What is the most important feature of a Doom source port you use for you?

[Hisymak]

So, probably all of us here are using some of the many available Doom source ports, but I guess most of you have one particular source port which is your main and the most (or even the only) used one. The reason can be that your main source port provides a specific feature, which is extremely important for you and which is the reason you started using it and use it as the primary one.

 

For me, it is unsurprisingly GZDoom. It provides the most advanced features, is very widely used and well-supported, and the vast majority of WADs and mods are compatible with it so I don't need to care about compatibility and simply can run almost anything with it, while I'm not concerned about full vanilla compatibility, recording demos and this stuff. That could be the majority's reason to use GZDoom.

However, the true reason why I originally started using (G)Zdoom and why I kept using it and still play Doom so much till present days, is OPL Synth Emulator. Yeah, that feature really brought me back into Doom and this community, and is the very key feature for me.

 

Some history:

During my childhood in 90s I played many DOS games on a PC. Not long after getting one, my dad also brought a sound card and I could listen to music that played in the games. In most games there was Adlib/Sound blaster music played through OPL FM synthesizer, and I learned to love this kind of music. It was the music that was tightly bound to computer games for me, I believed that was how computer games were supposed to sound like. I knew the music was kind of "lower quality" and "did not sound like real instruments", but I as a kid did not see it like that and considered it actually as a feature, these were computer games, so they were not supposed to sound like real instruments, and I loved the variability of synthesized instruments and strange sounds.

When getting newer PCs in early 2000s, the modern computer's sound cards were not capable of playing OPL Synth anymore. I was very upset about that and strongly wanted to be able to listen to my favourite OPL sounds. Some games provided General MIDI option, but I hated that (sounded more like real instruments - yuck!) so better I turned music off or suspended playing DOS games completely. In later 2000s I discovered Dosbox, which to my surprise provided OPL Synth emulation, so most DOS games got back for me, but some later 3D DOS games like Doom, Heretic or Duke Nukem 3D were not well playable with Dosbox. I searched for Doom ports, did not know about any at that time and just found Doomsday. It had good graphics and played well, but eh, it was missing OPL Synth, so playing like that was not much fun to me. Some time later I ran into ZDoom. At first glance it looked inferior to Doomsday, so I nearly missed that, but luckily I discovered it had actually a working built-in OPL emulator, it was like a holy grail to me! Nowadays I play various Doom WADs not only for the gaming experience, but also just for listening to OPL music. It go so convoluted that I even attempted to edit OPL soundfont (GENMIDI) and improved the soundfont for even better musical experience.

Contrarily, unfortunately I'm not aware about any Duke Nukem 3D port which supports OPL Synth emulation, that's also reason I'm playing Duke3D only very rarely.

[SF.]

I use GZDoom now because it has the best full-screen HUD I have seen. That, and saving + loading is not a pain in the ass.

[Pompeji]

ZDoom ports have mapinfo, that's all I need

[Wagi]

I can't live without an uncapped framerate.

[continuum.mid]

Support for custom soundfonts via fluidsynth, and support for novert.

[seed]

Uncapped FPS, proper high res support, solid support for a variety of mods, nice music playback, good mouse handling.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Simple: It must run doom. I don't demand much

[Jaccident]

One feature that I didn't realise I needed until I had it in gzdoom was unlimited saves. It cut down on the hassle of only having 6 slots for saves, and even though I mostly use quicksaves instead now, having the ability to save more is much appreciated. Also, autosaving at the start of every level is a godsend.

[Noiser]

Savelimit fix on Chocolate Doom, it's a simple but very welcoming feature
 

10 hours ago, Hisymak said:

 I believed that was how computer games were supposed to sound like. I knew the music was kind of "lower quality" and "did not sound like real instruments", but I as a kid did not see it like that and considered it actually as a feature, these were computer games, so they were not supposed to sound like real instruments, and I loved the variability of synthesized instruments and strange sounds.

I see it as a feature as well. The appeal of synthesizers is being their own thing instead of trying to emulate real instruments at any cost. Because of that, I prefer OPL over the regular General MIDI soundbank. They are much more flexible in tone and timbre then the default GM set, despite lacking "omph" in percursive elements.

Unfortunately the OPL instruments from Doom are really poor in quality, which leads to the assumption that fm synths are always bad (the same happens when people associate poor presets from drivers like GEMS with Sega Genesis music). But OPL is great when composers make music with them in mind.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Noiser

[Kute]

That it was popular enough to show up at the top of the google search I did. 

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

58 minutes ago, Noiser said:

Unfortunately the OPL instruments from Doom are really poor in quality

I think DOOM's OPL instruments are above average in quality when compared to other games' OPL instruments.  Games that used the Miles Sound System for example just used a more generic-sounding stock OPL bank.  And in games with music that was made specifically for OPL, such as Duke Nukem II, Bio Menace, and Blake Stone, the drums are extremely weak.

[Noiser]

1 hour ago, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

And in games with music that was made specifically for OPL, such as Duke Nukem II, Bio Menace, and Blake Stone, the drums are extremely weak.

There are better examples. Look for games like Dune, Wacky Wheels, Jill of the Jungle or Descent. Imo, the good thing about opl is the modular flexibility and the unique sound style, not the drums.

EDIT: Another good example is DMXOPL, that improves all Doom instruments considerably. I even added it to D4V.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Noiser

[Piranha Fang UGC]

Very low power demand, I have a very bad machine so if doom doesn't run as good as it does on Chocolate/Crispy/Vanilla, and there's no way to optimize it, then i'm out.

other thing that is very welcome is marshmallow's offline deathmatch, is a good time killer when there's no internet (or in my case, the internet is complete garbage), but, of course, it's not necessary, just something that i would like to be in other ports, personally

Edited March 10, 2021 by Piranha Fang UGC : needed to say that marshmallow's deathmatch isn't necessary

[Dweller Dark]

With GZDoom, I can't honestly say what the most important feature is. Apart from being a testing ground for mods/wads, the autosave feature is pretty awesome. I generally never save when playing Doom/Heretic since it can sometimes fuck with your playthrough (not technically speaking, just from a "I saved in a bad spot/with bad resources and can't reload the map" standpoint). So, having GZDoom save at the beginning of every level helps.

[Rei is now real]

A. Modability (I don't know if this is and actual word, and I butchered it, or if its a made-up word, and I butchered it)

B. Playability

C. Optimization

those are the most important features to me.

[Marisa the Magician]

The most important think I could ever ask of a port is scripting. Being raised on Unreal, it's all I live for. The more advanced this scripting is, the better.

[P41R47]

The fidelity to the source material.

The more similar to the original game i can play with a source-port, the more i like it.

 

I grew with Doom, it was my most played game, and its still nowdays, but i don't like scripting, fancy looking effects or so.

I just like to play the game as i played it backthen.

Not for nostalgia, cos i play other old games on more modern settings without problem.

But for certain, because i like the original flavor and i prefer to play the game as the developers intended it to be played, even on these days.

Thus, Chocola, Crispy, Woof, Doom Retro and PrBoom+ are the source ports i prefer.

 

Eternity Engine is another one i like as i merges the modern with the fidelity to the original.

[Omniarch]

My bread-and-butter ports are Crispy Doom and PrBoom+, the former for its excellent retro / QoL balance and the latter for its phenomenal performance and responsiveness.

 

I use both ZDoom & GZDoom for wads that require advanced ports. In general, I don't like heavily scripted sets, runs against my preferences, but things like Decorate and Mapinfo are immensely powerful tools, as are the many unique features of the UDMF format. The thing that really drives me away from (G)ZDoom are the inevitable performance issues, since I don't find lag to be acceptable in a fast-paced FPS like Doom.

 

I'd really like to use Eternity more, since it has many advanced features and a beautiful renderer, but performance and responsiveness issues along with a lack of content give me little reason to use it. Though, with the release of Heartland and the persistence of Team Eternity, there is hope for the port yet.

 

Doom Retro and Chocolate Doom are both very niche ports for me, though lovable in their own ways. The former I mostly use to replay atmospheric UD wads that I know like the back of my hand already (DTWiD, NSftD, BtB etc.) and the latter I use to replay the IWADs.

 

Overall, my highest priority is performance, followed by QoL like crosshairs, non-infinity tall actors etc.

[omx32x]

have a option to enable vanilla like behaviors such as some bugs and limitations on the gameplay like the lost soul limit

[spineapple tea]

Quality of life improvements like always run, lost soul limits, uncapped framerates, lost soul limits, larger resolutions, and actors not being infinitely tall. Also, being able to save more than ten times ever is pretty nice for me.

[Doomkid]

It’s not a “must”, but I’m glad there are 3 somewhat prominent ports with client/server networking rather than peer to peer!

[Biz!]

not moving forward when your mouse goes forward

[Dwimepon]

Being able to run doom, for starters

 

I'm not picky when it comes to source ports, but if there's one thing I cannot stand it's laggy mouse controls. It's kind of a mess to handle the mouse when the framerate is uncapped, so I like source ports who actually manage to make it smooth as butter - namely Prboom+ and GZDoom.

 

I still use crispy doom from time to time, but always with capped framerate.

[AmnesiaSilence]

personally i prefer if its as close to vanilla as possible, but still has some quality of life changes, such as uncapped framerate, etc

[feedernseeder]

Can I compile it without me having to sacrifice a goat to Saturn or whatever for it to work because for some unknown fucking reason I can't just enter

./configure && make

to compile it, and I have to pull out the developer tools like autoreconf.

 

Looking at you, crispy doom.

[jazzmaster9]

For me being mostly a Total Conversion modder.

Zscript, ACS, UDMF features (3d floors, Sector slopes, colored lights etc)