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DooMer87

Any source ports with that 1993 "feel?"

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Ever since looking at old screenshots of doom, probably from 1993 and 1994, I was wondering which source port has the best old doom feel to it? You know, it's just hard to describe. This may be a stupid question, but I have Zdoom and it seems to give doom a different feel.

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You have ZDoom, and that fucks doom over at least twice in terms of the game feeling. Either use what Manc suggested, or PrBoom

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I suggest installing W98 and make a dual boot, with that you'll be able to play also the vanilla versions of the other DOS games.

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HobbsTiger1 said:

You have ZDoom, and that fucks doom over at least twice in terms of the game feeling. Either use what Manc suggested, or PrBoom


In what way does it "[fuck] doom over at least twice"? Despite the fact that ports like Gzdoom offer full 3-D rendering, full mouse-look and texture filtering, it still feels like Doom to me.

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Some people actually think that the vanilla bugs are part of the 'Doom feeling' and ZDoom has probably fixed more of these bugs than any other port.
But fortunately for those people there are enough alternatives... ;)

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With the right configuration, I think ZDoom gets close enough (with all its extra benefits). Especially in 320x200 fullscreen mode and when using a retro MIDI synth.

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It all depends on what you consider 'right'. Let's not forget that ZDoom fixed a lot of issues with Doom's physics code that have an impact on gameplay. Just read the discussion in the 'getting rid of the assholes' thread. If you appreciate the glitches to be gone ZDoom is for you, if not you have to choose another port.

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There are some aspects of vanilla Doom's physics that I'd rather like to keep.

On the other hand, being able to berserk punch Mancubi made Doom twice as fun.

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Yes; it's only ten times as hard.

Map07 Tyson is quite difficult in vanilla, but a piece of cake in ZDoom.

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Fredrik said:

Yes; it's only ten times as hard.

Map07 Tyson is quite difficult in vanilla, but a piece of cake in ZDoom.

What reasons of change of vanilla behaviour in this case?

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entryway said:

What reasons of change of vanilla behaviour in this case?



Exactly this. Berserking large monsters is rather erratic with vanilla's algorithm.

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Is that not pushing the fixing bugs quest a little too far? The "bug" you are referring to affects gameplay drastically and unbalances the game.

You've got to remember that id balanced the game with these "bugs" in-place so by fixing them you're tampering with what makes DOOM the game it is.

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Yeah, that was the sentiment among many. But Graf for instance considered it to be helping the gameplay to remove any quirks and characteristics that made Doom's movement different from any other 3d engine game.

Each to their own though.

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GoatLord said:

In what way does it "[fuck] doom over at least twice"? Despite the fact that ports like Gzdoom offer full 3-D rendering, full mouse-look and texture filtering, it still feels like Doom to me.


It gays up a signifigant portion of gameplay. If you dont believe me I'll be happy to provide one of my WIP where various effects (or if your name is Graf Zahl they're hax) work fine in Vanilla, Chocolate, PrBoom, and Eternity, but mess up horribly in ZDoom. And the compat options ZDoom does provide are quite half arse and dysfunctional (AV MAP07 fails with compat options every time in ZDoom).

Graf Zahl said:

Some people actually think that the vanilla bugs are part of the 'Doom feeling' and ZDoom has probably fixed more of these bugs than any other port.
But fortunately for those people there are enough alternatives... ;)


Doom bugs are part of the game feeling; see the various wads that utilize archvile ghosts as a gameplay enhancement and see The Doom Wiki article on Tutti Frutti for an example of how it was used adventageously. Similar bugs have been used to enhance gameplay in other wads.

Fortunately we have other source ports than ZDoom indeed...

kristus said:

Each to their own though.

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HobbsTiger1 said:

(AV MAP07 fails with compat options every time in ZDoom).


That's because the bug fix has not yet been released.

Doom bugs are part of the game feeling;
see the various wads that utilize archvile ghosts as a gameplay enhancement


Some contributors here may agree that this point is certainly debatable. One person's gameplay 'enhancement' is another person's bug (Arch Vile ghosts or Wallrunning for example.) I know several persons who can't stand these ghosts and are glad that they have the option to disable them completely.

The bottom line is: At the end of the day these are programming errors and they have the tendency of getting fixed eventually as software evolves. Abusing bugs to achieve certain effects always may have the effect that your work could stop working eventually.

and see The Doom Wiki article on Tutti Frutti for an example of how it was used adventageously. Similar bugs have been used to enhance gameplay in other wads.


I wonder how Tutti Frutti can be used advantageously in a way that can't be done with a real texture. Besides, this is one of the things that nearly all source ports have fixed.

Fortunately we have other source ports than ZDoom indeed...


I'm wondering why you ever posted at the ZDoom forums if you think that way. Or do you still hold a grudge for being banned... :D

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AV MAP07 Bug: If you mean ZDoom fixing it then sweet jesus ZDoom development is bad because AV has been out since around the 1.22 days (and IIRC its not broken in 1.22 which ought to say something). If you mean AV fixing it...Excuse me while I rofl.

Archvile ghosts: Exploiting the quirks of an engine to make it work better is not a sin. Indeed this is simply using the resources you have creatively and innovatively, which I realize is not a zdoom.org practice (you people there just ask for the feature to be added the easy way).

Also, as long as you are using the current ZDoom...code...I wouldnt dare presume to talk about others bad programming.

Tutti Frutti: Admittedly its not a great example, the bug texture looks pretty bad (but not as bad as the regular one) and the majority of ports do fix tutti frutti. Still it is a valid example.

As for the ZDoom theatre: I used to think differently about both the place and the port. I still have respect for a few people there and I dont hold an attitude of "its a ZDoom wad I'm not playing it". And that grudge bullshit makes me roofle.

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Graf Zahl said:
The bottom line is: At the end of the day these are programming errors and they have the tendency of getting fixed eventually as software evolves. Abusing bugs to achieve certain effects always may have the effect that your work could stop working eventually.

That's if people don't continue porting and maintaining the game per se, and only modifications of it, which is what people scorning "old bugs" where fomenting to a degree, but fortunately a branch of the coding-capable people saw/supported the portion of the users that preferred these (bugs and compatibilities.)

Also, along those lines, if it weren't for the people that work on this old stuff, part of DOOM's community material would be obsolete. Even ZDoom and other feature-happy engines were affected to a degree by the idea of adding compatibilities, mostly due to issues on many old wads.

No new development over a code body can stiffle it, but also no support for its core and base can ebb its strength.

I'm wondering why you ever posted at the ZDoom forums if you think that way.

I had a preference for ZDoom myself when I first started visiting sites like Doomworld. But he didn't say "I wish ZDoom didn't exist" he said he's glad it's not the only choice (for modern systems, etc.)... and if it were, many players would have left, and others would be attacking all those changes that modify the game's behavior. As seen on this thead a degree of criticism for those modifications still exists even with alternatives available, but they are more a matter of expressing preference, than of critical necessity; more so in a context where people understand these differences and value those preferring different stuff, not necessarily as producers of what one would use, but as peers contributing to the same base from where we share a lot of info and stuff, and with whom we deal here regularly.

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myk said:

Even ZDoom and other feature-happy engines were affected to a degree by the idea of adding compatibilities, mostly due to issues on many old wads.

No new development over a code body can stiffle it, but also no support for its core and base can ebb its strength.


I fully agree with that. I still like to play some of the classics and several of these levels need compatibility handling. As a result of this the next version of ZDoom will have a few more compatibility options.

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HobbsTiger1 said:

AV MAP07 Bug: If you mean ZDoom fixing it then sweet jesus ZDoom development is bad because AV has been out since around the 1.22 days (and IIRC its not broken in 1.22 which ought to say something). If you mean AV fixing it...Excuse me while I rofl.



Stop babbling. Bugs happen all the time and one has to find them first before fixing them. Apparently not many people play AV with ZDoom as there was another compatibility problem with a later map as well.

Archvile ghosts: Exploiting the quirks of an engine to make it work better is not a sin. Indeed this is simply using the resources you have creatively and innovatively, which I realize is not a zdoom.org practice (you people there just ask for the feature to be added the easy way).


With the source at hand this isn't an unreasonable method, is it? Most of the time the result is better than using some crazy workarounds that somehow happen to work by random chance.

Also, as long as you are using the current ZDoom...code...I wouldnt dare presume to talk about others bad programming.

As for the ZDoom theatre: I used to think differently about both the place and the port. And that grudge bullshit makes me roofle.


To be blunt, we don't miss you there... :D

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Graf Zahl said:

Stop babbling. Bugs happen all the time and one has to find them first before fixing them. Apparently not many people play AV with ZDoom as there was another compatibility problem with a later map as well.


I'm not babbling and you know it. First, I doubt the issue is AV exclusive. Second, the compet-n editon of AV was released 24/12/02 and today is 03/05/06. Nearly four years later all ZDoom has done is broken it. Third, if today is the first time you personally have heard about the issue I would reccomend you catch up on the rest of whats happened in the world since you crawled under your rock.

With the source at hand this isn't an unreasonable method, is it? Most of the time the result is better than using some crazy workarounds that somehow happen to work by random chance.


Actually it is a bit unreasonable, as the ZDoom method of piling on features has a tendency to break this or that. And I believe even you yourself have said that parts of ZDooms code work by random chance, so I wouldnt criticize that random chance thing.

To be blunt, we don't miss you there... :D


I'm quite glad that you could make that statement in confidence you were indeed speaking for the community as a whole.

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Can I ask what the beef is with Wallrunning in Zdoom?

Sure as hell its a quirk but it has become a stapple feature of multiplayer, much the same as bunny hopping has in many modern FPSes.

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DaniJ said:
Can I ask what the beef is with Wallrunning in Zdoom?

In Doom it works only northwards, while on ZDoom it works in different directions (not sure which exactly, nor if it varies for different versions.)

Sure as hell its a quirk but it has become a stapple feature of multiplayer, much the same as bunny hopping has in many modern FPSes.

Yes, thus X-Doom, a classic-oriented modification of the ZDaemon server, implemented Doom's north-only behavior.

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Eeeeek. I've had this problem with Zdoom before. Chocolate doom, once i extracted it and placed it in my 'WAD FILES' folder, which includes doom and doom 2, loaded doom 2, and had no video display at all. There wasn't an INI file, so what do i do this time around?

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DaniJ said:

Can I ask what the beef is with Wallrunning in Zdoom?

Sure as hell its a quirk but it has become a stapple feature of multiplayer, much the same as bunny hopping has in many modern FPSes.



Wallrunning was compatibility optioned to make the actor movement more robust. It is caused by a bug in the wall sliding code that couldn't be preserved when allowing faster movement than 30 units per tic. You can have either feature at a time but not both.

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Cheers for the info on Wallrunning. I'll take a look at this myself since we may need to do something in jDoom.

What is the actual bug or is it an obvious one?

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DooMer87 said:

Eeeeek. I've had this problem with Zdoom before. Chocolate doom, once i extracted it and placed it in my 'WAD FILES' folder, which includes doom and doom 2, loaded doom 2, and had no video display at all. There wasn't an INI file, so what do i do this time around?


The wadfile loading order in most ports has DOOM2.WAD first, and you probably need to run the game in a window as your monitor or video card may not like resolution changes (in chocolate-doom.cfg change fullcreen to 0).

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HobbsTiger1 said:

I'm not babbling and you know it. First, I doubt the issue is AV exclusive. Second, the compet-n editon of AV was released 24/12/02 and today is 03/05/06. Nearly four years later all ZDoom has done is broken it. Third, if today is the first time you personally have heard about the issue I would reccomend you catch up on the rest of whats happened in the world since you crawled under your rock.


For god's sake, how dense are you really? Yes, Randy has made a small error that unintentionally broke the compatibility option. Things like this tend to happen on occasion. But isn't it a telling sign that it took more than a year to find and report this bug? (and a small reminder: It was me who reported it!) I fixed this a year ago for .96x.

Actually it is a bit unreasonable, as the ZDoom method of piling on features has a tendency to break this or that. And I believe even you yourself have said that parts of ZDooms code work by random chance, so I wouldnt criticize that random chance thing.


All the code in ZDoom that works by random chance has been inherited from the original code base (most importantly the entire physics system.) But that seems to be too much to grasp for you, doesn't it? Better read others' statements more carefully before commenting on them.



I'm quite glad that you could make that statement in confidence you were indeed speaking for the community as a whole.


So who was banned for constant trolling? It wasn't me for sure...

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DaniJ said:

Cheers for the info on Wallrunning. I'll take a look at this myself since we may need to do something in jDoom.

What is the actual bug or is it an obvious one?



The actual bug happens when the player is moving faster than MAXMOVE/2. In that case P_XYMovement splits the move in two. But in case a wall is hit and the player should start sliding against it the full momentum is used in P_SlideMove. The thing I never understood is why it only works northward in vanilla (This is one of the things that probably fall under 'random chance' I'd say... ;) )

And in case you are interested: The code in P_SlideMove for sliding against diagonal walls is also suffering from problems. But these are caused by imprecisions in the math, not a programming bug.

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