Chocolate Doom and Windows 7 64-bit

Is Chocolate Doom not compatiable with said OS? When I click Close and Yes in setup when it asks me if I want to save settings, it always reverts back to the default settings. Also, the graphics look washed out. It's currently using direct x as the video driver, and as stated above I can't change that. Any suggestions? Thanks.

You must run it with administrative privileges in UAC, or else it won't be able to save its settings like it'd supposed to.

Also, what do you mean by "washed out"? If you mean "pixelated, non-HD and without fancy texture filtering, T&L", that's the way it's supposed to look.

I'm guessing he means this: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/source-ports/52494-sdl-directx-palette-issues-on-newer-windows-systems/

In that case it's a bug, and one known workaround is to kill explorer.exe while you run the game.

Spleen said:

I'm guessing he means this: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/source-ports/52494-sdl-directx-palette-issues-on-newer-windows-systems/

In that case it's a bug, and one known workaround is to kill explorer.exe while you run the game.

Changing the video driver in the settings fixes the problem for me, but I still get the inverted colors when the game first starts and during the screen wipe effect.

Maes said:

You must run it with administrative privileges in UAC, or else it won't be able to save its settings like it'd supposed to.

Also, what do you mean by "washed out"? If you mean "pixelated, non-HD and without fancy texture filtering, T&L", that's the way it's supposed to look.

Is there a way to run it with administrative privileges in UAC without having to right-click and select Run as administrator every time?

Also, I'm having a problem with the cfg files. If I manually modify them and try to save (not save as) them, the save as dialogue box opens up. Then if I try to save over it, it says "Access denied." Is there a way around this?

And yes, Spleen is correct about what I meant by "washed out."

Spleen said:

In that case it's a bug, and one known workaround is to kill explorer.exe while you run the game.

Is there a way to easily bring it back once you end it, or is restarting the only way?

bgraybr said:

Changing the video driver in the settings fixes the problem for me, but I still get the inverted colors when the game first starts and during the screen wipe effect.

Setting the video driver to Windows GDI does fix the graphics for the most part; the only problem I have with it is blue, and only blue, colors look washed out. The rest look fine. Does anyone else get this?

ultdoomer said:

Is there a way to run it with administrative privileges in UAC without having to right-click and select Run as administrator every time?

Also, I'm having a problem with the cfg files. If I manually modify them and try to save (not save as) them, the save as dialogue box opens up. Then if I try to save over it, it says "Access denied." Is there a way around this?

Put your Chocolate-Doom on disk D:, not C:. That's all you need.

Or at least, outside of C:\Program Files.

Or you can edit the access right for the folder it's in if you don't want to move it.

ultdoomer said:

Is there a way to easily bring it back once you end it, or is restarting the only way?

Run explorer.exe from the task manager.

I really hate using the "KILL EXPLORER.EXE!!!11" work around.

Here's a better one:

desk.cpl
start 256coloredgame.exe

Mike.Reiner said:

I really hate using the "KILL EXPLORER.EXE!!!11" work around.

Here's a better one:

desk.cpl
start 256coloredgame.exe

Heh. It works! Why?

Mike.Reiner said:

desk.cpl
start 256coloredgame.exe

Do both of these go in the command line?

ultdoomer said:

Setting the video driver to Windows GDI does fix the graphics for the most part; the only problem I have with it is blue, and only blue, colors look washed out. The rest look fine. Does anyone else get this?

I tried taking a screenshot of this in -devparm mode to illustrate it, but it produces a .pcx file, which doesn't seem to open in any program I have. Didn't it used to produce .bmp files, and is there a way to get it to do that?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm still getting acclimated to Win 7. I appreciate everyone's help.

Use something like IrfanView to view .PCX files.

(Or SLADE3. :p)

GIMP can open PCX files. It's the format that vanilla Doom saved screenshots in (old versions of Microsoft Paint used to use PCX, which is probably why). Maybe you can convince fraggle to dump into something better supported today like BMP, but how long would that last anyway? There's always going to be tools to handle PCX even though it's become obscure.

PNG would be a better format than BMP because that way you don't have to convert them before uploading them to some web space or image host. But PNG support is less trivial than BMP or PCX support.


Anyway. The reason I recommend IrfanView is that it loads pretty much instantly. If all you want to do is view it and maybe resize it and/or tweak colors/brightness, IrfanView is better. The GIMP just takes forever to load and is overkill unless you want to do serious image editing.

Gez said:

Anyway. The reason I recommend IrfanView is that it loads pretty much instantly. If all you want to do is view it and maybe resize it and/or tweak colors/brightness, IrfanView is better. The GIMP just takes forever to load and is overkill unless you want to do serious image editing.

Seconding this. I have it set as the default program to open images with, because it works as a more or less instant preview. Sorta like the Quick Look functionality in OS X, but with editing capability :)

I got IrfanView and it is displaying the file. Unfortunately, it doesn't capture the "blue colors" problem. But do blue graphics (water for instance) look weird when using Windows GDI for anyone else?

Also, where do these commands go and what does desk.cpl do?

desk.cpl
start 256coloredgame.exe

The commands go into Start Menu/Run (or its Win7 equivalent) one by one; or, better yet, together into a batch file (a text file with extension BAT).

desk.cpl starts the Display Properties applet found in Control Panel. Someone else will have to tell you what "256coloredgame.exe" is.

Never_Again said:

Someone else will have to tell you what "256coloredgame.exe" is.

I think "256coloredgame.exe" is the program that your trying to get to display correctly (obviously Chocolate Doom in this situation).

entryway said:

Heh. It works! Why?

I have no clue man.

ultdoomer said:

Also, where do these commands go and what does desk.cpl do?

desk.cpl
start 256coloredgame.exe

You need to put them into a batch file. 256coloredgame.exe is supposed to represent the game in question that only runs with 256 colors.

If you want to avoid this batch work, just right click the desktop, and click screen resolution.

desk.cpl opens screen resolution for you. The purpose of the command is so all you have to do is double click a shortcut to the batch.


ALSO, some games, such as starcraft, seem to launch up faster than screen resolution fully opens, making it not always work. I find that adding 'pause' after desk.cpl and before the game's .exe starting tends to alleviate that, though you do have to go back to the window and press a key to continue..

I don't have Windows 7 but from what you are saying:
Is it just a case of right-clicking the desktop and choosing properties (to open the display properties) before double-clicking the icon for chocolate doom?

4mer said:

I don't have Windows 7 but from what you are saying:
Is it just a case of right-clicking the desktop and choosing properties (to open the display properties) before double-clicking the icon for chocolate doom?

More or less, but it's specifically going to be 'screen resolution' when you right click the desktop with Windows 7.