Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
C. Blacktoe

Classic Doom Difficulty

Recommended Posts

I've been playing lots of classic Doom lately, mostly Doom 1 & 2, and wind up mixing with the difficulty to get the best one for me (i play using dosbox). 

Doing this I've noticed that nightmare isn't the hardest difficulty you can get

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Nevander said:

Not sure I'm following... Nightmare is the hardest.

It's the hardest official one.

-skill 4 -fast -respawn (literally UV, fast, and respawn) is, I'd imagine, the actual hardest, albeit unofficial, since it's Nightmare without the double ammo.

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, C. Blacktoe said:

(i play using dosbox)

Would highly recommend using an actual source-port instead of dos-emulation.

 

-PrBoom+ is good to have, can be set up to behave just like "vanilla", and it's a great port to watch and record demos with.
-GZDoom is what most people use, it's convenient because you can throw anything at it, and it will basically "just work" in most cases. It is not very true to vanilla, though, even if the proper compat settings are selected. It's because people "fixed" some things that weren't broken in the first place.
-Eternity, chocolate Doom and crispy Doom are also worth trying to see what suits you the best.

Anything multiplayer is something people like @Doomkid can say more about than I do, if you wanna get into that in the first place.

But the basic gist is that practically nobody here plays on dosbox, because it is arguably one of the worst methods to run classic Doom. Don't be fooled by these "guides" on steam where you're being told otherwise, the people there don't know what they're talking about.

 

Also agree with aquila on using command line arguments to get "pseudo-nightmare" without the double ammo, which is slightly more difficult than nightmare in case of maps where ammo is tight. Usually ammo isn't that big of a deal in the iWADs overall, because you basically try to be fast on NM rather than anything else, but I can see ammo being a factor at times for sure.

Share this post


Link to post
13 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

But the basic gist is that practically nobody here plays on dosbox, because it is arguably one of the worst methods to run classic Doom. Don't be fooled by these "guides" on steam where you're being told otherwise, the people there don't know what they're talking about.

Is it because of some drawback of the emulator, or are you talking about the original executable in general?

Share this post


Link to post
1 minute ago, Woolie Wool said:

Is it because of some drawback of the emulator, or are you talking about the original executable in general?

It's about how people who write those guides on steam make a total hackjob out of it to begin with. Also dosbox emulation means no uncapped framerates, no decent software for people who play with a mouse (which means most people), no way to run doom with "native desktop resolution", and no way to run anything except vanilla WADs, which obviously kicks most "modern" custom wads straight in the nuts.

Way too many downsides for essentially no practical gain as far as I'm concerned.

Share this post


Link to post
32 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

-Eternity, chocolate Doom and crispy Doom are also worth trying to see what suits you the best.

 

The last 2 being as close to a vanilla experience as it probably gets, they're conservative ports which also implement a number of new features and enhancements specific to them, whereas Eternity is much more advanced. There's also Doom Retro, and more.

 

You can find more info about them on their respective websites, topics, and on the Doomwiki.

Edited by Agent6

Share this post


Link to post
3 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

no decent software for people who play with a mouse (which means most people)

What exactly is wrong with mouse in DOSBox?

Share this post


Link to post
1 minute ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

What exactly is wrong with mouse in DOSBox?

Mousing software in source ports is vastly superior. Why stick to something that is worse than another thing which is also free?

Share this post


Link to post
14 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

It's about how people who write those guides on steam make a total hackjob out of it to begin with. Also dosbox emulation means no uncapped framerates, no decent software for people who play with a mouse (which means most people), no way to run doom with "native desktop resolution", and no way to run anything except vanilla WADs, which obviously kicks most "modern" custom wads straight in the nuts.

Way too many downsides for essentially no practical gain as far as I'm concerned.

Actually, it is possible to run Doom at "native" resolution with nearest-neighbor scaling, but DOSBox does not do this by default and it it has to be set up (I've never used Steam guides, I instead configure DOSBox through a launcher).

 

Decent software for those who play with a mouse? Novert. Edit your config to raise the mouse sensitivity to 18 or so. There's your good mouse control. And doom2-plus will run limit removing wads as long as they don't require more than about 64 MB of RAM (which applies to both DOSBox and real DOS). And 35 fps is fine because the game engine runs at 35 fps. Raising the framerate will not give you any new information, and I've set my monitor to refresh at 70 Hz so there is no micro-stuttering like there is for most people running 60 or 120 Hz. There's nothing it does that some port can't do technically "better" (I generally use Crispy Doom for vanilla/limit removing and GZDoom for everything else) but I played Doom when it was new, when source ports were unimaginable, and occasionally I like to revisit that, and classic Doom at least works properly, unlike DOS Boom and MBF where the sound and especially music are incorrect and may not work at all on many hardware configurations.

 

E: and even in source ports I cap the framerate to 35 fps. I'm used to it now.

Share this post


Link to post

As far as ports for MP, the main three that are designed for it (client/server) and actually used are Zandronum, ZDaemon, and Odamex, with popularity being in the order listed; you'll almost always find some people online on Zand. All are based around the zdoom family of ports, though Zand is the most advanced of the 3 and is based on somewhat newer versions of gzdoom, while Oda and ZD boast a play experience a bit closer to vanilla. 

 

Personally I have no preference between the 3, as all have their pluses and minuses, but regardless of what you end up preferring all are worth a try and it's good to leave options open regardless of your eventual preference so you will have more people to play with.

 

For finding servers to play on, as well as hosting your own, I recommend (Internet) Doom Explorer. I use the old IDE but DE is just a newer version of it.

Share this post


Link to post
24 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Decent software for those who play with a mouse? Novert. Edit your config to raise the mouse sensitivity to 18 or so.

Doesn't change the fact that mousing is better in source ports, regardless of sensitivity.
 

 

24 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

And doom2-plus will run limit removing wads as long as they don't require more than about 64 MB of RAM (which applies to both DOSBox and real DOS).

Doesn't change that it won't run boom format or "higher" is the problem here.

 

24 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

And 35 fps is fine because the game engine runs at 35 fps. Raising the framerate will not give you any new information, and I've set my monitor to refresh at 70 Hz so there is no micro-stuttering like there is for most people running 60 or 120 Hz.

Doesn't change that uncapped framerates feel and look better. Also framerates and getting information go hand in hand: the faster the refresh, the earlier you get the information (and it's also more accurate), there's entire youtube videos about delays in video games, and refresh rate is a factor, even though it's not the biggest factor of them all. I might dig one clip up when I'm back home, if interested. Anyway, I don't see any reason to not go for uncapped framerates (or at least giving it a try) when it's readily available and costs no money at all (especially when it spares the effort of "syncing" the monitor to doom's 35tics/sec, and undoing every time when wanting to play something else).

 

24 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

I played Doom when it was new, when source ports were unimaginable, and occasionally I like to revisit that.

Yeah, personal preferences are a thing one can't argue with. I generally assume that somebody who just registered here might not be familiar with source ports and why they're interesting to check out. If my assumption is wrong then nothing's been "lost", and if it makes the experience better for somebody else, better for them and the rest of us, imo.

Edited by Nine Inch Heels

Share this post


Link to post
18 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Edit your config to raise the mouse sensitivity to 18 or so.

Instead of editing the Doom config you'd be better off to edit the mouse sensitivity setting for DOSBox itself in that case, I think.  Then you don't get the weird behaviors with above-max sensitivity if you open the options menu.

 

20 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

And doom2-plus will run limit removing wads as long as they don't require more than about 64 MB of RAM (which applies to both DOSBox and real DOS).

Plus is really only extended limits rather than removed limits (something like 4x or so increase to each static limit).  Maybe that's the same as the 64MB limit you mention, but there are a lot of limit-removal wads that will break the limits in Plus too.  It works on stuff that just needs to bend the rules a little but it's definitely not a guaranteed thing for the really elaborate WADs.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

It's the hardest official one.

-skill 4 -fast -respawn (literally UV, fast, and respawn) is, I'd imagine, the actual hardest, albeit unofficial, since it's Nightmare without the double ammo.

Not at all. With the -fast parameter, projectiles are sped-up and so are the Pinkies, but at least the monsters will stop firing their arsenal at you from time to time, unlike in Nightmare mode. In Nightmare, monsters won't stop to attempt to walk towards you; they'll simply fire continuously until you break line of sight with them.

Share this post


Link to post
4 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

It's the hardest official one.

-skill 4 -fast -respawn (literally UV, fast, and respawn) is, I'd imagine, the actual hardest, albeit unofficial, since it's Nightmare without the double ammo.

That's exactly the one i used on a friend when he said he could beat any old doom game on the hardest difficulty. 

Set him up with -skill 4 -fast -respawn on 'thy flesh consumed' and he never made it past the first level 😂

Share this post


Link to post
4 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

But the basic gist is that practically nobody here plays on dosbox, because it is arguably one of the worst methods to run classic Doom

The main reason I'm using dosbox is to play a bunch of other games from that era (like commander keen) and because dosbox is so nostalgic. 

Which other should I use if i wanna have a doom game that looks just like the original? (e.g. Imp fireballs lookinh like they did first time) 

Share this post


Link to post

Chocolate Doom is the most accurate one. If you want a limit-removing one that is quite similar to Chocolate Doom, and allows for a bit more options and higher resolutions, I'd recommend Crispy Doom (basically a fork of Choc Doom). If you want to play a Boom or MBF wad, I'd recommend prboom-plus.

Share this post


Link to post
14 minutes ago, C. Blacktoe said:

 

Which other should I use if i wanna have a doom game that looks just like the original? (e.g. Imp fireballs lookinh like they did first time) 

Crispy Doom might work for you just fine

Share this post


Link to post

Okey, one thing needs to be said,

I play doom, doom 2, and final doom on dosbox with game settings set as close to the original (not talking about the dosbox settings) i usually play -skill 4 -. 

I play with keyboard ONLY!!! 

I'm not playing to get the most out of the software, i want doom as it was and that's fina with me (I'm a simple guy) 

Though i will try one or two of the ones suggested here whenever time finds me. 

 

One problem i do have with dosbox though is master levels of doom, never got them to work proper

Share this post


Link to post

The source port stuff is pretty scattered in this thread and probably hard to follow, so here's probably the simplest guide:

  • Chocolate Doom - Basically a direct port of the DOS original, down to preserving the numerous bugs, engine limits, and 320x200 resolution.
  • Crispy Doom - Behaves exactly like Chocolate Doom, but does quality-of-life stuff like increasing the resolution, uncapping framerate, and removing engine limits.
  • Prboom Plus (is the site down right now?) - A modern port supporting more advanced features, but still highly compatible with the original game. It's one of the most popular ports, especially here at Doomworld.
  • Gzdoom - The most modern and popular port, which supports tons of advanced features at the expense of compatibility with the original game.

Personally, I, along with many others, would suggest Prboom as the general purpose port with high compatibility, but if you're going for "doom as it was" then maybe Crispy will be slightly better for you.

Edited by Spie812

Share this post


Link to post

You can use the mouse in dos doom.. Just not looking up and down. Still really recommend keeping dosbox for games where you have no other choice; Doom isn't one of them, the devs were kind enough to release the source code. Use crispy doom or a more advanced port (All of them can reproduce a lot of game breaking bugs via compatibility options anyway).

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, C. Blacktoe said:

That's exactly the one i used on a friend when he said he could beat any old doom game on the hardest difficulty. 

Set him up with -skill 4 -fast -respawn on 'thy flesh consumed' and he never made it past the first level 😂

On one hand, he made a pretty bragadocious boast. On the other, putting him on Episode 4 is just a little unfair.

Share this post


Link to post

As far as the discussion about nightmare earlier in the thread, I guess UV fast with respawn is harder since there’s no double ammo, but I’m pretty sure enemies enter their attack state even more frequently on true nightmare than with -fast. Maybe fact check me on that though, I could be misremembering..

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I guess UV fast with respawn is harder since there’s no double ammo, but I’m pretty sure enemies enter their attack state even more frequently on true nightmare than with -fast. Maybe fact check me on that though, I could be misremembering.

There is a difference (and it's guaranteed to cause instant desyncs if you edit a demo header to change from one to the other), though just one step, and in most cases it doesn't change things dramatically from a practical viewpoint.

 

HR map18 is one case where the difference is very obvious. Try these two and you'll see why right at the start:

glboom-plus hr hrmus -warp 18 -skill 4 -fast -respawn -> playable (well, sort of)

glboom-plus hr hrmus -warp 18 -skill 5 -> instant death

Edited by Grazza

Share this post


Link to post
On 1/5/2019 at 9:25 AM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Doesn't change the fact that mousing is better in source ports, regardless of sensitivity.
 

 

Doesn't change that it won't run boom format or "higher" is the problem here.

 

Doesn't change that uncapped framerates feel and look better. Also framerates and getting information go hand in hand: the faster the refresh, the earlier you get the information (and it's also more accurate), there's entire youtube videos about delays in video games, and refresh rate is a factor, even though it's not the biggest factor of them all. I might dig one clip up when I'm back home, if interested. Anyway, I don't see any reason to not go for uncapped framerates (or at least giving it a try) when it's readily available and costs no money at all (especially when it spares the effort of "syncing" the monitor to doom's 35tics/sec, and undoing every time when wanting to play something else).

 

Yeah, personal preferences are a thing one can't argue with. I generally assume that somebody who just registered here might not be familiar with source ports and why they're interesting to check out. If my assumption is wrong then nothing's been "lost", and if it makes the experience better for somebody else, better for them and the rest of us, imo.

I'd be interested in seeing this refresh rate video you mentioned. I would have figured the computer or the Doom engine would do "syncing" automatically if, like me, you have your refresh rate set to a multiple of 70 Hz.

 

So does this mean MS-DOS with a CRT and VGA compatible card, where the refresh rate is naturally 70 Hz, would be better for capped framerates than even my Windows/DOSBox setup, because everything is done at such a "raw" level? I have a DOS computer too and performance-wise I never noticed much difference between 35 fps under DOSBox or a source port and 35 fps under MS-DOS.

Share this post


Link to post
13 hours ago, Grazza said:

There is a difference (and it's guaranteed to cause instant desyncs if you edit a demo header to change from one to the other), though just one step, and in most cases it doesn't change things dramatically from a practical viewpoint.

 

HR map18 is one case where the difference is very obvious. Try these two and you'll see why right at the start:

glboom-plus hr hrmus -warp 18 -skill 4 -fast -respawn -> playable (well, sort of)

glboom-plus hr hrmus -warp 18 -skill 5 -> instant death

So does A_Chase still work somewhat normally under -fast, while skill 5 has some extra feature that makes monsters instantly go into their attack state when a line of sight is present? Is this also what the aggression features does in ZDoom difficulties?

Share this post


Link to post
3 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

I'd be interested in seeing this refresh rate video you mentioned. I would have figured the computer or the Doom engine would do "syncing" automatically if, like me, you have your refresh rate set to a multiple of 70 Hz.

Unfortunately not at home at the moment to check for videos on Youtube, but maybe this article may tide you over:
https://displaylag.com/reduce-input-lag-in-pc-games-the-definitive-guide/

Quote

Every PC game on the market comes shipped with it’s own V-Sync option that can be toggled in the configuration menu of the game itself. Most of the time, this is the only option you’ll need for a smooth experience. However, it may not be the option with the lowest input lag.

Never mind that basically any video that discusses "input lag", "input delay" or "display delay" will most likely also always mention things like "refresh rates" or "V-sync".

And no, why would whatever exe you run classic Doom with care about what refresh rate your monitor is set to as far as tics are considered? Doom's 35tic/sec "rhythm" has nothing to do with the speed at which Doom's renderer operates, and it's the renderer that tells the graphics card to draw stuff on your screen. Doom's renderer gives no damn about "Doom's inner tic-based clock" and always draws at the fastest possible rate (which for "og doom's" exe might have been 60fps tops, not 100% sure), so if it is in sync with the game-tics it's literally only ever happening for singular tics here and there but never constantly (meaning your 70Hz-setup is pointless as it were). People who think Doom ever rendered at a capped 35fps are plain and simple wrong. Hence, uncapped framerates will always be more accurate than basically everything else, because you're always the most likely to get frames drawn around the time that tics are calculated.

 

Let's also not forget that while "things" in doom operate on a 35tic/sec rhythm, your perception, your brain, and your hands do not. Humans can perceive input delays of less than a 30th second. Source ports that basically draw uncapped frames will always give much better feedback on player movement, which is important especially in classic doom, because not only can you move really fast, there's also a good amount of "weight" behind the movement which creates this distinct notion of "momentum" that Doom has.

Edited by Nine Inch Heels

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×