What's wrong with Alien Vendetta?

[Higher Game]

It crashed my computer when I tried to run it. Is this an attempt to put Doom 3 like textures in the game? That's what I suspect currently. I don't care about graphics, but I am upset that I can't play it at all.

If possible, can I get a playable version? The one I got from this site doesn't work at all for me. Help, please!

[wildweasel]

Which port are you trying to run it in? Some ports have a problem with running it, I've noticed (particularly EDGE and other GL-based ports).

[Higher Game]

Port? I'm just using the Collector's Edition Doom, which runs Hell Revealed, Kama Sutra, and other megawads just fine.

[EarthQuake]

Doom95 is probably what came with your collectors edition, right? And you say that the game just flat out crashes your computer when you start the game with that wad loaded?

Alien Vendetta might possibly be using MIDIs (and not MUS) as their music, which Doom95 does not support (even though doom2.exe did). It makes the game run REALLY slow, in fact, I'm willing to bet that your computer didn't crash, it just came to a crawl... You're going to have to use a sourceport to play it... If you don't have Windows XP, then you *could* use the original .exe's if you wanted (but then you got VPOs to worry about on map20 ;)...

[Grazza]

Alien Vendetta was playtested prior to release with Doom2.exe, and does indeed contain MIDI music, rather than MUS.

Your options are:

• Use Doom2.exe. This may not be very satisfactory, especially depending on your operating system.
  
• Edit the WAD by converting the music to MUS format. Fiddly, but if you really want to play it in Doom95 with the AV music, it might be the only way.
  
• Use a port. Note that some ports have issues with Alien Vendetta:
  * The exit on map07 doesn't work correctly with Zdoom. (You'll need to jump to get to the exit, and if you kill all the arachnotrons, you'll be blocked off from it.) More on this problem here.
  * Legacy has issues with map24 and map25 (there are workarounds in both cases, though in the former you need to know it in advance).

[Opulent]

or, you could remove the midi files from the wad.

I recommend PrBoom: http://sourceforge.net/projects/prboom/

[Bashe]

Opulent said:

or, you could remove the midi files from the wad.

I actually did that and replaced all of them with MUS music just so I could hear OPL music with Zdoom, since at the time my midi synth was crap.

[EarthQuake]

Not a bad idea, someone could create a music patch wad for Alien Vendetta that replaces the MIDIs with MUS...
Not that alot of people have this problem, but its always an idea :)

EDIT: But then you have to use the command line to load two pwads at the same time :(
Damn I fail it today...

[Graf Zahl]

Grazza said:

* The exit on map07 doesn't work correctly with Zdoom. (You'll need to jump to get to the exit, and if you kill all the arachnotrons, you'll be blocked off from it.) More on this problem here.

Any Boom compatible port will have this problem. Fortunately most have a compatibility option. ZDoom, PrBoom and Eternity have for sure but I don't know what Legacy would do in this situation.

[iori]

EarthQuake said:

Not a bad idea, someone could create a music patch wad for Alien Vendetta that replaces the MIDIs with MUS...

Jive did that, and there was much rejoicing controversy.

[Grazza]

Graf Zahl said:

Any Boom compatible port will have this problem. Fortunately most have a compatibility option. ZDoom, PrBoom and Eternity have for sure

Zdoom's compatibility option doesn't help in this case though (in 2.0.96 at least, and in the other versions I have tested it in each time this question has come up). Anyway, I gave details about this in the post I linked to.

[Graf Zahl]

In .96 it doesn't work due to a bug. If you get the unofficial build from the thread in the forum it will work again.

[Piezo]

Grazza said:

The exit on map07 doesn't work correctly with Zdoom. (You'll need to jump to get to the exit, and if you kill all the arachnotrons, you'll be blocked off from it.) More on this problem here.

Heh, I always though when they made the game they just screwed up and never knew to fix it. I finished that level by killing all of the arachnatrons except for one, then luring the last one to the door and climbing up to the exit and killed him long range. Just as he died I stepped back and down onto the rising platform.

[Higher Game]

Scythe 2 also crashes my computer. Is there some technical reason why Wad makers don't like Doom95? I don't know how to use ports or anything.

[Grazza]

Scythe 2 uses features that aren't supported by Doom95:

• A dehacked patch.
  
• Maps that exceed the visplane limit.
  
• Boom specials.
  
• Maybe other texture-related stuff?

Erik has made plenty of wads that work with the original DOS exes (and presumably will therefore also work with Doom95), so you can assume that he used these features because he needed to in order to achieve the effects that he wanted, and not just to spite Doom95 users (of whom there probably aren't too many in the Doom community, to be honest).

The problem with AV only arises because Doom95 fails to support something that was OK in the original DOS version. I'm sure the AV team weren't even aware of it.

Using ports (or the DOS exes, OS permitting) is really very simple, you know.