 2 focuses more on cities and buildings.

I have no definitive answers on the issue, but I always assumed it had to do with the fact that Doom 2 was originally distributed on floppy disks. Years ago, I originally had the Doom 2 floppies, because it was the first version of Doom sold in retail stores. Since each disk could only hold 1.44 MB of data, including extra textures that hadn't been used in the game would absolutely require the use of more floppy disks, which would have increased production costs. Of course, that point became entirely moot when they started selling Doom 2 in jewel case CDs, but I don't think anyone felt any great need to make updates to the original game at that point. So yeah, I'm just assuming that textures were cut in an attempt to reduce the number of overall disks used, and save hard drive space for anyone who bought the game.

geekmarine said:

I have no definitive answers on the issue, but I always assumed it had to do with the fact that Doom 2 was originally distributed on floppy disks. Years ago, I originally had the Doom 2 floppies, because it was the first version of Doom sold in retail stores. Since each disk could only hold 1.44 MB of data, including extra textures that hadn't been used in the game would absolutely require the use of more floppy disks, which would have increased production costs. Of course, that point became entirely moot when they started selling Doom 2 in jewel case CDs, but I don't think anyone felt any great need to make updates to the original game at that point. So yeah, I'm just assuming that textures were cut in an attempt to reduce the number of overall disks used, and save hard drive space for anyone who bought the game.

Makes sense. The part you mentioned about the CDs was something that crossed my mind, but perhaps the solution is really that simple. Anyway, it's a shame that we can't correct this for the community (legally) all these years later. And all because of media limitations when the game was originally released. Some people have described Doom 2 as a glorified add-on, which may not be far from the truth. Of course, that only underscores how ridiculous it is to force future PWADs to be game-specific due to content.

Gothic said:

I guess that's because Doom 1 had more techbases, while Doom 2 focuses more on cities and buildings.

I think it is also this, combined to what fraggle and geekmarine have explained.
If you look at the omitted textures almost all were used in techbase levels/areas of Doom. Doom 2 that it is set on the Earth has its own textures to make cities and more "realistic" settings.

There's always this.

Job said:

Anyway, it's a shame that we can't correct this for the community (legally) all these years later.

Actually, you can. There was a tool back in the 90's which extracted the missing textures from doom and added them to the doom2.wad. I don't remember what it was called, and I don't think that there are many wads which required that.

Another way would be "-file doom.wad doom2.wad your.wad" where your.wad has to include the merged texture definitions.

And there was a naming conflict with one switch, iIrc.

LogicDeLuxe said:

And there was a naming conflict with one switch, iIrc.

There are several switch conflicts.
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Switch

The fun thing is that they're totally gratuitous: the patches needed by all Ultimate Doom switches are all present in the Doom II IWAD.

fraggle said:

beastiary.

*bestiary

Also, I'd expect all new textures in an all new game. I'd be fine if none of the original monsters reappeared in Doom 2.

fraggle said:

Either that or you add more disks, and Doom II already takes one more disk than Registered Doom 1 took. More disks means lower profit margins and more annoying install time for users. Is it worth it for a few more textures?

They could have stored the patches only and then built a texture WAD at install time (and then merged it with main IWAD). Who knows, that might even have cut it down to 4 disks.

Then again, 5 disks is nothing for a big-selling game. Later Sierra titles had tons of disks (sometimes they even gave you both 3.5 and 5.25 versions). Ditto with some RPGs. Amiga versions tended to have even more (880K double density drive in most models...)

not sure if this will help you but this is a thread i have bookmarked with the names of textures for doom and doom2: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/68921-full-titles-of-texture-names/

hex11 said:

They could have stored the patches only and then built a texture WAD at install time

The IWAD does store the patches and the textures are build at runtime. I don't see the difference on the install disks size wise. Doom II doesn't have that many multi-patch textures as Doom 1 had, anyway.


If id really cared, they would have started with removing all those duplicate and unused entries in all their IWADs. They even could have made flats available as patches to save some duplicate images. They could also have compiled separate executables for their games only containing the texts of the game intended for to save some kb.


Are the install disks actually filled to their limits? Are they formatted 1.7 MB already?

LogicDeLuxe said:

Actually, you can. There was a tool back in the 90's which extracted the missing textures from doom and added them to the doom2.wad. I don't remember what it was called, and I don't think that there are many wads which required that.

Is maybe DM2CONV? I used that tool back in my early days of Dooming for converting Doom maps into Doom 2 maps, it also contains a option to create a wad that contains the Doom unused textures and also some way to change Doom enemies with the Doom 2 one via numeric codes...

Not sure if this is on the archives or not...

If it's not then it should be.

EdMap had a translation table for textures to let you convert Doom 1 levels to Doom 2. I included the same table in SMMU, though I don't know if Eternity still supports that feature.