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Sonim

Question About The Purist Way To Play DOOM

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I am kind of new in the DOOM' world, and by the time I am posting this, I have only played DOOM 2016. Considering Eternal' release in March, I have decided to go way back to the classics and play them. For my suprise, there are ton of ways to do so, including multiple source ports and the Steam/GOG versions. As for my first playthrough, I would like more of a purist experience. I am used to buying games on GOG, but I've seen some people suggesting Chocalate DOOM over it. So, what you guys recommend for a purist first try on classics DOOM?

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I'm definitely not a purist, but I would avoid DosBox while Chocolate Doom exists.  As @Doomkid said, it's a true vanilla experience on a port that's been refined specifically for playing Doom.  DosBox is pretty lackluster overall for most games I've tried on it.  Keep in mind you'll still need to buy a copy of the game to use in Chocolate Doom and I'd recommend the GOG version as it will include the original WAD files (the Steam version does as well but also includes the new Unity port versions which may or may not be confusing to differentiate).

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Not sure a purely "pure" experience is really going to be a great introduction. Doomkid is correct, Chocolate Doom is about as pure as it gets, and easier than dicking around with the original executables in DosBox. I grew up with Doom, but nowdays I cannot play anything in that low of a resolution that fast without it making my eyes water within about 30 seconds. And personally, I see little to no value in preserving old limitations and bugs. It is mostly of relevance to the old hands looking for their nostalgia fix. Nothing wrong with that if that appeals, though.

 

I would suggest getting a well established port such as ZDoom or Eternity. Most of the advanced features can be turned off such as mouselook, jumping and the like. So you can get a more stable, better looking, less eye-watering experience that is still pretty faithful to the original.

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There is also Crispy Doom if you want something that is slightly more than vanilla.  Basically Chocolate Doom with vanilla limits removed and higher resolutions.  I would also highly recommend this if you want a purist experience with just some nicer looking graphics.  Eternity and PRBoom are there when you want to graduate to some more advanced mapsets.

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I second the notion to purchase the GOG versions. The Steam versions don't include the setup exe files, so it can be more complicated than necessary if you ever do decide to use DosBox. Either version works for any source port, all that's needed is the .wad file from the purchased game.

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Find a old computer on ebay with those 3 digit numbers that people refer them to (386 & 486?)   Run DOOM with the sound pitch change effect version on MS-DOS.  Don't know which version of doom it was though.

 

TBH.. the pitch change sound effect sounds good on the older version of doom, I wouldn't have it on though if you are using any ports that try to emulate it.  It sounds different. 

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If your goal is to play it pure Vanilla and emulate how the game first looked in 1993, then Chocolate Doom is the sourceport you'll want to tinker with. If you want to know more about the different Doom sourceports in general and how you can use them to cater your own specific Dooming experiences that fits your tastes and what you want most out of the game, here are two solid videos Dwars has made that outline the most popular sourceports available and what they can offer you:

 

 

 

By the way, welcome to the community and happy Dooming. :^)

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Could always look for an authentic early '90s 486 IBM PC and play the game on that, but that's perhaps almost too purist and would cost a hefty bit to boot.

 

As far as source ports are concerned, Chocolate Doom is the closest to the vanilla experience, as Doomkid said.

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The most purist way to play Doom is to run the original executable on MS-DOS. Since old computer hardware may not be that easily available to everyone nowadays, I recommend DOSBox which is probably the next most authentic way to experience Doom like it's the 90's

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As others have said Chocolate Doom is basically the DOS experience without the DOS hassle. It's as purist as it gets for a source port if that's what you want. If you're a first time Doom player and not a DOS enthusiast it's not really worth trying to set up DOSBOX.

 

That said, I'd like to point out that there's a decent amount of ports that can accurately emulate vanilla gameplay while offering some QoL enhancements like higher resolutions and more flexible key binding, like Crispy Doom, PrBoom+, and Eternity Engine. All of these ports are capable of creating demos that can be played back in the vanilla DOOM/DOOM2.EXE in DOS, so the game behavior can be considered identical to vanilla. But if you're dead set on a purist experience and don't care about reading long lists of source ports then Chocolate Doom is still the way to go.

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3 hours ago, guitardz said:

I'm definitely not a purist, but I would avoid DosBox while Chocolate Doom exists.  As @Doomkid said, it's a true vanilla experience on a port that's been refined specifically for playing Doom.  DosBox is pretty lackluster overall for most games I've tried on it.  Keep in mind you'll still need to buy a copy of the game to use in Chocolate Doom and I'd recommend the GOG version as it will include the original WAD files (the Steam version does as well but also includes the new Unity port versions which may or may not be confusing to differentiate).

 

Have you tried Dosbox-Staging?

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Chocolate Doom is sometimes too purist. By staying locked to the original aspect ratios and resolutions designed for monitor hardware no-one has anymore, it can make for a challenging experience for a brand new player, not to mention stuff like mapping forward momentum to the mouse Y axis, which feels so alien these days (and doesn't have an option to turn off without editing per-axis-sensitivity, AFAIK).

 

My recommendation would be either Crispy Doom (which is basically Chocolate with some QOL improvements), or indeed the new Unity-wrapper ports. Those are still pretty vanilla in their presentation, just again with some basic QOL improvements to make them more enjoyable for the modern gamer.

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4 hours ago, Sonim said:

I am kind of new in the DOOM' world, and by the time I am posting this, I have only played DOOM 2016. Considering Eternal' release in March, I have decided to go way back to the classics and play them. For my suprise, there are ton of ways to do so, including multiple source ports and the Steam/GOG versions. As for my first playthrough, I would like more of a purist experience. I am used to buying games on GOG, but I've seen some people suggesting Chocalate DOOM over it. So, what you guys recommend for a purist first try on classics DOOM?

 

https://github.com/fabiangreffrath/crispy-doom/releases/tag/crispy-doom-5.9.1

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Chocolate Doom it's the definitive way for modern PCs without any doubt and much cost.
Crispy Doom if you intend too look as it should, but with options to improve gameplay and remove limits from the time.
Both of them are here:
http://latest.chocolate-doom.org

GOG and Steam have DOSBox which are also valid for a purist experience on a modern PC.

But if you want to go even ridiculously further:
Buy the floppy disks/CDs from Ebay (they're expensive), or get Doom from a BBS (I think this doesn't exist nowadays but I could be wrong)

If you want to emulate the installation process, here is a collection of Doom floppy disks images if you want them to upload them to an actual floppy disk, you could buy some and write on them with a marker/a pen:
https://archive.org/details/TGODFloppyCollection?and[]=Doom&sin=
https://winworldpc.com/product/doom/10
v1.0 is the earlier release of Doom which includes some bugs and not final changes.
v1.9 is the final release.

This should run on DOSBox too.

There's also the Shareware CDs where you can get it from like some people on the 90's did, this are also on Ebay and I think some are cheapier options:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=doom shareware cd

Get a good Soundcard, a nice CRT monitor and Windows 95 if you plan to run it with Doom95 port or Windows 98 Second Edition if you intended to do more retrogaming. Or run all of it on a Virtual Machine.

Doom95: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/doom/win95/doom95

It all depends on what you feel more comfortable and what you could afford. I just drop the options if you find them useful.

Edited by TotalTS

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Everyone has already suggested Chocolate Doom, and they're right that it's the most pure way to play the game on a modern machine. If you want something that looks a bit less... 1995 without ruining the atmosphere and maintaining the gameplay you could try PrBoom+. Still vanilla, but widescreen and high-resolution support. Just make sure you turn the gamma correction down, for some reason the setting it ships with makes everything bright and washed out.

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Chocolate Doom is the way to go for the most authentic experience natively out of the box. DOSBox is too much of a hassle and ends up being worse due to some shortcomings of DOSBox. If the 320x200 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio is too much for you, check out Crispy Doom. It's mostly the same, but allows you to load slightly fancier maps, and has things like higher resolution rendering, widescreen support, and high framerate rendering which are all very welcome in my book. Currently it's my source port of choice because I like to retain vanilla gameplay, but don't feel the need to be limited to 320x200 at 35Hz.

I would recommend against ZDoom derived ports for a first-timer, personally. By default, it changes a lot about how the game behaves, and you have to do a lot of digging through menus to change it (and in general the options menu is massive and can be overwhelming for a first timer). That being said, they will take pretty much any custom WAD you throw at them, and have a lot of mapping features unique to them.

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1 hour ago, TotalTS said:

...Windows 95 if you plan to run it with Doom95 port or Windows 98 Second Edition if you intended to do more retrogaming. Or run all of it on a Virtual Machine.

Doom95: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/doom/win95/doom95

 

I don't have a. ton of experience with it so I couldn't say for certain but as I understand it the Windows 95 port is pretty much universally disliked due to graphical bugs and the like. If it's what you have it's what you have, but I don't think many would recommend it over the other options.

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While Chocolate Doom is the "purest" of all ports, its limitations like 320x200 resolution, 35 fps cap, visual bugs and mapping limitations might be a bit too hard to chew.

 

Instead I recommend you to try Crispy Doom. Gameplay-wise, it is 100% compatible with vanilla/Chocolate Doom but comes with QoL feature like higher resolution, 60 fps, raised mapping limits other small feature. Crispy doesn't come with a shit-ton of feature but the ones that it has are very welcome.

 

After that I recommend you to see ports like PrBoom+, GZDoom, Eternity Engine for more advanced features. These are the ports that I use quite a bit alongside Crispy.

 

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20 minutes ago, Pokemanic33 said:

 

I don't have a. ton of experience with it so I couldn't say for certain but as I understand it the Windows 95 port is pretty much universally disliked due to graphical bugs and the like. If it's what you have it's what you have, but I don't think many would recommend it over the other options.

Sure it's not the best option/port, just wanted to point out it's ridiculously purist, in terms on what people experienced it back in the day despite the bugs, maybe to check out how it runned at the time, or for nostalgia purposes.

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4 hours ago, Master O said:

Have you tried Dosbox-Staging?

At the risk of sounding like a Negative Nancy, can you elaborate a little more on why someone would choose this over the official release or the zillion other forks (X, Daum, etc. etc.) that are out there?  I've tried a few forked versions in the past and it always seemed like they were either indistinguishable from or worse than the official version on everything I tried them on.  I guess a few particularly persnickety programs get better support on some of them and others exist more for adding weird graphics filters and such nonsense.  Apparently this one is trying to be an "ease of use" fork, whatever that actually means?

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7 hours ago, Sonim said:

I am used to buying games on GOG, but I've seen some people suggesting Chocalate DOOM over it.

what does that mean

 

 

Chocolate Doom and all the other source ports are just replacement programs. They don't come with the game data. You still need to get Doom and Doom II from GOG (or, alternatively, Steam).

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10 minutes ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

At the risk of sounding like a Negative Nancy, can you elaborate a little more on why someone would choose this over the official release or the zillion other forks (X, Daum, etc. etc.) that are out there?  I've tried a few forked versions in the past and it always seemed like they were either indistinguishable from or worse than the official version on everything I tried them on.  I guess a few particularly persnickety programs get better support on some of them and others exist more for adding weird graphics filters and such nonsense.  Apparently this one is trying to be an "ease of use" fork, whatever that actually means?

 

https://dosbox-staging.github.io/v0-75-0/#new-features

 

In addition to the above listed features, Version 75.1, released recently, also now has 64-bit support and now supports 10 axes for joysticks / controllers, like the Thrustmaster HOTAS (provided you use the keymapper).

 

https://dosbox-staging.github.io/v0-75-1/#2-new-features-in-detail

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Although I ran through Doom and Doom II in chocolate a while back and had a lot of fun, but I probably wouldn't pick it for a first experience with the game. Crispy is a much nicer middle ground.

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Because why not, this thread somewhat inspired me to make a proper tutorial on "purist dooming" through DosBox:

 

 

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Personal preference. I'd go with Crispy Doom. It's still basically Vanilla. But, Chocolate doom, like everyone else said is essentially the purist experience (along with the MS-DOS/DOSbox version w/ added fixes. obviously)  Don't get me wrong, Chocolate is beautiful, and it's purpose of staying historically accurate in itself is beautiful. But if you want a vanilla/purist experience, while retaining higher res/ratio, better looks, and is also limit-removing so you can still play other wads. I'd go with Crispy Doom. I know you can get chochorenderlimits to alleviate the limit-removing on chocolate, but that's another discussion. 

 

To sum it up, DOSbox/MS-DOS, Chocolate, or Crispy are your best bet; like everyone previously suggested. Everything else is kinda "iffy"

 

I have been finding myself FIGHTING myself over, for days, weeks, months: on how to go about a more vanilla/purist experience. For the past few years, I've been using GZdoom on lower resolutions, making it vanilla as I can possibly get it. I spent so many hours trying to get GZDoom as crispy/vanilla as I can get it, but It still just didn't feel right to me. . (Example: everytime you eliminate a sprite that is holding a weapon, it pops out, and doesn't just drop like it does in regular doom.) That annoys me for some reason, just little things I know but, I don't remember that from Doom when I played it??

 

This is all just personal preference/opinion: I know where you are coming from on this topic. It's very difficult to find the right port that suits you, and does what you want it to. So maybe you'll just have to try em all and see what works for you?

 

Best of luck and Happy fraggin'!

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