Running demos...

[ununsnack]

Ok...I downloaded this demo for doom2..

and played it on legacy player, but for some reason, the demo was messed up...(I knew i put doom2.wad too, since it was a doom2 demo)

But the player kept going into the walls and attacking at nobody?


Hmm...


How do you run demos easier? bett..

[fodders]

You need to use Doom2.exe to play the demo, I think.

[Grazza]

A demo is just a recording of the player's actions, so if the program playing it back doesn't minic exactly the behaviour of the one on which it was recorded, the demo will normally desync.

To run a demo, you therefore need to know which executable it was recorded with, and then play it back with the same executable. Some demos will play back OK with slightly different executables, but this is never guaranteed. Normally it should say in the text that accompanies a demo which executable was used.

A lot of demos are recorded with the original Doom.exe or Doom2.exe (version 1.9). These will play back with those executables, but will very often also work OK with PrBoom. A few demos for Plutonia or Evilution will need the Final Doom executables to work. Note that everything at the compet-N site is recorded with Doom.exe/Doom2.exe or Final Doom.

TAS demos will often need to be played back using TasDoom.exe or MBF.exe. However, many of them have been converted to work with Doom2.exe.

For demos recorded with source ports, you will need not only to have the right executable, but the right version/beta of it.

Obviously, you also need the pwads on which the demos are run, if they are not the original maps...

Links, info and stuff can be found at http://www.doomworld.com/sda

Getting to grips with this is not too complicated, and is definitely worth it.

[Fredrik]

PrBoom plays 99% of all Doom2.exe-recorded demos correctly.

[999cop]

Use either doom2.exe(doom.exe if it's a Doom 1 demo) or zdoom.exe to play the demo, run command line of -playdemo (filename)

[DooMBoy]

ZDoom doesn't play standard Doom/2 demos.

[fodders]

He DID say OR

[Opulent]

If you tell me what demo you were trying to play, I bet I could tell you what you need.

[999cop]

Opulent said:

If you tell me what demo you were trying to play, I bet I could tell you what you need.

Yeah, that's exactly the issue I had to answering to his question accurately.

[sirjuddington]

Hmm, on the topic of demos, why do all the doom2 speedruns I get work, but none of the Doom 1 demos? I have Doom2 1.9 and The Ultimate Doom v1.9.

All the doom1 demos I have go out of sync, even with doom.exe!

[cph]

SlayeR said:
Hmm, on the topic of demos, why do all the doom2 speedruns I get work, but none of the Doom 1 demos? I have Doom2 1.9 and The Ultimate Doom v1.9.

All the doom1 demos I have go out of sync, even with doom.exe!

Are you sure you haven't muddled the files anywhere, e.g. dropped your old Doom 1 doom.exe v1.9 in instead of your Ultimate Doom doom.exe v1.9 (which aren't the same); or perhaps you have an old pre-v1.9 iwad in there. Post file sizes and perhaps we can spot a bad file.

If literally all your demos go out, it's more likely to be the IWAD - didn't run it through a node builder or something foolish did you? OTOH if it's just a few then you probably muddled exe's (Ult. Doom DEMO4 is a good first test - there are about 3 possible outcomes of this demo depending on what EXE it's run with...)

[ununsnack]

Alright...


I want to download just regular demos...with no speed enhancements or nothing...where can i get those...


I just don't wanna waste time hastling w/ all this crap i don't understand how to use...

Sorry for being so rude, but i got real frustrated w/ it yesterday...

[ununsnack]

Never mind the last post i did...


I downloaded mbf.zip..and now i can run those demos..but the graphics suck (original graphics) and the gamma is not changeable...


Is there anyway i could run the demos, but at better graphics?


And also...i would still like to see links to webpages with normal demos..thx

[999cop]

Compet-N seems normal to me.

[Grazza]

ununsnack said:

Is there anyway i could run the demos, but at better graphics?

Then get some compet-N demos and run them with PrBoom. They will sometimes desync though (I think Fredrik's 99% estimate is a little bit too high).

[fodders]

Nederlan2002 N.C_DS, Esox_DS, SlagDooM , df, Gherkin, ethh, and Mordeth.

[sirjuddington]

Hmmm, hope it's not the IWAD, since I don't have the CD...

Anyway doom.wad,
Size: 13,693,509 bytes
Size on Disk: 13,697,024 bytes

And yeah, I tried all the full-episode 'movies', and the e1m8 pacifist demo. ALL of them went out of sync :(

I haven't had any problems with doom2 demos...

[cph]

Grazza said:
They will sometimes desync though (I think Fredrik's 99% estimate is a little bit too high).

I think it's too low, at least when we're talking compet-n demos, and certainly doom2.exe demos. There are no current compet-n records that don't play back with PrBoom that I know of(*).

What pulls the percentage down are the weird demos that demonstrate bugs like the all-ghosts bug, which are rather dependent on overflows and corruptions in the original engine. And there are residual difficulties with Final Doom due to people being inconsistent about which executable they choose to use to record with it, which is not PrBoom's fault.

(*) The last one we found that didn't work, was found to be because the demo was recorded with the wrong engine - so it was the demo that was at fault, and it was subsequently disqualified. The only compet-n demos that I know of that don't work right now are for requiem map22, but that's due to level bugs and is not part of the main competition anyway.

[cph]

SlayeR said:
Hmmm, hope it's not the IWAD, since I don't have the CD...

Anyway doom.wad,
Size: 13,693,509 bytes
Size on Disk: 13,697,024 bytes

And yeah, I tried all the full-episode 'movies', and the e1m8 pacifist demo. ALL of them went out of sync :(

I'd say you have an odd iwad there. My doom.wad, which I'm fairly sure is pristine from the Ultimate Doom CD in the Trilogy box, is 12,408,292 bytes. Do the built-in demos play back right? How does DEMO4 end?

[sirjuddington]

Hmmm, I think it's the IWAD. All the normal demos go out of sync too in doom.exe :/

[Grazza]

cph said:

I think it's too low, at least when we're talking compet-n demos, and certainly doom2.exe demos. There are no current compet-n records that don't play back with PrBoom that I know of(*).

It's possible that the ones that I had problems with were of a specific type; e.g., TAS demos converted to play back with doom2.exe. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of which ones they were.