VULD never seems to work for me (DOS Doom)

[Arsinikk]

So I've had this problem, ever since I heard of the VULD DOS launcher, I been wanting to use it.

The problem is that it has never worked for me, I've always run into a stuck "adding VULDMOD.WAD" message.

 

In the past when I've played DehackEd WADs, I've had absolutely no problem just running DEHACKED.EXE to create a DOOMHACK.EXE and run the WAD I've liked through that and it's always worked. So when I heard about a way to easily switch between WADs in Vanilla, I was super excited about it. However like I said, the WADs never seem to load.

 

The only way I've ever got a DehackEd WAD to load correctly is by generating an exe using DEHPICK.EXE.

 

I'm just wondering if I'm missing something. There doesn't seem to be much info online about VULD.

 

One thing I did seem to notice about how VULD.EXE merges WADs is that the final VULDMOD.WAD seems to always have sprites and flats at the end of the WAD, which if you don't know about how stingy Vanilla Doom is; it literally only likes to load sprites and flats at the top of the WAD, else Vanila Doom crashes / hangs up. In addition Vanilla Doom absolutely hates S_START and F_START markers that VULD.EXE (DEUSF.EXE ?) seems to put into the merged WAD file.

 

One of the WADs I've been testing recently is my recent 200 Line Massacre megawad that I know is fully Vanilla compatible. I even know that the WAD should support merging since I've tested it in Chocolate Doom (-merge) and Crispy Doom (always merges while loading wads). I've even tested it directly with DOOMHACK.EXE when I manually make a new EXE via DEHACKED.EXE and it works fine. It's just with VULD and the merging process that seems to make it not work.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Arsinikk

[Redneckerz]

7 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

So I've had this problem, ever since I heard of the VULD DOS launcher, I been wanting to use it.

The problem is that it has never worked for me, I've always run into a stuck "adding VULDMOD.WAD" message.

Since i playtested this little tool by @JadingTsunami to death (And tagging them for a purpose, because there may well be bugs!) i can definitely tell you that it is pretty amazing, but it is a bit specific on folder structure.

 

You mentioned not finding much info about it, but per usual, there is a Wiki article for it. Have you seen this? Because it also serves as a guide on how to get VULD working correctly.

7 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

One thing I did seem to notice about how VULD.EXE merges WADs is that the final VULDMOD.WAD seems to always have sprites and flats at the end of the WAD, which if you don't know about how stingy Vanilla Doom is; it literally only likes to load sprites and flats at the top of the WAD, else Vanila Doom crashes / hangs up. In addition Vanilla Doom absolutely hates S_START and F_START markers that VULD.EXE (DEUSF.EXE ?) seems to put into the merged WAD file.

Seeing the filename, it seems to me you are using the VRUN command. Have you tried VCREATE?

 

Considering your issue, this seems like a DEUSF problem where it places them at the top of the WAD. I am not sure if this is actually VULD at play or if it is something that can be defined somewhere. Maybe it is an edge case? I dunno.

 

[JadingTsunami]

The issue appears to be in DeuSF, which is producing a corrupted WAD when processing 200lnm.

 

There's nothing wrong with the sprites/flats placement in the final WAD. But the entries (edit: in particular, the flats) themselves are corrupted.

 

My guess is either some entry in 200lnm is corrupt or malformed, or there's a DeuSF bug exposed by this WAD in particular.

Edited November 28, 2022 by JadingTsunami

[Arsinikk]

4 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Considering your issue, this seems like a DEUSF problem where it places them at the top of the WAD. I am not sure if this is actually VULD at play or if it is something that can be defined somewhere. Maybe it is an edge case? I dunno.

 

1 hour ago, JadingTsunami said:

there's a DeuSF bug exposed by this WAD in particular

 

I've found the exact problem, although I have no idea how to fix it.

I'd like to thank you for directing me to the flats, because there's where the problem lies.

 

It seems that for some reason Vanilla Doom doesn't like SWATER1-SWATER4 in the wad. Or specifically when it's placed with the other flats after F_START. It completely works fine when it's at the top of the wad.

 

Idk why it would cause Vanilla to hang, but it does. It inputs the flats correctly in the merged wad.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Arsinikk

[OpenRift]

I could never really figure out VULD for myself, I recommend giving idManager a try instead, it's a much simpler interface for not only DOS DeHackEd but for DeuSF WAD merging/appending as well.