NEWBY NEEDS HELP

[deadl]

Pleas bear with me. Year ago finaly opened finaldoom box. Great levels, so happy to play doom again. Downloaded doom95 port etc.,also replayd every doom cd I had. I found out that DOOM still lives on the net on a grandscale. Downloaded ICARUS reom Finaldoom site. Great wad file...It was 1994-5 again, getting only 3-4 hours of sleep(ya know how it is, you start about 10pm and look at the clock, thinking you have only played for a couple hours, and its 4:30am). There are all these new sites and ports on the net....so I am lost: What is the best port to use? do I have to go into dos? and if I do I have forgoten about dos command line prameters, If I download a spacifiC port like ZDOOM, how do I configure to pay all the wads out there, Legacy-is that a new type of port or boom or preboom???????????????
As you can see, I do not know where to start. I can not thank you or anyone enough for the help I need. I am also 43, and DOOM is not age related....I tell alot of people that doom and doom2 are and still the best pc games. Thank you again(wrote this in haste so disregard sp and gr)

[cyber-menace]

Ok, let's get started. You should download two specific ports. First you should get Zdoom from http://zdoom.org and you should also get Doom Legacy from Doomworld's downloads section. Once you have these two ports you will have something to play just about any PWAD out there. Zdoom and Legacy both do not use DOS which makes them XP friendly for anyone who cares. Secondly, Command lines can usually be found either on the port's site, or they come with the port. If you really hate command lines though, you can download a launcher for them. I believe Legacy may come with one, but you have to download the ZDoom launcher seperate. Anything you need to configure can be done inside the game so don't worry about that. This info should be enough to get you going and I hope I haven't said anything too confusing. If you have any questions just ask and I or someone else is likly to give you an answer.

[Job]

If you wish to edit levels, I strongly recommend getting a copy of DoomBuilder or Wadauthor. Admittedly, DoomBuilder is better for a good handful of reasons.

[DooMBoy]

ZDoom and Deepsea, enough said I think :P

[Grimm]

Check out jDoom too . . .

[The Ultimate DooMer]

No, we don't want him bitten by the eyecandy bug...

[Amaster]

Ugh.

Ignore all the morons up above. Go to doomworld.com/ports and poke around. Zdoom, Jdoom, and legacy have already been mentioned, but there are many others. None of them are the "best". It's best to try a few and see what you like.

[Grimm]

Indeed, it seems we're already suffering from the "let's deal with Doom's crappy original renderer even though we're just playing the original IWADs anyway, dur!" bug.

[Nanami]

This thread needs a serious dose of paragraphs.

[Never_Again]

deadl said:

Pleas bear with me. Year ago finaly opened finaldoom box. Great levels, so happy to play doom again. Downloaded doom95 port etc.,

Why? Final DOOM comes with Doom95 already.

[EarthQuake]

Never_Again said:

Why? Final DOOM comes with Doom95 already.

Unless he warez it and doesn't really have the box.

[Thehappycommunist]

wadauthor could be helpful.....

[deadl]

I downloaded that for doom2 It may have come with finaldoom. I was having rouble playing other downloaded wads through that and of coarce you can't, thats why I needed zdoom.

[Brad_tilf]

DooMBoy said:

ZDoom and Deepsea, enough said I think :P

DETH. Deepsea is only good for merging wads, adding music, working with lumps, etc... If you want to make a really good map - go with DETH. You won't go wrong.

[EarthQuake]

What does everyone have against Deepsea?
It's powerful, it does damned near everything, and it has never crashed on me. Did I mention it's easy to use, comes with it's own nice node/reject builder, and complete help system? It tells you when you do something wrong (like not close a sector, etc..)

That registration fee was the best $35 I have spent... ever.

[cyber-menace]

Too bad that's in US dollars and I would have to pay about $60 which is more money than one would spend on the average one perpose program as of today. I just use Doom Builder for my mapping and Deepsea for lump stuff and XWE to keep my wads organized. It's very simple...

[Brad_tilf]

EarthQuake said:

What does everyone have against Deepsea?
It's powerful, it does damned near everything, and it has never crashed on me. Did I mention it's easy to use, comes with it's own nice node/reject builder, and complete help system? It tells you when you do something wrong (like not close a sector, etc..)

That registration fee was the best $35 I have spent... ever.

I don't have anything against it. I've been using DETH for about 5 years and before that I used DEU. Just personal choice. I think Vertex based editors like DETH and ZETH give you more control and ultimately the ability to make a more detailed map.
Deepsea is a very nice program, just not my editor of choice.
By the way, the bsp builder is "nice" as you say but honestly, there are better nodes builders out there. The best I've discovered so far is zdbsp on the Zdoom site. I was using bsp23x but I was getting some bleeding and minor HOM's on my current map so tried the zdbsp nodes builder and it got rid of them. :-)
Some of the stuff I'm doing in my current map is incredibly intense 3d wise and is really pushing the game to the limits. This is the only nodes builder I've found that can do the job well. Zennode simply left a mess. Deepbsp did ok but there were still lots of HOM's. Bsp23x was the best I had found till I discovered the one I'm using now. Try putting in cages placed in midair in a level that the creatures are contained in and shooting at you from then try running the level through deepbsp. You probably won't be happy with the results.