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bradharding

DOOM Retro v5.3 (updated March 3, 2024)

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Hi Brad,

I have a problem with my savegames. It won't set the description to the current map's name. It doesn't seem to work anymore. I've tried every possible thing and it still didn't work, so it might be a bug or I'm not doing it correctly. Can you check if it works for you?

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axdoom1 said:

Hi Brad,

I have a problem with my savegames. It won't set the description to the current map's name. It doesn't seem to work anymore. I've tried every possible thing and it still didn't work, so it might be a bug or I'm not doing it correctly. Can you check if it works for you?


Thanks axdoom1. And thanks for raising the issue on Github. I'm responding here as well for others that might be interested. This issue has been fixed here.

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I tried out the latest version with a standard Microsoft wired 360 controller and was only able to move and turn in one direction. If there is an option in the cfg file for setting up the joystick axis then I must not be seeing it.

I also noticed that using the widescreen mode does not appear to modify FOV accordingly, resulting in distorted aspect ratio. To see an example of how this affects the graphics this site lays it out pretty well, under test method #1. Aside from the rectangle texture on the wall you can also see Doomguy's pistol become fatter in the transition pretty easily.

Other than those gripes it seems a fairly solid minimalist port. As others have already mentioned an improved WAD loader would relieve some headaches.

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SuperflyJohnson said:

I tried out the latest version with a standard Microsoft wired 360 controller and was only able to move and turn in one direction. If there is an option in the cfg file for setting up the joystick axis then I must not be seeing it.

Whoops! You've led me to discover a rather stupid typo I made, thank you!! DOOM RETRO is _meant_ to support the XBOX 360 controller specifically. This bug will be fixed in the next point release, which should come out some time later this week...


I also noticed that using the widescreen mode does not appear to modify FOV accordingly, resulting in distorted aspect ratio. To see an example of how this affects the graphics this site lays it out pretty well, under test method #1. Aside from the rectangle texture on the wall you can also see Doomguy's pistol become fatter in the transition pretty easily.

DOOM RETRO handles widescreen differently than other source ports, I guess. It's a bit of a hack, but all it is effectively doing is enlarging the player's view of the 4:3 screen (minus the status bar) to fill a widescreen display. The aspect ratio is preserved. This is how I wanted it: no horizontal stretching, or change in FOV: you're seeing exactly the same thing, just slightly larger to fill the space.


Other than those gripes it seems a fairly solid minimalist port. As others have already mentioned an improved WAD loader would relieve some headaches.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I wanted to keep the WAD launcher minimalist, along with everything else... what would you like to see added to the launcher?

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bradharding said:

what would you like to see added to the launcher?


Actually it's perfectly fine if extra PWADs aren't a factor, but making new shortcuts is a bit of a hassle. It doesn't necessarily need to be an improvement to the launcher, since ZDoom handles this through the .ini file. Otherwise what Doomsday has going where you can select and deselect individual wads is pretty fancy, but obviously that may be overkill for a port such as this.

Still, making shortcuts isn't THAT bad. It's not like I have to do it all the time.
I've got huge guts.

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SuperflyJohnson said:

...
Actually it's perfectly fine if extra PWADs aren't a factor, but making new shortcuts is a bit of a hassle.
...

You do know that you can ctrl+click to select PWADs with an IWAD in DOOM RETRO's launcher?

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And here we go again! Announcing yet another small point release, DOOM RETRO v1.4.3! Thank you to all those who have reported bugs and made feature suggestions. Many bugs have been fixed in this one, along with an interesting feature if pixel art happens to be your thing. Visit doomretro.com to download and see the full release notes.

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I took 1.4.3 for a spin and really enjoyed the 360 controls this time around. The classic Doom gameplay -mlook+autoaim really takes well to a gamepad. I do believe this marks the first time I experienced force feedback in Doom as well, so that's something. It's fun to feel it activate when an enemy attack lands; it would be even more enjoyable, I think, if it also activated when the player fires their weapon. Bonus points for varied degrees of force for different weapons (i.e. softer for pistol and normal fists, more kick for rockets and BFG).

I also feel the controller turn speed when the 'run' trigger is held is way too high. The normal turn speed feels fine but the run-turn sensitivity I think could be reasonably dialed down to something a little more controllable.

That's all I have to complain about so far. I changed my weapon switch keys to the shoulder buttons, in keeping with the BFG Edition's setup (which I find mostly agreeable; I seem to recall they put the automap key somewhere stupid). As for non-controller-related impressions, I'm definitely digging it. Demo compatibility would be nice but I guess that's out; no great loss (especially with plenty of ports available that do that). Mirrored sprites are a nice change of pace. I definitely see myself playing some more WADs with DR in the future.

I'm curious about how Retro handles the music. I presume it just uses the default Windows MIDI device (or whatever Win 7/8 use for that)?

If you're feeling ambitious, I don't think anyone has ever attempted implementing local co-op/deathmatch in Doom before... with two gamepads and a widescreen monitor split vertically, it seems almost feasible.

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SuperflyJohnson said:

stuff


Thanks for the positive feedback! I need it after coming across this delightful video...

I'm happy with how the XInput support turned out, it feels solid. I'll have a look at toning down the turn speed when running, and BFG Edition's control scheme to see if the defaults need changing, thanks.

Adding rumble to when the player fires their weapon is on my list. I was thinking also a slight rumble when the chainsaw is idle would be a nice touch.

Music is just the default General MIDI. I'd recommend Timidity++. I don't think demo compatibility will happen, but I'd eventually like to implement some sort of vid capture mode instead, if that's doable. And I'm sure I'll get multiplayer in as well.

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bradharding said:

Thanks for the positive feedback! I need it after coming across this delightful video...


Sounds like a couple of 13 year old sperglords having their first experience with a sourceport.

Put the use control on E!


Oh dear, it's not just their first sourceport, I think this is the first time they've played Doom ever.

The 8fps video framerate and Bandicam watermark just scream class and professionalism to boot. FavoritedLikedSubscribed

edit: found the Behind the Scenes: Making of Doom Retro Source Port sucks

I'll just add some suggestions I was going to make to the end of this post, none of which could be considered critical issues (or even close).

* I've sometimes thought an option to move the statusbar to the top of the screen might be nice, allowing for both a full weapon view and statusbar concurrently. Of course, if it were easy to do I expect somebody surely would have done it by now.

* In the widescreen HUD the icons for health and ammo clips do not appear scaled to correct their native squished-ness. In the case of ZDoom's alternate HUD there is an option to correct it under Stretch Alternative HUD --> Scale to 640x400

* in windowed mode, an option to scale the window size to multiples of the native res would be helpful

* being able to select a MIDI device (Microsoft wavetable, sound card, Timidity etc) from available devices may also be helpful, even just in the cfg file

I think that's all I've got for now. Oh wait, I'm glad you mentioned the chainsaw rumble.

* in addition to chainsaw idle rumble, I humbly request a similar level of rumbling for when the BFG is 'revving up'

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bradharding said:

Thanks for the positive feedback! I need it after coming across this delightful video...


That's just bad patter. And the cheek of it to make a video with such a poor frame rate and picture quality, terrible sound, language like that from someone with learning difficulties and all done with a smug, bad attitude... and then to think it was worthy of uploading... Wow. Hypocrite much?

At the risk of sounding sycophantic, please ignore the video and accept my thanks for your hard work and sharing. You are what makes Doom better not these twats. :)

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SuperflyJohnson said:

* I've sometimes thought an option to move the statusbar to the top of the screen might be nice, allowing for both a full weapon view and statusbar concurrently. Of course, if it were easy to do I expect somebody surely would have done it by now.

Never thought about that before. With a full weapon view? So you don't mean just switching the current view and the status bar, but using the full weapon view and placing the status bar over the view at the top of the screen?


* In the widescreen HUD the icons for health and ammo clips do not appear scaled to correct their native squished-ness. In the case of ZDoom's alternate HUD there is an option to correct it under Stretch Alternative HUD --> Scale to 640x400

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The hud icons, along with everything else, are drawn to the correct aspect ratio. They are drawn at half the size, though, so do you mean having them (and the digits) at double the size, matching the scale of the status bar?


* in windowed mode, an option to scale the window size to multiples of the native res would be helpful

There's windowwidth and windowheight in doomretro.cfg. :)


* being able to select a MIDI device (Microsoft wavetable, sound card, Timidity etc) from available devices may also be helpful, even just in the cfg file

Yeah, I've been meaning to do this.


* in addition to chainsaw idle rumble, I humbly request a similar level of rumbling for when the BFG is 'revving up'

Already done. The BFG "feels" great. :)

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Average said:

That's just bad patter. And the cheek of it to make a video with such a poor frame rate and picture quality, terrible sound, language like that from someone with learning difficulties and all done with a smug, bad attitude... and then to think it was worthy of uploading... Wow. Hypocrite much?

At the risk of sounding sycophantic, please ignore the video and accept my thanks for your hard work and sharing. You are what makes Doom better not these twats. :)


Thanks. At first I was mortified by it, and took it personally, but quickly realized that they're pretty much clueless. Fraggle's comments hit the nail on the head on what I was thinking. I can't thank him enough in coming to my defense. Of the 11 "issues" they had, only 2 were actually valid, and I've since worked to remedy these (not for their benefit, but the benefit of everybody else).

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bradharding said:

Never thought about that before. With a full weapon view? So you don't mean just switching the current view and the status bar, but using the full weapon view and placing the status bar over the view at the top of the screen?


Yes, that's what I'm envisioning (fullscreen view with bar up top) but I don't know if it would actually work in execution. Perhaps the next-largest screenview (fullest view with statusbar) is more appropriate to use, if it's even do-able at all.

edit: it only just now occurred to me that you'd have to move messages somewhere else if you did this, otherwise they'd be displaying on top of the statusbar.

bradharding said:

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.


At risk of preaching to the choir, there are a couple visual examples on this Doomwiki article: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio

Here are some medkits ingame:



And here's an uncorrected medkit sprite looking more rectangular:


bradharding said:

There's windowwidth and windowheight in doomretro.cfg. :)


I obviously missed that, merci.

bradharding said:

Already done. The BFG "feels" great. :)



breathing intensifies

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Average said:

That's just bad patter. And the cheek of it to make a video with such a poor frame rate and picture quality, terrible sound, language like that from someone with learning difficulties and all done with a smug, bad attitude... and then to think it was worthy of uploading... Wow. Hypocrite much?

Yeah, that video really disgusted me. I couldn't help posting a couple of that comments in response, which really just confirmed that they were childish uncaring pricks, just as I expected.

Particularly bizarre how throughout the video there's some guy in the background whose only contribution appears to be to make dick jokes. A bit like an episode of Beavis and Butthead; maybe that's the best way to imagine them - a pair of losers :)

Anyway, best not to dwell on it. Brad is doing some great work here and it's awesome to see Doom Retro getting better all the time.

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bradharding said:

Thanks for the positive feedback! I need it after coming across this delightful video...


Don't bother yourself with someone's butthurt. I've seen only beginning, but stuff like not working Freedoom or not being able to save game before actually starting the game made me close the tab with YouTube. I guess there will always be people with issues. Screw them.

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Krazov said:

stuff like not working Freedoom


I did find it amusing that a user calling himself 'DoomGeek101' apparently can't be bothered to purchase the game his channel is named for... or maybe $5 on Steam is out of his price range.

I should also correct myself where I said I didn't think any other ports had implemented local multiplay; turns out there are multiple ones that have.

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SuperflyJohnson said:

...
At risk of preaching to the choir, there are a couple visual examples on this Doomwiki article: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio

Here are some medkits ingame:
...
And here's an uncorrected medkit sprite looking more rectangular:
...


I believe the pics in the hud are already at the correct aspect ratio, because the entire screen is stretched vertically when it is scaled to go 320x200 -> 640x400 -> 640x480.

Consider the following screen grab:



Medikit 1 has the same aspect ratio as Medikit 2 (or close enough - scaling algorithm of #2 is going to make it vary slightly based on distance from player). Whereas the uncorrected Medikit 3 is wider than both, and has a completely different aspect ratio.

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I think you're doing it right already. Sprites are supposed to be stretched vertically by 20% when they're drawn. It looks like you're already doing that.

EDIT: I misunderstood. SuperflyJohnson is saying that the HUD sprites should be aspect ratio corrected like the in-game ones are. Though I'm not sure that's a good idea.

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I guess I need my eyes checked. I took a quick screencap in E1M1. Looking at it in the browser I could almost swear the kit in the HUD looks a little more squat, but maybe that's owing more to its position in my vision periphery when I'm playing the game.

I do apologize if I made a fuss over a non-issue.

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SuperflyJohnson said:

I guess I need my eyes checked. I took a quick screencap in E1M1. Looking at it in the browser I could almost swear the kit in the HUD looks a little more squat, but maybe that's owing more to its position in my vision periphery when I'm playing the game.

I do apologize if I made a fuss over a non-issue.


No probs at all! I appreciate the time you've taken in making suggestions! Keep 'em coming! :)

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A idea I've wanted ZDoom and similar engines to have for their fullscreen HUDs but never wound up being implemented; the sprites for the ammo type of the weapon currently selected changing from the small ammo pickup to the large ammo pickup when you get a backpack.

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Platinum Shell said:

A idea I've wanted ZDoom and similar engines to have for their fullscreen HUDs but never wound up being implemented; the sprites for the ammo type of the weapon currently selected changing from the small ammo pickup to the large ammo pickup when you get a backpack.


That's an awesome idea! Much like showing the berserk power-up when the player has it and has their fist selected, and showing blue or green armor, its yet another way to make the hud more functional without adding additional elements!

Edit: Unfortunately, after trying it out, it doesn't look very good. The large ammo pickup sprites are too wide. A neater alternative would be just to place a backpack sprite to the right of the ammo count. Which brings me to other ideas... also display power-ups while the player has them active.

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While at HUD. How ‘bout mugshot for health? I kinda like the face, as it’s quite indicative. That’s why I don’t use panoramic view--it’s faceless.

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Now that I've had the opportunity to try out Doom Retro (on my Mac) I have a few comments/suggestions.

First off, I really like the lightmaps - how the lights "glow" on certain textures. Have you considered extending this to sprites as well? For example it would be neat if the eyes on the imps or demons also glowed in the same way.

The fullscreen HUD is pretty nice, and I noticed that the health/ammo indicators blink when you're running low. However, the armor indicator also does the same. Is this worth the distraction that the blinking provides? Ammo and health are pretty important - you want to know if you're about to run out, but I don't think the same can be said about armor.

I like how you get the original retro 4:3 aspect ratio when using the status bar, but it switches to a modern widescreen aspect ratio when you go fullscreen. That's a nice retro-styled approach to the "status bar not wide enough" problem that I haven't seen before. However, I've noticed that if you're running fullscreen in this way there are some negative effects. For example there's a noticeable "jump" when you exit a level or start the next level. Also the menu seems to get larger or smaller depending on the screen size. Is there a reason for this? Vanilla Doom also lets you see a bit more (vertically) if you go fullscreen without the status bar, but in Doom Retro this is lost.

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fraggle said:

First off, I really like the lightmaps - how the lights "glow" on certain textures. Have you considered extending this to sprites as well? For example it would be neat if the eyes on the imps or demons also glowed in the same way.

Great idea! Might try this, thanks...


The fullscreen HUD is pretty nice, and I noticed that the health/ammo indicators blink when you're running low. However, the armor indicator also does the same. Is this worth the distraction that the blinking provides? Ammo and health are pretty important - you want to know if you're about to run out, but I don't think the same can be said about armor.

True, it can get distracting. I was thinking about this, but left it in for consistency. I'll take it out.


I like how you get the original retro 4:3 aspect ratio when using the status bar, but it switches to a modern widescreen aspect ratio when you go fullscreen. That's a nice retro-styled approach to the "status bar not wide enough" problem that I haven't seen before. However, I've noticed that if you're running fullscreen in this way there are some negative effects. For example there's a noticeable "jump" when you exit a level or start the next level. Also the menu seems to get larger or smaller depending on the screen size. Is there a reason for this? Vanilla Doom also lets you see a bit more (vertically) if you go fullscreen without the status bar, but in Doom Retro this is lost.

The way I've implemented widescreen is a bit of a hack. It's just the same player's view with the status bar, but I effectively set the SDL screen mode's width to the width of the screen. The status bar is still being drawn just off the bottom edge of the screen. Not ideal, but it allows me widescreen without changing field of view or any cropping or whatnot. This is why the menu appears bigger in widescreen, and at the end of a level, the screen "shrinks" to 4:3 mode and you can see the status bar before wiping to the intermission.

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Krazov said:

While at HUD. How ‘bout mugshot for health? I kinda like the face, as it’s quite indicative. That’s why I don’t use panoramic view--it’s faceless.

Have tried this, as it's been suggested before. It doesn't look good, in my opinion and so it didn't make the cut, whether centered at the bottom or replacing the health icon.

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