Doom 64 coming to PC and modern consoles?

[TheNoob_Gamer]

1 hour ago, Diabolución said:

Silly question before than considering purchasing this, because I am very familiar with PC / PS1 Doom, but I know next to nothing about N64 Doom: are all levels doable from pistol start without saves on WMD?

Yes. Later levels always give you at least a (super) shotgun to start with.

Edited March 21, 2020 by TheNoob_Gamer

[Devalaous]

1 hour ago, Diabolución said:

Silly question before than considering purchasing this, because I am very familiar with PC / PS1 Doom, but I know next to nothing about N64 Doom: are all levels doable from pistol start without saves on WMD?

 

Just like all classic Doom games, dying and pushing buttons makes you restart the level with just a pistol. So yes, they are all pistol-start beatable.

[Edward850]

6 hours ago, Gokuma said:

sometimes it seems I would just oddly fall off into the lava contrary to however I was pressing the WSAD keys

Weapons have kickback in Doom64. That's the trap part of that trap, the ledge is too narrow to fire most weapons safely. 

[Boaby Kenobi]

I've been comparing the remaster to the original, well not exactly the original as it's emulation, so I took a screenshot to have a direct comparison.

I'm such a total-loser-OCD-nerd that I've been playing a level then quitting after finishing the map and then playing the same level on the remaster.

 

 

[Gokuma]

9 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Weapons have kickback in Doom64. That's the trap part of that trap, the ledge is too narrow to fire most weapons safely. 

Ok that explains it.   Pretty nuts they originally expected people to handle that with an N64 controller.

[seed]

3 minutes ago, Gokuma said:

Ok that explains it.   Pretty nuts they originally expected people to handle that with an N64 controller.

 

Guess why it is the most hated level in that game :p.

 

It's just brutal to play with the shitty N64 controller.

[Nevander]

It's not that bad with the N64 controller but it does take some serious getting used to.

 

I recently replayed it with a Brawler64 controller and that was a great experience. It also made clearing gaps a lot easier. Somehow the stick gives me faster one directional movement, more than the normal N64.

[Aquashark]

I just finished the new episode - I thought it was really fun! I cheated playing it when it came out back in '97, and didn't really get to experience the last 6 or 7 levels of the main game properly because of it, so this time I did things fairly :> Thanks to the team for porting it and introducing it to everyone who wasn't able to play it before!

(SPOILERS for new episode end under the cut)
 

Spoiler

I really don't see how the new episode ending linked D64 to the newer Doom series any more than the original ending did..?!? Did I miss something? Or was that just rumors getting out of hand?

 

[Devalaous]

I forgot how confusing Outpost Omega was. Spent a good hour trying to figure out that demon key.

[VGA]

3 hours ago, Gokuma said:

Ok that explains it.   Pretty nuts they originally expected people to handle that with an N64 controller.

I haven't played those secret maps but the Single Shotgun and the Chaingun don't have kickback.

[Quasar]

2 hours ago, Aquashark said:

I just finished the new episode - I thought it was really fun! I cheated playing it when it came out back in '97, and didn't really get to experience the last 6 or 7 levels of the main game properly because of it, so this time I did things fairly :> Thanks to the team for porting it and introducing it to everyone who wasn't able to play it before!

(SPOILERS for new episode end under the cut)
 

  Hide contents

I really don't see how the new episode ending linked D64 to the newer Doom series any more than the original ending did..?!? Did I miss something? Or was that just rumors getting out of hand?

 

Spoiler

It's implying that Doomguy is beginning his journey to become the Doom Slayer by making reference to the "path of perpetual torment." This is a line from one of Doom (2016)'s Slayer Testaments.

 

[SteelPH]

After some experimentation, it seems adding sprite replacements seems to shift what graphic the Unmaker uses for its lasers. In this case, from replacing three sprites, it shifted what it uses down three entries, picking out the dart graphic three entries below the intended laser graphic.

[bmerangs]

Myself and Immorpher have been messing around with the effects of PWADs on Doom64 over the last day or two, and we've had mixed success. First off, any kind of map pack has to have the levels compressed separately into their own .wads inside the master. Doing otherwise (as I learnt trying to run the community chest straight as it was) will cause some very interesting glitches: The menu music becomes looping death groans, the text is garbled, and the skull pointer becomes a green square. Launching the game in this state crashes the game. I've got a clip if anyone's curious.

However, packing the wads properly, or running a single level as a PWAD will work just fine. Multi-map packs even support name recognition on the feature menus warp option. This means that any Doom 64 megawads out there will have to change conventions on how they're stored, least as far as I know (I'm pretty new to all this).

 

The 2nd issue we've had is adding levels with their own textures. Adding numerous textures will cause a straight crash, with the crashlog complaining about a memory access violation. Adding just one texture got the error in this image, which funnily enough points to Kaisers own PC.

Haven't figured a way around this issue yet, which would be a real pain since otherwise noone's gonna be able to use their own custom textures.

 

The 3rd issue was with music replacement. For the most part, this works very well. I've already seen at least one PWAD replacing music for Doom 64. Replacing the tracks works just fine, as done editing what tracks are played on what levels with MAPINFO. The engine is even more than happy to take OGG, MP3 or FLAC files as music and play them just fine, if obviously a bit big on file size. I've actually been told by one of the devs, Edward, that the engine is actually better to use with these types rather than MIDI, as the soundfont is fairly lacking for that. The only problem here is that for some reason, MAPTITLE and MAPDONE (The title music and end-level stats screen music respectively) don't get replaced by the PWAD whatsoever. Every other track works just fine. The only thing I can find in common about these is that they aren't referenced in MAPINFO, but I don't see how that would effect them.

 

Apologies if this is a bit long winded, or if this would be better suited somewhere else / in it's own thread. Just made an account now to post this here, I'm a newblood.

[VGA]

1 hour ago, SteelPH said:

After some experimentation, it seems adding sprite replacements seems to shift what graphic the Unmaker uses for its lasers. In this case, from replacing three sprites, it shifted what it uses down three entries, picking out the dart graphic three entries below the intended laser graphic.

What else can you make it fire, then?

[SteelPH]

9 minutes ago, VGA said:

What else can you make it fire, then?

Cyberdemons.

[VGA]

Now that's a cursed Doom image if I've ever seen one!

[SteelPH]

1 minute ago, VGA said:

Now that's a cursed Doom image if I've ever seen one!

At the very least it's an interesting look at how the laser's graphics are rendered.

[sponge]

23 hours ago, Buckshot said:

I just went a did a quick recheck... and yes, lol... you are right, they are. Wow. But why not just do this in the rereleases for DOOM Classic and 64? They would have looked the same, just inverted coloring on the cross (which was apparently enough to fool me into not noticing a difference)?

Green crosses, pills, blue crosses all seem odd in comparison to either a red cross with a white bg, or a white cross with a red bg

 

For Doom 1 + 2, there's not enough pixels in the graphics to pull off inverted without it looking wrong. It was one of the alternatives I tried but we liked the green out of the options.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, bmerangs said:

The 2nd issue we've had is adding levels with their own textures. Adding numerous textures will cause a straight crash, with the crashlog complaining about a memory access violation.

Did you make sure the textures were in 8bit as suggested? Doom64 sprites are a little weird, the game is true colour but each graphic can and is intended to have its own 8bit palette.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Edward850

[Spectre.Charles]

I added more comparisons to @Boaby Kenobi's image. GlideN64 is a more N64 accurate plugin. The Steam version you can tweak the brightness to match the original. I'm also using a different hud in Ex, I forgot to change it back when I took the screencap.

Also quick first impressions:

Doom 64 EX has a lot more features and looks better*.

Doom 64 Steam / Doom 64 (2020) has it's own exclusive features (like demos for example) and I believe has a lot of bug fixes.

I haven't played a whole lot of D64 Steam, so there's probably a lot more differences I missed.

 

*Actually I take that back, I think D64E looks better in some places (like filtered weapon sprites) and D64S looks better in others (like the colored lighting looks more vibrant and the AA)

 

I've recently learned that D64S is actually more accurate than D64E

Edited March 24, 2020 by DepravedDiptera

[VGA]

Why does Doom EX Steam look so bright? I posted this before somewhere, I know. From all videos and screenshots it looked bright and then when I bought it and tested it it was of course bright.

 

I don't remember if it has a Brightness option and I am not on my PC now, does it? Sadly, there are no downscaling or "internal resolution" options like GZDoom/Retribution has. I like 640x480.

[SteelPH]

2 minutes ago, VGA said:

Why does Doom EX Steam look so bright? I posted this before somewhere, I know. From all videos and screenshots it looked bright and then when I bought it and tested it it was of course bright.

 

I don't remember if it has a Brightness option and I am not on my PC now, does it? Sadly, there are no downscaling or "internal resolution" options like GZDoom/Retribution has. I like 640x480.

The default brightness settings are higher.

[CyberDreams]

2 minutes ago, DepravedDiptera said:

Doom 64 EX has a lot more features and looks better / more accurate (at the moment).

 

Ya know, i really hated how dark the original was. The programmers literally made the original game in a room with no windows & with the lights off so it was extremely dark, which in the end turned out to not be the greatest of ideas (or so i remember reading somewhere). I'm not sure about the accurate part as i haven't played much yet tbh.

 

Anyways, i have the newer version on XB1 and it seems to play and look pretty good imo. I noticed in the options menu that it has support for Mouse and possibly keyboard (or at least what looks like bindings for it). I'm not sure if it actually works though as i don't have a keyboard/mouse that will reach to where i sit and i don't have wireless ones. Anyway's i did notice some very slight lag with the controls when i turn left/right but after i adjusted the deadzone on the right stick it seemed to feel better for me. It was down all the way by default. I turned it up just a tad. Not sure why that would help but w/e. BTW i play with an official XB1 controller plugged in to my Xbox. No batteries for me haha.

 

I don't remember if Doom 64 had a fast way to switch weapons but the default way in this newer version on XB1 is just the LB and RB buttons which tends to be kinda slow. However it seems that you can bind weapons to buttons (such as the d-pad), sort of like how the newer ports of Doom/Doom II have quickbinds for certain weapons on the d-pad. So that helps make switching weapons a lot faster on a controller.

 

I really like the overhead map. It has a full colored one (basically like GZDoom's) and a classic one. Being able to zoom in/out works great too, just like you can in the ports of Doom/Doom II. No one really talks about this stuff so i figured i would ;)

 

Somethings that i don't like are really just me nitpicking. For instance, the FOV slider. It doesn't show a number. It just slides so i'm not sure exactly what its at. I just turned mine up very slightly to where i thought it looked good. I guess that's all you need to do but i prefer to know where it actually is. Also not being able to choose levels separately. That would of been a nice QOL feature. I see that the old password system is still implemented so that's one way of doing it at least.

 

Overall i think it's pretty neat to be able to play Doom 64 again, especially on modern consoles and officially on PC as well. Some people will still complain about the brightness but w/e. I believe that you can adjust it if it is to bright. I haven't gotten to the new chapters (the lost levels) yet so i can't say much of anything about those but i do think that it's great that Nightdive took the time to create something new as well as to tie it into Doom Eternal.

 

 

[KainXavier]

I'm playing through DOOM 64 on my Xbox One, and I absolutely love it!  It's like a brand new game.  Kudos to everyone at Nightdive for doing such a fantastic job on porting the game!

I hope you all won't mind if I make a couple of suggestions regarding the controls:

 

I know they're separate games made by different teams, but I do find it weird that the default control scheme for DOOM 64 doesn't match DOOM or DOOM II on the XB1.  Namely, left trigger isn't assigned to "Speed" and the Y button isn't assigned to the automap.

 

Branching off of that idea, it'd be nice to be able to quicksave and quickload from the pause menu ala DOOM / DOOM II.  Those games use the right and left bumpers to do so.  That said, I really do appreciate the option to bind quicksave / quickload to a button so I don't have to interrupt gameplay!  The only downside is that I had to rebind next weapon and previous weapon to B and X.

 

Speaking of next and previous weapon, is there any way to add a weapon cycling option?  I'm sure the current behavior is accurate to the N64 original, but I'd really like to be able to switch to the Unmaker from the fist by pressing previous weapon.

 

Lastly, this is super minor but I'd like to be able to press a button to clear all bindings for a particular command.  I find having to re-press the same button to unbind a command to be awkward.  That and it's weird seeing keyboard and mouse bindings (by default) on an Xbox One.

Thanks again for the game and for hearing me out!  I hope DOOM 64 sells like hotcakes!  (In my mind, it's an absolute steal at its current price.)

Edited March 22, 2020 by KainXavier

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, CyberDreams said:

I noticed in the options menu that it has support for Mouse and possibly keyboard (or at least what looks like bindings for it). I'm not sure if it actually works though as i don't have a keyboard/mouse that will reach to where i sit and i don't have wireless ones.

They do, it's intended support on the Xbox.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Edward850

[seed]

5 hours ago, VGA said:

I don't remember if it has a Brightness option and I am not on my PC now, does it? Sadly, there are no downscaling or "internal resolution" options like GZDoom/Retribution has. I like 640x480.

 

It should have a brightness option. And maybe 2 kinds of gamma correction too iirc - one as seen in other ports, and the other increasing sector brightness.

[Boaby Kenobi]

6 hours ago, DepravedDiptera said:

GlideN64 is a more N64 accurate plugin.

 

Using that particular plugin on my laptop causes the game to run very poorly so I just use Jabo's. Glide does appear to give more accurate results though.

 

6 hours ago, VGA said:

I like 640x480.

 

I use that resolution also for Project 64 as well as the official remaster but D64EX just wont run well at all on my laptop, even at 640x480.

[Buckshot]

8 hours ago, sponge said:

 

For Doom 1 + 2, there's not enough pixels in the graphics to pull off inverted without it looking wrong. It was one of the alternatives I tried but we liked the green out of the options.

 

Thanks for the reply sponge! :) 

 

Yeah, I can definitely see the original stim/medpaks having only a few pixels to work with now that you mention it 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Buckshot

[famicommander]

My only complaint is it takes forever and a day to actually start up a game. It's like a minute from when I press the power button on my Switch to actually being in control of my character in a map. How many damn unskippable logos does a man need to sit through to kill some demons?

[marver0PS]

Are you supposed to lose the demon keys when you die? Because EX didn't do that.