Doomquake, An ID Tech Thread Options

[SubRosa]

Since Doom Eternal was released just a few days ago, I decided to make a topic to talk Doom and Quake games (and any other ID games). Doom Eternal got me in a Doom mood. So naturally I did not buy it! Instead I went back to the original games.

Gog.com has Doom 1 (Ultimate Doom), Doom2 + Final Doom, and Doom 3 BFG edition. Which are all on sale at the moment. I own them all. So I am giving them a try again.

You can play Doom 1 and 2 in high resolution if you use ZDoom or GZDoom. ZDoom is older, and is no longer being updated. GZDoom is newer, and has a few more extras. Use one. You can put the files directly into your Doom folders, or create a separate folder for it. Besides being able to run in 1920 x 1080, they add some options like being able to jump or crouch, or have a visible crosshair, and other stuff. GZDoom has more of this. You can find everything you don't want to know about installing ZDoom or GZDoom here.

To play either, don't use the games' regular shortcuts. Instead start it with the Zdoom.exe or GZdoom.exe. When you do it will give you a list of the Doom games you have installed. Pick one and it will start that game. Sadly, this means you have to install with a regular windows installer. Just copying the Doom folder over means GZDoom won't know its there.

In ZDoom you cannot select your resolution in the game options (it is there but doesn't work). You have to do it via the command line. Create a shortcut for ZDoom.exe and in the Properties -> Target field add in this at the end: -width1920 -height 1080 I am not sure if you need the width and height in GZDoom. I just copied it over from my ZDoom shortcut, and it works.

If you want to use a modded Wad file, this is also where you add that in with: -file [wad name] Put them in the same folder as the executable you are using to start the game. So if you have ZDoom or GZDoom in a their own folder, put it them there, not your regular Doom folder.

I found a female protagonist mod here. Then add it to your command line: -file Doomgirl_01.wad

So my entire Target box for my shortcut looks like this:
E:\GZDoom\gzdoom.exe -file Doomgirl_01.wad -width 1920 -height 1080

I started with Zdoom, and tried GZdoom just a little while ago. That is when I figured out that if you put either in a separate folder, you need to put your modded .wad files in that folder, not the Doom folder. GZDoom does look better, so that is what I am using going forward. I tested both on the Ultimate Doom from Gog, and Doom II with Master levels from there. One nice thing about GZDoom is that it makes the map a lot more useful. You can set it to show the secrets, and you can even make it show the textures of the areas, so you can see poison floors and so on.

This stuff does not work with Doom 3, as it is already a 3d game.

[SubRosa]

The music really makes a difference in overall atmosphere of the game. I would not want to play it without it.

My guess is that it not being there is one of two things. The first is paying royalties to the artist. A lot of old TV shows with popular music in them (like WKRP in Cincinnati) that get put on dvd wind up stripping out the songs, because it would cost to much to pay all the bands and songwriters.

The other is that back when this came out it was on cd, and the music is literal cd audio. I used to play my Mechwarrior 2 and Quake2 discs on my cd player just to listen to the music. That makes copying the music over a little more difficult, since you cannot just copy the contents of the cd to the hard drive. You have to rip the music off the disc into .mp3s, and then figure out a way to make the game use them instead of looking for a cd with music on it. It is nothing impossible of course. But it does take a little more effort, and I think a lot of people just don't feel like.

I played Hexen and Heretic back in the day. I preferred the Cleric class, because of the Wraithverge they get later in the game. Come to think of it, I remember playing Hexen without the game cd, and instead putting in Rob Zombie cds. The game played them automatically, thinking they were the game's own music. I think all I had to do was start the game with the Hexen cd in, then open the tray and pull it out and put my own music cds in.

Hexen could be a even worse key hunt than Doom was though. It started the idea of hubs, with multiple levels all interconnected that you could go back and forth through. You would pull a switch in one level, then have to back track through the other levels to find what door it opened. It could really be exasperating without a game guide to tell you what opens what.