Legacy-GZDoom compatibility

[Creaphis]

Can Legacy wads be played in GZDoom without error, or is GZDoom's support of Legacy incomplete?

(I'm hoping to play Phobia: The Age and Ni'mRoD in a port that works.)

[Khorus]

The biggest difference I recall is that you'll be missing alot of lighting and corona effects, which phobia made quite a large use of.

I've made it all the way through Ni'mRoD with GZDoom but forced myself to use Legacy for phobia.

[Graf Zahl]

Nimrod works fine (except the dynamic lights) but Phobia is hopeless. It exploits so many Legacyisms that it's simply not compatible with any other engine - even if it implemented all of Legacy's features.

[kristus]

Yes. Nimrod should work just as fine in either port. Only that you can jump higher in GZdoom, so it might give you some benefits here and there.

I've considered the possibility of making a GZdoom version of Phobia. But I really don't feel like going though all the work of learning how GZDoom works to make all the conversions necessary. I guess I'm lazy.

[Enjay]

It's a shame because Phobia seems like an amazing WAD but I've never managed to play it through properly because Legacy just keeps crashing on me when I try. :(

Cheating to see bits of it before the inevitable crash gives me the flavour but it's a WAD that deserves to be played properly.

[DaniJ]

What are these black-magic-voodoo-isms you allude to in Legacy and why can't they be emulated? Are we talking simply buggy/inconsistent logic or what?

[Graf Zahl]

DaniJ said:

What are these black-magic-voodoo-isms you allude to in Legacy and why can't they be emulated? Are we talking simply buggy/inconsistent logic or what?

Some of the FraggleScript code does not work correctly for example, because it depends on some of Legacy's quirks. This has been the biggest obstacle for me so far and has kept me from investing time in other areas.

Another issue is that some of the dynamic light effects in this WAD use some weird behavior in Legacy to create transparent glows. This is purely visual though but since most of this WAD depends on its visuals it's a major issue that these don't work.

There's also some rendering efficiency problems with 3D floors. In a few places the renderer gets extremely slow.

[kristus]

DaniJ said:

What are these black-magic-voodoo-isms you allude to in Legacy and why can't they be emulated? Are we talking simply buggy/inconsistent logic or what?

I dunno really. After a while you're so used to bending over backwards to just make a simple script run w/o crashing Legacy you forget what is hacks and what is genuine behavior.

But making a conversion should be relatively simple for someone who knows how to work GZDoom.

[ReFracture]

kristus said:

Yes. Nimrod should work just as fine in either port. Only that you can jump higher in GZdoom, so it might give you some benefits here and there.

I've considered the possibility of making a GZdoom version of Phobia. But I really don't feel like going though all the work of learning how GZDoom works to make all the conversions necessary. I guess I'm lazy.

A GZDoom version of Phobia is probably the way I'll ever play it. I've tried playing it (multiple times) using legacy, but between crashes, terrible frame rates, and my general distaste that has grown for legacy, I don't think I'm ever gonna touch it.

[Nuxius]

Oddly enough, I really don't have any problems with crashes related to Legacy (no more than your average source port, at least).

My problems with it mostly consist of the fact that it doesn't support HD monitors (so I only have a choice between a resized picture or playing in a tiny box), your typical SDL issues and the fact that the launcher isn't worth shit.

On another note, if you want another Legacy mod that works great in GZDoom, try Hi-Tech Hell 2. Great stuff.