Which source port is closest to Unity?

[orffen]

So for some reason id only have Windows builds of the Unity port (aside from App Store versions), and I was wondering which other source port is “closest” to the Unity port. 
 

It’s a broad question on purpose - by “feel” or features or any other metric, what do you feel is the source port that is closest to Unity? Also, please note if you’d recommend any additional WADs like WideFix etc. to bring it even closer. 

[Edward850]

Crispy Doom is about the closest, both have similar goals in mind (vanilla with higher resolution and interpolation).

[Herr Dethnout]

In general terms, I would say Crispy, PrBoom, and ports based on.

 

In controller support, the closest one is Eternity. Doom Retro also has one but is not good as Eternity and Unity Port.

[Devalaous]

Crispy for sure.

[DRON12261]

6 hours ago, orffen said:

So for some reason id only have Windows builds of the Unity port (aside from App Store versions), and I was wondering which other source port is “closest” to the Unity port. 
 

It’s a broad question on purpose - by “feel” or features or any other metric, what do you feel is the source port that is closest to Unity? Also, please note if you’d recommend any additional WADs like WideFix etc. to bring it even closer. 

In my opinion today, the most stable, close to the Doom itself and yet bringing a huge number of optional extra handy features is Woof! (or Nugget Doom, as its successful fork). 
 

Also I can mention Doom Retro, but there the feeling of the game though slightly, but still different from the original. BUT, on the other hand, you can write VANILLA in the console there and you get Chocolate Doom, which can in Limit-Removing, Boom and MBF21.

[orffen]

14 hours ago, Herr Dethnout said:

In general terms, I would say Crispy, PrBoom, and ports based on.

 

In controller support, the closest one is Eternity. Doom Retro also has one but is not good as Eternity and Unity Port.

Thanks - considering controller support is definitely useful. Crispy etc. don’t have controller support?

 

Edit: another thing to think about would be runtime IWAD switching and PWAD loading, but I think this is unique to the Unity ports. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by orffen

[Herr Dethnout]

4 minutes ago, orffen said:

Thanks - considering controller support is definitely useful. Crispy etc. don’t have controller support?

 

Edit: another thing to think about would be runtime IWAD switching and PWAD loading, but I think this is unique to the Unity ports. 

Tbh idk, I don't use Crispy, but iirc PrBoom+ doesn't have (but don't trust me in that, never tried to use a controller on it lol).

 

About the Wad loading of the fly, yes that something unique of the Unity Port, never see other Port handle pwad loading like Unity's one.

[Edward850]

12 minutes ago, orffen said:

another thing to think about would be runtime IWAD switching and PWAD loading, but I think this is unique to the Unity ports. 

Only specific ports handle this. Odamex and Eternity can both do this (which is why Eternity has built in support for Master Levels), though Odamex only presents it to server management.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Edward850

[Ralphis]

8 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Only specific ports handle this. Odamex and Eternity can both do this (which is why Eternity has built in support for Master Levels), though Odamex only presents it to server management.

 

You can change wads on-the-fly in the Odamex client, via the wad command in console. I think there are also a couple hard coded features that make use of it, like if you load BFG edition, you can choose No Rest for the Living as an episode and it will load it on the fly too

[orffen]

Taking another look at Classic Doom Unity, I think the following features stand out for me:

1. In-game PWAD selection with automatic IWAD loading (e.g. if started with DOOM.WAD IWAD, still allows enabling TNT.WAD and will automatically load additional resources as required)
2. 640x400 resolution, scaled to full screen size, including WidePix and Widescreen Statusbars
3. Framerate greater than 35 FPS with interpolation
4. Limits removed
5. Demo compatibility
6. Full controller support
7. In-game control rebinding menu
8. Crosshair, changing to red when aiming at an enemy
9. Map shows Kills/Items/Secrets counters on separate lines, and level name and timer
10. Secrets messages - displayed as normal pickup messages in Unity

Items 2-9 are usually either standard or customisable in most ports.

 

Item 1 is the "killer feature" for this port - as far as I can find, no other port supports this (although Doomsday is probably closest, but only in this aspect). Odamex and Eternity Engine have some similar features, although as far as I can find neither does it as simply as Unity (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point).

 

I've been looking at various ports to find what is the "closest", and with a couple of config changes I think International Doom comes closest (minus #1 above). Woof! can be customised to come close as well (can't quite do #9 and #10 - but not far off), using a WOOFHUD lump in the autoload folder:

hud 0
title bottomleft
monsec topleft
sttime bottomright

I'd love to see #1 implemented in GZDoom - it already has a mouse-driven menu and having an "Add-ons" menu item that can do dynamic loading of PWADs, lumps etc. would be amazing for newcomers to Classic Doom source ports. But I'd also love to see a portable version of this that could be adopted by a wider range of ports like Crispy, Woof! and Inter-Doom.

[Julia Nechaevskaya]

Sigh. Please, forget about current version of Inter-Doom, it's just awful. After spending few months of working on conservative CRL and taking a fresh look at Inter-Doom, I found myself absolutely unhappy to see in what kind pile of junk it is grown. Almost seven years ago it was started as translation-only, then English language was added back, then I've started to learn code deeply and broke demo compatibility by applying some "fixes", then demo compatibility was restored, until finally, KDiKDiZD revealed all remaining weak points. It's all like a bad smelling trace, which I would like to finally get rid of and burn to oblivion.

 

I will release a new major (7.0) version in few days. It is reassembled almost from scratch and free from resource dependency/translation/uncanonical bullshit, have a better video/audio code, and even optional true-color render that @fabian wrote for Crispy Doom, plus some better compatibility with Chcoco/Crispy-specific stuff.

[s4f3s3x]

Unity does not really have an in-game PWAD selection system because AFAIK all custom levels are still made as IWADs in that port. I think this makes things much easier, as an ideal port with such a feature (like Ironwail or VkQuake for Quake 1) should load various .wad or .deh or other files on top of each other, in correct order etc..

Edited July 5, 2023 by s4f3s3x

[orffen]

38 minutes ago, Julia Nechaevskaya said:

 

I will release a new major (7.0) version in few days. It is reassembled almost from scratch and free from resource dependency/translation/uncanonical bullshit, have a better video/audio code, and even optional true-color render that @fabian wrote for Crispy Doom, plus some better compatibility with Chcoco/Crispy-specific stuff.

Ooh, that’s exciting!

[Midway64]

1 hour ago, s4f3s3x said:

Unity does not really have an in-game PWAD selection system because AFAIK all custom levels are still made as IWADs in that port.\

 

Ehh, you can actually load PWADs on the port due to the addon menu supporting custom WADs (on PC and mobile!)

 

You're right on the IWAD part though, all downloadable content is an extensionless IWAD file named after numbers.

[s4f3s3x]

1 hour ago, ValveMercenary said:

 

Ehh, you can actually load PWADs on the port due to the addon menu supporting custom WADs (on PC and mobile!)

 

You're right on the IWAD part though, all downloadable content is an extensionless IWAD file named after numbers.

 

Really? I have the port on my Android phone but I've never see the option, how does it work? (DM if you like)

[Midway64]

28 minutes ago, s4f3s3x said:

 

Really? I have the port on my Android phone but I've never see the option, how does it work? (DM if you like)

 

I'm gonna leave it here in case anyone needs it.

 

If I recall correctly, on Android there's a folder on the root of the drive called "data" which contains saved data from all apps, including the Unity ports of Doom.

I don't know the exact names of the folders, but they should start with "bethesda." or "idsoftware."

These should contain a folder which keeps all the downloaded addon WADs in separate folders. Just put your WADs on the root of that folder (do not put them in the separate addon folders) and you should be good to go.

 

That's all I can help with, if there's something wrong, try asking someone else.

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by ValveMercenary

[Herr Dethnout]

6 hours ago, Julia Nechaevskaya said:

Sigh. Please, forget about current version of Inter-Doom, it's just awful. After spending few months of working on conservative CRL and taking a fresh look at Inter-Doom, I found myself absolutely unhappy to see in what kind pile of junk it is grown. Almost seven years ago it was started as translation-only, then English language was added back, then I've started to learn code deeply and broke demo compatibility by applying some "fixes", then demo compatibility was restored, until finally, KDiKDiZD revealed all remaining weak points. It's all like a bad smelling trace, which I would like to finally get rid of and burn to oblivion.

 

I will release a new major (7.0) version in few days. It is reassembled almost from scratch and free from resource dependency/translation/uncanonical bullshit, have a better video/audio code, and even optional true-color render that @fabian wrote for Crispy Doom, plus some better compatibility with Chcoco/Crispy-specific stuff.

This also affects Inter-Heretic/HeXen, or just Inter-Doom?

Just curious as I only use the inter ports for Heretic and Hexen :P

[Julia Nechaevskaya]

Nope, I decided to leave Hr&Hx development entirely to keep focus only on Doom source ports. Good games, but I literally ran out of motivation and will to keep working on them.

[Gez]

8 hours ago, orffen said:

1. In-game PWAD selection with automatic IWAD loading (e.g. if started with DOOM.WAD IWAD, still allows enabling TNT.WAD and will automatically load additional resources as required)

Item 1 is the "killer feature" for this port - as far as I can find, no other port supports this (although Doomsday is probably closest, but only in this aspect). Odamex and Eternity Engine have some similar features, although as far as I can find neither does it as simply as Unity (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point).

At the same time, it doesn't seem all that useful to me, at least for community ports.

 

This killer feature is born out of Doomnity's console-based limitations. No way to launch arbitrary file -- you're restricted to a curated selection. Add-ons are IWADified for convenience (otherwise, add-ons would have to be restricted by IWAD, as they were originally), but community-made files are not; and distributing such IWADified files would not be accepted. In a way, it's eerily reminiscent of the old days when you had to use DEUTEX or NWT to merge the mod into the IWAD to play it; though reversed as instead you merge the IWAD into the mod.

 

Further, it also introduces a new limitation that Doom never had before: the inability to load more than one PWAD at once. Suppose you want to load the Sprite Fix project with one of the add-ons -- you can't!

 

While swapping in-game between different mods is very nifty and sleek, I'm not sure it actually adds a lot more convenience than quitting and restarting, especially when you have a launcher set up.

9 hours ago, orffen said:

I'd love to see #1 implemented in GZDoom - it already has a mouse-driven menu and having an "Add-ons" menu item that can do dynamic loading of PWADs, lumps etc. would be amazing for newcomers to Classic Doom source ports.

GZDoom already has a "restart" console commands that should be able to do most of the under-the-hood work to make this happen. What's needed is to generate a list of available files and expose it in a menu GUI, and then handle when things go wrong because people load a Doom II wad while they're playing Heretic or vice-versa. (A problem that Doomnity can ignore by turning all add-ons into IWADs.)

[orffen]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

This killer feature is born out of Doomnity's console-based limitations. No way to launch arbitrary file -- you're restricted to a curated selection. Add-ons are IWADified for convenience (otherwise, add-ons would have to be restricted by IWAD, as they were originally), but community-made files are not; and distributing such IWADified files would not be accepted. In a way, it's eerily reminiscent of the old days when you had to use DEUTEX or NWT to merge the mod into the IWAD to play it; though reversed as instead you merge the IWAD into the mod.

 

That's true - but community ports wouldn't be restricted to a curated list and wouldn't use IWADs.

 

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Further, it also introduces a new limitation that Doom never had before: the inability to load more than one PWAD at once. Suppose you want to load the Sprite Fix project with one of the add-ons -- you can't!

 

I think combined with autoload folders, or configurable load lists, this would be doable. No real reason to prevent a user selecting multiple PWADs and ordering them (much like launchers do already).

 

1 hour ago, Gez said:

While swapping in-game between different mods is very nifty and sleek, I'm not sure it actually adds a lot more convenience than quitting and restarting, especially when you have a launcher set up.

 

It depends on the use case. On a PC, where you can setup shortcuts, batch files, use CLI etc. and use a launcher, no it doesn't really add convenience. But if you've setup a Raspberry Pi for example with controller-only input, being able to do this from within a port would be quite convenient.

 

Especially if it includes a feature for browsing and downloading from /idgames and parsing TXT files - they already contain the base IWAD information, BEX/DEH requirements, tested with (for displaying warnings etc.), and Map # for automatic -warp to the first included map. It wouldn't be perfect of course, but I don't think it needs to be. Where the file couldn't be parsed but a BEX/DEH was detected, display a warning and allow the BEX/DEH to be selectable like a PWAD.

 

I'm thinking of something like OpenTTD's in-game NewGRF loader. The TXT file can be displayed on the same screen next to the list, in case it contains any specific instructions.

[Herr Dethnout]

4 hours ago, Julia Nechaevskaya said:

Nope, I decided to leave Hr&Hx development entirely to keep focus only on Doom source ports. Good games, but I literally ran out of motivation and will to keep working on them.

Welp, is sad to hear that you decided to stop his development, but I understand.

Anyways, I hope the best for the new inter-doom. :P

[Devalaous]

16 hours ago, s4f3s3x said:

Unity does not really have an in-game PWAD selection system because AFAIK all custom levels are still made as IWADs in that port. I think this makes things much easier, as an ideal port with such a feature (like Ironwail or VkQuake for Quake 1) should load various .wad or .deh or other files on top of each other, in correct order etc..

 

It absolutely does allow switching between regular pwads on the fly, I ported a big chunk of the community's best megawads to the port without 'IWADing' them

[Metal_Slayer]

You are all fogetting about BFA, which is a source port of Doom 3 BFG Edition, the base for the Unity port.

[orffen]

10 hours ago, Metal_Slayer said:

You are all fogetting about BFA, which is a source port of Doom 3 BFG Edition, the base for the Unity port.

 

You're right, both BFG and Unity are based off the Xbox 360 Doom Classic port.

 

However unfortunately BFA also requires Doom 3 BFG data (not just Classic Doom WADs) - I was thinking primarily of ports that only need IWADs.