Doom Levels In The PS1 Version?

[A Nobody]

Which Doom game on the PS1 is missing levels? I'm asking because Duke Nukem 3D on the console (called Total Meltdown) has all the levels intact, along with having new bonus ones. I wonder, why did they use Jaguar Doom's Levels instead of making them from scratch for the PS1?

[seed]

I... don't think they used Jaguar Doom's levels? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong). Iirc they modified PC Doom's levels to fit on the console.

 

They did use Jaguar Doom as a base however, what exactly that means I don't know (codebase maybe?). It was used as a base for other console ports as well which were derived from it. The levels were drastically altered on some occasions because the game simply couldn't handle them in their original form due to their complexity and enemy counts.

 

1 hour ago, The Strife Commando said:

Which Doom game on the PS1 is missing levels?

 

Both PSX Doom and PSX Final Doom are missing various levels.

Edited August 28, 2019 by seed

[LadyVader1138]

31 minutes ago, seed said:

I... don't think they used Jaguar Doom's levels? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong). Iirc they modified PC Doom's levels to fit on the console.

They did use Jag Doom's levels though some maps that weren't in Jag Doom were put back in, just not all. An example is "Tower of Babel". Plus, of course, maps from "Thy Flesh Consumed" and Doom II were used as well in addition to some PS1 exclusives.

[leodoom85]

Yeah, Jaguar version of Doom is the base for the PS1 maps, only that the devs from that port added even more stuff (same for Sega Saturn)

 

Bit annoyed that they butchered Plutonia in PS1 (which are only 6 maps) and, the map amount is a joke compared to PS1 Doom (or PSXDoom as mostly known).

 

PSX Doom - 59 maps

PSX Final Doom - 30 maps

 

Ouch...

I liked the new maps though like Threshold of Pain or The Mansion.

[vinnie245]

Yeah the maps exclusive to the PSX version are really good, Threshold of Pain, The Mansion and Twilight Descends are some of my favorite maps and Club Doom is also a fun novelty map.

Just wish they did more exclusive maps since it was clear the developers knew how to make good ones.

Edited August 28, 2019 by vinnie245

[Dark Pulse]

The original is missing a handful of maps, and almost all the maps had alterations done to them for various reasons:

1. There is limited space in memory, much more so than the PC original (PSX has 1/4th the minimum RAM required for PC Doom)
2. Some assets are not included in the games compared to the PC original, especially textures, decorations, and flats
3. Most of the original three Doom episodes are derived from the Jaguar version
4. The Arch-Vile wasn't included at all due to having much more animation (meaning it'd consume more memory) than other monster types

However, the devs did try to make up for some of the cuts - anything that's not the original three episodes had less cuts (since the original three episodes reused the cut-down versions for the Jaguar even though the PSX could handle more complicated geometry), Doom II monsters were introduced to Ultimate Doom maps on Ultra-Violence, and there were several exclusive levels.

 

If we were going by the widest possible metric ("What's been altered") that would be practically every map due to sidedef, flat, or monster memory limitations. So, the narrowest list of cuts (going strictly by what levels are in/not in the game) is as follows:

• Doom
  • E3M1: Hell Keep¹
  • E3M2: Slough of Despair
  • E3M8: Dis
  • E3M9: Warrens
  • E4M5: They Will Repent
  • E4M6: Against Thee Wickedly
  • E4M9: Fear
• Doom II
  • MAP13: Downtown
  • MAP15: Industrial Zone
  • MAP20: Gotcha!
  • MAP24: The Chasm
  • MAP28: The Spirit World
  • MAP29: The Living End
  • MAP30: Icon of Sin
  • MAP31: Wolfenstein
  • MAP32: Grosse

¹: There actually is a level called Hell Keep in the game, but it's a completely different level from the original.

 

Final Doom had a lot more cuts - out of a potential total of 85 maps, only 30 are in the package. Evilution lost 21 maps, a LOT of Plutonia levels got the axe (only six made the cut), and two creators from the Master Levels aren't represented in the PSX package at all, but overall it got the most content successfully ported (13 out of 21).

 

Tim Heydelaar shed some light in a post and said PSX Final Doom was basically a cash grab (Doom 64 was in development at the time), so that could be why a large number of these levels didn't make the cut. He's the one who ported these levels himself, so I'll take his word for it.

• Final Doom: TNT Evilution
  • MAP03: Power Control
  • MAP05: Hanger
  • MAP06: Open Season
  • MAP07: Prison
  • MAP08: Metal
  • MAP09: Stronghold
  • MAP10: Redemption
  • MAP11: Storage Facility
  • MAP14: Steel Works
  • MAP15: Dead Zone
  • MAP18: Mill
  • MAP19: Shipping/Respawning
  • MAP20: Central Processing
  • MAP21: Administration Center
  • MAP22: Habitat
  • MAP25: Baron's Den
  • MAP27: Mount Pain
  • MAP29: River Styx
  • MAP30: Last Call
  • MAP31: Pharaoh
  • MAP32: Caribbean
• Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment
  • MAP02: Well of Souls
  • MAP04: Caged
  • MAP07: Caughtyard
  • MAP08: Realm
  • MAP09: Abbatoire
  • MAP11: Hunted
  • MAP12: Speed
  • MAP13: The Crypt
  • MAP14: Genesis
  • MAP15: The Twilight
  • MAP16: The Omen
  • MAP17: Compound
  • MAP18: Neurosphere
  • MAP19: NME
  • MAP21: Slayer
  • MAP22: Impossible Mission
  • MAP23: Tombstone
  • MAP24: The Final Frontier
  • MAP25: The Temple of Darkness
  • MAP26: Bunker
  • MAP27: Anti-Christ
  • MAP28: The Sewers
  • MAP29: Odyssey of Noises
  • MAP30: The Gateway of Hell
  • MAP31: Cyberden
  • MAP32: Go 2 It
• The Master Levels
  • John Anderson (Dr. Sleep) had all five of his Master Levels ported, so none of his levels are missing from PSX Final Doom.
  • Jim Flynn used lots of verticality in his levels, which due to the renderer messing with textures after 256 units, makes proper renditions of his level impossible. Therefore, both of his maps were cut.
    • Titan Manor (MANOR.WAD)
    • Trapped on Titan (TTRAP.WAD)
  • Christen Klie had most of his levels included except for one. Doesn't seem to be a technical reason why, but the map is (IMO) rather bland compared to his others.
    • The Garrison (GARRISON.WAD)
  • Sverre André Kvernmo (Cranium) had none of his Master Levels ported. There doesn't seem to be a technical reason as to why, though. Due to the aforementioned desire for a quick release, it could simply be that there was no more time to include any of his levels.
    • Black Tower (BLACKTWR.WAD)
    • Bloodsea Keep (BLOODSEA.WAD)
    • Mephisto's Maosoleum (MEPHISTO.WAD)
    • The Express Elevator To Hell (TEETH.WAD)
    • Bad Dream (TEETH.WAD)
  • Tom Mustaine's single Master Level was included.
  • Tim Willits had two Master Levels; both were included.

As an aside, however, you might be interested in the GEC Playstation Doom Master Edition project, where a team of talented mappers (including some who worked on the PSXTC Lost Episode) are taking PSX Doom and actually recreating the levels in PSX Doom, playable on an actual PSX or a PSX emulator, and thus, 100% held to actual PSX limitations, unlike the PSXTC. The project also includes some maps that came out after PSX Doom's release, such as Romero's Phobos Mission Control and Tech Gone Bad. (I believe SIGIL will eventually be included as well.)

Edited August 30, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[A Nobody]

6 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

The original is missing a handful of maps, and almost all the maps had alterations done to them for various reasons:

1. There is limited space in memory, much more so than the PC original (PSX has 1/4th the minimum RAM required for PC Doom)
2. Some assets are not included in the games compared to the PC original, especially textures, decorations, and flats
3. Most of the original three Doom episodes are derived from the Jaguar version
4. The Arch-Vile wasn't included at all due to having much more animation (meaning it'd consume more memory) than other monster types

However, the devs did try to make up for some of the cuts - anything that's not the original three episodes had less cuts (since the original three episodes reused the cut-down versions for the Jaguar even though the PSX could handle more complicated geometry), Doom II monsters were introduced to Ultimate Doom maps on Ultra-Violence, and there were several exclusive levels.

 

If we were going by the widest possible metric ("What's been altered") that would be practically every map due to sidedef, flat, or monster memory limitations. So, the narrowest list of cuts (going strictly by what levels are in/not in the game) is as follows:

• Doom
  • E3M1: Hell Keep¹
  • E3M2: Slough of Despair
  • E3M8: Dis
  • E3M9: Warrens
  • E4M5: They Will Repent
  • E4M6: Against Thee Wickedly
  • E4M9: Fear
• Doom II
  • MAP13: Downtown
  • MAP15: Industrial Zone
  • MAP20: Gotcha!
  • MAP24: The Chasm
  • MAP28: The Spirit World
  • MAP29: The Living End
  • MAP30: Icon of Sin
  • MAP31: Wolfenstein
  • MAP32: Grosse

¹: There actually is a level called Hell Keep in the game, but it's a completely different level from the original.

 

Final Doom had a lot more cuts - out of a potential total of 85 maps, only 30 are in the package. Evilution lost 21 maps, a LOT of Plutonia levels got the axe (only six made the cut), and two creators from the Master Levels aren't represented in the PSX package at all, but overall it got the most content successfully ported (13 out of 21).

 

Tim Heydelaar shed some light in a post and said PSX Final Doom was basically a cash grab (Doom 64 was in development at the time), so that could be why a large number of these levels didn't make the cut. He's the one who ported these levels himself, so I'll take his word for it.

• Final Doom: TNT Evilution
  • MAP03: Power Control
  • MAP05: Hanger
  • MAP06: Open Season
  • MAP07: Prison
  • MAP08: Metal
  • MAP09: Stronghold
  • MAP10: Redemption
  • MAP11: Storage Facility
  • MAP14: Steel Works
  • MAP15: Dead Zone
  • MAP18: Mill
  • MAP19: Shipping/Respawning
  • MAP20: Central Processing
  • MAP21: Administration Center
  • MAP22: Habitat
  • MAP25: Baron's Den
  • MAP27: Mount Pain
  • MAP29: River Styx
  • MAP30: Last Call
  • MAP31: Pharaoh
  • MAP32: Caribbean
• Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment
  • MAP02: Well of Souls
  • MAP04: Caged
  • MAP07: Caughtyard
  • MAP08: Realm
  • MAP09: Abbatoire
  • MAP11: Hunted
  • MAP12: Speed
  • MAP13: The Crypt
  • MAP14: Genesis
  • MAP15: The Twilight
  • MAP16: The Omen
  • MAP17: Compound
  • MAP18: Neurosphere
  • MAP19: NME
  • MAP21: Slayer
  • MAP22: Impossible Mission
  • MAP23: Tombstone
  • MAP24: The Final Frontier
  • MAP25: The Temple of Darkness
  • MAP26: Bunker
  • MAP27: Anti-Christ
  • MAP28: The Sewers
  • MAP29: Odyssey of Noises
  • MAP30: The Gateway of Hell
  • MAP31: Cyberden
  • MAP32: Go 2 It
• The Master Levels
  • John Anderson (Dr. Sleep) had all five of his Master Levels ported, so none of his levels are missing from PSX Final Doom.
  • Jim Flynn used lots of verticality in his levels, which due to the renderer messing with textures after 256 units, makes proper renditions of his level impossible. Therefore, both of his maps were cut.
    • Titan Manor (MANOR.WAD)
    • Trapped on Titan (TTRAP.WAD)
  • Christen Klie had most of his levels included except for one. Doesn't seem to be a technical reason why, but the map is (IMO) rather bland compared to his others.
    • The Garrison (GARRISON.WAD)
  • Sverre André Kvernmo (Cranium) had none of his Master Levels ported. There doesn't seem to be a technical reason as to why, though. Due to the aforementioned desire for a quick release, it could simply be that there was no more time to include any of his levels.
    • Black Tower (BLACKTWR.WAD)
    • Bloodsea Keep (BLOODSEA.WAD)
    • Mephisto's Maosoleum (MEPHISTO.WAD)
    • The Express Elevator To Hell (TEETH.WAD)
    • Bad Dream (TEETH.WAD)
  • Tom Mustaine's single Master Level was included.
  • Tim Willits had two Master Levels; both were included.

As an aside, however, you might be interested in the GEC Playstation Doom Master Edition project, where a team of talented mappers (including some who worked on the PSXTC Lost Episode) are taking PSX Doom and actually recreating the levels in PSX Doom, playable on an actual PSX or a PSX emulator, and thus, 100% held to actual PSX limitations, unlike the PSXTC. The project also includes some maps that came out after PSX Doom's release, such as Romero's Phobos Mission Control and Tech Gone Bad. (I believe SIGIL will eventually be included as well.)

The Chasm got left out? Noooooooo. D:

 

Wow. So he admitted that it was a cash grab? id Software was definitely greedy and didn't care then.

 

Awesome! Can't wait to see the project finished. :)

[Dark Pulse]

18 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Wow. So he admitted that it was a cash grab? id Software was definitely greedy and didn't care then.

Arguably more of a cash grab for Midway. Again, Doom 64 development was well underway (it'd come out shortly after, I think).

 

As an aside, I'm involved in the Master Edition project, having taken five (and eventually, six) maps. Alas, most of them are going to be in Beta 3, which isn't out yet, but if you'd really like, you can download the current beta and get my take on E3M8: Dis.

 

If you do, may you suffer in it for a good long while, because it ain't your daddy's Dis. :)

 

You can also pick through the thread and see screenshots for the other levels I've done - TNT's MAP05: Hanger and MAP06: Open Season, and Plutonia's MAP18: Neurosphere.

 

If I quit being lazy, soon there'll be some Master Levels: Bloodsea Keep shots up, too.

 

That last one? Well that's Romero's E1M8B: Tech Gone Bad, and that will need some very clever chopping due to engine limitations... more than Bloodsea Keep does, I'm sure!

Edited August 30, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[seed]

2 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

Wow. So he admitted that it was a cash grab? id Software was definitely greedy and didn't care then.

 

They had limited resources at the end of the day, D64 was already well underway so they just... did something with Final Doom I guess, to have both the original games and the expansion available on the Playstation in a way or another.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Pulse said:

you can download the current beta

 

Random question, do any of the Playstation emulators support mouse?

[Dark Pulse]

2 minutes ago, seed said:

Random question, do any of the Playstation emulators support mouse?

I believe that Retroarch's BeetlePSX core (which is basically Mednafen) does. I'm also fairly sure Xebra does, but that's much trickier to set up.

 

It'd be kind of moot though, since only Final Doom had support for the PSX Mouse. Meaning for all the maps done for the PSX Doom part of the project, Erick would either need to port the mouse code over to it, or port it to the PSX Final Doom engine.

[Dexiaz]

6 hours ago, seed said:

Random question, do any of the Playstation emulators support mouse?

 

ePSXe (at least 1.9.0+) supports mouse

[Koko Ricky]

On 8/28/2019 at 4:23 PM, leodoom85 said:

PSX Doom - 59 maps

PSX Final Doom - 30 maps

 

Ouch...

I liked the new maps though like Threshold of Pain or The Mansion.

Keep in mind that Final Doom pushed for much larger maps than the original. Notice that the ones omitted from the PSX are the biggest. To get to a 30 map count, they threw in some slightly smaller Master Levels maps. Now of course, there's talk of how this port was something of a cash grab; that probably contributed to a lack of better optimization so that more maps could be included. At the time, id was working on Quake and overseeing Doom 64, not to mention they had recently finished PC Final Doom, and a few months before that had released the Master Levels compilation. They were pretty busy.

Edited August 30, 2019 by GoatLord

[leodoom85]

1 hour ago, GoatLord said:

Keep in mind that Final Doom pushed for much larger maps than the original. Notice that the ones omitted from the PSX are the biggest. To get to a 30 map count, they threw in some slightly smaller Master Levels maps. Now of course, there's talk of how this port was something of a cash grab; that probably contributed to a lack of better optimization so that more maps could be included. At the time, id was working on Quake and overseeing Doom 64, not to mention they had recently finished PC Final Doom, and a few months before that had released the Master Levels compilation. They were pretty busy.

I still think that they should have added at least 5 to 10 more maps, or the couple of secret levels (maybe some unique ones like Doom 2 in comparison), imho.

Edited August 30, 2019 by leodoom85

[Koko Ricky]

1 hour ago, leodoom85 said:

I still think that they should have added at least 5 to 10 more maps, or the couple of secret levels (maybe some unique ones like Doom 2 in comparison), imho.

Well, there's accusations of greed/laziness on id's part, and it could be true. I think with a couple extra months of development, it would have been possible to add a few more maps, truncating where necessary. There's no way that those 30 maps took up all the space on that CD, considering that Master Levels had literally thousands of maps.

[leodoom85]

2 hours ago, GoatLord said:

There's no way that those 30 maps took up all the space on that CD, considering that Master Levels had literally thousands of maps.

Exactly. 

[Dark Pulse]

3 hours ago, GoatLord said:

Well, there's accusations of greed/laziness on id's part, and it could be true. I think with a couple extra months of development, it would have been possible to add a few more maps, truncating where necessary. There's no way that those 30 maps took up all the space on that CD, considering that Master Levels had literally thousands of maps.

To be fair, Master Levels didn't have to include all the actual game content on the disc, too.

 

PSX Doom definitely has room for plenty of maps; even the original does not take up all of the space on the disc. The data track (that is, anything that's not Redbook audio) is only 80 MB - the Redbook audio on the CD (menu music, intermission music, end level tally music, etc.) takes up several more times that.

 

That said, considering a 7z of PSX Doom's ISO isn't even 200 MB, suffice to say more of the disc is unused than used. Thus there's technically the possibility to put dozens or even hundreds of maps on the disc with ease. Final Doom is slightly smaller, with a data track of about 50 MB, plus it's missing some of the Redbook audio tracks.

 

The problem is that the PSX engine crashes with more than 64 map slots, and presumably Final Doom would either do the same or crash after 32. The engine would need to get hacked to work around that. (Erick's current workaround is to give each set of maps its own EXE on the disc, giving them their own 64 map slots.)

[A Nobody]

So when the project is finish, will we be able to get a physical copy of the game to play on an actual PS1?

[Dark Pulse]

16 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

So when the project is finish, will we be able to get a physical copy of the game to play on an actual PS1?

Well, I don't know how Erick will distribute it, so I can't really answer that question. Presuming you mean "Can we burn this to a disc that will run on a PS1," the answer is technically no, but that's because it would rely on either a modchipped PSX to play burnt discs, due to a special way that PS1 CDs were encoded for copy protection. You can bypass that by doing the old swap trick of having something to push the lid sensor button down, putting in a game to boot it up, and then hot-swapping the discs at just the right time, but anything that risks wearing a motor/laser that's already likely 20+ years old is generally not a good idea, and since it will get the ToC from the "boot" disc, the redbook audio tracks may not play back correctly depending on what disc you used.

 

The short explanation for the copy protection is that there's a special "wiggle" in the master disc's spiral pattern that the PS1 uses to authenticate the disc as an original and not a burned copy. A CD Burner will not replicate this wiggle, so without it, the PS1 will reject the disc unless it's been modchipped.

 

For the long answer, I refer you to the excellent YouTube channel, Technology Connections. It's an excellent channel, and IMO, it's well worth the 15 minutes to watch. Grab a drink and a snack, or maybe a meal, and sit for a spell under the learning tree.

 

 

Anyway, what I'd suspect will happen is one of two things:

 

1) The mod will be distributed as an ISO (or BIN/CUE), and from there if you want to play it on a genuine PS1, you burn that to a disc and use the swap method if it's not chipped, you just pop it in and play if it is chipped, or if it's chipped and you got one of those models that have a parallel port, you can also plug your little SD card loader doohickey into that (but those themselves require a modded PS1), pop it onto the SD, and you play it that way, bypassing the motorized disc tray entirely. (Of course, if you're playing in an emulator, you just load it directly.) This is actually riskier for distribution though, as technically it's allowing for piracy of a hacked version of the game. In practice it's not commercially damaging really (especially as Williams exited the game business and Midway no longer exists), but it is still technically a no-no.

 

2) The mod will get distributed as some kind of XDELTA patch instead, and the end-user will be required to patch up an ISO/dumped copy of the game. This is much safer as we are no longer distributing copyrighted content, merely a pattern of bits to be applied against the original to modify the content. This is the way I'd distribute it if it were up to me, as then we're essentially applying a difference file to the game - without such a disc dump to apply to, the file is worthless. (I introduced it to the OptiDoom for 3DO author, for example, and it meant he could go from a lengthy and messy user install process to distributing a mere 2 MB patch.)

 

Of note however is that there's also someone building an installable PKG for PSPs and PS Vita systems, so it will be playable that way as well. Maybe even jailbroken PS3s if someone gives enough of a damn.

 

There's definitely an advantage with an emulator, of course, in that you can do stuff like overclock the emulated CPU and so eliminate the slowdown and frame drops. I know I try to optimize my maps to play as best as I can with original-speed hardware, but I'd definitely not recommend that for actual play except for diehard purists. People who just want to play the game will likely gain more benefit from the emulator as a result.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[Devalaous]

looking at the PSX Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 maps and how little geometry actually got cut, the jaguar cuts really become noticable. Someday they should definitely be 'un-jagged' and rebuilt with the real PSX engine's limits. Containment Area for example is just sad.

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, Devalaous said:

looking at the PSX Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 maps and how little geometry actually got cut, the jaguar cuts really become noticable. Someday they should definitely be 'un-jagged' and rebuilt with the real PSX engine's limits. Containment Area for example is just sad.

I wouldn't mind doing that as a side project. That said, there definitely are some limitations and places where PC geometry could make it crash - for example, in my version of TNT MAP05: Hanger, the outer courtyard buttresses actually had to be pared down in complexity, otherwise it would bomb the engine on an overflow, so it's not like you could just copy the geometry in and forget about it; you'd have to test to make sure it doesn't crash out.

 

Then again, I'd also like to port all of our work into the Doom 64 version of the engine, and take the liberty of un-fucking some things (like monster variety and sector height - Doom 64 doesn't seem to have the problems PSX Doom's renderer has in those regards) that the PSX engine has forced upon us.

 

Would definitely need Erick to write up a map converter though (PC->N64 as well as PSX->N64), as well as create a fork of GZDoom Builder that could handle Doom 64. The ROM would need to be expanded for sure (which is pretty trivial), and of course we'd also need to port in textures in some form or another unless we didn't mind giving them a proper "Doom 64 style" makeover.

 

N64 is interestingly more and less limited at the same time. All textures. not just flats, are (generally speaking) 64x64 - but you can set flags that will mirror them horizontally, vertically, or both, meaning you have essentially "built-in" 64x64, 64x128, 128x64, and 128x128 textures for every single texture in the game. Sidedef textures and flats all get routinely paged in and out of system RAM when not in view, meaning there's no more limits like on PSX.

 

PSX limits are 16 flats a level, and enough space for 24 64x128 sidedef textures, but textures in PSX Doom can be either 16, 64, 128, or (skies only) 256 wide, with all textures 128 high (and padded to that height with black if they're not), so the actual amount of textures will vary depending on sky type and how many 16-wide textures you use. A normal 256x128 sky takes up 1/6th of the entire sidedef texture space, for example; switches are effectively 128x128 always due to the game storing the active/unactive textures, and several doors are also 128x128.

 

And of course, the N64 has 2x the RAM, N64 has 4 MB, which, if the game were exhaustively hacked to add in support for the Expansion Pak, could actually be doubled up to 8 MB to do crazy stuff like "high definition" rendering (i.e; 640x480), better framerate, more monster types/animation, etc.

 

Throw in the multitude of enhancements the N64 engine can offer, and it'd be a really fun, interesting, and long project to try to tackle, but I'd love to do it. :)

Edited September 1, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[A Nobody]

12 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

I wouldn't mind doing that as a side project. That said, there definitely are some limitations and places where PC geometry could make it crash - for example, in my version of TNT MAP05: Hanger, the outer courtyard buttresses actually had to be pared down in complexity, otherwise it would bomb the engine on an overflow, so it's not like you could just copy the geometry in and forget about it; you'd have to test to make sure it doesn't crash out.

 

Then again, I'd also like to port all of our work into the Doom 64 version of the engine, and take the liberty of un-fucking some things (like monster variety and sector height - Doom 64 doesn't seem to have the problems PSX Doom's renderer has in those regards) that the PSX engine has forced upon us.

 

Would definitely need Erick to write up a map converter though (PC->N64 as well as PSX->N64), as well as create a fork of GZDoom Builder that could handle Doom 64. The ROM would need to be expanded for sure (which is pretty trivial), and of course we'd also need to port in textures in some form or another unless we didn't mind giving them a proper "Doom 64 style" makeover.

 

N64 is interestingly more and less limited at the same time. All textures. not just flats, are (generally speaking) 64x64 - but you can set flags that will mirror them horizontally, vertically, or both, meaning you have essentially "built-in" 64x64, 64x128, 128x64, and 128x128 textures for every single texture in the game. Sidedef textures and flats all get routinely paged in and out of system RAM when not in view, meaning there's no more limits like on PSX.

 

PSX limits are 16 flats a level, and enough space for 24 64x128 sidedef textures, but textures in PSX Doom can be either 16, 64, 128, or (skies only) 256 wide, with all textures 128 high (and padded to that height with black if they're not), so the actual amount of textures will vary depending on sky type and how many 16-wide textures you use. A normal 256x128 sky takes up 1/6th of the entire sidedef texture space, for example; switches are effectively 128x128 always due to the game storing the active/unactive textures, and several doors are also 128x128.

 

And of course, the N64 has 2x the RAM, N64 has 4 MB, which, if the game were exhaustively hacked to add in support for the Expansion Pak, could actually be doubled up to 8 MB to do crazy stuff like "high definition" rendering (i.e; 640x480), better framerate, more monster types/animation, etc.

 

Throw in the multitude of enhancements the N64 engine can offer, and it'd be a really fun, interesting, and long project to try to tackle, but I'd love to do it. :)

PlayStation Doom with Doom 64's sprites. :)

[Dark Pulse]

43 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

PlayStation Doom with Doom 64's sprites. :)

Please no; I want to be able to tell my Zombiemen apart from Shotgun Guys. (In fact, if we do the hack, I really want their palette changed entirely, to more closely resemble the original Shotgun Guys in some form, though it's also just as likely that we could do some sprite edits to make them bald and whatnot more like the classical Shotgun Guys.)

 

Also some monsters (like the Revenant) are in PSX Doom but not Doom 64, so there'd be some style clash if not accounted for.

 

That said, Erick and Gerardo have also undertaken a project of recreating those monsters in a Doom 64 style. Gerardo updated the thread with pics of the Mastermind and a WIP of their interpretation of the Icon of Sin.

 

I'd imagine if we were seriously going to do this sort of work on a Doom 64 version, it'd only be fitting for them to debut there. Of course, whether or not that means they'd need to add Expansion Pak support to the game to do it is a good question, as would be if it would be mandatory to do it or somehow squeezed in without it. (Or as I proposed, potentially have two versions of the mod - one that just replaces the levels and textures but does not need the Expansion Pak, and one that includes the re-implemented monsters but does need the Expansion Pak, since new levels/textures should have the same general memory requirements as the original game.)

Edited September 2, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[LadyVader1138]

14 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

PlayStation Doom with Doom 64's sprites. :)

I might have done that before.

[Dark Pulse]

7 hours ago, LadyVader1138 said:

I might have done that before.

But he wants to run it on an actual PSX, I'd think. Bit trickier!

[LadyVader1138]

40 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

But he wants to run it on an actual PSX, I'd think. Bit trickier!

Oh yeah, that would be trickier, but not that difficult, I would think.

[A Nobody]

On 9/2/2019 at 6:39 PM, Dark Pulse said:

But he wants to run it on an actual PSX, I'd think. Bit trickier!

Oh no no, I was just wondering how it would be like. Although it does sound awesome to have the D64 sprites in the actual game.

[Gerardo194]

Well, PSXDoom Master Edition beta 3 is on the process... stay tuned

[riderr3]

On 9/1/2019 at 12:38 PM, Devalaous said:

looking at the PSX Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 maps and how little geometry actually got cut, the jaguar cuts really become noticable. Someday they should definitely be 'un-jagged' and rebuilt with the real PSX engine's limits. Containment Area for example is just sad.

On 9/1/2019 at 2:23 PM, Dark Pulse said:

I wouldn't mind doing that as a side project.

IIRC, @CoTeCiO already working on converting true Doom 1 maps for PSX Doom.

 

On 8/29/2019 at 12:23 AM, leodoom85 said:

Bit annoyed that they butchered Plutonia in PS1 (which are only 6 maps) and, the map amount is a joke compared to PS1 Doom (or PSXDoom as mostly known).

Technically, a lot of Plutonia levels can fit in PSX engine, Master Edition project prove it. Devs just stopped at 30 maps, and added that cyberdemon to Onslaught as Final Boss.

 

I guess Playstation Final Doom should also have levels 31 and 32 but they also abandoned. Only kind of dummies still present on CD.

Level 31 is the "Innermost Dens" from Lost Levels TC, and Level 32 probably should contain Spider Masterminds (only my guesses, because they had to use Spider Mastermind for the whole game at least once, but it failed)

 

6 hours ago, Gerardo194 said:

Well, PSXDoom Master Edition beta 3 is on the process... stay tuned

I guess we get updates for tools also.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, riderr3 said:

IIRC, @CoTeCiO already working on converting true Doom 1 maps for PSX Doom.

He can probably get most of the way there. Geometry probably won't be a problem, for example, since the original Doom episode would have, logically speaking, the simplest map geometry as it's the oldest game. The problem would be that he'd need to have texture and decoration importing, and that in turn would require readding some Thing types to the game. Otherwise, he's essentially getting partway there - might be able to get the geometry, but not a 1:1 port but "sweetened."

 

What I was talking about for my part was doing that, but on the N64 engine, basically.

• Geometry would obviously be done to the PC's specs if possible. The N64 should be able to handle even tougher geometry than the PSX, but of course, the only way to be sure of that would be to port the maps into the engine and see if they run or bomb like in the PSX version. For that, I need a PC->N64 map converter.
• We'd need a way to take the PSX version's LIGHTS lump and, if possible, convert it into a compatible version for the N64. Of course, this may need some tweaking/altering - I don't know if the sectors are exactly the same or whatever between PSX/PC - but the idea here is just that the mapper doesn't have to spend time manually re-converting the lump for basic colors. Of course, given the N64's extended lighting implementation, this is more of a starting point than the end point, especially since the LIGHTS palette is very limited on PSX Doom, compared to Doom 64 where you're talking full a full 24-bit color space. For this (and also for porting the levels we did for the Master Edition), I'd need a PSX->N64 map converter.
• Would need to answer if we'd be re-importing the PC version's textures in some way, or if we'd be giving the maps a Doom 64-style aesthetic look and feel. The purist in me says to convert the original game's assets, but the "Doom in Doom 64" side of me says we really should be using D64 assets wherever and whenever possible. Admittedly, this is the area where I'd be most likely to flip a coin. Importing would mean, of course, we'd need to try to ensure that these textures look as good as possible in 64x64 form, because of the linedef flags that would be able to be activated that could turn them into 128 high/wide/both versions. If we're importing new assets, I'd (obviously) need some sort of asset importer, meaning at this point we'd need something like a SLADE 64.
• Would need to figure out what the vibe is in terms of "sweetening" the levels. If they're straight ports then it won't really feel like anything too new, but if they're too sweetened people might think the original levels were fucked with too much. I could probably only figure this out via beta releases and obtaining feedback.
• Need to know how they'd answer the question of missing content. If we make this strictly off what's already included in the Doom 64 ROM, then obviously we're losing Arch-Viles, Revenants, Chaingunners (sure to please everyone but mappers), the Spider Mastermind, Wolf SS, Keens, and Baphomet/Icon of Sin, and levels would need to be reworked accordingly. I don't know if they'd be able to include them without the Expansion Pak to double the N64's memory or not. It also bears in question as to how "purist" you'd want the experience to Doom 64, since obviously including those means you're playing some maps significantly differently. Obviously if they want to add those, that means we need a whole toolchain to build against this upgraded ROM of theirs, because no existing Doom 64 ROM will suffice for this, ever.
• Would need to figure out how to handle the multiple mapsets. Ultimate Doom is 36 levels, Doom II is 32, both Final Dooms are 32 each, 21 Master Levels, there's a few other maps by Romero and the like, and presumably whatever episode we wind up making exclusively for the PSX version if that idea winds up getting added. At a minimum that's 155 maps, not counting our exclusive. Erick would need to look into how many maps Doom 64 could handle without crashing, and if need be, somehow "split up" what game EXE/map list/whatever is loaded by the game. Not to mention hack the password system, because we will probably need to modify it depending on how maps get handled.
• Lastly (and naturally) it'd only be fair if we did this that there be a set of N64-exclusive maps by the same mad lads who worked on the Master Edition, if they wanted to.

So it's a pretty exhaustive project if it's to meet all its goals. Again, one I wouldn't mind tackling at all, but I definitely need a few things before I can begin poking and prodding and seeing what can be done.

[A Nobody]

On 9/1/2019 at 5:38 AM, Devalaous said:

looking at the PSX Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 maps and how little geometry actually got cut, the jaguar cuts really become noticable. Someday they should definitely be 'un-jagged' and rebuilt with the real PSX engine's limits. Containment Area for example is just sad.

Weren't Doom 2's levels made with the PS1 in mind since Doom 2 wasn't released on the Jaguar?

Edited September 6, 2019 by The Strife Commando