If I use a Mac, what are my options for making official speedruns?

[DoomNoob]

Apologies if this is answered somewhere already, I couldn't find anything definitive.

 

I use a Mac -- am I still able to play the original version of Doom / record it / have the game behave the same as the PC version? How do I know if I am using an "acceptable" version for speedrunning? How do people like to record their runs? Do they use a screen-grabbing tool and just let the footage roll for the entire session and then cut out the pieces they want?

 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I'd recommend reading the Doom Wiki's page on demos so you know what's meant by "recording" a demo, and some other important information about them.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Demo

 

If you have a source port that will run on Mac, then you would need a way to tell the port that you want to record, equivalently to Windows' command line parameter -record <file>.

I'm not a Mac user, so I don't know what the process would be. I believe most major ports like PRBoom+ and ZDoom have Mac variations, and I suspect recording in ZDoom would be as easy as typing "recordmap <file> <map>" in the console in-game like it is for Windows.

 

Most demos are recorded with PRBoom+, because of demo compatibility, but demos recorded in ZDoom 2.8.1 or GZDoom 2.4.0 won't be rejected (I'm unsure about GZDoom 3 and later).

If you're using an "acceptable" version (by this, I mean the wad you're using is correct and your demo settings and port are correct), you won't have to worry about anything. If the wad, port, or settings are different, that will cause a "desync," detailed in the Doom Wiki page.

[Big Ol Billy]

You can record demos in most Mac ports by running Doom via your chosen port from the Terminal and using the -record [mydemoname] parameter. I've personally done this with ZDoom 2.8.1 and Chocolate with no issues. Some ports, like Eternity, have a user-friendly demo recording option built into the standard GUI (a great and in my experience very reliable feature).

 

Your biggest obstacle for entering the speedrunning scene in a major way is that, as far as I can tell, PrBoom+ (the most common choice for submitting "official" demos) has been broken on modern Mac OSes for a long time now. Most other ports have excellent Mac versions, from what I've seen. I presume that because of port differences, though, that you won't be able to directly compete against PrBoom+ speedrunners as a Mac Doomer so long as the port remains broken.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Big Ol Billy

[Ribbiks]

14 minutes ago, Big Ol Billy said:

PrBoom+  has been broken on modern Mac OSes for a long time now. 

 

Nah, it's just a pain in the ass and you have to compile it yourself:

 

 

(subtle details may change from os to os, but I assume it's still doable)

[Killer5]

What Ribbiks posted is prolly your best bet for demos since prboom+ is basically the standard for demo creation.

 

I don't recommend using eternity for making max demos until they implement a monster counter that is able to handle resurrected monsters correctly. I haven't tried eternity since earlier this year because of this but maybe the latest version has an update that includes this so check first. Here is a link to a post I made outlining the problem:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1857928

 

You also need to be careful with the compatibility flags in eternity. They must be set up correctly if you want to run boom compatible wads. I can't remember my configs for monster behavior but I can simply edit this post after I have some time to research them again. Eternity does have a vanilla mode for what I assume is complevel 2 (doom2, and limit removing wads like Alien Vendetta) but make sure to verify this flag's behavior first.

 

You will need to deal with the monster counter in zdoom if you want to make max runs because zdoom includes lost souls in the count. The following is a post linguica linked a while ago that includes a decorate patch you can use to prevent lost souls from counting towards the monster count.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/893489

 

Edit:

Adding one more wrinkle in the prboom+ usage. It was decided that certain versions are not valid for runs because 2key sr50 was always enabled. Make sure to try and use the following versions linked in dew's thread here:

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Killer5

[Big Ol Billy]

1 hour ago, Ribbiks said:

Nah, it's just a pain in the ass and you have to compile it yourself:

 

(subtle details may change from os to os, but I assume it's still doable)

 

Aha! Actually I vaguely remember running across this post before, come to think of it. Those instructions are still pretty intimidating for someone like me tbh, but I smell a Thanksgiving project ;) Thanks for the info!