Hexen prone to crashing?

[Szuran]

Is anyone experiencing problems playing the Steam version of Hexen? It crashes for me in both DosBox and GZDoom. It's also very choppy in any settings. What's the best way to play it on Win10?

[Graf Zahl]

If both Dosbox and GZDoom tend to crash I suspect some system side problem. This shouldn't happen. But can you check which version of the IWAD you have? What's the size in bytes?

 

[Szuran]

It's 20 083 672 bytes.

[Graf Zahl]

That's the correct version. I've been using that one for more than 15 years without ever having problems with it.

 

[seed]

Yea, that shouldn't happen, especially if both crash.

 

You could try validating the game files in case something got corrupted during download, and if it keeps happening, try Chocolate Hexen and if even that one keeps crashing, it's probably an issue on your end.

 

Are you getting any error messages by the way? I'm thinking of a driver issue or something if it just randomly CTDs.

[Avoozl]

I've played Hexen many times in vanilla and ZDoom and I never experienced any crashes.

[Matthias]

HEXEN.WAD works for me with no issues with Zdoom, Zdoom Legacy, Gzdoom, Qzdoom, Cripsy Doom, Chocolate Doom, Doomsday.. both Windows and Linux.

[jval]

Make sure that the crc32 of the wad is DCA9114C  (wiki link). You can use a Winzip/Winrar to create an archive with hexen.wad and open the archive and check crc32 (since your size is OK):

 

[Szuran]

56 minutes ago, seed said:

Are you getting any error messages by the way? I'm thinking of a driver issue or something if it just randomly CTDs.

 

It freezes in the main menu in DosBox and randomly during gameplay in GZDoom.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Vanilla Hexen has occasionally crashed for me (I tend to think particularly in Deathwind Chapel, but when I asked some time ago if there was anything specifically wrong with that level that could cause it I recall the answer being "no" so maybe it's confirmation bias on my part if that level is the one that crashes.)  But what you're describing is definitely abnormal.  The only Hexen .EXE I've had tons of crashes with is the Hexen 95 one, which in my experience is nigh unusable even on Windows 95.

[Lila Feuer]

Hexen95 was unstable, especially in the Hypostyle map, it got mad when I looked in certain directions in the starting room. I'm surprised I even finished the game with it all those years ago.

[Szuran]

Downloading it again seems to have helped. Thanks everyone.