Dark Pulse

That's not gonna cut it for GZDoom, which needs OpenGL 3. You would need an (actual) video card in order to run it, or to run a very old (and outdated) version of GZDoom (the last version with OpenGL 2.x support was 3.7.2). Alternatively, GZDoom 4.8.0 can supposedly render in Software via Direct3D 9, but I don't know about newer ones. You'd probably be best off running LZDoom, which should still work with OpenGL 2.1 hardware, I think. The latest version of that is 3.88b. You could also try the OpenGLES renderers, but I have no clue if they'd work or not, and either way, it'd be very suboptimal.

Pretty sure Kaiser did that years ago. Granted, nowadays you're probably better off firing them up in PsyDoom.

Some people do like that look, but as others said, you can just, y'know, turn it off, man.

Can't say I share that same experience. Upgraded my system in Summer of 2021, and it runs things fine, just as good or (in many cases) better than my previous system did. Going from a Sandy Bridge i7-2600K and 16 GB of DDR3 to a Ryzen 5900X and 64 GB of DDR4 kinda tends to mitigate that. (To be fair, the RAM is overkill - 32 GB would be perfectly fine, but I do a fair bit of Photoshop stuff too, so it definitely doesn't hurt. And I got a good deal on it.) Things like that are only a problem when you're trying to use the hardware for an OS that was designed to need more computational and memory requirements. 8 GB is fine for a Win7 machine, barring more recent games. It's a good bit less fine for Win10, even if it will technically run in it. The OS simply expects more resources devoted to it. Also, if this is still the "But Win10 runs games slower!" argument, then please. That stuff mostly got ironed out years ago once GPU makers refined their drivers and Vulkan adoption got more widespread, and even for older games, trust me, you ain't gonna notice the difference between 450 FPS and 375. And if you can, then you're the type of person who should be competing in MLG tournies and not relying on an obsolete OS/system in the first place. Win7 is going to be the new XP, a new "retro" OS for its era. But its time as a functional OS for daily use is gone. If you can't bear to upgrade to 10, grab a newbie-friendly Linux LiveCD like Debian or something. It'll at least be reasonably secure.

I mean, a PC made for Windows 95 wouldn't run Windows XP well either, but seems like the apocalypse didn't happen then... You just MIGHT need to upgrade your atomic toaster every so often.

Everyone's favorites - MAP20: Central Processing, MAP21: Administration Center, MAP27: Mount Pain.

Simply put: No, and there never will be, for one particularly fundamental reason. Doom on PC uses a 35 Hz tick rate - in other words, actions happen every 1/35th of a second. Doom 64 uses a 30 Hz tick rate - in other words, actions happen every 1/30th of a second. Those differences alone mean that it's impossible to reconcile. GZDoom/LZDoom do not allow for a variable tickrate; everything would have to be made to fit the 35 Hz rate of PC Doom, and that will create some slight inconsistencies. The best ways to play it are EX or the Remaster. But since you want to play it via netplay, that is not only not possible (the original lacked it), but several mapping tricks would utterly break with multiple players (like a certain map fairly early on that depended on trigger lines and silently moving sectors to give a fake 3D floor effect). So in short, what you want is a pipe dream. Sorry, pal.

AFAIK, the stuff for ACCESS is also incomplete, most specifically in terms of graphical assets. I don't know what sort of work would be needed to make workable levels, however.

Not possible either - there's only 512 KB of dedicated RAM for the SPU. Considering I've seen most of these sound fonts for the SC55 go well into the dozens of MB, that method doesn't have a prayer of working. Even the MAME ROM for the SC-55 is just a hair under 3 MB. You're going to definitely have to split things up into chunks and then hope no individual track needs more than 512 KB for all of its samples to be accounted for. All that extra work for a "maybe." Oh yes, don't forget sound effects also need to fit into that 512 KB of RAM, so the actual amount free for instruments will be even less. Of course you could gain more RAM by compressing the samples further (say, to 22 or 11 kHz), but then quality suffers. This is why I said XA Audio would probably work best if this were to be done - there's plenty of space on the disc, the sampling, while not CD quality, is pretty damn close (usually 37.8 kHz but it can be 18.9 kHz as well), and since you're just streaming audio, it takes up a miniscule amount of RAM to do. Then, of course, there's the principle of it - you're literally nuking one of the things that sets it apart from most other versions of Doom. If we are going to turn the sound back to PC, why not kill the colored lighting, too? Why not remove its original maps? So to me it's honestly kind of a stupid idea. There's solutions if it were really in demand, but I'd think a lot of players would kinda look at it like it were blasphemy. If you want the PC soundtrack, play PC Doom. Or play it via PsyDoom, I'm pretty sure it allows for external audio overrides.

Correct, but it will also be a separate project from Master Edition (unless they've since changed their mind). Last I spoke with them, the intention was to have Master Edition as just the cut maps, and that other project as the one that merged the two.

The cut-down JagDoom maps were, IIRC, all converted by American McGee. Also, having talked to Randy a bit, SNES Doom had pretty much no involvement from the id guys. Randy converted the maps himself (the partial source to his ACCESS tool is a ripper/converter of the IWAD to the formats SNES Doom used), and id pretty much just signed off on it when it was presented more or less complete. By the time SNES Doom was being made, Sandy would've been busy working on Quake.

Well, I'll break this down point-by-point. The technology is old, and is put into use years later. True - in most gaming devices, the technology isn't exactly bleeding-edge. Even the PSP was based on a MIPS R4000 (which came out in 1991), so it was hardly cutting-edge. But the thing is, the PSP also only cost $249 - the Switch was $299, for example. And the more bleeding-edge the hardware, the more the thing costs. Quite a few people on here will remember the PS3's infamous $499 launch (and that was the cheaper, 20 GB model - the 60 GB model would set you back ANOTHER hundred bucks). The only game system that was more expensive at launch was the Neo-Geo ($649.99), and that also had games that THEMSELVES could be $200-300 each (ROM was hella expensive back then, and these games were BIG). Nintendo has historically cheaped out on the graphics side of things. The PSP obviously chewed the DS up graphically; it couldn't even approach the same solar system. But the DS was seen as neat due to its touch screen, its dualscreen capability, its much smaller size, its general lack of proprietary hardware bullshit, and of course, the fact it cost a mere $149 won it a hell of a lot more fans. In the end, the PSP sold 80-82 million units from 2004-2014 - pretty damn good shootin', cowboy. Currently just out of the top ten bestselling consoles of all time (it's #11). But in the same timespan, the Nintendo DS sold a whopping 154 million units, nearly outdoing it 2:1 - and it currently sits at second place all-time. Only the PS2 did better; the Switch is third but still needs 30 million more units to sniff the same neighborhood. Needless to say, when it comes to handhelds, Nintendo's strategy is clearly working - devices that are 2nd (DS), 3rd (Switch), 4th (GB/GBC), and 10th (GBA), and this is ignoring that the Wii is 6th. Sony's more flashy and fancy hardware sold well enough for the PSP, but the Vita was a huge flop - 10-15 million tops. Basically: Nintendo owns the handheld market. If you're gonna compete with them, you need to bring that price and specs down, jack. Flashier and fancier is not going to win that race. Consoles at par with/better than the competition Sure... if you're comparing home consoles, of course. The Famicom I'll give you. The SNES, on the other hand, a bit less so. PCs were really starting to kick off around then, and there was also highly stiff competition from the arcades - the Neo-Geo was also released in 1990 and was an absolute beast of a 2D machine. Of course, it also cost $650 for home users and several hundred bucks per game, while the SNES was much cheaper. The system could have add-on chips, but so did the Genesis (albeit this was really only used once). And while it's true that Sega had the inferior tech from a visual point of view, the two machines were in a way built for very different sorts of games. The N64 is where it fell apart. The graphical prowess of the system was amazing, but yes, the cartridges seriously held it back, but Nintendo was paranoid over CD burning. The PS1 quickly swooped in, the PS2 absolutely dominated the Gamecube, and it wasn't until the Wii that Nintendo really got its mojo back. But even then, nobody was going to turn to the Wii for graphical power, you went to a PS3 or a XBox 360 for that. Also, while it's true the Gamecube was more powerful in a graphics sense, it also had two benefits: It came out a year and a half after the PS2 did, and it was still a lot of that SGI expertise holding over and continuing on. That was more than enough time to give the PS2 a strong foothold that got even stronger with Sega exiting the hardware side of things around this time, and along with the fact that while Nintendo finally went optical, it was with those weird mini-discs that cold only hold about 1.5 GB while a PS2 game could easily hold 3x that space, that caused things to just be a runaway success in the PS2's favor. In the end, over 3000 games were put out for the PS2; the GameCube, IIRC, had about 650. Current Nintendo Nintendo is more or less fine with no longer being the top home system. Sure, a design like the Switch is highly useful; they realized that a lot of people would want to take a game from home and play it on the go as well, and they've ridden that wave to massive success. This is basically Nintendo's main strength: They see a market trend, and try to go for it. It often works quite well for them - besides the Virtual Boy, nothing they made in the home videogame market since the 1980s could ever really be considered a serious failure. Where the other systems tout their graphics and their power (and the price to go along with it), Nintendo will tout its long-running franchises, ease of ability to just jump in and play, respectable graphics, and overall the experience more than anything else. That's really the secret of their success. After all, if you produce hit device after hit device and you don't have to push the edge to do it, you're clearly doing something right. Honestly at this point, Valve is more of a threat to them than Sony or MS. Nintendo is happy to let them be the kings of the living room - so long as they get that all-important mobile market. But now you got a device that for $399 is literally a handheld PC, with more than enough power to easily blast the Switch - and it's able to do a whole lot more than a locked down, or for that matter, even a jailbroken Switch could ever do. For those seeking cheap, of course the Switch will still win out, but for those gamers with some deeper pockets, or for those who really would like almost a mobile PC setup, the Steam Deck being only $100 more while being able to do FAR more and with far better graphics is a definite threat to them and their model. I'd still expect things to be somewhat older tech, simply because it would be a less painful price point to hit. It may well wind up being comparable to the Steam Deck in terms of capabilities, or slightly under - after all, even mobile chips now are getting to do raytracing and all that crazy shit. But don't ever count Nintendo out because they won't go for something slightly more powerful than the competition - they have things the competition cannot fall back on, and they are almost always right on the money.

I remember looking at the N64 controller and thinking "How the heck am I supposed to hold this?" I didn't mind the color so much. But hell yeah, Mario 64 was a fucking blast. Spent a lot of nights at friends' houses playing that all night long. (I never owned an N64 myself.) I will second what @Individualised said though, it was downright sensible compared to the Gamecube's controller. But all the people thinking Nintendo will compete on modern hardware... lol, hell no, they never have. NES: Released in 1983, but the CPU is a variant of the 6502 that was released in 1975. Time gap: 8 years. SNES: Released in 1990, but the CPU is a variant of the 65C816 that was released in 1983. Time gap: 7 years. N64: Released in 1996, but the CPU is a variant of the MIPS R4200 that was released in 1993. Time gap: 3 years. Gamecube: Released in 2001, but the CPU is a variant of the PowerPC 750 which was released in 1997. Time gap: 4 years. Wii: Released in 2006, but is essentially an evolution of the chip used on the Gamecube. A near-identical PC processor exists as the PowerPC 750CL. Time gap: 9 years. Wii U: Released in 2012, but is essentially an evolution of the chip used on the Wii. Hence, the lineage is STILL considered from that date. Time gap: 15 years(!). Switch: Released in 2017, but is essentially a variant of the Tegra X1 that was released in 2015; closest they've ever gotten to being "modern" in terms of contemporary hardware. So whatever Nintendo is cooking up, expect - at best - for it to match the specs of a device from around 2020, and going off of more historical trends, 2016-2018 is a lot more likely. Nintendo has always been very good at getting devices that were cutting-edge several years ago for very cheap, building a system around that, and selling it for a very nice price. Of course, nowadays they have to compete with things like Smartphone gaming, so that will probably push them in a direction closer to being closer to current hardware, and stuff like the Steam Deck is definitely going to have them taking notes (although they'd probably never go as ambitious as Steam has - Nintendo has done flops before, as everyone who remembers the Virtual Boy knows, but it's very rare for Nintendo to make a misstep of that magnitude). If you want something that would push limits, that's what Sony tried to do - twice. The PSP had some decent success, but it unfortunately ran into the juggernaut that was the DS. Most would say the Vita was a failure (I had one though; I liked it quite a bit myself), but a lot of that can also probably be attributed to Sony trying to lock down the storage with their proprietary memory cards rather than the device itself. I know they're making a new handheld, but according to the rumors, it's little more than a glorified remote device for an existing PS5, not a system of its own proper.

Just tossing a message here that yeah, I'm still interested in (and doing) this. It's just I'm waiting until I'm done with my work in late June to really knuckle down on it.

Killer Instinct's arcade version proudly touted how it would be available for your home in 1995 "only on Nintendo Ultra 64." Spoiler: It wasn't. It went to SNES instead, and was a pretty damn decent port, considering the limitations. I certainly remember having hours of fun with it. Killer Instinct 2, however, DID reach the N64, as KI Gold. Other than a few rather minor things (less voices due to cartridge space limits, none of the FMVs), it was a pretty faithful port, and it did add in some content (such as the training mode).

Those definitely exist (they were certainly everywhere during the PS2 days), but admittedly nowadays I'd say you'd be hard justified to actually do that over something with Bluetooth or more modern plugs. Not to mentionel the wear and tear that a 25+ year old controller will have - remember those are still rubber membranes and the like inside. Sure, you could get replacement parts, but you will need soldering skills for new analog sticks. And if you don't know how to solder, that's not an option. At that point you're simply better off getting a modern controller anyway (I'm sure there are controllers similar to the OG DualShock style).

Kind of surprised Zokum didn't put down a built release - and that the "releases" version is fairly old (1.0.7-rc1 is quite old). Here is 1.1 for Windows x64, though. This isn't quite the latest (that would be 1.1.1), but it's close enough.

Not directly relevant to your question, but have you tried ZokumBSP? It's known to fix some bugs that Zennode has, and it's generally seen as a go-to node builder nowadays. It's based on ZenNode and the author outright says it's designed to be a drop-in replacement for it, right down to using the same option flags (along with the new ones it adds). Maybe it'll fix those slime trails, too.

I don't think they will be, actually. GEC AFAIK does not intend to include the original levels.

We definitely could, since that port was itself progenitor of no less than four or five other console ports.

If we want to be REALLY technical, the first source port is... the DOS version of Doom. Remember, it was developed on NeXT hardware. So technically, that's the original version, and the version for DOS is a port.

Who wins the pony, though?

Early summer? Perfect. I'll be off from work for nearly the entire summer.

Lack of room in the ROM - it's got about 16 bytes free. Not kilobytes, bytes. This is also why the XBand stuff is so barebones, probably - no room for a font, and no room to finish it (and it was probably added at the last minute itself, since it was never advertised on the box).

It's more akin to sequenced/MIDI/Module music than waveform, yes. There are a few exceptions: The menu track, the intermission screen (and between-game/ending texts), Club Doom, and the Credits (which are standard CD Audio). Everything else is sequenced.