Classic Doom Difficulty

I thought, under the original engine, a tic was a frame and a frame was a tic (unless you're running a very slow machine, where the entire game can slow down while it waits for each tic to be processed in the game sim), and each tic equalled two refreshes (IIRC Doom drew each frame twice). Doom could never draw faster than 35 fps without a source port (MBF and SMMU may have been able to do 70, but that's it as far as DOS engines go), and the maximum possible would have been 70, which was the refresh rate of VGA based cards. 70 / 2 = 35. I have a DOS computer, I have a CRT, and I've run v1.9 on it. It runs at 35 fps. Wolfenstein 3D runs at 70 fps, and has a tic rate of 70 Hz. One tic = one VGA refresh (and 1 tic = 1 frame is true under ECWolf too--the FN Minimi in my mod Operation Serpent would "skip" frames of animation at 60 fps but appear perfectly smooth and synchronized at 70. MBF and SMMU may have been able to do 70, but I don't recall. 60 fps refresh was not even possible under VGA mode 13h, X, or Y, to my knowledge, it was 70 and only 70. There was no adjustable refresh rate or adjustable anything. If you run MS-DOS or DOSBox with a 60 or 120 Hz LCD, your monitor is throwing frames out, creating an awful "micro-stuttering" effect that makes 35 fps look much, much choppier than it really is.

The thing with uncapped frames is that they are incorrect. The game states seen in an uncapped Doom source port are not real, but are illusions created by the renderer by interpolating between two discrete game states. If you have a monitor with an adjustable refresh rate, create a custom video mode at 70 or 140 Hz (depending on how fast your monitor can refresh) and run Crispy Doom with a capped framerate under that video mode. It is absolutely buttery smooth and consistent, and nothing like most people think it is. So smooth, in fact, that I cannot believe it's desynced from the refresh. It's just too perfect not to be synced.

E: And if you still don't believe me, run Alpha 0.5 and then run v1.9. Doom's ticrate and framerate were halved from 70 to 35 at around the time Tom Hall was fired and the original design was tossed out, and it's obvious if you compare them.

1 hour ago, Woolie Wool said:

I thought, under the original engine, a tic was a frame and a frame was a tic (unless you're running a very slow machine, where the entire game can slow down while it waits for each tic to be processed in the game sim), and each tic equalled two refreshes (IIRC Doom drew each frame twice). Doom could never draw faster than 35 fps without a source port (MBF and SMMU may have been able to do 70, but that's it as far as DOS engines go), and the maximum possible would have been 70, which was the refresh rate of VGA based cards. 70 / 2 = 35.

Doom could always draw faster than 35 fps, but at the time the og exe only ever sent a new picture out when a tic occurred, so if you removed the cap here, it would draw each "picture" repeatedly as often as it could (more than twice, basically), and only ever change to a new one when a tic did happen.

Anyway, only ever "updating" what's being sent to the graphics card "on tic" was a very simple way to establish a V-sync at the time. "Unfortunately" the "problem" is that modern hardware operates way faster, so the exe's v-sync isn't in a "forced pseudo-lockstep" with your graphics card anymore (and neither is dosbox, because dosbox is the worst, as I said already). Hence, you get smooth results on your "ancient contraption", but need a source port like crispy to get similar results on your actual machine. Let's not forget that crispy in particular features uncapped framerates and interpolation, making it choco-doom on steroids.

At 140Hz your refresh is so high that you'd be entirely unable to even notice a difference in accuracy between an interpolated frame and a V-synced one in the first place (while interpolated frames still provide a more fluent visual feedback as far as I'm concerned). Point being: Any supposed inaccuracies due to uncapped framerates and interpolation become null and void on a modern machine real quick.

I'll have to take your word about 140, because my monitor only goes up to 75, at least at 4K. It might be a bit higher at lower resolutions, but I don't use them for Doom or Wolfenstein anymore because all my favorite ports have resolution scaling nowadays.

That said, I do admit my memory of DOSBox Doom is pretty fuzzy, because DOSBox is a pain in the ass and it seems like every one of the 30 gorillion builds available has something wrong with it or a feature missing that I want, and I can just turn on the Athlon and play on real DOS. For 15 minutes anyway, because I don't have a desk for it, only a coffee table, and my hips are too old for this sitting cross-legged on the floor shit. Need to do something about that.

Okey, so it seems I'm not that updated on the new take on the classic Doom. 

Thanks people for updating me... Downloaded GZDoom and tried it, now the thing is that i like som the way it was and think dosbox works perfectly for me. So with the better ones I decided to go full out and do GZ, instead of crispy or Vanilla, and been playing quite some Brutal Doom since then. 

Speaking of brutal doom, what the heck is wrong with the helping marines?! 

12 minutes ago, C. Blacktoe said:

been playing quite some Brutal Doom since then

Alas, there is no hope for this one anymore. :P

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Alas, there is no hope for this one anymore. :P

Wait a minute, why not? 

It's fun and reckless and probably just the beginning. Any tips and i'm mostly keen on trying them out

How can even one pass Level 7 of Doom 2 on Nightmare? I am stuck in level 7 with mancubuses. I kill someone but they come back to life before I can kill others and I am killed.

On 1/8/2019 at 3:45 PM, C. Blacktoe said:

Okey, so it seems I'm not that updated on the new take on the classic Doom. 

Thanks people for updating me... Downloaded GZDoom and tried it, now the thing is that i like som the way it was and think dosbox works perfectly for me. So with the better ones I decided to go full out and do GZ, instead of crispy or Vanilla, and been playing quite some Brutal Doom since then. 

Speaking of brutal doom, what the heck is wrong with the helping marines?! 

Rigth now they are broke, you can wait for a fix or use a version outdated, like the first or second beta of v21

@Can't play on Nightmare: Just play more aggressively and try to corral the monsters into a group so you can take them out fast.  The furthest I've gotten on NM is map 09 when that big room with the octagonal building opens up.

On 1/6/2019 at 1:40 PM, Woolie Wool said:

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?

Sorry for the late response, but I didn't want to give a "hand-waving" reply, as by mentioning "steps before attack" I had already exhausted what I remembered from that topic. (Since it is about 13 years ago, I'm surprised I recalled that.) Anyway, Quasar's post here expresses it succinctly:

JUSTATTACKED is used to regulate the rate of monster attacks in normal gameplay. Monsters ignore this flag in Nightmare mode however, which is why they attack like turrets.