How do you launch your Doom games/mods?

[vita]

I always use the terminal to launch Doom.

[inbtwn]

I'm kind of tempted to make a thread asking how you organize all of your WADs now, actually. Should I?

[hobomaster22]

Can you let me know what is not working specifically? Honestly, a lot of my free time goes into development of this thing and I don't really have much to actually play Doom. With all the source ports and millions of different types of files I can't find possibly find all the issues on my own:

 

 

[dl_simc]

I use an old (+10 years) application named LauncTool. 

 

It's a really crash-prone program to set up. (You need to edit numerous cfg files by hand. For example to let it find pk3 and zip files as filetypes for ZDooms. It'll crash or won't even run if it finds a typo in those cfgs. Also it'll crash if I press the button to detect the level number in a wad that has not levels.)

 

Otherways I love^999 it. It does what it says. And I can run even Dosbox-Doom/Boom/etc. ports with it by launching a simple batch file that'll compose the proper Dosbox config file with the current exe+iwad+pwad paths.

 

[valkiriforce]

I was a longtime Doom95 user from 1998 to about 2016 or so. I've always liked the launcher that has the drop-down menu of the IWAD and WAD files; it'd be great to see something similar on a modern port but with more options. ZDaemon is pretty close to that though with its ability to place WAD files in any order.

 

Otherwise I've since adjusted to using PrBoom-Plus moreso nowadays and I basically drag-and-drop the files onto the .exe. I also have all WAD files set to open with ZDoom under properties, so I could always double-click any WAD file and it'll open ZDoom right away with a prompting of which IWAD to use between The Ultimate Doom/Doom II/Plutonia/TNT.

[SaladBadger]

I use qZDL. I legit cannot remember the last time I launched Doom without using it. It works with every port I have, makes it easy to stick all my IWADs in one centralized place rather than duplicate them, lets me save configs for particularly strange things, makes it easy to use other command line params, among many other things.

[Skeletonpatch]

I use ZDL3 for my mods. I remember when I was first trying to install Brutal Doom all the tutorials I found were all trying to use WINRAR for some reason, most of them saying that WINRAR was the only way to reliably run mods for Doom (I scoffed every time I heard that). I had no interest in using a program that wasn't specifically coded for Doom. When I finally discovered ZDL3 I couldn't find any tutorials that actually showed how to properly use it (even though I would expect there to be tons of good tutorials out there), so I basically had to teach myself how to use it. Now that I have ZDL3, I can run almost anything! My favourite setup is Brutal Doom with the Ultimate Doom Visor pack (not sure who the author was, I found it on MODdb).

[Voros]

1 .bat file for each wad. i edit them when i want to change a parameter/map.

You must have a ton of batch files.

[rehelekretep]

yup! it means i dont have to remember the complevel or the extra .wads required etc etc

[Demon of the Well]

I manually key everything on the command line from the (faux) DOS prompt. I have literally no rational reason for doing it this way, and am aware of the many slicker/faster/easier alternatives. Just set in my ways as far as that goes, I guess.

 

If I have to blame something other than my own illogical stubbornness, my out is that my first experience with launchers (other than the base game's SETUP program, I suppose) was an assortment of insufferable garbage interfaces that one used to find on shovelware CDs (often with those wonky 'randomizer' programs and whatnot attached). Never again!

[Cynical]

I too am a "one batch file per wad" guy.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cynical

[pnptcn]

I'm a Linux user so I just use the command line most of the time. If it's something I'm going to be launching a lot then I just bash script the commands then add the script to Steam and use it as a launcher.

[Mikami41]

There's way too much launchers, mods, souceports and wads out there

So if you want to be ready to load each one, i recommend you to use ZDL, it's basically  launcher which you can choose a sourceport downloaded/installed by the place you put (for example: users/user/Documents/Zdoom/Zdoom.exe) plus with the Iwad you downloaded (Doom, Doom 2, TNT, Plutonia by default). Once you have your souceports and iwads picked, you choose the wad you want to play plus another mod you want to play with (For example: Scythe II + Beautiful Doom. Or Alien Vendetta + Brutal Doom + Visor HUD, etc) after you choosed this, you can create a launcher so you don't have to do this process over again and save it to "Launchers" folder.

 

You can learn more about this on youtube also.

[beanz]

On 8/5/2017 at 3:07 AM, DoomGater said:

[snip]

Nice. I've been wanting to make something similar to this but ZDL satisfies what I was planning on adding to it. I may want to fork ZDL to add some quick config buttons and a -complevel switch.

[Graf Zahl]

I never used any launcher. Command line rules!

 

[Yousuf Anik]

Command line for demo recording, of course. Otherwise, drag and drop. But I use paths/autoload by editing gzdoom cfg file when playing a mod with a bunch of other files.

[Cipher]

Was using a launcher, but this thread convinced me to switch to batch files yesterday and pare down on source ports, which feels a lot better.

 

So now I have GOG's DosBox shortcuts for all of the iwads+the Master Levels, and a Chocolate Doom and PrBoom+ folder for vanilla wads and limit-removing ones respectively. Within those, I have a batch for each wad (named "wadname Batch"), and if that ever starts to get cumbersome, it's easy enough to sort by file type.

 

I like this because it cuts down on the number of folders in my overall Doom one, and creating the batch files gives enough of that old-school command-prompt-entering thrill without going out of my depths with DosBox prompts or opening cmd every time. Also, idk; cutting out the launcher just feels good.

[MTF Sergeant]

On 8/5/2017 at 2:44 AM, leodoom85 said:

I select the files and do copy/paste or drag & drop tactic.

I use the same method as well!

[annoyingduck]

On Arch Linux using Zdoom, I keep the official IWADS in my usr/share/games/doom folder which when launching Zdoom from the menu gives you a game selection screen (for original game play).  For custom PWADS (like Ancient Aliens/Alien Vendetta/Doom2002Odyssey/etc) I keep the PWADS in a single location in my home folder and just click them.  Zdoom auto-launches and you then select the official WAD you want to launch as the backend for the custom WAD - super simple. While a game like Brutal Doom 64 when installed from the AUR actually creates it's own menu entry that you just click and launch (after manually adjusting the file path which is noted in the AUR comments). For when I want to launch with multiple WADS I would use the command line.