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Coah

Title Screen in Doom95

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When I play Doom with the 95 laucher, it heads straight into the first level. I am weird this way, and kind of miss seeing the old Doom screen when I play. However, I know it's in the wad file because I see it when I play it on my Palm, which contains the wad I grabbed from my computer. How would I set it up to start on the title screen?

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Please enlighten me. I am not aware. Doom95 was produced by id, wasn't it?

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Coah said:
Please enlighten me. I am not aware.

He just heartily wants you to try the competition; his Chocolate Doom engine.

Doom95 was produced by id, wasn't it?

The Doom95 engine is a port made by Microsoft, based on the source id gave them. They saw DOOM as a good way to showcase their new DirectX technology on Windows 95.

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Due to a bug in its handling of modern graphics cards, Doom95 does not render partial invisibility in its original form. Instead of seeing directly through the sprite, the player sees a wall texture or other background "refracted" through the creature's body at a slight angle, as though looking at an object through a glass of water.


Eh? I wasn't aware of this. Then again it's been a while since I've even used Doom95, so I could be mistaken.

A bug in Doom95 prevents demo recording. As soon as the game is launched (with instructions to record a demo), Doom95 quits and returns to the desktop with an error: "I_Error says: demo <demoname> recorded". An unofficial patch has been released that fixes this bug (by altering the file DOOMLNCH.DLL).


What a load of BS. I figured out how to record demos on Doom95 without having to use this patch...just use the orignal command line parameter to record demos ;)

The intermission screen background shown during Thy Flesh Consumed intermissions is the one from Knee-Deep in the Dead, and the level names are from that episode as well. The bug only affects the intermission screen: in the automap the level names are correct.


Again, like the invisibility bug mentioned, I don't quite remember this one all the way, but it does ring a bell.

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Texas Libra said:
Eh? I wasn't aware of this. Then again it's been a while since I've even used Doom95, so I could be mistaken.

The article seems bent on highlighting the engine's bugs in particular, but a bug does exist, affecting some cards, and not necessarily new ones, although it probably wasn't a known issue back in '95.

That said, the description of the bug does not coincide with what I've experienced, so it likely displays differently on unrelated video cards. What I've seen is a bright violet and yellow shimmering instead of the normal partly translucent effect.

I figured out how to record demos on Doom95 without having to use this patch...just use the orignal command line parameter to record demos ;)

Right, though arguably a nonsavvy user might not think of that, as the command line stuff is not explained in the documentation of the Windows 95 version.

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myk said:
The article seems bent on highlighting the engine's bugs in particular, but a bug does exist, affecting some cards, and not necessarily new ones, although it probably wasn't a known issue back in '95.

That said, the description of the bug does not coincide with what I've experienced, so it likely displays differently on unrelated video cards. What I've seen is a bright violet and yellow shimmering instead of the normal partly translucent effect.

I've had two computers before, one which had this problem and the other didn't, which I would guess would be the software renderer at fault. On the faulty one, the partial invisibility objects often seem as if they are refracting nearby objects that aren't behind them (I know it sounds like that's how its supposed to be but there is a difference). The really annoying part of this bug where most of my computers suffer from is when the effect is onscreen, the game lags, especially when using a plasma rifle that covers a good fraction of the screen.
Sometimes -emulate in the command line has been ignored on certain computers though. Putting -emulate in the target line has worked every time, so that's never a problem.

The intermission screen background shown during Thy Flesh Consumed intermissions is the one from Knee-Deep in the Dead, and the level names are from that episode as well. The bug only affects the intermission screen: in the automap the level names are correct.

This is when instead of the greyscale version of the doom 2 intermission screen appears normally, it shows the KDitD map and name GFX as well.


If you want to use batch files for Doom95 like in a source port, you have to use quite a few command lines to set it up. Just about every command line that I've used with Doom95 looks like this:

Doom95 -emulate -nodm -config DEFAULT.CFG -file C:\DOOM\WAD\D!ZONE2\DOOM\ACHERON6.WAD -nowarn -warp 1 3 -skill 1

Coah, the -nodm parameter is what you're looking for (as it skips the launcher), but for some reason my most recent computer ignores the configuration that I had established in the launcher if I skip it. Therefore I created the blank .cfg file from a .txt file named DEFAULT.CFG. I loaded the launcher and selected the configuration 'default' from the dropdown menu, showing that Doom95 had recognized it; I set the controls and command lines were able to read that .cfg file.
I noticed you wanted to see the titlepic, so of course you would omit the -warp & -skill commands.

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Modern video cards my ass. My sister had a 486 running Win95 and the partial invisibility in Doom 95 was glitched up on that, even. It's just not coded properly, period. There's nothing about a video card that should make a difference; this effect is device-independent.

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Quasar said:
There's nothing about a video card that should make a difference; this effect is device-independent.

Okay, oh so wise Quasar, then what makes it simply work fine on some systems and not others?

The bug seems to affect only certain computers, and as we've seen, in different ways (in the case I pointed out, I've experienced no lag and bright colors instead of that effect that by description seems similar to a HOM). If it's not the video card, the problem has to be somewhere (and it's not in relation to the operating system, since I've seen it on a computer after it was switched from Windows 98 to Windows XP).

As for how "badly coded" it is, every app has some bug or glitch on some context, even after years of coding and testing.

This is what I mean about source based project people slamming Doom95 basically due to interest; it really just has some known glitches (with workarounds, for the most part) but some people present it with an "it's buggy", "don't use it, because it has major flaws" or "it will rape your mom if you keep using that shit", when in fact people use it and often find little, if any, inconvenience.

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myk said:

They saw DOOM as a good way to showcase their new DirectX technology on Windows 95.

Forgive my ignorance, but: how exactly does Doom95 take advantage of DX?

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Bucket said:

Forgive my ignorance, but: how exactly does Doom95 take advantage of DX?


Not using GDI for displaying the screen, DirectPlay-powered multi-protocol multiplayer, using DirectSound buffers rather than direct WaveOut or that old 16bit WAVEMIX crap, etc.

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DeumReaper said:
but for some reason my most recent computer ignores the configuration that I had established in the launcher if I skip it. Therefore I created the blank .cfg file from a .txt file named DEFAULT.CFG.

The CFG is in the Windows registry (such as HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ID\Doom95\Config\[config]). From the console you can load the registry CFGs by using:

Doom95 -nodm -config my.cfg

If my.cfg didn't exist it is created using default settings. So you pretty much need to go into the launcher to change the settings (it acts like Doom's Setup program in that respect). I doubt that blank CFG you created makes any difference (isn't it still blank?).

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myk said:

Right, though arguably a nonsavvy user might not think of that, as the command line stuff is not explained in the documentation of the Windows 95 version.


You have a point, but personally I wasn't comparing myself against the nonsavvy user. It's not my fault people are ignorant ;)

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