REKKR Standalone Package for DOS?

[OpenRift]

I just had another thought in my big hollow head while I was playing REKKR today, what if somebody were to make a completely standalone package of REKKR for DOS? I mean, I know this sort of already exists (for Windows, not DOS), but what if it was taken a step further. Instead of using the PWAD with an Ultimate Doom directory, what if it instead utilized an executable hack based on Doom-plus (patched to recognize the REKKRSA.WAD instead of DOOM.WAD, changed startup screen label, higher savegame limit, etc.). Then with that would be a slightly tweaked setup.exe, ipxsetup.exe, sersetup.exe, and dm.exe, modified to recognize the new EXE name and game title change. It would pretty much elevate it from a Doom total conversion mod to being a full on id tech 1 engine game. That would be kinda cool, I think.

 

I dunno if this sounds boring to y'all, but it was something I might as well put out there.

Edited February 8, 2022 by OpenRift

[P41R47]

Thats pretty much what dehacked do... kinda.

You can change a lot of things with dehacked, and for the game to play as it is, you need to create a hacked doom.exe that is called ''doomhack.exe''. You can just rename this to REKKR and it would work as if REKKR was a properly Id tech engine game.

Save for the setupses, that still say doom :P
But that isn't too hard to change, i think that if Revae would like to do that, he is more than able to do it.

But as all, distributing the original exe is ilegal, even when it is modified, so well...

If Freedoom had a proper dos executable with a GPL license, well, that would be the way to go for projects like this.

And just for the sake of being made as, certainly, there are not much people like us meddling with the ancient blackness of DOS an its arcane secrets.

[OpenRift]

25 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Thats pretty much what dehacked do... kinda.

 You can change a lot of things with dehacked, and for the game to play as it is, you need to create a hacked doom.exe that is called ''doomhack.exe''. You can just rename this to REKKR and it would work as if REKKR was a properly Id tech engine game.

 Save for the setupses, that still say doom :P
 But that isn't too hard to change, i think that if Revae would like to do that, he is more than able to do it.

But as all, distributing the original exe is ilegal, even when it is modified, so well...

If Freedoom had a proper dos executable with a GPL license, well, that would be the way to go for projects like this.

And just for the sake of being made as, certainly, there are not much people like us meddling with the ancient blackness of DOS an its arcane secrets.

Well the thing is, it wouldn't exactly be a modified doom exe, but rather a modified Doom-plus exe, because the thing about REKKR (and so many other vanilla mods unfortunately), is that certain levels will have savegame overflows, which is remedied by using Doom-plus, which raises several static limits, and is in fact already publicly distributed.

[viti95]

It's doable, it's possible to add dehacked support to PCDoom-v2 (a nearly 100% clone of Vanilla Doom, only differs the sound engine) or to modify it directly to create a REKKR id tech 1 game. For now I can't do this as i'm very busy in my life (and can't even dedicate time to develop FastDoom).

 

https://github.com/nukeykt/PCDoom-v2

[P41R47]

8 hours ago, OpenRift said:

Well the thing is, it wouldn't exactly be a modified doom exe, but rather a modified Doom-plus exe, because the thing about REKKR (and so many other vanilla mods unfortunately), is that certain levels will have savegame overflows, which is remedied by using Doom-plus, which raises several static limits, and is in fact already publicly distributed.

Still, its a bit tricky.

Doom-Plus.exe is still a modified .exe.

 

Its out there to download, as a lot of Doomhack.exe renamed to their corresponding wad (av.exe alien vendetta, doomzero.exe, etc.) but by no means something "strictly" legal, so distributing REKKR, an officialized TC with it, its only calling for troubles i think.

 

Its a very murky water and, even when theare are cases of distributing it, its not recommended.

 

The post above is interesting, because its a clone of the exe, and not the original.

If it is demo compatible, i will say its something that might be interesting to work out more, as there are a lot of vanilla tricks still waiting to be discovered.

[Redneckerz]

17 hours ago, OpenRift said:

Well the thing is, it wouldn't exactly be a modified doom exe, but rather a modified Doom-plus exe, because the thing about REKKR (and so many other vanilla mods unfortunately), is that certain levels will have savegame overflows, which is remedied by using Doom-plus, which raises several static limits, and is in fact already publicly distributed.

I know Wraith777 has used DoomP/Doom2P for his WAD releases and they are on /idgames with that modified executable.

 

Its probably because without an official IWAD, an exe can't do much. And whilst its technically not legal, this distinction is one of the reasons nobody has been gumballed for doing this.

9 hours ago, P41R47 said:

Still, its a bit tricky.

Doom-Plus.exe is still a modified .exe.

 

Its out there to download, as a lot of Doomhack.exe renamed to their corresponding wad (av.exe alien vendetta, doomzero.exe, etc.) but by no means something "strictly" legal, so distributing REKKR, an officialized TC with it, its only calling for troubles i think.

Never knew Doom Zero was a modified Doomhack... :P

 

I think the tipping point is more with modified DeHacked executables (as these are the original executable but pre-patched) rather than executable hacks like Doom-Plus. They are simply alternative vanilla engines you can use with your WADs, especially since they are 100% vanilla compatible.

 

[P41R47]

57 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Never knew Doom Zero was a modified Doomhack... :P

 

I think the tipping point is more with modified DeHacked executables (as these are the original executable but pre-patched) rather than executable hacks like Doom-Plus. They are simply alternative vanilla engines you can use with your WADs, especially since they are 100% vanilla compatible.

Yeah, this one! :D

DoomZero.exe is on my folder, because i need to rename them to differentiate the fuckzillion doomhack.exe i have :P

Anyway, do you know something about the .exe viti95 named?
If thats a a good clone, maybe it could work to be used as legit redistribuitable versions for DosBox.

[Redneckerz]

15 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Yeah, this one! :D

DoomZero.exe is on my folder, because i need to rename them to differentiate the fuckzillion doomhack.exe i have :P

Perhaps the dev can rename it in a 1.9 release?

 

15 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Anyway, do you know something about the .exe viti95 named?

Its a literal clone of the original Doom executable, with the Apogee sound library. There is also Doom Vanille by AxDoomer, and DoomNew by Marakate, the latter is a 100% clone which also uses the DMX library (And therefore cannot be used) and has DeHacked support. Then there is also Russian Doom for DOS, which has a English option and is based off both PCDoom-V2 and Doom Vanille with various improvements (Increased stack, Atari Jaguar mode, solid color mode, Crispy enhancements and such)

 

15 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

If thats a a good clone, maybe it could work to be used as legit redistribuitable versions for DosBox.

There are various options :)

[MrFlibble]

A while ago it was discovered that neither the stand-alone IWAD nor the PWAD version of REKKR (v1.16) do not work with MBF with Freed∞m IWAD.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2140114

 

@Revae promised to fix that at some point but I'm not sure if this is already done seeing as how there are other priorities to the project.

[Revae]

13 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

A while ago it was discovered that neither the stand-alone IWAD nor the PWAD version of REKKR (v1.16) do not work with MBF with Freed∞m IWAD.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2140114

 

@Revae promised to fix that at some point but I'm not sure if this is already done seeing as how there are other priorities to the project.

 

Yeaaaaah. I gotta get on popping out a 1.17 patch. There isn't anything big to fix until I finish the new Ep 4, but there's a bunch of small stuff like this...

[MrFlibble]

21 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

and DoomNew by Marakate, the latter is a 100% clone which also uses the DMX library (And therefore cannot be used) and has DeHacked support

I was just able to run the PWAD version 1.16 with DoomNew and the Freed∞m IWAD, not sure if it loaded the DEH file properly though. It still gave the messages about those patches but was apparently not bothered much by it.

 

Doom-Vanille crashed back to DOS, likely because it did not load the DEH file.

 

Russian Doom hangs on the skill selection screen. Music continues to play.