Doom Unity(rerelease) VS GZDoom

I have a question..

i mainly just like to play wads and usually just vanilla style i was wondering cause

i was told that the doom rereleases are more faithful are these better for me then? than gzdoom?

also how is the performance? cause gzdoom has vulkan render mode isnt gzdoom better then? for the performance side of things?

are the rereleases even worth buying?

thanks guys :P

If you have the Doom games on Steam, you have the new Unity-wrapped port. It's bundled with the original versions now.

If you worry about purism and performances, your best bet might be PrBoom+. Or Gooberman's Rum & Raisins port whenever it'll reach some sort of 1.0 release.

For newcomers they are going to be easier to set up, and they are demo compatible.

But they aren't capable of running anything too advanced, such as Boom/MBF wads, and definitely nothing that requires ZScript of DECORATE (read: ZDoom-specific wads, and TCs/partial conversions). They are worth buying though, and they ship along with the original DOS version on Steam, just don't expect them to replace source ports, as that is out of their scope anyway.

GZDoom is about as far from Classic Doom as you can get while still technically being Doom so yes the unity releases are more faithful. You cannot really compare them to GZDoom which has a considerably different aim.

The performance of the Unity ports is fine on my computer. Give them a go. Won't hurt. That said, playing not official add-ons is a bit clunky. If you just want a general purpose port with some mod cons, bug fixes and limit expansions then as @Gez said PRBoom+ is a good choice, as is Eternity and even the original ZDoom. In the case of the latter two you can switch off the bits you do not like generally.

Chocolate-Doom? Faithful, easy and quite well performing...

Try Crispy Doom!

Try RUDE Doom!

PrBoom+ should be good enough for what you're looking for.

GZDoom works well enough if you're not worried about hyper accuracy, the differences are barely noticeable if you haven't spent enough time with the original port, just a couple if tweaks to get it to play pretty much the same as the original, it supports a wider range of map packs and mods, but it struggles with keeping a steady framerate iwith some of the more demanding custom maps even with high-end CPUs and GPUs, when that happens you can probably assume the map was most likely made to be played with less demanding ports like PrBoom+.

That's what I got after a good amount of time testing vanilla-accuracy on different ports:

If you are new and aiming for accuracy in an easy way, Crispy and Chocolate Doom are your best choice. prBoom+ is not really faithful unless you use the cl2 parameter, so be aware of that. GZDoom is definitely not a good option in that sense, it's far from accurate even with the Doom (strict) settings - part of that because it inherit some weird stuff from Boom I guess. However, if you want to play mbf or boom-format maps, prBoom+ or Woof is the closest you can get. I didn't tested the Unity port yet, but it seems to be a very good option for vanilla and maybe some limit-removing maps.

+1 for PrBoom+

It supports a large number of editing features (not as much as the ZDoom family), and is demo compatible with Doom2.exe, and many other ports, with the correct settings. Performance wise seems pretty good, I've run megawads on some pretty potato computers with few issues.

GZDoom is about as far from faithful as you can get, and performance on some mods is less than ideal, but it has the most numerous and advanced editing features.

The Unity Ports are good, limit removing ports, so if you want to play the base game or the add-ons included without much setup, they are a great way to play.

3 hours ago, sluggard said:

the differences are barely noticeable if you haven't spent enough time with the original port, just a couple if tweaks to get it to play pretty much the same as the original,

That's not as true as you'd think. Possibly one of the more egregious examples I've seen of recent; it can make slaughter maps completely unmanageable even with compatibility flags changed (and the difference is very not subtle, frankly):

Notably, compare the cacodemons 2 minutes in (prboom+) with the cacos 6 minutes in (GZDoom, compat Doom Strict).

2 hours ago, Edward850 said:

That's not as true as you'd think. Possibly one of the more egregious examples I've seen of recent; it can make slaughter maps completely unmanageable even with compatibility flags changed (and the difference is very not subtle, frankly):

Notably, compare the cacodemons 2 minutes in (prboom+) with the cacos 6 minutes in (GZDoom, compat Doom Strict).

This issue was fixed in GZDoom 4.2.x

21 hours ago, jamondemarnatural said:

Try RUDE Doom!

Cool, thanks. And now the last release supports the Unity iwads (same as Crispy in devbuilds BTW). Well, they have UV+ and we have UM (Unholy massacre which is more intesting IMO).

LZDoom now has compat_oldrandom and for me that makes a big difference when playing "vanilla" (without mods). BTW i've added better support for the widescreen assets so now if you copy them from GZDoom or get and rename them from Nash's repo they are autoloaded in the latest DRD Team devbuild. Needs testing for the upcoming 3.87b (due to a major issue with sound volume not being normalized present in GZDoom 4.4.x).

On 11/6/2020 at 5:16 AM, ReaperAA said:

This issue was fixed in GZDoom 4.2.x

I couldn't find anything related in the changelog. Could anyone please point me to the commit that fixed this?

52 minutes ago, fabian said:

 

I couldn't find anything related in the changelog. Could anyone please point me to the commit that fixed this?

This maybe? https://github.com/coelckers/gzdoom/commit/dc67355e9512ec758c291728cbd9f2f5f572e239

On 11/6/2020 at 5:16 AM, ReaperAA said:

 

This issue was fixed in GZDoom 4.2.x

Good thing I stumbled upon this thread. Has been a while since I played and it seems like the time to finally upgrade to GZDoom from ZDoom. It now even has built-in option to disable translucency :O. As someone who has been on ZDoom 2.7.1 for the longest time, it is a massive upgrade

And yes, just tested the map in the video in the latest GZdoom and with the vertical thrust from explosions disabled in compatibility options, the Cacos stay in line.

1 hour ago, plums said:

This maybe? https://github.com/coelckers/gzdoom/commit/dc67355e9512ec758c291728cbd9f2f5f572e239

Ah, ok, thanks! So the vertical misplacement of the Cacos is due to the rockets' explosion thrust. At first I believed they would "intelligently" change their vertical position to get out of the rocket launcher's line of aim.