I use gzdoom, will I need any other source port?

[LargeQT]

Like will I be able to play pretty much any wad, or should I download another?

[CoolerDoomeR]

Also you need the Offcial IWADS(Doom 1 or Doom 2) Or Unoffcial IWADS(Freedoom 1 or 2) to play with other mods and wads.

[Shibainumaster]

Just dwonload the original IWADS and basically any PWAD yoo want.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Well it doesn't support Eternity format levels, so you may want to get Eternity for sets like Heartland. And it's MBF21 implementation is a bit limited, so if you want to play some MBF21 stuff, use Woof. If you don't care about compatability or demos, GZDoom should cover your needs. I personally use PrBoom+/UMAPINFO but it doesn't really matter what port you use. Just have fun with it.

[CittyKat112]

Most of the wads are compatible with GZDoom, but GZDoom has a hard time loading slaughtermaps with a very high enemy count, so you might consider switching over to Boom-compatible ports if you want to try them out.

[CoolerDoomeR]

Just one thing to be aware of, loading multiple mods at the same time may cause compatibilty issues.

[Gibbon]

I'd say the 'Big Three' would cover your bases

GZDoom, Eternity, PRBoom+UM.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

I'd download Woof! or Nugget Doom too, to play mbf21 mapsets or slaughter maps if GZDoom gives you trouble 

[LargeQT]

Thanks for all the replies! I’ll download those ports when I get home. I already have doom and doom 2 (and final doom, which probably wasn’t necessary) so I should be good when it comes to that

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

21 minutes ago, LargeQT said:

(and final doom, which probably wasn’t necessary)

It is for wads that use them as base, for example, Plutonia 2 and TNT Revilution and for whenever you want to play their campaings ;-)

[ENEMY!!!]

I've generally found that almost everything works in GZDoom but there's a scattering of maps that are specific to Eternity Engine (e.g. due to Eternity's portals, such as Heartland) and K8Vavoom (due to its lighting system and 3D polyobjects).

[OpenRift]

You can play more or less everything in it, it's just that GZDoom doesn't do things that aren't ZDoom/GZDoom mods very well. I'd say probably download DSDA Doom as well just to try out for Boom/MBF stuff and Crispy Doom for Vanilla/Limit-removing stuff. It's a much cleaner experience for those kinds of mods.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

1 hour ago, LargeQT said:

Thanks for all the replies! I’ll download those ports when I get home. I already have doom and doom 2 (and final doom, which probably wasn’t necessary) so I should be good when it comes to that

 

44 minutes ago, Lol 6 said:

It is for wads that use them as base, for example, Plutonia 2 and TNT Revilution and for whenever you want to play their campaings ;-)

Some lesser known ones as well, like the Heroes Tales speedmap wad. Really fun and worth playing. Final Doom is awesome anyway, probably my two favorite Doom games. 

[Gez]

1 hour ago, LargeQT said:

Like will I be able to play pretty much any wad, or should I download another?

GZDoom can handle easily 99% of mods out there. There are a few exceptions.

1. Some wads are made specifically for a port that's not fully compatible with GZDoom, like Eternity or k8vavoom. In such a case, it'll be said in the text file that accompanies the wad.
2. Some wads (mostly intense slaughtermaps) can have pretty bad performances in GZDoom due to just how many monsters are active at once. For those, you'll need something like PrBoom+ or DSDA-Doom to get better framerates.
3. Some rare wads exploit some of the quirkiness of the original Doom codebase to create effects that were never intended by the original programmers. These will generally not really work in GZDoom. Again, something like PrBoom+ or DSDA-Doom would be preferred in such a case.

[BerserkerNoir]

If youre not a purist of the classic look and feeling of the movement then no.
you might only need other ports for the following reasons:
Specific Compatibility in mapping format
Demo Recording
Performance
Since Boom Maps and other formats lag in GZDOOM

[Azuris]

2 hours ago, LargeQT said:

Like will I be able to play pretty much any wad, or should I download another?

 

I use Eternity, Choclate Doom and GZDoom.
GZDoom mostly for advanced Stuff, on the Laptop mostly Eternity (isn't as hardware hungry) and on my main PC mostly Choclate.

[eharper256]

You can also refer to this thread on Why Eternity is not popular for lots of general discussion around why GZDoom is generally most used.

 

[sudolinux]

nah no needs, just get the IWAD( buy Doom or Doom 2 or Plutonia or TNT, but you should take Doom 2 first) then launch the WAD on gzdoom and nox you can play DOOM.

[Mr Nobody]

Its a good habit to have few source ports at hand. Many of us does this way, mostly dependent of the kind of wads you're trying to run and so on.

 

1. Many Doom mods are GZDoom specific only. For that case, keep GZDoom source port at hand. Also LZDoom. However gigantic Slaughtermaps struggle with GZDoom.
2. For Slaughtermaps with thousands of monsters or with epic gigantic detailed maps I recommend DSDA-Doom / Pr-Boom+ / GlBoom / ZZDoom / RZDoom
3. I personally use Zandronum as well, it's a multiplayer source port but it runs most majority of mods as well and have some Zdoom fancy stuff, however it's outdated compared with GZDoom, some of the most modern wads with the latest fancy features may not work, anyway the good side of this is that Zandronum is less demanding, if you have a low spec PC Zandronum may be the life saver here.

[kalensar]

Can confirm. I Love GZDoom but it cannot handle massive slaughter maps like NUTS or Sunlust properly.. Need PRBoom or Crispy for such wads to run smoothly.

[LargeQT]

3 hours ago, Lol 6 said:

It is for wads that use them as base, for example, Plutonia 2 and TNT Revilution and for whenever you want to play their campaings ;-)

oh okay, thanks!

[PsychEyeball]

2 hours ago, kalensar said:

Can confirm. I Love GZDoom but it cannot handle massive slaughter maps like NUTS or Sunlust properly.. Need PRBoom or Crispy for such wads to run smoothly.

With a strong enough PC, GZDoom is capable of handling those maps very well. I have a Ryzen 7 and for the first time ever I managed to run nuts.wad without any noticeable frame loss. And that made me feel old.

 

But on older machines, the more complex maps get, the more GZDoom will struggle to render them so be wary of that when downloading big complex map sets. If you experience slowdown, it might be time to move over to PRBoom+ or DSDA-Doom for more optimal performance. 

 

While GZDoom will do a very good job recreating the behavior of the Doom engine, there will be some minor differences here and there between the vanilla Doom engine and GZDoom's emulation of it, even when you properly setup the compatibility settings. For the info, when playing vanilla or limit-removing WADs, set it to Doom (strict) for the best possible settings which are the closest to Doom's original behavior (or don't if you don't want these pesky infinitely tall monsters). Likewise, use Boom (strict) for Boom WADs or MBF (strict) for the MBF mapsets.

 

You don't necessarily need to do all this to play Doom on GZDoom at all and its beauty lies in its capacity to make Doom play how you want it to be played. But if you start jumping around to other source ports, it's important to know what the basic Doom experience is also about since it'll likely be what you'll get on other source ports, albeit with some quality of life changes. 

[Dark Pulse]

5 hours ago, CittyKat112 said:

Most of the wads are compatible with GZDoom, but GZDoom has a hard time loading slaughtermaps with a very high enemy count, so you might consider switching over to Boom-compatible ports if you want to try them out.

It should be noted this depends on your PC. I can actually run nuts.wad at playable framerates on my new system, for example.

 

I think the lowest it dips down to is about 25.

 

I should probably test it with some more insane mapsets though, like Chillax for example.

[CittyKat112]

Just now, Dark Pulse said:

It should be noted this depends on your PC. I can actually run nuts.wad at playable framerates on my new system, for example.

 

I think the lowest it dips down to is about 25.

 

I should probably test it with some more insane mapsets though, like Chillax for example.

Or Okuplok :D

[Senor Cacodemon]

6 hours ago, LargeQT said:

Like will I be able to play pretty much any wad, or should I download another?

GZDoom is a very advanced source port and should be able to play like every doom wad, from 1993 to 2022

[Edward850]

22 minutes ago, Senor Cacodemon said:

GZDoom is a very advanced source port and should be able to play like every doom wad, from 1993 to 2022

Good luck playing Heartland.

[Mayomancer]

If you want demo playback or compatibility with some other stuff you might want other ports. Having something like GZDoom, any modern PrBoom+ or MBF fork (DSDA-Doom, Woof!), Eternity, and Crispy/Chocolate Doom should cover all your bases.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Mayomancer

[pantheon]

Only GZDoom can play GZDoom WADs, but for other uses I strongly recommend checking out Eternity if you want more advanced features while still keeping all of the classic feel. I really like the renderer as it solves some annoying graphical glitches in PrBoom/DSDA (red line on the SSG sprite when firing at 1080p, other presumably scaling-related issues that just won't be a high priority to fix) and the mouse input in recent versions is very precise and smooth, on par with DSDA in my opinion. I made a post with the settings I think match complevel 9 the best and there's a -vanilla launch option for demo compatible complevel 2-4 gameplay. You could also use a launcher like DoomLauncher to make managing multiple source ports a lot easier. 

[CoolerDoomeR]

6 hours ago, pantheon said:

Only GZDoom can play GZDoom WADs, but for other uses I strongly recommend checking out Eternity if you want more advanced features while still keeping all of the classic feel. I really like the renderer as it solves some annoying graphical glitches in PrBoom/DSDA (red line on the SSG sprite when firing at 1080p, other presumably scaling-related issues that just won't be a high priority to fix) and the mouse input in recent versions is very precise and smooth, on par with DSDA in my opinion. I made a post with the settings I think match complevel 9 the best and there's a -vanilla launch option for demo compatible complevel 2-4 gameplay. You could also use a launcher like DoomLauncher to make managing multiple source ports a lot easier. 

GZDoom can run any wads(Boom-compatible,Vanilla-Compatible, GZDoom-Compatible and others).

[Redneckerz]

33 minutes ago, CoolerDoomeR said:

GZDoom can run any wads(Boom-compatible,Vanilla-Compatible, GZDoom-Compatible and others).

GZDoom may run them but not great. See also:

14 hours ago, Gez said:

GZDoom can handle easily 99% of mods out there. There are a few exceptions.

1. Some wads are made specifically for a port that's not fully compatible with GZDoom, like Eternity or k8vavoom. In such a case, it'll be said in the text file that accompanies the wad.
2. Some wads (mostly intense slaughtermaps) can have pretty bad performances in GZDoom due to just how many monsters are active at once. For those, you'll need something like PrBoom+ or DSDA-Doom to get better framerates.
3. Some rare wads exploit some of the quirkiness of the original Doom codebase to create effects that were never intended by the original programmers. These will generally not really work in GZDoom. Again, something like PrBoom+ or DSDA-Doom would be preferred in such a case.