Floppy disk backup set for complete source code for Doom on SNES found and archived.

[slowfade]

On 6/9/2024 at 4:42 AM, tzen said:

It's weird cause I'd almost certainly never have the opportunity to play it on actual hardware or even witness it in person, but I'd love to see both a more optimized, faster running and/or feature complete version of DOOM running on a real SNES. I don't know why. My brain just wants it to exist.

My thoughts exactly! I think something like the Doom 32X (but for SNES) will happen sometime; the retro hacking scene is huge and a full source like this just begs to be optimized.

[taufan99]

8 minutes ago, slowfade said:

My thoughts exactly! I think something like the Doom 32X (but for SNES) will happen sometime; the retro hacking scene is huge and a full source like this just begs to be optimized.

I think you're referring to Doom 32X Resurrection, which is, indeed, awesome. Do keep in mind that it's basically a rewritten source code based on the highly-identical Atari Jaguar port, though, so it might be not exactly all the same (some MSU-1 romhacks do exist though, utilizing more advanced features).

[slowfade]

Yeah, I meant the fan-made rewrite. Should've been clearer, sorry!

[taufan99]

At this point I'm afraid of being a spammer on this very thread, but this might be of interest for people keeping their eyes here anyway.

 

[lunarmeadow]

This is very cool. Excited to see what people do with the source code, I've been waiting almost a decade for this release. I'm not very well-acquainted with ASM languages, however I've been taking a look at the code repo and I've been writing scripts to simplify the level conversion process. So far I only simplified the blockmap reduction and copying files. On the Amiga side I want to create a script that does all the steps, with the only step required being entering the level name.

 

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about AmigaDOS scripting, so I've been making slow progress on that part. Biggest hurdle is taking user inputs

[lunarmeadow]

Just now, lunarmeadow said:

This is very cool. Excited to see what people do with the source code, I've been waiting almost a decade for this release. I'm not very well-acquainted with ASM languages, however I've been taking a look at the code repo and I've been writing scripts to simplify the level conversion process. So far I only simplified the blockmap reduction and copying files. On the Amiga side I want to create a script that does all the steps, with the only step required being entering the level name.

 

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about AmigaDOS scripting, so I've been making slow progress on that part. Biggest hurdle is taking user inputs

So far, I have written the script on the Windows side, but not the Amiga side. I also improved the documentation, using my experimentation with porting maps from TNT. I've also read a few more scripts and included some missing build tools and added a bit more to the directory structure. Of course, forked from Sunlitspace542 who has done a phenomenal job on creating a dev environment out of the floppy disk release.

https://github.com/lunarmeadow/DOOM-FX

[lunarmeadow]

55 minutes ago, lunarmeadow said:

So far, I have written the script on the Windows side, but not the Amiga side. I also improved the documentation, using my experimentation with porting maps from TNT. I've also read a few more scripts and included some missing build tools and added a bit more to the directory structure. Of course, forked from Sunlitspace542 who has done a phenomenal job on creating a dev environment out of the floppy disk release.

https://github.com/lunarmeadow/DOOM-FX

Making a bit of progress on the AmigaDOS script. It mostly works AFAIK it's just the substitutions are finicky, more work is needed

[user76828904]

Is a Heretic TC possible for Doom SNES? *_*

[lunarmeadow]

3 minutes ago, user76828904 said:

Is a Heretic TC possible for Doom SNES? *_*

Very possible. The biggest issue is that texture replacements are tricky. I think it's been done but I can't figure it out. The sounds and music are also quite cryptic, although I've made slight progress on sound replacements. It is possible but would take a while, probably with a team. I think there might still be some missing components, especially related to sound.

[user76828904]

@lunarmeadow Thanks for the answer.

[taufan99]

2 hours ago, lunarmeadow said:

Very possible. The biggest issue is that texture replacements are tricky. I think it's been done but I can't figure it out. The sounds and music are also quite cryptic, although I've made slight progress on sound replacements. It is possible but would take a while, probably with a team. I think there might still be some missing components, especially related to sound.

What about size limitation(s)? All I know is that MSU-1 romhacks often feature music tracks in large size, which makes me assume that it should be possible to remove the limitation(s) of the SNES port to feature more stuff (such as maps, SPC700 tracks, maybe even enemies and weapons à la DOOM II, if possible).

 

While we're at it, I want to see the status bar face behavior(s) closer to the original PC version. Oh, and the unused sprites too.

 

Edited June 17 by taufan99

[lunarmeadow]

18 minutes ago, taufan99 said:

What about size limitation(s)? All I know is that MSU-1 romhacks often feature music tracks in large size, which makes me assume that it should be possible to remove the limitation(s) of the SNES port to feature more stuff (such as maps, SPC700 tracks, maybe even enemies and weapons à la DOOM II, if possible).

 

While we're at it, I want to see the status bar face behavior(s) closer to the original PC version. Oh, and the unused sprites too.

 

The unused sprites are already in the game, you just have to modify the status bar value in the player struct. It's somewhere around 0x700 in RAM iirc. It's all setup, you would just need to code in the conditions for those status bar faces to be used. Also, an MSU-1 patch of Doom has been out for a while. The size limitation itself is unfortunately due to hard limitations of the Super FX addressing space, which is 16MBit. Doom already uses that, and thats why it was one of the most expensive SNES carts ever produced. Size is really the major limiting factor on new features, the codebase would have to be refactored and essentially run on a custom chip, that would also have to be emulated. IIRC Randy said that there was only about 16 bytes of free space in the ROM. It's extremely difficult, and I had to disable a bunch of levels just to import TNT MAP01. None of this is impossible, but it would take alot of time and effort and optimization for space. Removing Xband is hugely beneficial to ROM space. To reclaim more space, I also disable all the start up screens except for the legal screen which is required to boot. Beyond that, level simplifications and optimizations would be necessary, and perhaps measures such as less frames of animation, or sharing and reusing music. Then, you could add a decent amount. However, with Doom SNES, you're usually talking about replacement over addition, which is why a TC may ironically be more practical over a more complete ROM. I believe Sunlitspace542 only managed to fit 3 extra levels in by disabling stuff. The size limitations are brutal. Realistically, the best option would be to disable everything but Episode 1 and distribute level packs as a ROM patch of 9 levels, and treat it like switching floppies on an old computer to deal with the abyssmal sizes floppies allow. A Doom 2 TC would probably take 3-4 ROMs split this way. Hypothetically you could add a password system or start each new game with a decent amount of equipment for that part of the game, so you're not forced to pistol start every 9 maps.

[lunarmeadow]

On 6/16/2024 at 12:21 AM, BenDoverTheBurner said:

There was this thing I remember Randy mentioning about the SNES version of Doom, where he wanted to implement HDMA into the code for SNES Doom to potentially half the amount of work the Super FX would have to handle and increase framerates. I don't know much about SNES programming, but I wonder if someone could implement that.

https://wiki.superfamicom.org/grog's-guide-to-dma-and-hdma-on-the-snes

Unfortunately the HDMA/mosaic trick doesn't work great. Randy has played with the renderer a bunch on his own time and can't find a way to massively improve render speeds. The code is pretty tight

[Murdoch]

4 hours ago, lunarmeadow said:

Very possible. The biggest issue is that texture replacements are tricky. I think it's been done but I can't figure it out. The sounds and music are also quite cryptic, although I've made slight progress on sound replacements. It is possible but would take a while, probably with a team. I think there might still be some missing components, especially related to sound.

 

Depends on how far you want to go. Heretic isn't just Doom in tights, though it is somewhat close. There is a lot of unique behaviour in Heretic that simply isn't replicable in Doom. Not to mention Heretic generally has a much higher enemy count than Doom, and that would make a SNES melt. You could bludgeon in some Heretic elements to SNES Doom in theory but it would be a pale imitation of the real thing.