Doom95Portable - help making a "legal" version

[Doomkid]

So, there is a modified version of Doom95 floating around that has all the fixes done over the years compiled into one, called "Doom95Portable". I've tested this package and it works great on any Windows OS from XP all the way up through 10, and the simple swapping of 1 DLL file will allow it to run on 95 and 98 as well, just as it always did.

 

The problem is, the only version of it I can find has the 4 main IWADs included as part of the installer. I'm afraid to link it because I don't want to be accused of warez or some shit. I'd LOVE to re-pack it, so it only comes with Doom1.wad (shareware) so it could be legally shared around without worry.

 

You can find it on ModDB. If anyone has any ideas as to how to do this, I'd be very thankful. (I know Doom95 is outdated and buggy, but the whole point is that this fixes those issues. Plus, something being effectively pointless has never stopped Doomers before..!)

[Arrowhead]

I'm interested in this. Was not aware that there was an updated version called "Doom95Portable". If you can find a way to strip the infringing content, I think that'd be pretty sweet.

 

Unfortunately, I only (barely) know the ins and outs of a WAD, let alone something more complex like this.

 

Would definitely like to see this in a (proper) downloadable state, as Doom95 was my first introduction to Doom.

[chungy]

49 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I'd LOVE to re-pack it, so it only comes with Doom1.wad (shareware) so it could be legally shared around without worry.

How about Freedoom? ;)

 

50 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

If anyone has any ideas as to how to do this, I'd be very thankful.

the file command identifies it as a Nullsoft Installer. There's probably a way to "decompile" the installer, modify the files, and repack it.

 

Or maybe just offer a Zip file of the engine, sans copyright infringement. I don't imagine Doom95 really needs an installer for anything other than placing icons on the start menu and desktop.

[Martin Howe]

NSIS was my go-to installer when last developing for Windows; gave up when I moved permanently to Linux and NSIS seemed stuck on 2.51 for what seemed like years; however, I recently found out (on Twitter of all places) that NSIS is still a thing. Wondered why many modern apps left ns*.tmp files in the Windows temporary files directory :)

 

It seems 7-Zip can decompile NSIS installers, as long as they aren't encrypted. I don't have a Windows dev box nor access to one, but hopefully someone else can have a go.

[doomguykiller69]

 

Hey Doomkid, you mean this exe? i found it in moddb like you said 

[hobomaster22]

Here is the contents of the installer unpacked. I deleted the iwads, but left everything else as is.
DoomPortable.zip

DoomPortable/App/Doom contains the Doom95.exe and files needed to run.
DoomPortable/App/DefaultData contains settings.reg.

It appears all the installer did was extract everything to the destination folder, and installed settings.reg.

 

Simply extracting, adding your IWADS to DoomPortable/App/Doom, then double-clicking the DoomPortable/DefaultData/settings.reg from the zip should have everything working. I'm not entirely sure what Launcher.exe is doing since running Doom95.exe directly seems to have the same effect.

 

[drfrag]

Nothing of value there, it just includes this patch (dll)

and a dgVoodoo ddraw dll, i think it's better to use DXGL instead.

[hobomaster22]

11 minutes ago, drfrag said:

Nothing of value there, it just includes this patch (dll)

and a dgVoodoo ddraw dll, i think it's better to use DXGL instead.

I was curious as to why this worked on my Windows 10 machine while my Doom 95 install does not work correctly that I tried to get working a while back. It appears this includes DPLAY.DLL which I had figured out before, but also Includes DDraw.dll that actually renders correctly on Windows 10. AT least on my machine, without that Ddraw.dll, it just draws this very small distorted grayed out window. I did compares on the Doom95 exe and dlls and they are the same straight from Doom 95.

[drfrag]

Like i said it includes a ddraw.dll from dgVoodoo which is a DDRAW emulator. I think it's better to use the dll from DXGL, it's the one i use to test old ZDoom versions.

[Doomkid]

I think the launcher does something - when I run Doom95 directly, the aspect ratio isn’t corrected, but when I use the launcher, it is.. Odd.

 

Thanks for all the replies, and the breakdown of what’s included, hobomaster. Obviously Doom95 is less than ideal for general Dooming, but it’s nice having a package that included dgVoodoo, the mouse fix, the demo fix, and the DPLAY file actually placed where it belongs from start, rather than having to travel to all corners of the net and assemble all that crap yourself.

 

Thanks!

[hobomaster22]

50 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I think the launcher does something - when I run Doom95 directly, the aspect ratio isn’t corrected, but when I use the launcher, it is.. Odd.

 

Thanks for all the replies, and the breakdown of what’s included, hobomaster. Obviously Doom95 is less than ideal for general Dooming, but it’s nice having a package that included dgVoodoo, the mouse fix, the demo fix, and the DPLAY file actually placed where it belongs from start, rather than having to travel to all corners of the net and assemble all that crap yourself.

 

Thanks!

I agree, having everything packaged so it just works would be great. Doom 95 was the main way to play for me back in the day and wanted to to play for nostalgia's sake. This was a few years ago, apparently I got sick of searching to collect all the random things required to get it functioning properly.

[Redneckerz]

24 minutes ago, hobomaster22 said:

I agree, having everything packaged so it just works would be great. Doom 95 was the main way to play for me back in the day and wanted to to play for nostalgia's sake. This was a few years ago, apparently I got sick of searching to collect all the random things required to get it functioning properly.

The general patch was by @OpenRift. See this post. 

 

The voodoo patch is also by OpenRift. See this post. 

 

If married to a shareware wad, Doom95Portable should go on /idgames.

[Maes]

13 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I'd LOVE to re-pack it, so it only comes with Doom1.wad (shareware) so it could be legally shared around without worry.

 

Hmm....ages ago there was a concern that even distributing Doom1.wad outside of its original "packaging" (aka the original Doom 95 or original DOS shareware installers), was itself illegal or at least in a legal grey area. Dunno if that has been ironed/cleared out.

[OpenRift]

8 minutes ago, Maes said:

 

Hmm....ages ago there was a concern that even distributing Doom1.wad outside of its original "packaging" (aka the original Doom 95 or original DOS shareware installers), was itself illegal or at least in a legal grey area. Dunno if that has been ironed/cleared out.

Shareware is shareware. It really shouldn't be a problem as long as you're not distributing it for money.

[Doomkid]

I actually remember that coming up as well Maes, but I just can't "accept" it because there are all these old (archived) fan sites happily offering Doom shareware, every "Doom WAD disc" also has it, and there are even old documents and stuff where Romero literally is passing it out and says something to the effect of "PLEASE DISTRIBUTE!".. Unless they have actually played the legal takesies-backsies card, I don't think it should be a cause for concern.

[P41R47]

13 hours ago, Doomkid said:

The problem is, the only version of it I can find has the 4 main IWADs included as part of the installer. I'm afraid to link it because I don't want to be accused of warez or some shit. I'd LOVE to re-pack it, so it only comes with Doom1.wad (shareware) so it could be legally shared around without worry.

 

You can find it on ModDB. If anyone has any ideas as to how to do this, I'd be very thankful. (I know Doom95 is outdated and buggy, but the whole point is that this fixes those issues. Plus, something being effectively pointless has never stopped Doomers before..!)

AS with most games of that time, i suppose most of the needed files are inside the folder it creates when installing.

So, for a legal version, why not simply repack the folder into a zip without the IWADs and just with Doom1.wad?

Thats totally to be included on /idgames, for sure.

[OpenRift]

Here's a package I made with Inno Setup that includes just the Doom Shareware 1.9 IWAD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16uWKLY3iZ-_fLi2d2T2s3lL-r3xVoS9X/view?usp=sharing

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, OpenRift said:

Here's a package I made with Inno Setup that includes just the Doom Shareware 1.9 IWAD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16uWKLY3iZ-_fLi2d2T2s3lL-r3xVoS9X/view?usp=sharing

Thanks! Question:

• The update Doom95 makes use of dgvoodoo, is it now? The ddraw.dll is used there no?
• How does Doom95 perform using @drfrag's mentioned DXGL?
• Subquestion: Can we enhance the visuals of Doom95 thru DXGL using QEffectsGL?

 

Maybe @Doomkid wants his ultra vanilla Doom with some bloom. :P

[Maes]

The problem isn't with distributing shareware per-se, as long as it is unaltered. Taking one specific file out of the official distributions , however, may run afoul of the various "DO NOT MODIFY THIS IN ANY WAY" clauses that are certainly in there, somewhere.

 

Doom1.wad was never distributed as-is, now, was it? Or without copyright info/various readmes?

[Doomkid]

Well, Doom95 with the full shareware episode is available here - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/doom/win95/doom95

 

and here's the DOS shareware, which granted requires an installation - https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/doom/doom19s

 

The only somewhat-related text I could find in the documentation that comes with Doom95 (the original version) is this:

 

"id Software respectfully requests that you do not modify the levels for the shareware version of DOOM.  We feel that the distribution of new levels that work with the shareware version of DOOM will lessen a potential user's incentive to purchase the registered version.

 

If you would like to work with modified levels of DOOM, we encourage you to purchase the registered version of the game."

 

In other words, it seems like some small modifications to the engine to simply allow it to run (no actual changes to the game at all) wouldn't be going against the requests of the included readme. Of course, this is likely very out of date according to the current owners of id, but I feel like the whole thing is much ado about nothing (at least, I hope it is).

 

Also, OpenRift - just tested that installer and works like a charm. Nice one!

[The BMFG]

don't tell the FBI about my copy of doom95 portable their catching onto me

[OpenRift]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Thanks! Question:

• The update Doom95 makes use of dgvoodoo, is it now? The ddraw.dll is used there no?
•  How does Doom95 perform using @drfrag's mentioned DXGL?
• Subquestion: Can we enhance the visuals of Doom95 thru DXGL using QEffectsGL?

  

Maybe @Doomkid wants his ultra vanilla Doom with some bloom. :P

Doom95, much like WinQuake, uses directdraw. I've never really used DXGL because it's a lot more complicated and bloated to set up when I last tried it with Quake.

[Redneckerz]

11 minutes ago, OpenRift said:

Doom95, much like WinQuake, uses directdraw. I've never really used DXGL because it's a lot more complicated and bloated to set up when I last tried it with Quake.

Understood.

 

If i can help getting this to /idgames or playtesting, let me know. An updated Doom95 from a features point of view has a few extras, but since many started with this, its a good nostalgia trip.

 

PS: Your portable exe (Nice logo by the way!) reminds me of MiniDoom, a portable version of ZDoom 2.7.1, fully set up, by DoomGate.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Redneckerz

[drfrag]

But it's not some arcane version of Doom95 worth to be preserved just the original version with three dlls. You could just copy the ddraw dll from DXGL the same way as the one from DgVoodoo. BTW what about the DgVoodoo license? Who guarantees that just becouse it works on your computer it will on someone else's graphics card?

[Mr.Rocket]

Good to see Doom95 still getting attention!

The autorun midi always did it for me, too bad it's not in the portable version.

Is there a way to run the portable in windowed mode? 

[Gez]

On vendredi 9 juillet 2021 at 4:02 AM, Doomkid said:

I'd LOVE to re-pack it, so it only comes with Doom1.wad (shareware) so it could be legally shared around without worry. 

It's not actually legal to distribute the shareware IWAD through other means than the original distribution. Yes, with the deice installer and all.

 

15 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Unless they have actually played the legal takesies-backsies card, I don't think it should be a cause for concern.

This was used to C&D a "play Doom in your browser!" thingamajig a while ago... https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_on_the_Web

Edited July 10, 2021 by Gez

[hobomaster22]

We are obviously not worried about it...
https://www.doomworld.com/classicdoom/info/shareware.php
http://www.doomworld.com/3ddownloads/ports/shareware_doom_iwad.zip

[Doomkid]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

It's not actually legal to distribute the shareware IWAD through other means than the original distribution. Yes, with the deice installer and all.

 

This was used to C&D a "play Doom in your browser!" thingamajig a while ago... https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_on_the_Web

Does this mean the copies of Doom95 with shareware wad present on idgames, Doomworld itself and elsewhere are not actually legal?

 

If the original Doom95 package is legal, one could simply include it as a zip within Doom95Portable’s installer package as a workaround. I’m starting to wonder if the idgames version itself is allowed though, considering the precedent set with that case - seems to be a potential time bomb for the archives...

 

I guess a fallback plan could be including freedoom 1 and 2, just renamed to doom.wad and doom2.wad, and with relevant txt files included of course.

[hobomaster22]

The problems with Doom on the Web is that it was called 'Doom' and hosted everything online and was readily playable. It seems to me the motive behind shutting it down is because it was called Doom and they didn't want anyone to confuse it with their brand. While it may be legal, the issue for Bethesda leaving it up is it makes patent litigation more difficult for them in the future, because they didn't defend it. It sucks, but likely if Bethesda didn't go after it, they are likely leaving themselves wide open because they didn't defend their IP. It's a very strange world, you can lose patents by not going after others that are infringing on it, or in this case, appearing to be.

[chungy]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

This was used to C&D a "play Doom in your browser!" thingamajig a while ago... https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_on_the_Web

That's much to do with my Freedoom suggestion.