The right port for a WAD?

[OldMan]

First off, WOW! What a great resource. Been playing DOOM and DOOM II off and on for years and just recently stumbled across this site. Never knew this stuff existed. I would have wasted my entire college years trying to create custom WADs if I would have known...

Question: Is there a way to tell what port a WAD was designed for, or what port would work the best for a given WAD? I've been downloading different ports, and trying WADs listed in the top 100 WADs of all time article posted on this site. Some seem to work in ZDoom, some do not, so I try a different port (so far have ZDoom, ZDoomGL, PrBOOM, Doom3D). Some seem only to work with DoomII. I searched the forum and didn't really find any thread that answered my question. Any suggestions (other than go die! etc...) would be appreciated.

[XXoXX]

Well, you can always read the readme file to start with. Failing that, I don't think there any other way to easily identify each Wads port.

[cph]

OldMan said:

...Some seem to work in ZDoom, some do not, so I try a different port (so far have ZDoom, ZDoomGL, PrBOOM, Doom3D). Some seem only to work with DoomII.

If you find any that work with doom2 but not prboom, we are interested. Try mailing prboom-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Most wads can be got working using the compat options, or at worst rebuilding the nodes.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

XXoXX said:

Well, you can always read the readme file to start with. Failing that, I don't think there any other way to easily identify each Wads port.

You can use WadAuthor (with the extra wcf files) to determine whether a map is in DooM, Boom, Hexen (ZDoom) or Legacy format. (as it won't load the map with the wrong config)

[TheDarkArchon]

Or you could just read the textfile.

[OldMan]

Thanks for the info. It was obviously a newbie question on my part. I now realize that if the text file doesn't contain the information, you can usually tell by what folder the wad is located in in the archive. I was previously being hyper-linked to wads from other sites and didn't catch the directory structure. Sure wish GothicDM was for single player, love the look and feel of it.

I'm re-addicted to Doom now that I have access to 100's of free wads I've never seen before. My wife is reeeeeeally happy about this..... She thinks I should have something better to do. I'm trying to get her in on multiplayer but she's a bit squeamish.

[188DarkRevived]

If you unzip something from the FTP, and see that the .WAD file is being accompanied by a .DED file, right away this indicates that the thing is intended to be run with JDOOM/Doomsday.

[Grazza]

As people have said, the textfile should indicate which port it is designed for.

In many cases it will say something like "any limit-removing port". This means that it should work with almost any port apart from the original exes (Doom.exe or Doom2.exe) or Doom95.

If it says "any Boom-compatible port", then it should work with most modern ports, since Boom features are widely supported. However, note that jDoom does not support Boom features.

If it doesn't say anything about ports (obviously this will be the case for wads that were released before the source release), then it is most likely designed to work with the original game, and thus should work with all ports, unless a port happens to break something upon which it relies (this is rare though).

Sometimes you'll find a wad that asks you to use deusf and/or dehacked. With most modern ports you won't need to use these programs, and will be able to use the wad directly without running deusf (some exceptions though), and you can load the dehacked patch from the command line (-deh whatever.deh).

[Scuba Steve]

OldMan said:

I'm re-addicted to Doom now that I have access to 100's of free wads I've never seen before. My wife is reeeeeeally happy about this..... She thinks I should have something better to do. I'm trying to get her in on multiplayer but she's a bit squeamish.

My advice on some of the must play projects

Oh and the wife... she's holding you back!

[kristus]

Scuba: you wrote wrong on Twilight Warrior. It was for Legacy but ran with Zdoom aswell. duh.. but since the effect that they used from legacy isn't even in legacy anymore.. I guess it makes it Legacy/zdoom required.

Either way. The wife. If she's not part of the solution, she's part of the problem. She has to go.

[wildweasel]

Either way. The wife. If she's not part of the solution, she's part of the problem. She has to go.

Come on, man, the guy is married. That's pretty good, considering that many of us here aren't married yet, and probably aren't old enough to be for the most part.

[OldMan]

Thanks Grazza for info, and Scuba Steve for some more must-play projects. I've been lucky and not subjected to the many apparently crappy wads out there since I've only played ones suggested by long-time Doomers. Big help, as I don't have the time to filter through the dreck myself.

As for this thread, I've got it mostly figured out now. I've got most of the source ports loaded and ready to go, and know what to look for in text files or file extensions. BTW, ZdoomGL rocks!

Thanks for the backup WW, but now I'm outta here. My question is answered and I think it's time for this thread to close unless anyone else has questions about matching a wad with the right source port (not meant to be backseat moderating).