Multiple source ports in one directory, bad idea or not?

I'm getting heavily back into Doom and have GZDoom setup perfectly for how I like my vanilla Dooming. However I've stumbled upon Complex Doom and it looks really awesome to me. What I was hoping to do, was maybe grab Zandronum and set that up for Complex Doom, while I can still use GZDoom for vanilla playing and leave my settings untouched and all.

I guess I'm mainly asking because I'm playing via Steam, and deleted/replaced "dosbox.exe" so I can track my time through Steam. I know I'd have to constantly edit the GZdoom and Zandronum exe's, but that's fine...

I just have no idea if this would work or not, if some files would overwrite others, or if it's even possible to have Complex Doom installed for one source port and not for another.

Is it possible or a terrible idea? I was also wanting to check out the Doom PSX PC conversion, but that might get even messier.

In general, ZDoom-based ports use similarly-named settings files, DLLs (of which they may require different versions), save games etc. so having a mishmash of such ports sharing a folder is generally an exercise in futilityand/or only for masochists who'd be willing to put up with things randomly acting up, or painstakingly compile a compatibility chart and a list of do's and don'ts for every possible combination. The same problems may arise even with ports belonging to different families.

Most sourceports use several DLLs, and most of them just use the same name for every version in existence. Mix two ports depending on different versions and you got total chaos.

You could always use a launcher as your "dosbox.exe" and this way get you choice of wads and ports.

This reminds me of how, back in the old MS-DOS days, some people apparently had no concept of a "subdirectory" and just threw/copied all games into the same directory, usually C:\GAMES. Amazingly, things somehow worked....until one day they no longer did ;-)

To answer the thread's title, yes that is a bad idea.

Simply copy your iwads (doom.wad, doom2.wad) to both your GZDoom and Zandronum directories. Download Complex Doom to your Zandronum directory or your pwads directory if you have one. None of this will have any impact on GZDoom whatsoever.

As Gez suggested, use a launcher to select between GZDoom and Zandronum and load Complex Doom. This way (I think) you won't have to go through hassle each time, you can just pick what you want and play. I'm not really familiar with steam, but this should work.

Then again there seems to be some resistance against using launchers in this community...just open any relevant thread to get an idea of the more or less involved alternatives that have been proposed. My "favourite" was that guy who claimed he maintained a separate .BAT file for each source port + PWAD combination. O_o

Doomkid said:

Simply copy your iwads (doom.wad, doom2.wad) to both your GZDoom and Zandronum directories.

A better solution would be to put them into a separate directory and then modify the IWAD search path in the INI after it has been generated. This way I can use the same files from all the 20 or so different versions I have installed.

He mentioned having Doom via Steam, so there's not even anything special he should have to do. GZDoom can find the IWADs directly in the Steam install directory.

As shown here, most ports can find the IWADs from Steam, and several can also find them from GOG.

Remember how some dude wanted to remove Zandronum but in the process the uninstaller deleted his whole Doom folder?

Memfis said:

Remember how some dude wanted to remove Zandronum but in the process the uninstaller deleted his whole Doom folder?

That's why you should never copy any data into a directory that was created by an installer.

Maes said:

Then again there seems to be some resistance against using launchers in this community...just open any relevant thread to get an idea of the more or less involved alternatives that have been proposed. My "favourite" was that guy who claimed he maintained a separate .BAT file for each source port + PWAD combination. O_o

When I first got into Doom this is exactly what I did lol

What's so bad about that? For people used to the command line it beats every GUI program out there.

Graf Zahl said:

What's so bad about that? For people used to the command line it beats every GUI program out there.

Yep - this is so true.

Graf Zahl said:

What's so bad about that? For people used to the command line it beats every GUI program out there.

Only that making a bunch of BAT files and then clicking on them in Windows Explorer is hardly "1337 h4rdc0r3 fux0r h4xx0r" command line usage :)

Opening a command prompt just to type the name of a BAT file is only slightly above that ;)

Some people always have a command prompt open - or use tools like Total Commander which have a field for entering a command line integrated.

I am one of those people with a command prompt always open. Two - in fact - it used to only be one before I was compiling my own QZDoom devbuilds - when I started doing that, though, I found it was really well worth it to keep an additional window open so that compiling could happen in the background.

And also - I do evil, evil things to save on disk space and still allow source ports to find all my IWADs...

A:\3DGE>dir doom*.wad heretic.wad
 Volume in drive A is ZDoom and GZDoom
 Volume Serial Number is 8255-CB20

 Directory of A:\3DGE

2016-06-20  02:53 AM    <SYMLINK>      doom.wad [c:\gzdoom\DOOM.WAD]
2017-02-08  08:50 AM    <SYMLINK>      doom1.wad [c:\gzdoom\doom1.wad]
2016-06-20  02:54 AM    <SYMLINK>      doom2.wad [c:\gzdoom\DOOM2.WAD]
2017-02-08  08:50 AM    <SYMLINK>      doom2bfg.wad [c:\gzdoom\doom2bfg.wad]
2017-02-08  08:50 AM    <SYMLINK>      doombfg.wad [c:\gzdoom\doombfg.wad]

 Directory of A:\3DGE

2016-06-20  02:54 AM    <SYMLINK>      heretic.wad [c:\gzdoom\HERETIC.WAD]
               6 File(s)              0 bytes
               0 Dir(s)     463,863,808 bytes free

A:\3DGE>

Maes said:

Then again there seems to be some resistance against using launchers in this community...just open any relevant thread to get an idea of the more or less involved alternatives that have been proposed. My "favourite" was that guy who claimed he maintained a separate .BAT file for each source port + PWAD combination. O_o

I'm not sure who said that, but I admit that I'm guilty of that. However to me it seems slightly more idiot-proof and flexible.

I have found ZDL to be a near-perfect substitute for the command line. You select a port, you select an IWAD, you select or drag your WAD files into a stack and order them how you like, you add whatever additional params you want, then you "Launch" and go.

The downside is that it only appears to directly support ZDoom and derivatives - it can launch other ports, but some command line parameters assume the use of ZDoom, most notably +map as opposed to the standard -warp.

I'm also one of those people who never uses a launcher. Most ports I use are ZDoom-derivative, so it's just easier to drag and drop from one window to another than to use another utility. I never create a batch unless I plan on playing quite a few sessions of that particular combination of wads, and even then, usually only if it's Chocolate Doom or PrBoom, which is rare enough in itself.

The only launcher I've ever considered using was Doom Launcher. Having a proper library, but not bogging it down with features like user profiles, makes it ideal. Except that it wants to duplicate my entire wad library, which is a nuclear-level dealbreaker.

Thanks guys, I had a feeling it might be a bad idea haha. But I will look into the launcher idea, I can't remember the ones I've used in the past but I liked them. I have nothing against them.

Traditionally I have Eternity and GZDoom in the same folder as the vanilla executable and IWADs. Other ports I use less often (PrBoom+, Chocolate-Doom etc.) are stored in their subfolders.