Which port are the most vanilla? (in terms of gameplay not cosmetics)

[Ezper]

If you are knowledgeable with source ports, can you help me make a decision of which source port to pick for vanilla runs? (i've seen a vid abt zdoom having gameplay differences i.e. cacodemon movement)

If you can, make a some sort of tier list with these source ports:
PRBoom+
GZDoom without mods
Doom Retro (hopefully this is) 
Zandronum

Edit: Yo there's a source port for Doom 64??

Edited February 9, 2022 by Ezper

[Edward850]

We have a compatibility list for source ports that rank vanilla capability. It's here on the wiki. Note that the list doesn't include the official Doom port by id, which is available on Steam, Bnet and every console, which is also a fully vanilla compatible port proven by its demo compatibility, though is typically considered its own category for speed runs because it has some slightly inaccurate input behaviour (it defaults to SR50 rather than SR40).

 

Doom64 has a port.

[Ezper]

nooooooooooooo

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

PRBoom+     

Yes, with complevel 2, 3 or 4 depending on the IWAD

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

GZDoom without mods

Nope, even with Doom (Strict)

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

 Doom Retro (hopefully this is) 

Not that much, it has a vanilla command, but still not vanilla

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

Zandronum

Nope, happens the same as GZDoom

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

Yo there's a source port for Doom 64??

Sort of

Edited February 9, 2022 by Lol 6
Error

[Ezper]

6 minutes ago, Lol 6 said:

Yes, with complevel 2, 3 or 4 depending on the IWAD

Nope, even with Doom (Strict)

Not that much, it has a vanilla command, but still not vanilla

Nope, happens the same with GZDoom

Sort of

then that means I haven't finished Doom 1 yet (I play on Doom Retro)

[PsychEyeball]

Out of all your choices, PRBoom+ is the most vanilla accurate. You could also consider DSDA-Doom, which is a fork of PRBoom+ but is still actively maintained and keeps a strong focus on demos and speedruns.

[Mr. Alexander]

If you want the most vanilla possible experience, then obviously you go with DOSBox, but the most vanilla source port is Chocolate Doom. PRBoom+ and DSDA-Doom are the big ones if you want some fancier features but also want to retain vanilla demo compatibility.

 

1 hour ago, Ezper said:

then that means I haven't finished Doom 1 yet (I play on Doom Retro)

 

What specifically draws you to the vanilla experience? If you beat Doom 2 on GZDoom, I don't think anyone but the biggest prigs in Doom would say you hadn't actually beaten it.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Posting Doomkid's video on the topic. Give it a watch ;-)

 

 

Spoiler

In the end, it doesn't matter if you play in Chocolate Doom, GZDoom, Doom Retro, The Unity Port, a toaster, your car, an ATM, your calcuator, an ancient nokia phone (No idea if it's possible) etc etc. It's still Doom.

 

[Ezper]

20 hours ago, Lol 6 said:

Posting Doomkid's video on the topic. Give it a watch ;-)

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

In the end, it doesn't matter if you play in Chocolate Doom, GZDoom, Doom Retro, The Unity Port, a toaster, your car, an ATM, your calcuator, an ancient nokia phone (No idea if it's possible) etc etc. It's still Doom.

 

Thanks, this video actually helped me finally be able to explain in words what I want from a source port. Vanilla gameplay and Vanilla campaign

[Ezper]

21 hours ago, Mr. Alexander said:

What specifically draws you to the vanilla experience? If you beat Doom 2 on GZDoom, I don't think anyone but the biggest prigs in Doom would say you hadn't actually beaten it.

Like I said when I quoted on Lol 6's reply, I want the Vanilla gameplay and Vanilla campaign of doom, and I reeaaaally hope Doom Retro has that

[dasho]

If you really want to play on Doom Retro, and from the content of your posts in this thread you do, just do it. Unless you are loading WADs that are not the mainline IWADs, you'll get the 'vanilla campaign' regardless.

[Ezper]

6 minutes ago, dasho said:

If you really want to play on Doom Retro, and from the content of your posts in this thread you do, just do it. Unless you are loading WADs that are not the mainline IWADs, you'll get the 'vanilla campaign' regardless.

How about the 'vanilla gameplay' of Doom Retro?

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Ezper

[dasho]

Not to be trite, but are you going to play through the entire campaign on a 100% vanilla compatible port just so you can be familiar enough with vanilla mechanics to know if Doom Retro deviates from it?

Edited February 10, 2022 by dasho

[Ezper]

I won't, that's why I'm here asking :P

[dasho]

Well, Doom Retro's wiki mentions a "Vanilla Mode", so I think you can more or less have your cake and eat it too.

[Ezper]

58 minutes ago, dasho said:

Well, Doom Retro's wiki mentions a "Vanilla Mode", so I think you can more or less have your cake and eat it too.

Nice, didn't notice vanilla mode

 

[DoomBoomer]

The answer is Chocolate Doom.

[Ezper]

6 minutes ago, DoomBoomer said:

The answer is Chocolate Doom.

Alright, I'll try, it sounds delicious 

[fabian]

2 hours ago, DoomBoomer said:

The answer is Chocolate Doom.

 

Add Crispy Doom, Woof! and Eternity if you want to go Vanilla but with higher resolution, uncapped framerate and widescreen rendering.

[Ezper]

6 minutes ago, fabian said:

 

Add Crispy Doom, Woof! and Eternity if you want to go Vanilla but with higher resolution, uncapped framerate and widescreen rendering.

Thanks for the suggestions

[Shepardus]

Doom Retro has a "vanilla" mode to make it look more like vanilla Doom, but I don't think it claims to behave exactly the same even in vanilla mode. That's simply not the goal of Doom Retro; the source port intentionally disables demo playback and recording in order to implement features that can't be done without affecting gameplay (and thus breaking demo sync).

 

If you're aiming for completely vanilla gameplay, you should use a source port that at least maintains demo compatibility, since for a demo to play back correctly the game needs to behave identically in response to the same user inputs. These include, but are not limited to, Chocolate Doom, Crispy Doom, PrBoom+, DSDA-Doom, Woof!, and Eternity Engine. Chocolate Doom is the closest you're going to get to vanilla Doom on a modern system, in terms of both gameplay and cosmetics - preserving that experience is the main reason for its existence. For a vanilla gameplay experience with as little fuss as possible, however, I'd recommend Crispy Doom, which is a fork of Chocolate Doom that adds quality of life and other enhancements without breaking demo compatibility.

 

PrBoom+ boasts a bunch of "compatibility levels" that reproduce the behavior of different versions of Doom and the Boom source port, which allows it to play back and record demos for these different versions. This is also a good choice for vanilla gameplay, but you need to set the appropriate complevel for the version of Doom you're playing (though to be honest the differences between complevels are pretty subtle, so you might not even notice if you forget to set the complevel). DSDA-Doom is a fork of PrBoom+, complevels and all, geared towards speedrunners and unsurprisingly is the most popular choice for speedrunners, though its features have also proven popular with others (I'm a fan of the "rewind" feature). This is what I personally use the most. Woof! is a fork of WinMBF that has the same compatibility as DSDA-Doom and is also one of the more popular choices lately. Eternity Engine is commonly seen as a more "advanced" source port with modding and mapping capabilities usually not seen in more conservative source ports, but it in fact retains vanilla compatibility when using the "-vanilla" command-line flag.

 

In the end, though, you should play however you want, and don't let anyone tell you that you "haven't beaten Doom" if you played on Doom Retro. Unless you're speedrunning - in that case, it's demo compatibility or bust.

[Ezper]

26 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Doom Retro has a "vanilla" mode to make it look more like vanilla Doom, but I don't think it claims to behave exactly the same even in vanilla mode. That's simply not the goal of Doom Retro; the source port intentionally disables demo playback and recording in order to implement features that can't be done without affecting gameplay (and thus breaking demo sync).

 

If you're aiming for completely vanilla gameplay, you should use a source port that at least maintains demo compatibility, since for a demo to play back correctly the game needs to behave identically in response to the same user inputs. These include, but are not limited to, Chocolate Doom, Crispy Doom, PrBoom+, DSDA-Doom, Woof!, and Eternity Engine. Chocolate Doom is the closest you're going to get to vanilla Doom on a modern system, in terms of both gameplay and cosmetics - preserving that experience is the main reason for its existence. For a vanilla gameplay experience with as little fuss as possible, however, I'd recommend Crispy Doom, which is a fork of Chocolate Doom that adds quality of life and other enhancements without breaking demo compatibility.

 

PrBoom+ boasts a bunch of "compatibility levels" that reproduce the behavior of different versions of Doom and the Boom source port, which allows it to play back and record demos for these different versions. This is also a good choice for vanilla gameplay, but you need to set the appropriate complevel for the version of Doom you're playing (though to be honest the differences between complevels are pretty subtle, so you might not even notice if you forget to set the complevel). DSDA-Doom is a fork of PrBoom+, complevels and all, geared towards speedrunners and unsurprisingly is the most popular choice for speedrunners, though its features have also proven popular with others (I'm a fan of the "rewind" feature). This is what I personally use the most. Woof! is a fork of WinMBF that has the same compatibility as DSDA-Doom and is also one of the more popular choices lately. Eternity Engine is commonly seen as a more "advanced" source port with modding and mapping capabilities usually not seen in more conservative source ports, but it in fact retains vanilla compatibility when using the "-vanilla" command-line flag.

 

In the end, though, you should play however you want, and don't let anyone tell you that you "haven't beaten Doom" if you played on Doom Retro. Unless you're speedrunning - in that case, it's demo compatibility or bust.

Woah that's a long response, I'll definitely try most of the source ports you've mentioned, I love me some good widescreen! Incase you're wondering, I reeaaally hoped that Doom Retro had vanilla gameplay and campaign because it had an extra level of polish, the menu feels and looks good, the pause screen is really nice, and the game itself looks good, and it has a little bit of cosmetic improvements too (blood, waves on liquid surfaces, etc.) I only hope that there's a source port that has those cosmetic polish as Doom Retro, but 100% vanilla gameplay and campaign (or even a fork!)

Edited February 10, 2022 by Ezper

[DoomBoomer]

11 hours ago, Ezper said:

Woah that's a long response, I'll definitely try most of the source ports you've mentioned, I love me some good widescreen! Incase you're wondering, I reeaaally hoped that Doom Retro had vanilla gameplay and campaign because it had an extra level of polish, the menu feels and looks good, the pause screen is really nice, and the game itself looks good, and it has a little bit of cosmetic improvements too (blood, waves on liquid surfaces, etc.) I only hope that there's a source port that has those cosmetic polish as Doom Retro, but 100% vanilla gameplay and campaign (or even a fork!)

Well, as far as I understand, the campaign is the same. The content is in the .wad file, and I understood that you want to play the vanilla game, without any mods or custom maps.

Edited February 10, 2022 by DoomBoomer

[Mr Masker]

On 2/9/2022 at 3:18 AM, Ezper said:

then that means I haven't finished Doom 1 yet (I play on Doom Retro)

I wouldn't go with that attitude to it, you can beat doom 1 on any source port whether that be gzdoom, retro, dsda, dosbox on a 1990 computer with your windows clock set to 10 December 1993... and no matter what, you have beaten doom 1. Beating doom 1 on either side of the source port coin will remain pretty much the same experience to an average folk unless you intentionally choose to make it otherwise through modding, and even then it's still playing doom.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Mr Masker

[dyshoria]

dosbox

[AxeL]

cndoom is another great choice in terms of "vanilla compatible"

[jeremieh]

On 2/8/2022 at 8:51 PM, Ezper said:

If you are knowledgeable with source ports, can you help me make a decision of which source port to pick for vanilla runs? (i've seen a vid abt zdoom having gameplay differences i.e. cacodemon movement)

If you can, make a some sort of tier list with these source ports:
PRBoom+
GZDoom without mods
Doom Retro (hopefully this is) 
Zandronum

Edit: Yo there's a source port for Doom 64??

prboom+ is most accurate in the list, doom retro isn't very accurate, and gz/zandronum are not accurate at all.

[Graf Zahl]

The only way to "accurately" play Doom like it was in the 90's would be to get a vintage computer and CRT monitor and play on that.

The software is just one side of the coin - today's hardware is so fundamentally different from back then that its effect on the resulting experience is surely higher than many players expect, up to the point where it far eclipses the comparatively minor deviations in gameplay logic of most ports (provided they are set to be as close to vanilla as possible, of course.)

And if we get this pedantic, 320x200 is an absolute must. That blurry low-resolution view did have a serious effect on gameplay difficulty - I still can remember how hard it was to make out the Cyberdemon's rockets on E2M8.

 

(Disclaimer: I have no intention to ever play Doom in this "accurate" form again because these days it'd feel rough as shit. :P)

 

 

[Valboom]

I recommend Crispy Doom.

[Terraformer9x]

If you're trying to get the best of both worlds in terms of keeping vanilla gameplay but also having some cosmetic stuff like colored blood and what not, your best bet is either Crispy-Doom or PrBoom+/dsda-doom. Crispy has cosmetic stuff built in and PrBoom+/dsda-doom requires a little bit of tinkering but also supports cosmetic changes as well while keeping gameplay vanilla.

 

Spoiler

If you want it to really fine-tune your experience and are crazy enough to go for it, you could always make a fork of a source port and make changes to the actual source code and compile it, although this is heavily not recommended.