Annoying DOOM problem

Hey all,

I have DOOM II, Ultimate DOOM and Final DOOM, and I run them all with the doom95 application which opens a window and you select the difficulty, level, or play a multiplayer game, and I am running these on windows XP.

I have been able to run them fine using the doom95 application, like the sound was fine, the graphics were fine etc, the only problem I had was when running sometimes in the game, I would just stop, like I ran into something (but hadn't), it didn't really bother me though.

The other day though I downloaded the new windows live messenger 9.0 or whatever it is, and updated my video card driver (I have a NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT). Now when I play doom though, the character stops when its running a lot more often, and the weapons will randomly change to using my fist or the chainsaw, and wont let me change back unless I press the number lots, and will just change again not long after.

I tryed resetting my graphics card options to the default setting, uninstalling the new msn, I tryed using zdoom but it still has the same problems, it just doesn't happen as often with zdoom, and I tryed using chocolate doom which seemed to work normally but the graphics were a fair bit worse then when using the doom95 application, and I'm not sure how to use it with Ultimate DOOM or Final DOOM.

I've searched for this problem all over the internet and these forums with no success. Sorry for writing a lot but it's just very frustrating cause I love playing DOOM, but cant get it to work properly now :(.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :) thanks

go here, specifically here and get another source port. try them and use what you like. read threads like this one for more detail.

I'm not sure why the graphics would look terrible in Chocolate Doom...if it works right then in theory they should be just as good (actually better) than Doom 95. But since you're experiencing all sorts of bizarre problems I've never heard of I guess it's no surprise Chocolate Doom isn't working right either. :) Also, to use Chocolate Doom with Ultimate Doom or Final Doom the most straightforward (but not necessarily best) solution is to have the various WAD files in their own folders, each with its own Chocolate Doom exe. That way it will automatically run the episode you want.

StupidBunny said:

I'm not sure why the graphics would look terrible in Chocolate Doom...if it works right then in theory they should be just as good (actually better) than Doom 95.

Doom95 has 640x400 and 640x480 modes. This person clearly has no love for vanilla resolution.

I'm guessing the "stopping" bug is related to palette changes and DirectX, assuming ZDoom by default uses DirectX and Chocolate Doom does not (because Doom95 certainly does use it).

The first thing I'd try is to upgrade DirectX. If that doesn't help or you already have the latest version, you can try forcing the engine to use the Windib (Windows GDI) video driver instead of the DirectX video driver. I know SDL-based engines let you do this, but I'm not sure about ZDoom engines.

myk said:

I'm guessing the "stopping" bug is related to palette changes and DirectX, assuming ZDoom by default uses DirectX and Chocolate Doom does not (because Doom95 certainly does use it).

The first thing I'd try is to upgrade DirectX. If that doesn't help or you already have the latest version, you can try forcing the engine to use the Windib (Windows GDI) video driver instead of the DirectX video driver. I know SDL-based engines let you do this, but I'm not sure about ZDoom engines.

I'm fairly sure I have the latest version of directX, but how can I find out and where do I go to download an update if necesary? Also how do I force the engine to use the Windib video driver instead of the directX one? thanks :)

DirectX comes with an app called DxDiag.exe which gives you system info, including what version of DirectX is running. Search for it and execute it.

I know you can set the video driver to use in engines like PrBoom or Eternity (as well as Chocolate Doom), although on those I'm pretty sure it's the default driver anyway, so you don't have to do anything to enable it.

myk said:

DirectX comes with an app called DxDiag.exe which gives you system info, including what version of DirectX is running. Search for it and execute it.

Rather than search for it, go to Start > Run > then type "dxdiag" then ok