zeeDooM Xenix!

So a few months ago, gattilorenz had told me he managed to work out how to do direct video under Xenix, and was able to get DooM running! He made the source available, and I meant to do something back then, but I must have gotten distracted.

So I went ahead and added the zeeDooM thing I had been working on a while ago which is a combination of the John Romero released maps, and the FreeDoom assets. So it’s not 100% the released version, it just looks that way.

I’ve gone ahead and created a qemu disk image (if you convert it, it does run on VMware, so probably far more 386 capable emulators than I can imagine), along with an old Qemu exe for some stand alone fun on archive.org.

There is no sound, nor music. I should look closer one day, and see if I can drive some direct music to an Adlib since it’s just IO ports, and maybe grab all the direct sound code from viti95’s FastDoom?

Anyways, it’s zeeDooM!.. on Xenix!

Amongst all the DooM and gloom, DooM 64 was released for PC!

I guess I missed all the excitement of the new DooM whatever, but Bethesda decided to dig up that N64 ‘DooM 3’ aka DooM 64. It’s a unique game unlike all the other console ports that were straight ports of the original DooM, although some like the 32x (Mars) or Jaguar versions that had a bunch of details removed from the levels to either spare the limited processors, and/or save precious cartridge space.

At $39 HKD, it’s $4 USD, so it’s a bit ‘pricy’ for something that is a 23 year old game, but at least I guess it’s out in the wild in a legal format. No idea if it made it to Bethesda.net as that whole thing collapsed quicker than Fallout 76 became a meme riddled disappointment.

Anyways I know I’m late to the party, but it’s all new to me.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1148590

How much DooM is there in the Doom 3: BFG Edition version?

Another follow up to my ages old “Just how ‘original’ is the Ultimate Doom on steam?“, I thought I’d follow up with the DooM 3 BFG version.

I already have DooM 3, but this is apparently remastered, and includes the previous versions!?

It’s not like it really offers anything I don’t have, but it’s on sale so whatever let’s go.

And in the base/wads directory there they are!

fb35c4a5a9fd49ec29ab6e900572c524 DOOM.WAD
c3bea40570c23e511a7ed3ebcd9865f7 DOOM2.WAD

And sure enough the are the latest versions of the game files to be found according to doom.fandom.com. Great! So to further the abuse I tried them under my mutilated DooM.

Ultimate Doom seems to work just fine on it’s own I tested it briefly warping to a few levels but yeah it just works! Doom2 however bombs out that the resource TITLEPIC is missing from the wad. How disappointing!

Naturally I just took the easy way out, and basically checked for the resource, and load another if it’s missing.

@@ -477,7 +477,11 @@
  else
  pagetic = 170;
  gamestate = GS_DEMOSCREEN;
- pagename = "TITLEPIC";
+ /* the Doom 3 BFG EDITION version of Doom 2 is lacking the titlepic */
+ if(W_CheckNumForName("TITLEPIC")>0)
+ pagename = "TITLEPIC";
+ else
+ pagename = "DMENUPIC";
  if ( gamemode == commercial )
  S_StartMusic(mus_dm2ttl);
  else

It’s a shamefully basic patch. But it works.

Another interesting thing is that DooM 3 BFG also includes the gravis ultrasound bank data, so you could load them up into some other emulator and enjoy that gravis experience. I don’t know if it’s licensed or what, but it’s a nice touch.

AVGN reviews Chex Quest

Okay that was funny. I never thought of even trying Brutal DooM + Chex Quest. Sounds awesome.

Although I’d played a little with Chex Quest before, I never tried it on the DooM source. Oddly enough it’s Ultimate DooM. In d_main.c you can do some simple test for chex.wad and pass it off as the ‘retail’ version.

	if ( !access (chex,R_OK) )
	{
		gamemode = retail;
		D_AddFile (chex);
		return;
	}

Or you can simply just rename chex.wad to doom.wad or doomu.wad. Many of the strings for DooM are compiled into the EXE, not taken from the WAD file (although it could have been, I guess it was to prevent people from making overtly cheeky mods?).

So firing up the wad under my crappy DooM port thing to MS-DOS (for the sane people just use some other Win64/OSX/Linux thing like zdoom), and when selecting an episode you’ll see the Ultimate DooM levels.

Chex Quest, Thy Flesh Consumed!

Wait? What? I though Chex Quest was a ‘total conversion’ WAD. Well it turns out that it is, and it isn’t. They replaced a lot of the default stuff from a retail version of Ultimate DooM. And what they didn’t replace, well it’s still there. And yes that does mean everything outside of the first 5 levels are the original DooM levels. And that includes the music as well!

E2M2 from Chex Quest

Well isn’t that surprising! And yes that means that it’s possible to just replace the first 5 levels with the default DooM levels and have that reverse conversion. In the same way the menu screens are very Chexy too:

It certainly gives that kid like feeling to it. Although the replacement Barrons of Hell are a little too big so they do look kind of silly.

E1M8

So as always I’m late to the party. I’m sure someone out there didn’t have the retail version of DooM and instead used Chex Quest for those LAN games. Although it does detect that the WAD has been modified so I don’t think it would just be all that fine.

Not that finding the original WAD files, or source to the maps, and just compiling them yourself is all that difficult, but I guess it is something else to load up.

Bethesda DooM for the PC

$1.70 USD!

With all the excitement regarding the DRM, disapearing Xbox versions and the terrible music in the Unity port, I thought I’d check out the PC version that is thankfully on sale on Bethesda.net. I really have lost track the number of times I’ve bought this game, but here we go again. The last time I went through this was back in 2014, with the aptly titled: “Just how ‘original’ is the Ultimate Doom on steam?” story.

And much to my surprise they use the same version of DOSBox, 0.71, and have the same AdLib pre-config, along with the missing SETUP.EXE to allow you to change it.

HOWEVER, there is one big difference, the WAD file.

The steam version includes this wad file:

c4fe9fd920207691a9f493668e0a2083 doom.wad

Where the Bethesda.net uses this wad file:

e4f120eab6fb410a5b6e11c947832357 doom.wad

And looking on the DooM Wiki, that means that the wad file is from the PlayStation Network version.

Now with extra hell!

And it’s true they really did change the cross to a pill for the medical kit, per the red crosses request:

iD DooM on the left, Bethesda DooM on the right.

There is a few changes here and there but overall it looks pretty standard to me. Am I missing anything else?