GZDoom Options for (Close to) Vanilla Gameplay?

[OldManRage]

Hi, I'm new here and new to GZDoom.

 

I played the original Doom years ago, and after playing Doom 2016 for the last few weeks, I decided to buy the classic collection.

 

I downloaded GZDoom and while I love the better resolution/graphics and using the mouse to aim/turn, I don't want to change the gameplay too much from the vanilla game. It seems like there are a ton of options and I'm not sure if the default settings leave the game close to its vanilla state (other than using the mouse to aim and better graphics). Jump and Crouch were enabled, so I don't think they are.

 

Does anyone know which options I should change to achieve this, or have a comprehensive list of the various options? I already disabled Jump and Crouch, but I don't know if anything else has been effected (especially in regards to hitscan/projectile properties, or any other enemy/level interactions).

 

Also, is there a general preference as to what I should set my screen aspect ratio to, to prevent texture stretching? I will eventually get back into building maps, so I want the scaling and textures to look proper.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Edward850]

The obvious question has to be asked; if you are looking for Vanilla gameplay at higher resolution, have you looked at the other options first, which are expressly designed for that?

Edited November 5, 2017 by Edward850

[OldManRage]

2 hours ago, Edward850 said:

The obvious question has to be asked; if you are looking for Vanilla gameplay at higher resolution, have you looked at the other options first, which are expressly designed for that?

 

No, I honestly have not.

 

I made a post on the Doom Reddit page about getting the classic Dooms and being able to aim with a mouse and everyone recommended that I should get GZDoom so I didn't look into other options.

 

I will check out the link you provided. Thanks!

[Edward850]

If you want a quick rundown of the ones I linked:

PRBoom+ has full mouse-look and resolution options, plus has polygon OpenGL version (glboom). It's main design is full demo compatibility for a wide range of Doom versions and memory quirks.

Eternity also has full mouse-look and resolution, but is designed as sort of an extended Boom+ feature port (its main claim to fame being gameplay-transparent portals) while still offering vanilla demo compatibility, sans the memory quirks. Has a number of co-active branches such as Splitscreen, Heretic support and some mong is doing a C/S multiplayer branch is his limited spare time (and he really needs to finish the alpha build already). Think of it like ZDoom but for vanilla elitists.

Crispy is basically Chocolate Doom with a higher resolution, so no vertical looking (that I know of) but still allows some extended features with Chocolate Doom level accuracy.

G/ZDoom has some vanilla compat, but not enough for some. It has a compatibility flags menu that can being it close to Doom compatibility at least in mechanics, but its physics engine and PRNG behavior has undergone far too many changes to be even remotely demo compatible. It's up to you if that's good enough or not.

 

Demo support is a fairly sure fire way to test accuracy, due to how demos work in Doom. If it can play a vanilla demo (like the title roll), it's 99-100% vanilla accurate.

This is also probably worth looking at: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Comparison_of_source_ports

Edited November 5, 2017 by Edward850

[Nevander]

By default GZDoom is already pretty set for the standard experience. No mouselook, disable jump and crouch, turn off texture filtering, and you have it. If you want to go the extra mile, use the lowest resolution available.

[Spie812]

The closest you can get to vanilla doom in GZDoom is to go into compatibility settings and set it to "Doom (Strict)." Also, disable mouselook and jumping and whatnot.

 

But GZDoom is the modern source port, with it's powerful editing features and effects. It's an excellent port, but it's not really meant for the vanilla experience. The compatibility settings are probably fine for the most part, but if you're serious about more vanilla gameplay, go for crispy doom or prboom-plus.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Spie812

[Reisal]

15 hours ago, Nevander said:

By default GZDoom is already pretty set for the standard experience. No mouselook, disable jump and crouch, turn off texture filtering, and you have it. If you want to go the extra mile, use the lowest resolution available.

 

That and setting sector lighting to "Software" or playing it in Software mode.

[OldManRage]

Thanks for all of your help guys.

 

I am actually looking for updated graphics, as well as using the mouse to aim and disabling auto-aim. I don't want to jump, crouch, or use any engine that changes the gameplay mechanics (other than mouse to aim).

 

I tried PRBoom+ and was loving it, until I realized that I couldn't disable auto-aim. I downloaded Crispy, but my anti-virus software wouldn't allow me to run it. I went back to GZDoom and set the compatibility to "Doom (Strict)" and a few other things, and it seems to be what I'm looking for, but I will try Eternity tomorrow, as it does seem like you can disable auto-aim in it.

 

Thanks again.

[Bauul]

@OldManRage To be honest, when playing the normal Doom maps, the only additional gameplay features you're likely to notice in GZDoom that aren't vanilla are jump and crouch.  

 

There are a lot of little tweaks under the hood, but if you're not intensely familiar with the original release of Doom you're very unlikely to notice them.  Aside from the things it sounds like you do want (higher res, mouselook etc.) there's really not a lot that default GZDoom does to the original Doom maps that will make them play in a widely different way.  The purpose of source ports like GZDoom is to update the engine, not explicitly change the gameplay.

 

Now if you start downloading custom maps for GZDoom you might find a lot of changes from the vanilla experience, but the original games are left pretty much in-tact from a gameplay perspective.  They just look a lot nicer!

[fabian]

10 hours ago, OldManRage said:

I downloaded Crispy, but my anti-virus software wouldn't allow me to run it.

Which anti-vir is that, Avast?

[Graf Zahl]

9 hours ago, Bauul said:

@OldManRage To be honest, when playing the normal Doom maps, the only additional gameplay features you're likely to notice in GZDoom that aren't vanilla are jump and crouch. 

 

I concur. There are some changes, but most are too subtle to notice for non-hardcore Doomers. Setting compatibility to Doom(Strict) should be sufficient for most.

But be aware: This setting is not suitable for maps that were designed for more advanced engines - even Boom maps may not run properly with it!

 

[OldManRage]

Thanks Bauul and Graf, that's good to know.

 

I may just keep running GZDoom then, and then if I start playing maps that require jumping, crouching, and other tweaks, it sounds like I have a good source port for them. I may still try Eternity out, for my own curiosity.

 

1 hour ago, fabian said:

Which anti-vir is that, Avast?

 

Hey @fabian, thanks for checking in. Yes, it was Avast.

 

I downloaded your recent 5.0 update, and Avast locked up both the game engine and setup .exe files. I clicked that I trusted them, but it didn't seem to unlock them. I dug around in Avast, but I couldn't find them - I'm just using the free version and it seemed like the area I needed to go to was locked behind a paywall, which if true, is BS.

[riderr3]

This is cause I've store 13 source-ports in my "ports" Doom folder. And using G/ZDoom only for G/ZDoom wads. ZDL wad launcher helps launching wads and ports easily.