Limit Removing Ports

[bgraybr]

I've been working on a vanilla map for a while now, but its gotten to large and detailed to work correctly with Chocolate Doom, so instead of removing detail I'm just going to say that it requires a limit removing port.

My question is, which port should I test it in? Should I set up Doom+ in a DOS emulator for testing, or will PrBoom with strict compatibility be enough for me to say that it only requires a limit removing port?

Edit: this is the wrong forum. Could a mod move it to editing?

[Gez]

You could try Strawberry Doom, which is a limit-removing modification of Chocolate Doom.

[Grazza]

If you want to be sure, then do both. But use doom+ just to check for fatal problems, and be aware that there are some limits it doesn't extend as much as most ports do, and some restrictions that it doesn't remove.

I'd suggest doing most of your testing in prboom-plus with the compatibility level set to 2, but before releasing it (or at some point) check whether the map at least loads in Doom+. If the map crashes at start-up, that will tell you if there are some bugs in it that prboom-plus is "forgiving", for instance. If the map (or each map) loads OK, then it's unlikely that the in-game behaviour will be different.

The stdout.txt that prboom-plus produces will also let you know if it is detecting major errors in the map, and this will make it easier to determine what is causing any problems.

If DosBox is for some reason too much trouble, then testing in just prboom-plus should be sufficient. But be sure to check stdout.txt especially carefully in that case, and to make sure you have set the complevel correctly (if you record a demo, then stdout.txt will tell you what compatibility level you used).

[myk]

bgraybr said:
My question is, which port should I test it in? Should I set up Doom+ in a DOS emulator for testing, or will PrBoom with strict compatibility be enough for me to say that it only requires a limit removing port?

Two non-fatal issues that users may notice which you can be on the lookout for while giving your levels some testing with Doom+ or Strawberry are the tutti frutti glitch (which looks bad and generally has to do with a changed alignment on steps and other textures with certain heights) and the Medusa effect (which often looks like a large tutti frutti, slows the system down and appears when multi-patch textures are used on two-sided lines). Also, one reason maps may freeze in Doom+ but run in PrBoom+ is if their BLOCKMAP goes over 64 KB. ZenNode provides BLOCKMAP compression, that helps in some cases.

Here's a link to Strawberry Doom binaries, in case you can't find the port, as it's not currently in the Doomworld source ports section.