Caverns of Darkness

[NaturalTvventy]

I just tried to run Caverns of Darkness (http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11550) on zdoom with the newish zdoom patch (http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=13171) but I get an error when I do. It used to work, but now it doesn't seem to. Maybe because a new version of zdoom came out? I would really like to play these levels (especially since I made one of 'em :). is it me or the game? The error is

Execution could not continue.

Script error, "cod-zd.pk3:mapinfo.txt" line 6:
cod_level: Unknown top level keyword

thx in advance,

NT

***edit*** it works on gzdoom at least...

[Creaphis]

There's an even newer patch for ZDoom. Try that one.

[NaturalTvventy]

Sexy! I never knew what the final battle was, but now I do :) Thx for the link.

[Graf Zahl]

Why is this first patch still available? Some mirrors really seem to be a bit lazy to delete old stuff. You should have been warned the moment you got download failures from most mirrors. That's normally a good sign that you try to download something old that's no longer supposed to be available.

[NaturalTvventy]

unfortunately it's where the link from the chaos crew web page doomworld.com/chaoscrew leads you to.

[Graf Zahl]

That page hasn't been updated in years, too. The naming difference was a mistake. The new patch was supposed to have the same name as the old one...

[myk]

Graf Zahl said:
Some mirrors really seem to be a bit lazy to delete old stuff.

I think it's just the New York mirror, and it might be doing it by design, although I'm not sure. I guess unmaintained mirrors can do it too, for more predictable reasons, but it's not happening with this file. And yeah, it creates two problems, both of which are the case now; it causes confusion by leaving crap versions of stuff online, and it leaves stuff online even when the authors, or the authors of stuff that deleted files may be ripping, have complained that it should be taken down.

[vdgg]

I decided to write in this thread since it's not that old. I was going to record some demos for COD. And I have many doubts. I see three options:

1) PrBoom+ with Boom compatibility
2) Zdoom with Graf Zahl's patch
3) Original .exe

As for 1)
- MAP01 and many other maps should be playable. No splashing water sounds of brooks, but it does not matter IMO. But could you explain why in ZDoom (I used version 2.3.1) there are more monsters than in PrBoom on the same skill level?

As for 2)
- Perhaps needed for MAP10, not sure if any more. I haven't recorded a single demo in ZDoom in my life. Should I always use the latest version available?

As for 3) I'm not sure if demo recording and/or playing back is possible, but anyway when I open cod.exe under DosBox I get a message: no DPMI - get csdpmi*b.zip

Well, that's it for now. What do you recommend and please enlighten me a bit more.

[Quasar]

vdgg said:

As for 3) I'm not sure if demo recording and/or playing back is possible, but anyway when I open cod.exe under DosBox I get a message: no DPMI - get csdpmi*b.zip

Well, that's it for now. What do you recommend and please enlighten me a bit more.

Grab one of the ee331b7 or previous DOS version from here:
http://eternity.mancubus.net/ee-old/

It should include cwsdpmi with it.

b7 at least is known to run in DosBox, as you can see here:
http://eternity.mancubus.net/pics/ee-dos-old.jpg

But CoD is based on a MUCH older version of EE. I'm not even entirely confident that I had fixed demo recording in that version, seeing how it was completely broken in SMMU.

[Graf Zahl]

vdgg said:
As for 1)
- MAP01 and many other maps should be playable. No splashing water sounds of brooks, but it does not matter IMO. But could you explain why in ZDoom (I used version 2.3.1) there are more monsters than in PrBoom on the same skill level?

The custom EXE implements several new monsters and a few other actions. ZDoom with the patch has these monsters. PrBoom does not. These new things are the whole reason the patch is necessary.

As for 2)
- Perhaps needed for MAP10, not sure if any more. I haven't recorded a single demo in ZDoom in my life. Should I always use the latest version available?

Normally, yes. But in ZDoom demo playback is only guaranteed with the version the demo was recorded.

As for 3) I'm not sure if demo recording and/or playing back is possible, but anyway when I open cod.exe under DosBox I get a message: no DPMI - get csdpmi*b.zip

Well, that's it for now. What do you recommend and please enlighten me a bit more.

I can't help you there. The DOS EXE never worked for me.

[kristus]

What makes COD not work in current EE versions?

[Quasar]

kristus said:

What makes COD not work in current EE versions?

Custom code modifications. The build released by Joel Murdoch had support for some new things and at least one new weapon. It was referred to as Eternity Engine v3.29 development beta 5 joel-2.

It's ancient, it's crappy, and I won't apologize for it because I was just learning C back then, AND trying to clean up the messes that had been made by other people (an effort which continues to the present).

[kristus]

So, how about a patch for COD to work in current EE?

[Quasar]

kristus said:

So, how about a patch for COD to work in current EE?

That won't be possible until I finish the weapons system for EDF. But that's on the near-range TODO list ;)

[vdgg]

Thanks guys for the answers.
Running cod.exe - heh, the title pic appeared showing some promise, but then bang! W_GetNumForName: KEYDEFS not found!

Recording demos is my form of appreciation for the splendid old WADs, and a way of reminding the people of the gems which exist in the archives. But looks like the Chaos Crew team did not consider such an option (demos) back then - after reading some very old threads I just don't want to be another guy complaining at CoD engine issues, so I'll shut up at this point.

Edit: The file keys.csc had 0 bytes for some reason. After replacing it it seems to work... :)

[Quasar]

vdgg said:

Edit: The file keys.csc had 0 bytes for some reason. After replacing it it seems to work... :)

Reaaaaally old Eternity bug ;)