playing demos;multiple versions

heres my problem. i have 3 differnt versions of doom.
1)Ultimate Doom
2)Final Doom
3)Collector's Edition Doom

All I want to do is play demos. i dont even play the game myself, but i find watching demos intertaining. the only demos i can get to work right are ones for ultimate doom. both Final Doom and the Collector's Edition run in Windows, not dos. when i try and watch a demo from either of those 2 versions, the character either dies, shoots in random directions, or runs into walls.

i wanna watch these demos! help plz!

You need to get either:
1) The original DOS exes. If you don't have these anywhere (Collectors Edition lacked them entirely, but the Final Doom CD had them hidden away in a subdirectory), then you can get them from myk's site. (Note: may not run at all well under XP, due to problems with sound emulation.)
2) Download the source port prboom. This has excellent demo compatibility with the original games.
3) Download the source port Eternity. This also has excellent compatibility.

Note that to watch demos recorded with ports like Zdoom or Legacy, you will need to download the same version of the port that was used to record them.

Note that the Doom95.exe (which comes with Collectors Edition) generally works OK with Ultimate Doom demos, but has problems with many others. If you're trying to watch compet-n demos on Final Doom with Doom95, then that would explain the desyncs you're getting.

thanks Grazza, much appreciated

You're welcome. If you have any further problems, tell us exactly which demos you're trying to watch and with which executable, and we should be able to help.

using prboom, plutonia.wad, i sometimes get a PrBoom error msg, which pops up right after doom loads.
"W_GetNumForName:'demoname' not found"
This only happens with certain plutonia demos so not sure what the deal is.

demos with this problem:
pl130x116
pl130-122

Those look suspicious, since they are not valid DOS file names (more than 8 characters). Where did you get these files? If they are compet-n demos, check the file name. If they are not, then check what they were recorded with (look at the text-file).

ok, its supposed to be pl30, not pl130. tried to run the demo agian after makign sure i had the exact demo name, 8 characters, still got that error. i read the txt that came with the demo:
"This is a DooM .LMP "COMPET-N/fdoom/" Entry - Please forward it...

PL30-122.TXT

PL30-122.ZIP

PL30-122.LMP - Ultra Violence

Recorded using Final Doom Version 1.9
Doom2 -PlayDemo with Version 1.9"

compatability issue with prboom?

You probably are just typing one or the other incorrectly.
try renaming the 'pl30xxxx.lmp' file to just 'a.lmp'
then load the game with 'prboom -iwad plutonia -playdemo a'
the W_getnumforname error is only when it can't see or read a file. I suppose it COULD be if prboom didn't have permissions to read the lmp file.... good luck.

ok i figured out what i was doing wrong. 1st i must not have been typing the demo name correctly. then i had unzipped to seperate folder and forgot to paste it over to doom folder. Ack! i should get some sleep.

One other point. Casey Alvis used the standard Doom2.exe and plutonia as a pwad (rather than using the exe from Final Doom). In order to watch his pl30x116.lmp, use the following command line:
prboom -iwad doom2.wad -file plutonia.wad -playdemo pl30x116
You can omit the "-iwad doom2.wad" if it's in the same directory as prboom though. The way to watch demos recorded with the Final Doom exe is, e.g.:
prboom -iwad plutonia.wad -playdemo pl30-122
Sometimes it makes no difference if you use the wrong one, but often it leads to a desync.