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ryaxnb

Getting Doom on the Mac to work

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Getting Doom on the Mac to work is relatively easy, but a step by step help would be good. I know Macs aren't very popular, but they are fun and relatively easy (if you'd like to argue about that, please goto another thread). Here is a template for getting Doom to work on a Mac. I think it would be nice if someone improved it and made it sticky.

First steps first: Your Mac's age.
Determine whether your Mac has OS 9 or OS X. To do this, if you don't already know, go to the finder, and Click the Apple menu (Apple icon in the left-hand corner of the menubar.) Then Click either About this Computer, About This Macintosh, or About this Mac, depending on which one pops up. If the box that comes up says Mac OS 7, 8, or 9 your Mac has "Classic." You don't have to do anything to play DOOM AFAIK. Just install, and it should work automagically. If it doesn't, ask for help. If you have OS X, you need to extract the DOOM.WAD/DOOM2.WAD/etc. from the DOOM disks/CDs/download. This is

Step 2: Getting the WAD.
First, you need a copy of DOOM. Don't Pirate; get one legitimately! If you have a Windows box, or windows through VMware, Parallels, or Boot Camp, You can use Steam. First, Buy doom from steampowered.com. Then look inside C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common (hopefully you know Windows Paths) ; in there is Doom.wad or Doom2.wad or some other wad file like tnt.wad. Copy the WAD file to your Mac somehow; and place it on the desktop. If you have only a Mac, ignore the PC only warning and Download directly from idsoftware.com.

FAQ: But I already have Doom! Can't I use it instead?
If you have a prior copy of PC Doom, or Doom II, or Final Doom you can find the WADS there too. Simply install inside DOSBOX (dosbox.com) or on a real PC. Then copy the WAD[S] to your Mac somehow. (Networks are good; a simple solution is to burn them to a CD and put the CD in your Mac.) If you have the Doom: Collectors Edition (or if you bought it expressly for this), put it in your mac. Double click the Setup folder inside it then inside the Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Final Doom folders you have your WAD files. I believe also that Depths of DOOM and DOOM II on CD come with the WADs readily available. All you have to do is copy to the desktop.

FAQ: Which version of DOOM should I get? I don't have any already! How Do I get Doom? I don't want to pay 20 bucks for just one game!
There are several versions of Doom: Here's a list and my comments
* Doom Shareware: 1-episode. Free Download (on this website) Does not contain BFG, plasma, nor allow PWADS.
* Doom Registered, Mail order: Good luck finding this, unless you bought it yourself a long time ago. eBay doesn't even have it. It fetches quite a sum when they do.
* Ultimate DOOM on CD: I believe they made this. It's also rare. And probably more expensive than buying the 20 dollar doom.
* Doom II on CD: Somewhat less rare, several are on ebay, amazon, etc. Look around. You might also find it at flea markets. At a flea market it would probably be about 5 bucks. I see some on ebay for 4-8 dollars.
* Doom II/Ultimate DOOM for Mac: These will work too, but they're also rather rare. Don't worry if you can't find the Mac copy; the PC copy will work
* Depths of Doom Trilogy: This copy came with the Master levels. I see one on eBay, $10 starting bid. This also came with Doom and DOOM II but not Final Doom.
* Id Anthology: Comes with all Doom games, and Quake. Also Commander Keen. Costs hundreds (!).
* Doom/Doom II/Final Doom Download, idsoftware.com. $20 per game; original game. I don't know if it's doom95 or dos doom. Either way, the WAD is there.
* Doom: Collectors Edition. Hard to find in stores nowadays, but id is selling it for $25. eBay also has copies, for less sometimes, and more sometimes. Contains DOOM, DOOM II, and Final DOOM. Does not contain the DOS executables; uses Doom95. If you want to play DOOM in Dosbox, don't get this.
In summary, the best options are to buy DOOM II (mac or PC), Depths of DOOM, or the Collectors edition. They generally give you the best dollar value.

FAQ: I'd rather play DOOM in DOSBox. I want to run demos and look at 320x200 graphics, without antialiasing.
Answer: You can do both those things without running DOOM in DOSBOX. Use PRBoom or Chocolate DOOM. But if you must, simply copy all of DOOM's installation to your Mac, or insert the DOOM CD. Then setup DOSBOX (that's another thread) and use it.

FAQ: But I have Mac Doom!
Just Extract from the CD like any other CD.

Step 3: Install PRBoom.
Download PRBoom for Mac from prboom.sourceforge.net. Now Copy it to the Applications folder and run it. Select from the menu, Tools > Show Game Folder. Copy all your WADS to this folder. Use Drag and drop; drag from the desktop into the PrBoom Folder.

Step 4: Run PRBoom/DOOM!
To run, Simply Double Click PrBoom, adjust settings if desired, than click Launch. You can do this anytime.

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I haven't used them in years, but I'm almost positive that my CD-ROM versions of Ultimate Doom and DOOM II (both are the Mac versions) has the program, all its data, and the WAD file easily accessible right on the disc, without extracting anything. You can just drag the WAD file from the CD to your hard drive and be done with it. No installation required.

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Man.. PrBoom exists for practically every platform under the sun.

*Goes back to playing doom on his ds... powered by PrBoom.*

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esselfortium said:

I haven't used them in years, but I'm almost positive that my CD-ROM versions of Ultimate Doom and DOOM II (both are the Mac versions) has the program, all its data, and the WAD file easily accessible right on the disc, without extracting anything. You can just drag the WAD file from the CD to your hard drive and be done with it. No installation required.

Good, easy. Just click and drag!

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There was also a version of Legacy compiled for classic Mac (version 1.43?), but it is unmaintained, so it still has a few... personality quirks, such as taking away all your weapons and stuff after each text screen.  The executable for id's Mac Classic port is hosted here btw.

IMHO if you assume that the reader does not know which version of Mac OS he is using, then you should also put in a section about that weird-ass file structure in OS X which makes it very unclear where to put the IWAD(s) depending on which port you use.

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I thought I made it very clear to bypass the structure; using PrBoom, simply select Tools > Show Game Folder. This brings up the folder in the Finder. I also recommended you store the WADS on the Desktop, so they won't get lost (of course, they clutter up the Desktop; feel free to use the Documents folder or the Home folder if you're even moderately familiar with computers.) If I have access to my Mac soon (i'm typing this somewhere else now) I will put in a little section about folders however.

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Neil on zdoom.org had a thread sometime a year or so ago where he was trying to get ZDoom fully functional on OS X. He got it running, but without sound and with a ton of problems regarding slopes and ACS (due to lots of big/little endian issues).

If someone was to attempt to get ZDoom working on x86 (Intel) Macs, and not bothering with compatibility for the older PPC Macs, I'd guess that those endianness issues would no longer exist and it would be similar to compiling ZDoom on Linux.

A full universal binary version would be better, of course, but it would seem that there are so many little-endian assumptions in some parts of the code that the only way it could work correctly on a big-endian PPC processor would be if someone went through all of it extremely carefully.

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I have the old ultimate doom\doom II pc cds, and was able to just drag and drop the wads to os x, so dosbox isn't really needed there.

Also, I remember seeing a post somewhere saying eternity works on os x. Is there any truth to that?

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esselfortium said:

Neil on zdoom.org had a thread sometime a year or so ago where he was trying to get ZDoom fully functional on OS X. He got it running, but without sound and with a ton of problems regarding slopes and ACS (due to lots of big/little endian issues).

If someone was to attempt to get ZDoom working on x86 (Intel) Macs, and not bothering with compatibility for the older PPC Macs, I'd guess that those endianness issues would no longer exist and it would be similar to compiling ZDoom on Linux.

A full universal binary version would be better, of course, but it would seem that there are so many little-endian assumptions in some parts of the code that the only way it could work correctly on a big-endian PPC processor would be if someone went through all of it extremely carefully.

How about if you used the little-endian mode G4s and G3s have (not G5s) like Virtual PC did?

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