Has SNES Doom hacking ever been attempted?

[Blastfrog]

I'm just curious, has anyone ever attempted hacking the SNES version of Doom, like how Kaiser has hacked the other console versions of it?

[Du Mhan Yhu]

I really don't think it has been done, not to mention it took the SNES every ounce of power to run Doom.


I've tried finding hacks for it, never found any.

[Koko Ricky]

Man, I will never fully understand the nostalgia factor some get from the worst Doom port ever made.

[AlektorophobiA]

SNES Doom isn't THAT bad, even with the SNES limitations it has more stuff than Jaguar Doom o 32x Doom, considering that both consoles are much more powerful than the SNES, their versions of Doom are more limited (except on the graphical part of course).

[Face23785]

GoatLord said:

Man, I will never fully understand the nostalgia factor some get from the worst Doom port ever made.

Well some of us weren't fortunate enough to own a computer back then so SNES was our first Doom experience.

Something that's always bugged me that maybe someone can confirm or deny...

I seem to remember the yellow door secret near the end of E1M3 being different in the SNES version. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Reisal]

Some of the song renditions were actually pretty nice.

[Dragonsbrethren]

GoatLord said:

Man, I will never fully understand the nostalgia factor some get from the worst Doom port ever made.

Why do you consider it the worst port? I'd say the 3DO port* is far worse, even if it did keep a few features the SNES port lacked.

*Awesome music, though.

[betabox]

Face23785 said:

Well some of us weren't fortunate enough to own a computer back then so SNES was our first Doom experience.

Something that's always bugged me that maybe someone can confirm or deny...

I seem to remember the yellow door secret near the end of E1M3 being different in the SNES version. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

What was the secret about? There are some areas in SNES Doom where secrets are triggered in a different way than the PC; usually much simpler as pressing use on a wall or lamp post pole or something. Whereas the PC version would involves shooting something or pressing use elsewhere for the same secret.

[Nasesrtyhcfhk]

'till now I thought Kaiser did it like the other consoles, now, I'm not so sure.

[Du Mhan Yhu]

SNES Doom was great, granted it looked very poor.

[Koko Ricky]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Why do you consider it the worst port? I'd say the 3DO port* is far worse, even if it did keep a few features the SNES port lacked.

*Awesome music, though.

Well, although my experience with console Dooms are limited, the SNES version lacks rotating sprites, floor/ceiling textures, and runs at a very low resolution and framerate. Are you telling me there's a Doom port with LESS features than that?

[Dragonsbrethren]

GoatLord said:

Well, although my experience with console Dooms are limited, the SNES version lacks rotating sprites, floor/ceiling textures, and runs at a very low resolution and framerate. Are you telling me there's a Doom port with LESS features than that?

Take a look at this:

It has monster rotations and flats, but are they really worth it?

[Koko Ricky]

Okay, this is now on par with SNES doom, although the music is fucking amazing.

[Lila Feuer]

Haha, check out that awesome screen size. Is that music for real?! That's got to be the best remixing of Bobby's stuff I've heard on any port.

[betabox]

GoatLord said:

Well, although my experience with console Dooms are limited, the SNES version lacks rotating sprites, floor/ceiling textures, and runs at a very low resolution and framerate. Are you telling me there's a Doom port with LESS features than that?

Well, actually, the only redeeming things about 32x Doom are that the graphics are better than SNES Doom and the sound effects are slightly better... Its problems:

-It only has 17 levels and they're simplified (SNES has 22, nearly accurate levels);
-the entire Inferno is missing (which SNES has most of);
-it has very few monster types;
-you can't get the BFG without cheating;
-inputting the cheats on 32X Doom is very annoying, moreso than the supposed PSX Doom cheats; heck, just activating a code can cause a crash sometimes; and even more, you can't get a proper ending or access certain levels if you cheat
-the game sometimes crashes during normal play;
-the level select option has a downside such that not starting on the first level will also prevent you from accessing certain levels and the ending;
-like SNES Doom, it has one-sided monsters;
-the music is by far the worst (at least the E1M1 rendition, which is litterally shit)

[iori]

That music does sound awesome.

[Du Mhan Yhu]

iori said:

That music does sound awesome.

I agree. Some tracks more than others, though.

[Spazman]

Also, here's some firsthand stuff from the 3do doom, both pros and cons:

Pros:
+Excellent Music
+Hell Heep actually looked like a keep (I think PSX Hell Keep was based off of this?)
+Erm... i think that's it. I still thought it was fun to play.
+One of the Doom ports to still retain the Spectre.

Cons:
-Crap Framerate. Drops to a crawl when a pistol is fired, much less a BFG.
-Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind are nowhere to be seen.
-Fortress of Mystery becomes Dis.
-Some secret levels are removed, excluding e1m9
-You don't die at the end of "e1"
-Technically, there are no episodes, so therefore no episode endings.
-Many textures and GFX are missing.
-Tower of Babel is complete Hell, since the framerate is crap, and it's hard as heck to shoot at anything.
-many places are completely redesigned, some similar to original doom (perhaps to make up for lack of textures?)

[Face23785]

That music IS pretty badass, I haveta admit. Got anymore?

[Spazman]

e1m2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Durn9awnd5U
e1m3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiN8m4hyA-s&feature=related
e1m4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VghIvkUd_nY&feature=related
e1m5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDEqGQtJZL8&feature=related
e1m6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHqKuCtqUA&feature=related
e1m7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icCsFgtpXUI&feature=related
e1m9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPpQdAlRHNo&feature=related
e2m1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27NCO5c2NnY&feature=related
e3m1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E9njHP53-4&feature=related
e3m2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7qjYl41lgw&feature=related

If only they had all the tracks.... T_T

[Gez]

I once found somewhere -- I think it was the ZDoom forums -- a download link for a 3DO.pk3 file containing the 3DO soundtrack recorded in FLAC format.

[Reisal]

Spaz, you forgot severe lack of texture variety per level.

[Varis Alpha]

The only place I can think of that has all the tracks from 3DO Doom is the Doom Depot. They're all MP3's, though, not FLAc's

[Mattfrie1]

TheSpazztikOne said:

Pros and cons of 3DO Doom

With the exception of the framerate, music and the spectre, 3DO Doom was based off of Doom on the Atari Jaguar, which was the only console port made directly by id. Pretty much every console port copied the Jaguar version, most likely because the developers didn't feel like porting the levels all over again when it had already been done by id.

The only port that wasn't derived from the Jaguar version was the SNES version, in which the Doom engine was completely remade for the SNES by Sculptured Software. I actually found out some pretty interesting things about monster behavior in SNES Doom when I brought the Japanese version, which was considerably dumbed down in comparison to the versions released in the US and Europe.

[Quasar]

Mattfrie1 said:

With the exception of the framerate, music and the spectre, 3DO Doom was based off of Doom on the Atari Jaguar, which was the only console port made directly by id. Pretty much every console port copied the Jaguar version, most likely because the developers didn't feel like porting the levels all over again when it had already been done by id.

The only port that wasn't derived from the Jaguar version was the SNES version, in which the Doom engine was completely remade for the SNES by Sculptured Software. I actually found out some pretty interesting things about monster behavior in SNES Doom when I brought the Japanese version, which was considerably dumbed down in comparison to the versions released in the US and Europe.

GBA Doom II also uses a "COTS" engine referred to as the Southpaw Engine, which was used for several other 3D FPS on that platform.

The XBox and XBox 360 ports of the games seem to be based on the Linux v1.10 source code.

Aside - 3DO owners should have gotten a free bumper sticker:
"I paid $750 and all I got was this shitty port of DOOM!"

[Dragonsbrethren]

Quasar said:

The XBox and XBox 360 ports of the games seem to be based on the Linux v1.10 source code.

I thought they were based on the DOS sources? If not, you really need to give the guys who ported them credit, because I don't remember them having any of the issues that the released Linux Doom source did.

[Maes]

Dragonsbrethren said:

I thought they were based on the DOS sources? If not, you really need to give the guys who ported them credit, because I don't remember them having any of the issues that the released Linux Doom source did.

Well, the very least they need to be made limit-removing. And as long as you don't have to support ALL different versions of Doom in the same executable (which none of the original doom exes did, BTW), some of the bugs may not appear at all.

OT: somebody had identified where the SNES version stores the SPC instrument data. Somewhat related, I tried glimpsing through the ROM with a hex editor but other than some familiar strings, I was not able to find any familiar e.g. texture name strings or even a typical IWAD structure (unlike the 32X version, which does have a semi-typical WAD embedded in the ROM). Either it's heavilty encrypted or radically different.

[Quasar]

Maes said:

Either it's heavilty encrypted or radically different.

Judging from the presence of SNES tile conversion utilities in Carmack's grab-bag of DOOM utilities that was released a while back, it's likely that all the resources have been converted to SNES-specific formats.

It is also possible there is a compression scheme, as most 24- and 32-Mbit SNES games used some type of compression to fit everything needed.

Intentional encryption is exceedingly unlikely; the system didn't have the cycles to spare.

[betabox]

Mattfrie1 said:

With the exception of the framerate, music and the spectre, 3DO Doom was based off of Doom on the Atari Jaguar, which was the only console port made directly by id. Pretty much every console port copied the Jaguar version, most likely because the developers didn't feel like porting the levels all over again when it had already been done by id.

The only port that wasn't derived from the Jaguar version was the SNES version, in which the Doom engine was completely remade for the SNES by Sculptured Software. I actually found out some pretty interesting things about monster behavior in SNES Doom when I brought the Japanese version, which was considerably dumbed down in comparison to the versions released in the US and Europe.

True. Many of the cons mentioned about 3DO Doom apply to Jaguar Doom, because the mapset for 3DO version is entirely taken from the Jag mapset.

Also, it's interesting you pointed out about the Japanese SNES Doom being dumbed down. How so?

[Mattfrie1]

buttspit said:

Also, it's interesting you pointed out about the Japanese SNES Doom being dumbed down. How so?

Mostly it's having the ability to play all episodes at any skill level, whereas the US and EUR versions had it limited so that you could only play the last two episodes on a harder difficulty (HMP for The Shores of Hell, UV for Inferno). Also the episode ending screens were rewritten to use less complex English so Japanese audiences could understand them better. Check the thread I linked in my last post for more details, it's where I recorded most of my findings.