Differences between Crispy Doom and PrBoom. Gameplay-Wise.

First and foremost. This is not a thread to start a war but a legitimate question.

I've been using PrBoom+ for years now. While I understand the usefulness of Chocolate Doom for being as close as a 1:1 engine for playing Doom. I struggle to understand why Crispy Doom was ever made to begin with. From my understanding, the big difference is that it features a 640x480 resolution and uncapped framerate. All of wich PrBoom+ already does while also being as gameplay accurate when played using the correct complevel.

Am I missing something or is PrBoom+ not as accurate as people made me believe it is? 

I am asking this question because I got a sound bug with Crispy Doom wich I struggle to find a solution for. And I do not want to put that much effort fixing an issue if I already have the same thing from another source port that runs just fine. 

On the plus side.. I managed to finally fix that bug. But, I am still curious about that. I would love if somebody who tested both port could perhaps shine a light on this for me. Would be very appreciated.

There's no central decision making on what ports get made. IIRC Crispy Doom is just a personal project someone started for fun and it gained popularity.

11 minutes ago, GuyMcBrofist said:

There's no central decision making on what ports get made. IIRC Crispy Doom is just a personal project someone started for fun and it gained popularity.

I know that. I just want to know if there is any other major differences I missed. Perhaps I should change the thread title as it might confuse people.

Crispy doom, being a fork of choco, is more conservative than prboom. Basically it just takes less setup for crispy to behave closer to vanilla vs. prboom. I think that's about it. I prefer crispy because the options menus in prboom and gzdoom fill me with dread every time i realize i have to scroll through them to fix something, lmao.

Crispy Doom has several features that prboom doesn't, go down the list here:

https://github.com/fabiangreffrath/crispy-doom

It has been a while since I played in prboom. Can you disable infinite height monsters in prboom? Does it have options for stuff like (working) freelook and jumping? Randomly flipped death animations? Transluncency? A custom HUD?

Also, can you load my awesome Black Ops and SMOOTHED mods with prboom and get smooth sprite animations and randomised alternate deaths? No, you cannot.

@DagothKronk

Prboom+ is always one compat flag away from perfect vanilla compatibility.

1 minute ago, VGA said:

Crispy Doom has several features that prboom doesn't, go down the list here:

 

https://github.com/fabiangreffrath/crispy-doom

 

It has been a while since I played in prboom. Can you disable infinite height monsters in prboom? Does it have options for stuff like (working) freelook and jumping? Randomly flipped death animations? Transluncency? A custom HUD?

 

Also, can you load my awesome Black Ops and SMOOTHED mods with prboom and get smooth sprite animations and randomised alternate deaths? No, you cannot.

When both ports are correctly configured. Are they comparable when it comes to gameplay accuracy? I'm asking this because I've been playing Doom on my old Dos computer for a few days but I got spoiled by higher resolutions. So I am looking for 640x480 4:3. Wich both ports offers. I did look in the source port comparison page of the wiki but all it says is that both are graded "Very High" when it comes to accuracy. I'm used to PrBoom but I would pretty much want to know if I have anything to gain by using crispy in regard to accuracy.

And I love the coloured blood in Crispy. It's just got great taste as a port. Faithful all along the main line, but with excellently chosen little quality of life adjustments. 

Even down to brightmaps, which I really like. GZDoom IIRC has glowing eyes, which messes with the gameplay in some places where you're supposed to be effectively blind until the enemy lights up when attacking you. Not so in Crispy.

1 minute ago, Dashyr89 said:

When both ports are correctly configured. Are they comparable when it comes to gameplay accuracy? I'm asking this because I've been playing Doom on my old Dos computer for a few days but I got spoiled by higher resolutions. So I am looking for 640x480 4:3. Wich both ports offers. I did look in the source port comparison page of the wiki but all it says is that both are graded "Very High" when it comes to accuracy. I'm used to PrBoom but I would pretty much want to know if I have anything to gain by using crispy in regard to accuracy.

Honestly there's no use deliberating over it, either way you're going to have a faithful experience. Try both and stick to the one you feel comfortable with. If you're happy with prboom already, you might not even really need to switch.

Just now, DagothKronk said:

Honestly there's no use deliberating over it, either way you're going to have a faithful experience. Try both and stick to the one you feel comfortable with. If you're happy with prboom already, you might not even really need to switch.

I take it they both have a near 1:1 accuracy. Thanks for the reply. 

They are both 100% vanilla compatible and you can record demos with them and play them in DOS or the other way around. If their accuracy wasn't escellent then they would desync. Crispy Doom is also save-compatible from what I understand. Just don't enable any gameplay-changing option.

I don't know which complevel prboom+ has by default but you can force any complevel you want, using a cmdline parameter. Look here:

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/PrBoom%2B

You can't go wrong with either of these two ports, just use whichever feels more smooth to you. Note that if you force vanilla compatibility you get the original bugs, too.

22 minutes ago, VGA said:

-SNIP-

Does your mod leave the gameplay 100% intact? I wouldn't mind some eyecandy if the gameplay itself is 100% vanilla.

EDIT: Forgot to ask. Is there a complevel command or similar I need to do with Crispy or does it automatically takes care of those details?

Infinite height is one of my biggest pet peeves on vanilla, for me at least that alone sounds like a good reason to jump from Pbr+ to Crispy from time to time.

Then again you also have Doom Retro, which lets you disable height AND supports Boom format, but that sourceport has a couple... idiosyncrasies, it also also has a host of other features that you may not care about like the screen shaking when you eat a rocket to the face.

Just now, Dashyr89 said:

Does your mod leave the gameplay 100% intact? I wouldn't mind some eyecandy if the gameplay itself is 100% vanilla.

No, in Black Ops (the smooth weapons mod) there are tiny differences because it was the only way to get smooth animations in a couple of weapons. For example, tapping the plasma rifle fires off more than one shot, if I remember correctly.

In SMOOTHED (the smooth monster animations mod) there is no way I managed to keep every tic timing the same for all the monsters. 

2 minutes ago, VGA said:

No, in Black Ops (the smooth weapons mod) there are tiny differences because it was the only way to get smooth animations in a couple of weapons. For example, tapping the plasma rifle fires off more than one shot, if I remember correctly.

 

In SMOOTHED (the smooth monster animations mod) there is no way I managed to keep every tic timing the same for all the monsters. 

 

 

Bummer. But, understandable. Still, thanks for shedding some light over that question I had. I guess I will stick to PrBoom+ for now. Thanks a lot.  

6 minutes ago, Futz Handango said:

Infinite height is one of my biggest pet peeves on vanilla, for me at least that alone sounds like a good reason to jump from Pbr+ to Crispy from time to time.

Then again you also have Doom Retro, which lets you disable height AND supports Boom format, but that sourceport has a couple... idiosyncrasies, it also also has a host of other features that you may not care about like the screen shaking when you eat a rocket to the face.

 

 

I don't mind the bugs and quirks of the original. I truely want that authentic experience. I got my DOS pc but I got spoiled by higher res. And, in the long run, that is all I truely want.

14 minutes ago, Dashyr89 said:

Does your mod leave the gameplay 100% intact? I wouldn't mind some eyecandy if the gameplay itself is 100% vanilla.

 

EDIT: Forgot to ask. Is there a complevel command or similar I need to do with Crispy or does it automatically takes care of those details?

I believe by default, gameplay changing options are disabled in Crispy Doom. And all aesthetic changes can be disabled, it can literally be just Chocolate Doom with double res and uncapped framerate, doesn't get any barebones than that. Except Chocolate Doom. Or maybe vanilla on Dosbox lol.

Crispy Doom also has an OPL synth. I don't remember what music features prboom+ offers.

3 minutes ago, VGA said:

I believe by default, gameplay changing options are disabled in Crispy Doom. And all aesthetic changes can be disabled, it can literally be just Chocolate Doom with double res and uncapped framerate, doesn't get any barebones than that. Except Chocolate Doom. Or maybe vanilla on Dosbox lol.

 

Crispy Doom also has an OPL synth. I don't remember what music features prboom+ offers.

I use VirtualMIDISynth with a SC-55 soundfont for PrBoom+. I think it also works for Crispy. Certaintly does for DOSBOX. That program is wonderful and turns on when it's needed.

Crispy Doom is fantastic for vanilla stuff and possibly limit-removing vanilla too? Doom Retro is Boom-compatible so it's everything short of really advanced stuff. It's nice to have these options. I actually prefer Eternity to PrBoom+ also.

Crispy looks very crispy and vanilla-like, while prboom+ is a lot more "modern" in the visual regard. You can't count the pixels as well in prboom+.

It also has a variety of customization options, and isn't nearly as glitchy as prboom+ is for me on Windows 10.

Too bad Crispy doesn't have a fork that supports Boom/MBF.

13 minutes ago, Juza said:

Crispy looks very crispy and vanilla-like, while prboom+ is a lot more "modern" in the visual regard. You can't count the pixels as well in prboom+.

It also has a variety of customization options, and isn't nearly as glitchy as prboom+ is for me on Windows 10.

Too bad Crispy doesn't have a fork that supports Boom/MBF.

That's because prboom+ would need to run at 640x480 to look similar. But on modern monitors you don't want to be using non-native resolutions, you want to do what Crispy Doom and Doom Retro are doing which is upscaling 640x480 to your monitor's native resolution. And GZDoom with its configurable downscale option.

C H U N K Y pixels!

For Boom/MBF stuff use Doom Retro or GZDoom with downscaled res.

What are the differences currently? In general, or specific advantages for what you use.

Conspicuous reasons why I prefer Crispy Doom:

- Brightmaps and randomly mirrored corpses

- Chevron Crosshair

- Different shotgun spread

Apparent reasons why I prefer Crispy Doom:

- More fluent

- Crispier graphics

I always have that impression that it's more fluent and visually better, however the difference is so elusive that I wonder if others feel the same way.

It may seem like something negligible but honestly I'm a bit frustrated to always notice that the graphics in prboom+ are a little more faded. So unless I'm wrong it's not possible to have the optimal experience of the best Boom wads.

EDIT: I got better framerate in PRBoom+ by disabling vsync. I wonder if it can be disabled in the longer run though without causing some glitches.

Doesn't the software renderer look better? Instead of glboom?

I'm an Odamexican.

Crispy seems to work better on older computers, I've found.

I remember back when the purists were strictly about their Boom v2.02 and shunned stuff like ZDoom and Doom Legacy.   You've all gone full reactionary!

On 3/31/2020 at 3:19 AM, VGA said:

Crispy Doom has several features that prboom doesn't, go down the list here:

 

https://github.com/fabiangreffrath/crispy-doom

 

It has been a while since I played in prboom. Can you disable infinite height monsters in prboom? Does it have options for stuff like (working) freelook and jumping? Randomly flipped death animations? Transluncency? A custom HUD?

 

Excuse me, all these features you have mentioned here are not Vanilla.

Even if PrBoom+ doesn't have disabling of infinite height of enemies, you can walk under hanging decorations, jumping and freelook is also there..

While recording demos in both ports, all these fancy, non Vanilla features are STRICTLY TURNED OFF.

So, PrBoom plus and Crispy Doom both have VERY HIGH Vanilla accuracy and both are equally good.

Oh and yeah about the resolutions, even PrBoom+ has support of 320×200 and 640×480 resolutions, so you can even have the perfect Vanilla feel even in PrBoom+.

PrBoom+ actually lets you even choose resolutions beyond 400p, which makes it kinda special among all those Crispy clones that are floating around out there. You can play vanilla maps with Boom features in 1080p for example, which is a great thing.

Crispy is based off Chocolate Doom. I prefer it because the graphics look chunkier than PrBoom Plus' and it supports widescreen aspect ratios which Chocolate Doom doesn't. Also, unlike Chocolate Doom, it supports limit removing wads. And I also like that it has a flag for pistolstarts.