Discoloration in Ultimate Doom and Doom II

[DeimosKnight]

So, I managed to buy both Ultimate Doom and Doom II from the id Software store, and I was surprised and impressed with the way their downloads were packaged. Unlike Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny, which they did not bother to pack with a DOSemulator (you have to do the emulation yourself, which I found lazy on their part), Ultimate Doom and Doom II were designed to work on modern machines. They were equipped with a pre-game options menu where you could choose which level level to play (which is really awesome), your choice of video resolutions, and other cool options. You guys are probably already aware of this, so here's the problem.
Whenever I play either game, they break out into crazy psychedelic colors. I read that such discoloration is caused by incompatible video cards, and I'm not quite sure my computer has any card. I am playing them with a Lenovo Windows XP laptop, so I'm wondering if id's package is more compatible with full hardware computers more than laptops. I managed to play both smoothly on the Doomsday engine, but I really want to play the Dooms as they were originally played. Is this problem familiar with anyone here? Is there a patch to rectify this problem, or is my machine just not compatible with the package? I think it's ridiculous that a game which could function on my laptop just fine with DOSbox or Doomsday, but it can't function at all well with id's own special emulator.

[Reinchard666]

DeimosKnight said:

I'm not quite sure my computer has any card

DeimosKnight said:

so here's the problem.

[DeimosKnight]

So, what you're saying is that Lenovo laptops really don't have a graphics card, and the discoloration of Doom is caused by that? Great,

[DoomGater]

DeimosKnight said:

(...)Ultimate Doom and Doom II were designed to work on modern machines. They were equipped with a pre-game options menu where you could choose which level level to play (which is really awesome), your choice of video resolutions, and other cool options. (...) but it can't function at all well with id's own special emulator.

Hmm, I never heard of such "special emulator". I guess you are talking about DOOM95, which is -by now- also an ancient, outdated port, which was designed for WIN95 and causes many problems under newer versions of vindows (Does the mouse work during the game?). If I remember
correctly, there were many attempts to solve the psycho-color-problem.

-Try setting your desktop to 256 colors
-Try -if possible- DirectX8.1
-Try another graphic card driver

But there is no guaranteed solution. Better try a modern port like
(G)ZDoom, or Doomsday. Or you go the vanilla way, download the
DOS-Engine, combine it with your IWADS and play under DOS-Box.

[DeimosKnight]

You're right. It is Doom95. After reading the part saying that it is long outdated, I'm now even more confused with id. Why in cyerhell is id selling outdated ports of the two Doom games? I would much prefer to run it on DOSbox, if they just gave the game like they did Wolf and Spear. I'm beginning to think that id is really not caring too much about the quality of their products on their store site. 3D Realms is way more dedicated than id when it comes to selling their classic games with proper emulators. What is up with id's main site store?

Thanks so very much for helping me, man. I'm glad that the Doom community is much more in tune with better ways to play Doom. Id needs quality experts on their site.

[Edward850]

What are you talking about? id doesn't sell Doom95 with anything anymore. Steam uses Dosbox exactly like you said, and the version of Doom that comes with D3:BFG uses a different version altogether.
As for id software's store specifically, I'm not surprised the store contents hardly gets updated, and thus it's unlikely to match the contents for current releases (it seems to be based off their collectors edition/anthology releases).

Edit: In-fact their store-page specifically mentions DOOM Collector's Edition, now that I look at it.

[DoomGater]

Edward850 said:

What are you talking about? (...)

He is talking about id software's store. He ie NOT talking about some steamy pile of poo. Please listen closely.

[fraggle]

Please read the sticky thread at the top of the forum titled "READ THIS! Doom on Windows".