Questions about how to get a roughly vanilla experience with heretic/hexen and community wads

[supbo]

I'm relatively new to doom so I'm not really sure how things work and I have a lot of smaller questions, but my main question is: How can I play a roughly vanilla heretic experience when the steam port is so bad? I played doom 1 and 2 on steam, and I've used gzdoom a bit (though never really played something through with it), but I can't really figure out how to customize the settings, or even what the default heretic experience looks like, so not only do I not know how to customize the settings to my liking for doom wads, I also don't even know what I'm aiming for with heretic. I'm under the impression some community wads make use of fancy features like jumping, looking up and down, or crouching, but I generally want to avoid those if what I'm playing wasn't specifically designed with those in mind. Other than that, I'm also not quite sure what other things there may be that are changed from the original. For example, on steam I had a small reticle that would turn red when I was aiming at an enemy within a certain range. I couldn't find a setting like that in gzdoom, though I'm not even sure if the steam version is faithful to the original or what is considered the standard.

So I guess I'm asking

1) What settings there are for me to mess around with in gzdoom, or if there are better options than gzdoom

2) How I can best customize those to emulate a fairly vanilla experience (and are there deviations from vanilla that I might want to turn on even if I think I want vanilla?)
3) What the vanilla experience is even like for heretic (I'm under the impression there's flying, but I don't even know for example if that implies free aiming)

 

A few disclaimers: This is my first post here, and I couldn't find rules for the site or anything, so please let me know if those exist or if I'm doing something wrong. Also I got into doom in 2021, and I'm still very inexperienced with anything outside of the versions of doom 1 and 2 that are on steam. Finally, while I'm mostly asking about how to tailor my experience with heretic and custom doom wads, my inexperience means I also don't really know what I'll be looking for in the future or how this may affect what I'm hoping to learn (ie if there are different kinds of doom wads or if I continue on to play hexen, I don't know how to factor those into my questions).

[kalensar]

Heretic had a couple of noteworthy advantages over doom: Inventory, Free-Look and flight. Yes Heretic had Free Look albeit in the janky software rendering aspect so you could look up and down. 

 

Other than understanding that part, just play the Heretic IWAD without using any mods and it will be as vanilla as it gets in GZDoom. You can also do the same in PrBoom+ as well. Most Doom source ports also support the other mainline IWADS such as Hexen and Strife.

Edited May 13 by kalensar

[supbo]

Oh, it will automatically change the settings to match heretic? It still had jumping and stuff enabled when I tried running the wads from the steam versions of doom through gzdoom, but yeah jumping does seem to be disabled when I open heretic with it. Why does it happen with the heretic wad and not the doom wad? Are they different types of wads even though they're both from the steam versions(you did mention iwads which from looking them up seems to mean wads that have more information like textures and sounds etc)?

[kalensar]

Iwads are the commercial release titles in most cases, but there are a few that are non-commercial like HACX and FreeDoom. Basically they are the base games.

 

Pwads are player made maps generally speaking used in a WAD file type. 

 

GZDoom has default settings on Doom usually set to free-look and jumping but those can be turned off under game settings. Hexen has Vanilla jumping and free-look unlike Heretic and Doom. 

Settings in GZDoom are indexed by whichever IWAD you are playing on and this affects game saves mainly so that you wont ever load a Heretic save onto a Doom game. The same logic also applies to custom control settings as well per IWAD.

[Shepardus]

Crispy Heretic and dsda-doom are good vanilla-faithful Heretic source ports. I think International Heretic is too, but I haven't tried it myself. Crispy and International are also good for Hexen; dsda-doom supports Hexen, but has some issues (mainly graphical) that I think make it not a good choice for a first-time player. I would recommend giving one of those ports a try, they would give you a much better idea of how the games originally were than GZDoom.

 

I personally used Crispy Heretic and Crispy Hexen for my first playthroughs of those games. Crispy is great for getting a vanilla experience with some optional enhancements; the options in the "crispness" menu are color-coded so that the "vanilla" setting is a consistent faded-out color, and most of the enhancements are turned off by default so you can turn on what you want. Crispy is based on Chocolate Doom, which is the closest source port there is to running the original games in DOS, and Crispy with all the Crispy-specific features turned off is pretty much the same as Chocolate. International is based on Crispy and Chocolate so I think it's a similar deal.

 

GZDoom will run Heretic and Hexen perfectly fine, but as you said there are a lot of settings and it's not easy for someone unfamiliar with the game to know what to tweak for a "roughly vanilla" experience. A couple notes on specific questions you had:

• Heretic has no jumping, Hexen has jumping. Neither game has crouching.
• Both games have flying, using the Wings of Wrath powerup. Unlike Doom, you can pass over/under monsters without getting stuck on them.
• Heretic and Hexen allow you to look up and down; with the original software renderer, you're limited in how far up/down you can look, and the perspective will get warped when you do so. Autoaim still applies, but your shots will follow where you're looking if the autoaim doesn't lock onto something.
• Neither Heretic nor Hexen have crosshairs; that's a source port addition.

[supbo]

29 minutes ago, kalensar said:

Iwads are the commercial release titles in most cases, but there are a few that are non-commercial like HACX and FreeDoom. Basically they are the base games.

 

Pwads are player made maps generally speaking used in a WAD file type. 

 

GZDoom has default settings on Doom usually set to free-look and jumping but those can be turned off under game settings. Hexen has Vanilla jumping and free-look unlike Heretic and Doom. 

Settings in GZDoom are indexed by whichever IWAD you are playing on and this affects game saves mainly so that you wont ever load a Heretic save onto a Doom game. The same logic also applies to custom control settings as well per IWAD.

 

So essentially gzdoom has presets for doom and heretic that it assumes you will want for those games, but you can change those presets however you want? It sounds like you're saying that disabling jumping/free aim/crouching brings the experience close enough to vanilla for doom, and for heretic it's already got those set correctly, is that right?

 

 

20 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Crispy Heretic and dsda-doom are good vanilla-faithful Heretic source ports. I think International Heretic is too, but I haven't tried it myself. Crispy and International are also good for Hexen; dsda-doom supports Hexen, but has some issues (mainly graphical) that I think make it not a good choice for a first-time player. I would recommend giving one of those ports a try, they would give you a much better idea of how the games originally were than GZDoom.

 

I personally used Crispy Heretic and Crispy Hexen for my first playthroughs of those games. Crispy is great for getting a vanilla experience with some optional enhancements; the options in the "crispness" menu are color-coded so that the "vanilla" setting is a consistent faded-out color, and most of the enhancements are turned off by default so you can turn on what you want. Crispy is based on Chocolate Doom, which is the closest source port there is to running the original games in DOS, and Crispy with all the Crispy-specific features turned off is pretty much the same as Chocolate. International is based on Crispy and Chocolate so I think it's a similar deal.

 

GZDoom will run Heretic and Hexen perfectly fine, but as you said there are a lot of settings and it's not easy for someone unfamiliar with the game to know what to tweak for a "roughly vanilla" experience. A couple notes on specific questions you had:

• Heretic has no jumping, Hexen has jumping. Neither game has crouching.
• Both games have flying, using the Wings of Wrath powerup. Unlike Doom, you can pass over/under monsters without getting stuck on them.
• Heretic and Hexen allow you to look up and down; with the original software renderer, you're limited in how far up/down you can look, and the perspective will get warped when you do so. Autoaim still applies, but your shots will follow where you're looking if the autoaim doesn't lock onto something.
• Neither Heretic nor Hexen have crosshairs; that's a source port addition.

 

Trying out crispy doom/heretic now. It seems to be using midi files for the soundtrack, is there a way to change that? And for heretic, it's not letting me use the mouse to aim up and down. I can still use the keyboard to aim up and down, and I will say I actually love the way it distorts, I'm not really sure why. I also do want to clarify, I'm not sure exactly how vanilla I want it to be, so I'm probably not worried too much about things that aren't so big compared to jumping and free aiming(though there is definitely some stuff, and I hope I will be able to better tell the difference between what I do and don't care about here soon). What sort of advantages does crispy have over gzdoom in this case?

[kalensar]

9 minutes ago, supbo said:

What sort of advantages does crispy have over gzdoom in this case?

 

Crispy Doom  port is a branch based on Chocolate Doom where Chocolate is a port that attempts the original IWAD feel and perforamce meaning that its as close to DOSBOX Doom without actually using DOS. Crispy is a limit removing Source Port in the same type of vein as PrBoom which allows for PWADS to be played easier than would be done of Chocolate or DOS.

 

Crispy's only advantage over GZDoom is that it renders the game accurately and using way less CPU much like Chocolate that is branched from. 

 

GZDoom is basically used for Mods more than anything else, and has a heavy focus on graphical enhancement than every other Source Port. Because of the graphics focus GZDoom is not very well suited running Slaughter Maps that have thousands of monsters.

 

IM just givng the most concise answer i can So that i dont get tempted on writing a book lol

[Meerschweinmann]

As said before Crispy Heretic/Hexen is a nice faithful Option.

 

But International Heretic/Hexen has become my favorite for playing those two games.

 

International Heretic/Hexen is like Crispy Heretic/Hexen plus higher resolutions and a truecolor software-renderer. Both as option in the menu.

 

When you do not change any options both ports are like vanilla except a 640x400 resolution as default.

But you can change to 320x200 If you want the pure vanilla boost.

 

But there are many mods out there that are only playable with GZDoom. So i am jumping between International and GZDoom depending on the WAD.

 

 

Edited May 13 by Meerschweinmann

[Shepardus]

3 minutes ago, supbo said:

Trying out crispy doom/heretic now. It seems to be using midi files for the soundtrack, is there a way to change that?

Doom and Heretic only have MIDI soundtracks, that's all that's in their WAD files. You can configure the MIDI synth used in the setup program. Crispy Doom does support playing back non-MIDI music formats such as OGG and MP3, but this would have to be a separate download. I know the Steam release of Doom uses recordings of the MIDIs, but I don't know if Crispy Doom can use these out of the box (i.e. without grabbing the files and packaging them in a WAD file on your own). There's a site that offers downloadable music packs that are supposedly compatible with Crispy Doom, and this is mentioned on the Chocolate Doom wiki too, but I have no experience with these.

 

Hexen too has a MIDI soundtrack, but also came with CD audio produced by recording the MIDIs. According to the wiki page I linked above, Chocolate Hexen doesn't support playing from the CD, and I assume the same is true of Crispy and International Hexen, but the wiki page has instructions on replicating it with a music pack.

 

5 minutes ago, supbo said:

And for heretic, it's not letting me use the mouse to aim up and down.

There should be a "permanent mouselook" option in the crispness menu. (This was not a feature in the original games.)

 

29 minutes ago, supbo said:

I also do want to clarify, I'm not sure exactly how vanilla I want it to be, so I'm probably not worried too much about things that aren't so big compared to jumping and free aiming(though there is definitely some stuff, and I hope I will be able to better tell the difference between what I do and don't care about here soon). What sort of advantages does crispy have over gzdoom in this case?

It's hard to say what you will or won't care about, which is why I recommended starting with one of the more vanilla-faithful ports, so you at least know where it all started from. For example, I personally love the way Hexen looks in 256-color software rendering, and I think I would have missed out on a lot of the game's atmosphere had I played the game in GZDoom's hardware renderer (GZDoom does have a software renderer, but that's beside the point).

 

One nice thing about Crispy (and the other ports I mentioned) is that it's compatible with the original demos (the gameplay that plays in the background of the main menu), which only comes from precisely replicating the behavior of the original engine, since demo files are just collections of inputs and changes to the engine behavior would cause the demos to desync. You can view that as assurance that Crispy mechanically behaves the same as vanilla, and as a bonus you also get to watch the demos play in the menu, which GZDoom doesn't support. (Note that Heretic's built-in demos desync anyway; this is the fault of the demos themselves, not the source port, as the demos were recorded for an earlier version of Heretic and Raven didn't rerecord them when they patched the game.)

 

That being said, unless you're a speedrunner I wouldn't be too concerned about GZDoom's lack of demo compatibility; it's more due to how much they've rewritten the game's internals, rather than changing game mechanics willy-nilly. Honestly, as long as you take care of the big stuff that's already been mentioned, like jumping, I'd be remiss to suggest that you're playing the game wrong if you're using GZDoom. I can't think of anything else that really changes how the game's played, on the level of how GZDoom's default settings for Doom eliminate "infinite height" actors and change what the partial invisibility powerup does (both of which are actually behaviors adopted from Heretic/Hexen, ironically enough). There's one compatibility flag about Minotaur flames and water, turn that on if you'd like (that's the vanilla behavior) but I don't think it matters too much for the base game.

[supbo]

1 hour ago, kalensar said:

 

Crispy Doom  port is a branch based on Chocolate Doom where Chocolate is a port that attempts the original IWAD feel and perforamce meaning that its as close to DOSBOX Doom without actually using DOS. Crispy is a limit removing Source Port in the same type of vein as PrBoom which allows for PWADS to be played easier than would be done of Chocolate or DOS.

 

Crispy's only advantage over GZDoom is that it renders the game accurately and using way less CPU much like Chocolate that is branched from. 

 

GZDoom is basically used for Mods more than anything else, and has a heavy focus on graphical enhancement than every other Source Port. Because of the graphics focus GZDoom is not very well suited running Slaughter Maps that have thousands of monsters.

 

IM just givng the most concise answer i can So that i dont get tempted on writing a book lol

 

Prboom actually seems to be easier to use than crispy, and plays sound like the steam version which is very nice, though it does crash if I try to run the heretic wad. But thank you, this explanation helps

 

12 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Doom and Heretic only have MIDI soundtracks, that's all that's in their WAD files. You can configure the MIDI synth used in the setup program. Crispy Doom does support playing back non-MIDI music formats such as OGG and MP3, but this would have to be a separate download. I know the Steam release of Doom uses recordings of the MIDIs, but I don't know if Crispy Doom can use these out of the box (i.e. without grabbing the files and packaging them in a WAD file on your own). There's a site that offers downloadable music packs that are supposedly compatible with Crispy Doom, and this is mentioned on the Chocolate Doom wiki too, but I have no experience with these.

 

Hexen too has a MIDI soundtrack, but also came with CD audio produced by recording the MIDIs. According to the wiki page I linked above, Chocolate Hexen doesn't support playing from the CD, and I assume the same is true of Crispy and International Hexen, but the wiki page has instructions on replicating it with a music pack.

 

There should be a "permanent mouselook" option in the crispness menu. (This was not a feature in the original games.)

 

It's hard to say what you will or won't care about, which is why I recommended starting with one of the more vanilla-faithful ports, so you at least know where it all started from. For example, I personally love the way Hexen looks in 256-color software rendering, and I think I would have missed out on a lot of the game's atmosphere had I played the game in GZDoom's hardware renderer (GZDoom does have a software renderer, but that's beside the point).

 

One nice thing about Crispy (and the other ports I mentioned) is that it's compatible with the original demos (the gameplay that plays in the background of the main menu), which only comes from precisely replicating the behavior of the original engine, since demo files are just collections of inputs and changes to the engine behavior would cause the demos to desync. You can view that as assurance that Crispy mechanically behaves the same as vanilla, and as a bonus you also get to watch the demos play in the menu, which GZDoom doesn't support. (Note that Heretic's built-in demos desync anyway; this is the fault of the demos themselves, not the source port, as the demos were recorded for an earlier version of Heretic and Raven didn't rerecord them when they patched the game.)

 

That being said, unless you're a speedrunner I wouldn't be too concerned about GZDoom's lack of demo compatibility; it's more due to how much they've rewritten the game's internals, rather than changing game mechanics willy-nilly. Honestly, as long as you take care of the big stuff that's already been mentioned, like jumping, I'd be remiss to suggest that you're playing the game wrong if you're using GZDoom. I can't think of anything else that really changes how the game's played, on the level of how GZDoom's default settings for Doom eliminate "infinite height" actors and change what the partial invisibility powerup does (both of which are actually behaviors adopted from Heretic/Hexen, ironically enough). There's one compatibility flag about Minotaur flames and water, turn that on if you'd like (that's the vanilla behavior) but I don't think it matters too much for the base game.

 

Oh they originally only had midi files for the music? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but does the midi music sound worse to me since I'm using linux which doesn't come with a default midi synth as far as I know? But it is very good to know that it supports ogg/mp3, I'll definitely look into this if I settle on using crispy.

 

I see the permanent mouselook for crispy doom but not heretic. Though does that mean you just couldn't aim up and down using the mouse originally? You could aim left and right with the mouse, and up and down with the keyboard?

 

I'll definitely keep this in mind, for most things I don't know if I care about I'll probably try to have them more vanilla at first, and maybe I'll end up changing my mind on future playthroughs.

 

Yeah demo compatibility seems like something I won't worry too much about, but it's very nice to know.

[Shepardus]

8 minutes ago, supbo said:

Prboom actually seems to be easier to use than crispy, and plays sound like the steam version which is very nice, though it does crash if I try to run the heretic wad. But thank you, this explanation helps

PrBoom and PrBoom+ do not support Heretic. They're also no longer maintained. dsda-doom is based on PrBoom+, and does support Heretic.

 

10 minutes ago, supbo said:

I see the permanent mouselook for crispy doom but not heretic. Though does that mean you just couldn't aim up and down using the mouse originally? You could aim left and right with the mouse, and up and down with the keyboard?

What version are you using? It was added to Heretic and Hexen in version 5.12, so that version or later should have it. It's on the second page of the Crispness menu, under "tactical" options. But yes, originally mouse wasn't used to look up/down, moving the mouse up/down would instead make the player walk forward/backward (Doom was like this too).

 

18 minutes ago, supbo said:

Oh they originally only had midi files for the music? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but does the midi music sound worse to me since I'm using linux which doesn't come with a default midi synth as far as I know? But it is very good to know that it supports ogg/mp3, I'll definitely look into this if I settle on using crispy.

I'm also using Linux, and you're right that it doesn't really have a "default" the way Windows does. Many source ports support Fluidsynth as a playback option, and if they do you can point it to a soundfont file and then it just comes down to what soundfont you use. I use one called Scc1t2.sf2 because it sounds pretty close to the Windows default, but there are others that sound similar too. The soundfont that comes with GZDoom will also work with other source ports if you don't feel like searching for soundfonts to download; look for a "soundfonts" folder in your GZDoom installation with a "gzdoom.sf2" file.

 

In Crispy Doom you can configure the MIDI player in the setup program; when you choose Fluidsynth, you can enter in the path to a soundfont file. In dsda-doom you have to open the config file (~/.dsda-doom/dsda-doom.cfg on Linux) and put the path to the soundfont in the "snd_soundfont" config. In GZDoom you can configure where it looks for soundfonts in the config file (~/.config/gzdoom/gzdoom.ini, or ~/.var/app/org.zdoom.GZDoom/.config/gzdoom/gzdoom.ini if you're using the Flatpak), and then in the game's sound options you can select Fluidsynth and tell it which soundfont to use out of the ones it finds.

[Gez]

5 hours ago, supbo said:

Other than that, I'm also not quite sure what other things there may be that are changed from the original. For example, on steam I had a small reticle that would turn red when I was aiming at an enemy within a certain range. I couldn't find a setting like that in gzdoom, though I'm not even sure if the steam version is faithful to the original or what is considered the standard.

Steam, like other online shops, now comes with the so-called Unity port as the default option. You can still play with the original in DOSBox if so you choose, though.

 

While "Doomnity" has a few changes, like this dynamic crosshair you've noticed, those are mostly cosmetic and QoL things; the port is generally considered quite faithful besides those, as it can record and play back demo files correctly; something that is only possible if the pure gameplay is not changed. (Pure gameplay is things like physics, monster behavior, etc. It does not include visuals and soundscape. That doesn't mean the player experience cannot be changed; a wallhack would not break demo compatibility, for example.)

 

4 hours ago, supbo said:

(you did mention iwads which from looking them up seems to mean wads that have more information like textures and sounds etc)? 

IWADs are the game data that came with the games themselves ("Internal WAD"); PWADs are game data created by modders that modify the game ("Patch WAD"). In Doom jargon, IWAD is basically synonymous with game; for example when GZDoom asks you to choose an IWAD, it asks you to choose a game.

[supbo]

On 5/13/2024 at 4:41 AM, Shepardus said:

PrBoom and PrBoom+ do not support Heretic. They're also no longer maintained. dsda-doom is based on PrBoom+, and does support Heretic.

I might look into dsda doom since prboom+ seems very nice, but it's not in the repositories for my linux distro so I might check out other options first, we'll see I guess.

 

On 5/13/2024 at 4:41 AM, Shepardus said:

What version are you using? It was added to Heretic and Hexen in version 5.12, so that version or later should have it. It's on the second page of the Crispness menu, under "tactical" options. But yes, originally mouse wasn't used to look up/down, moving the mouse up/down would instead make the player walk forward/backward (Doom was like this too).

Ah, that makes sense. I haven't been able to update my computer in a while, so I'm using kubuntu 22.04, and it looks like crispy 5.12 was released a few months later so aptitude is installing the prior version. I'll see if I can work around that. It's interesting that the mouse controlled like that originally though, I didn't know that.

 

On 5/13/2024 at 4:41 AM, Shepardus said:

I'm also using Linux, and you're right that it doesn't really have a "default" the way Windows does. Many source ports support Fluidsynth as a playback option, and if they do you can point it to a soundfont file and then it just comes down to what soundfont you use. I use one called Scc1t2.sf2 because it sounds pretty close to the Windows default, but there are others that sound similar too. The soundfont that comes with GZDoom will also work with other source ports if you don't feel like searching for soundfonts to download; look for a "soundfonts" folder in your GZDoom installation with a "gzdoom.sf2" file.

 

In Crispy Doom you can configure the MIDI player in the setup program; when you choose Fluidsynth, you can enter in the path to a soundfont file. In dsda-doom you have to open the config file (~/.dsda-doom/dsda-doom.cfg on Linux) and put the path to the soundfont in the "snd_soundfont" config. In GZDoom you can configure where it looks for soundfonts in the config file (~/.config/gzdoom/gzdoom.ini, or ~/.var/app/org.zdoom.GZDoom/.config/gzdoom/gzdoom.ini if you're using the Flatpak), and then in the game's sound options you can select Fluidsynth and tell it which soundfont to use out of the ones it finds.

Thank you! I can't fully process what this all means until I mess around with it I think, but I'll definitely be referring back to this once I decide which port I'll be using.

 

 

On 5/13/2024 at 6:37 AM, Gez said:

Steam, like other online shops, now comes with the so-called Unity port as the default option. You can still play with the original in DOSBox if so you choose, though.

 

While "Doomnity" has a few changes, like this dynamic crosshair you've noticed, those are mostly cosmetic and QoL things; the port is generally considered quite faithful besides those, as it can record and play back demo files correctly; something that is only possible if the pure gameplay is not changed. (Pure gameplay is things like physics, monster behavior, etc. It does not include visuals and soundscape. That doesn't mean the player experience cannot be changed; a wallhack would not break demo compatibility, for example.)

This is good to know. Is it possible to run other wads in the unity port on steam(that aren't official addons I mean)? I tried to put the heretic wad in the files and renamed it as the doom wad so the game would try to load it instead, but it didn't work, so I'm guessing it's not possible but maybe it's just not that easy.

 

On 5/13/2024 at 6:37 AM, Gez said:

IWADs are the game data that came with the games themselves ("Internal WAD"); PWADs are game data created by modders that modify the game ("Patch WAD"). In Doom jargon, IWAD is basically synonymous with game; for example when GZDoom asks you to choose an IWAD, it asks you to choose a game.

So if I understand correctly, the heretic iwad is what tells the doom engine about the weapons, how to look up/down, the monsters, textures, etc, basically everything that is inherently different from doom, and a pwad is basically a mod that replaces the levels? Is there an inherent difference between the two, or is it just a matter of how the engine loads them? Like is it possible to load what's meant to be an iwad as a pwad instead, or vice versa?

 

 

And a couple more questions I've found: This site said I reached the max amount of posts I can make per day. Is this a restriction on new accounts or is it a constant? It caught me off guard, though I can understand why it would be in place. Also, how far up and down would heretic originally let the player look? Each port I've tried has restricted that differently, and one didn't even let you look down at all.

[TruthInFiction]

3 hours ago, supbo said:

So if I understand correctly, the heretic iwad is what tells the doom engine about the weapons, how to look up/down, the monsters, textures, etc, basically everything that is inherently different from doom, and a pwad is basically a mod that replaces the levels? Is there an inherent difference between the two, or is it just a matter of how the engine loads them? Like is it possible to load what's meant to be an iwad as a pwad instead, or vice versa?

Think of the iwad as containing all of the game's copyrighted art assets plus the levels that id made for the commercial release of the game.  Things like physics, stats and the ability to look up and down are coded into the executable, and those differences in the games are why source ports specifically need to implement support for the different games and why prboom wouldn't let you play Heretic.  As such, you could technically load an iwad like a pwad if the source port supports it, but you're going to end up with strange behavior, because by loading a specific iwad you are telling the source port to look for certain thing ids and texture names and then loading in levels that were designed with different thing ids and texture names, not to mention that Doom and Heretic have a totally different level format than Doom 2 or Final Doom (i.e ExMx vs. Map xx formats.)  A pwad conversely cannot be loaded as an iwad because it doesn't contain the information needed to tell the source port what game you're trying to play.  A pwad can be something as small as a sound replacement, or as large as a full total conversion that replaces all art and sound assets in addition to replacing the levels of one of the games. 

 

When you load up mods, you first need to be aware of what game they are intended to work with, as well as what type of source port they are intended for.  A mod that is vanilla compatible will work with any source port you want to load it into, but if it requires a limit removing port then Chocolate Doom or Heretic will not suffice since they have no expanded capabilities over the original games.  If a mod requires GZDoom to operate, then you won't be able to load it into Crispy Doom, because while Crispy Doom expands the limitations of the original game, such as level size and the amount of monsters you can have, GZDoom supports other things such as scripting that just don't exist in those ports.  Of course, any mod you download should tell you this, and will typically include a text file that will tell you what game it is intended for, as well as what all is new and what source port is required.

[Gez]

14 hours ago, supbo said:

This is good to know. Is it possible to run other wads in the unity port on steam(that aren't official addons I mean)? I tried to put the heretic wad in the files and renamed it as the doom wad so the game would try to load it instead, but it didn't work, so I'm guessing it's not possible but maybe it's just not that easy.

It is possible to run other wads for Doom or Doom II, at least on PC, by using the same method that the official add-ons use. See wiki for technical infos.

 

However, Heretic is a completely different game, despite using the same engine. It has different weapons, different enemies, etc. and "the same engine" should not be confused as "the exact same source code", there are plenty of significant differences. It's not possible to play Heretic, Hexen, or Strife in the "Doomnity" port.

 

14 hours ago, supbo said:

So if I understand correctly, the heretic iwad is what tells the doom engine about the weapons, how to look up/down, the monsters, textures, etc, basically everything that is inherently different from doom, and a pwad is basically a mod that replaces the levels?

Well, no. Not directly.

 

When GZDoom loads heretic.wad, it recognizes from its content that it is the Heretic game, so it initializes accordingly. This is because GZDoom is a source port that supports many different Doom engine games.

 

Things like levels, monster sprites and sounds, textures, music, etc. are in the IWADs (and can be changed by PWADs). Things like whether you can look up and down, or how the weapons and monsters work, are in the engine, though, and cannot be changed by a PWAD (at least in vanilla; it's different with source ports that have added a lot more of modding features, but let's not make this too complicated for now).

14 hours ago, supbo said:

Is there an inherent difference between the two, or is it just a matter of how the engine loads them? Like is it possible to load what's meant to be an iwad as a pwad instead, or vice versa?

There's really no significant technical differences. It's really just that an IWAD is supposed to be self-sufficient, as in it contains all the data that the game expects to find. A PWAD doesn't need to contain everything as it can rely on the presence of an IWAD for all the game data that it doesn't change.

 

And yes, that means it is possible to load an IWAD as a PWAD. Doing it the other way around requires you to be sure the PWAD does contain everything needed.

 

14 hours ago, supbo said:

And a couple more questions I've found: This site said I reached the max amount of posts I can make per day. Is this a restriction on new accounts or is it a constant? It caught me off guard, though I can understand why it would be in place.

It's a restriction on new accounts, it goes away after a few days. It's there just to limit the amount of clean-up the moderators have to do when a spambot manages to register an account; something that is going to be increasingly common thanks to the progress of artificial intelligence; as technical progress is always, infaillibly applied to the same three top priority areas of warfare, pornography, and advertising. Killing, fucking, and pestering each other is what humanity strives for.

14 hours ago, supbo said:

Also, how far up and down would heretic originally let the player look? Each port I've tried has restricted that differently, and one didn't even let you look down at all.

I'm not sure. I know that ZDoom used to allow up to 32° up and 56° down, as that's what I found when I researched this wiki article a very long time ago. I believe that's more than what vanilla Heretic allowed, but I don't know for sure.

[supbo]

On 5/14/2024 at 11:19 AM, supbo said:

Ah, that makes sense. I haven't been able to update my computer in a while, so I'm using kubuntu 22.04, and it looks like crispy 5.12 was released a few months later so aptitude is installing the prior version. I'll see if I can work around that. It's interesting that the mouse controlled like that originally though, I didn't know that.

Managed to update ubuntu, I still consider myself new to linux so I thought I would need more time and help than I really did. Anyway, I can now use the current versions of crispy and dsda and they are very cool, I'm excited to play heretic!

 

23 hours ago, TruthInFiction said:

Think of the iwad as containing all of the game's copyrighted art assets plus the levels that id made for the commercial release of the game.  Things like physics, stats and the ability to look up and down are coded into the executable, and those differences in the games are why source ports specifically need to implement support for the different games and why prboom wouldn't let you play Heretic.  As such, you could technically load an iwad like a pwad if the source port supports it, but you're going to end up with strange behavior, because by loading a specific iwad you are telling the source port to look for certain thing ids and texture names and then loading in levels that were designed with different thing ids and texture names, not to mention that Doom and Heretic have a totally different level format than Doom 2 or Final Doom (i.e ExMx vs. Map xx formats.)  A pwad conversely cannot be loaded as an iwad because it doesn't contain the information needed to tell the source port what game you're trying to play.  A pwad can be something as small as a sound replacement, or as large as a full total conversion that replaces all art and sound assets in addition to replacing the levels of one of the games. 

 

When you load up mods, you first need to be aware of what game they are intended to work with, as well as what type of source port they are intended for.  A mod that is vanilla compatible will work with any source port you want to load it into, but if it requires a limit removing port then Chocolate Doom or Heretic will not suffice since they have no expanded capabilities over the original games.  If a mod requires GZDoom to operate, then you won't be able to load it into Crispy Doom, because while Crispy Doom expands the limitations of the original game, such as level size and the amount of monsters you can have, GZDoom supports other things such as scripting that just don't exist in those ports.  Of course, any mod you download should tell you this, and will typically include a text file that will tell you what game it is intended for, as well as what all is new and what source port is required.

 

12 hours ago, Gez said:

It is possible to run other wads for Doom or Doom II, at least on PC, by using the same method that the official add-ons use. See wiki for technical infos.

 

However, Heretic is a completely different game, despite using the same engine. It has different weapons, different enemies, etc. and "the same engine" should not be confused as "the exact same source code", there are plenty of significant differences. It's not possible to play Heretic, Hexen, or Strife in the "Doomnity" port.

Does this mean that the heretic engine is based on the doom engine, but not exactly the same? Since even with the iwad, some doom ports can't run heretic? I think I understand the idea though, even if I don't understand the specifics, thank you for the explanation!

 

12 hours ago, Gez said:

And yes, that means it is possible to load an IWAD as a PWAD. Doing it the other way around requires you to be sure the PWAD does contain everything needed.

That's cool, I'm definitely going to mess around with this.

 

12 hours ago, Gez said:

It's a restriction on new accounts, it goes away after a few days. It's there just to limit the amount of clean-up the moderators have to do when a spambot manages to register an account; something that is going to be increasingly common thanks to the progress of artificial intelligence; as technical progress is always, infaillibly applied to the same three top priority areas of warfare, pornography, and advertising. Killing, fucking, and pestering each other is what humanity strives for. 

 

12 hours ago, Gez said:

I'm not sure. I know that ZDoom used to allow up to 32° up and 56° down, as that's what I found when I researched this wiki article a very long time ago. I believe that's more than what vanilla Heretic allowed, but I don't know for sure.

Good to know, thanks.

 

[Gez]

9 hours ago, supbo said:

Does this mean that the heretic engine is based on the doom engine, but not exactly the same? Since even with the iwad, some doom ports can't run heretic? I think I understand the idea though, even if I don't understand the specifics, thank you for the explanation!

Thing is, not even the Doom engine is exactly the same as the Doom engine ;)

 

At its core, the Doom engine is a worldsim + rendering technology from the early 1990s. What the Doom engine covers is a specific way in which the game world is expressed through geometry, some of which can have special actions attached, and active elements, referred to as "thinkers" in the code. A thinker is anything that can have an effect on the world, so it can be an actor (like a monster, or a pickup) but it can also be an ambiant effect, like a flickering light attached to a sector, or a moving floor effect.

 

What the Doom engine doesn't share across its many versions is what the game's full list of actions and thinkers are. Heretic's line specials, sector effects, actors, etc. are different from Doom. Even Doom II added new actions (like the fast doors) and thinkers (like the new monsters) to the game.

 

And what the Doom engine doesn't cover is the game data (the sounds, graphics, and levels), which are put in the wad files. Though it does cover how to read a wad file and its content.