Looking for a port with specific features

Pardon me for asking what has been surely been asked over and over, but I'm freaking out a bit. I just got a new imac and found out Zandronum doesn't support OpenGL on Mac. I'm having a hard enough time figuring out which ports support opengl, let alone the other features I want, so I was hoping someone could help me out.

I play coop almost exclusively. Here are some of the things I want (Zandronum features):

- Doomseeker, or some good alternative
- Double ammo option
- Stable on both Mac and Windows

I'm thinking I want GZDoom but I'm not at all clear on compatibility gzdoom-macosx and the Windows version.

Alright, I played around a bit last night and got GZDoom. Still no OpenGL support but it's much faster than Zandronum, which surprised me. In GZDoom the framerate is >30 @ 2560x1440, in Zandronum it's <15 @ 1024xwhatever.

Doomseeker doesn't support GZDoom. I just want a launcher that makes changing wads and options on the fly easier than dealing with a command line. I can handle a command line fine but I'm lazy, and trying to get someone sitting next to you to type exactly what you say is almost impossible.

Or.. what can I do to make Zandronum run faster? I've been happy with it (/Skulltag) for a couple years. If I can make it work well that would be great.

qoncept said:

Or.. what can I do to make Zandronum run faster? I've been happy with it (/Skulltag) for a couple years. If I can make it work well that would be great.

The GZDoom renderer has received some significant optimizations some time ago. But so far none of this has been integrated into Skulltag/Zandronum.

The renderer they use is several years old already and it clearly shows if you got the right hardware.

qoncept said:

Alright, I played around a bit last night and got GZDoom. Still no OpenGL support but it's much faster than Zandronum, which surprised me.

???
I got GZDoom from here and it works. What graphics card do you have? I have an NVidia GeForce.

I'm pretty sure Zandronum+Doomseeker works too, but I haven't played it lately. I've had good experience with it and OSX though…

printz said:
???
I got GZDoom from here and it works. What graphics card do you have? I have an NVidia GeForce.

Wait.. that's right. I got it there too and it must be using hardware acceleration. Zandronum definitely doesn't though and they discuss it on their forums. In short, not likely to happen any time soon, if ever.

I guess I just need to run GZDoom from the command line and talk whatever lunkhead I'm playing with through it every time. :\

qoncept said:

I guess I just need to run GZDoom from the command line and talk whatever lunkhead I'm playing with through it every time. :\

I suppose you use the command-line from the built-in GZDoom launcher, right?

printz said:

I suppose you use the command-line from the built-in GZDoom launcher, right?

Eh.. built in launcher?

qoncept said:

Eh.. built in launcher?

When I run GZDoom.app, I mean this:
. The "Additional Parameters" box. Unfortunately I'm only assuming GZDoom; I believe Zandronum depends on Doomseeker to show any launcher.

qoncept said:

Eh.. built in launcher?

It's a GZDoom for OS X thing, not a plain old GZDoom thing.

Well, that's interesting. I downloaded gzdoom-macosx from here and when I open it it jumps straight in to Freedoom with no launcher. I started doubting myself so I downloaded it again. Pretty frustrating. The good news is I'm not missing out on much because that launcher doesn't do shit. And I'm betting it won't be compatible with the Windows version which means it does nothing for me anyway. :\

qoncept said:

Well, that's interesting. I downloaded gzdoom-macosx from here and when I open it it jumps straight in to Freedoom with no launcher.

It may do that because it can't find any game WADs to select from, so it defaults to Freedoom. To solve that, you need a Doom, Heretic, Hexen or Strife game WAD (such as DOOM2.WAD). Place that WAD inside (home folder)/Documents/GZDoom (you can go quickly there by pressing Command-Shift-G from Finder and typing ~/documents/gzdoom at the text field on the dialog box).

It's probably behaving the same as the Windows equivalent launcher: when there's only one IWAD, it starts the game automatically (and as a side effect you can't write arguments in the text box on OS X). If there are more IWADs found, it will show that selection box first.

Unfortunately I don't know if classic, non-client/server executables like vanilla Doom, ZDoom, GZDoom (unlike Zandronum etc.) can play multiplayer with ANY slightly different versions, due to how unstable the synchronization is (it's exactly like attempting to play old demos with different versions!). Since they're prepared by different people, the Windows and OS X and possibly Linux versions may all be different versions, not in sync.

Well, the point of using a launcher is I don't want to move all of my wads from where they are now. My buddy was playing Zandronum with us on a Macbook Pro last time and said it ran fine. Any idea why mine is so awful? This is a 2.9ghz i5 and I've tried several resolutions, some very low. I've used it for a grand total of probably 3 hours on a fresh installation of OSX 10.8.