The Gaming Den

Okay, I got the PC version of DOOM from Steam and I've been having problems getting it to work. Running it through DosBox pulls up the title screen (before the options to start/load/etc come up) but I can't interact with it or hear anything. I followed the instructions here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =150214500

... to install ZDL and GZDoom. That worked marginally better as now I can access the menus and hear sound but I get a black screen (I managed to somehow load E2M1 blind from the menu and I could hear myself shooting and getting my ass kicked but not being able to see put a damper on that).

Any advice? Google is not helping in this case.

Steam is a pretty shit source for old game since they put them up as is. Try:

https://zdoom.org/index

Not helpful, please read my entire post before suggesting I do the thing I'm doing.

Alternate question: I requested a refund from Steam for DOOM. Where can I get a version that works better.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Alternate question: I requested a refund from Steam for DOOM. Where can I get a version that works better.

1993.

You'd be better off asking for support for Zdoom on that site rather than steam, hence the link.

But what OS? I'll take a crack at seeing if it works in Win10 when I get home tonight. Did work on W7 for me without a hitch when I last played it.

It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure that guide isn't the recommended way to set up ZDoom, and you would have had better luck just ignoring it and following the instructions on the ZDoom website/wiki/whatever. Unless they've changed substantially.

So, the deal with Doom is that there's a .WAD file that is the entire game. If you open that .WAD file with the ZDoom executable, it should just work. It is in fact the only way it will 'just work', because your 2018 computer is not going to run graphical software from 1993 without making you think eating glass shards would be a less painful experience. It doesn't matter where you buy it from, that kind of tech wizardry is impossible, which is why people have rebuilt the entire engine from scratch.

In practice, what this means for you is that you download ZDoom as a stand-alone application, and install it on your computer in its own folder. You are not trying to put it into an existing Doom installation. Then you download Doom from Steam (or whatever) so you can copy the .WAD file and paste it in the ZDoom folder. And then whenever you want to play Doom, you can just drag DOOM.WAD onto gzdoom.exe and it will launch. That's it.

That guide is... I don't know what the fuck it's doing and I don't know why the fuck it's doing it. It is apparently intended to help you set the process up in a way that is Steam-compatible, as in it will function with the Steam overlay and track your hours and shit. But who gives a fuck? You just want to play the goddamn game. That guide has tricked you into doing a bunch of dumb shit that sounds way more complicated and likely to fail than is actually necessary. All you need is DOOM.WAD, and that's just a data file. It's not Steam-encrypted or any stupid shit, you can just grab it and do whatever the hell you need to with it.

EDIT: Yeah, I just took a look at my old GZDoom installation. It's literally just "desktop/[bunch of crap]/emulators/GZDoom Base". Inside that folder is a gzdoom installation and a DOOM.WAD. I click and drag DOOM.WAD onto gzdoom.exe and I'm playing Doom. I don't even have Doom installed on Steam. I installed it who knows how long ago, grabbed the DOOM.WAD for my gzdoom folder, and immediately uninstalled it again because none of that shit is necessary.

All you need is the game data, and the game data is conveniently all packed into DOOM.WAD.

You can acquire ZDOOM outside of Steam. Steam is shit. Don't use Steam.

DSMatticus wrote: -bunch of stuff-

Thanks for the advice. Funny thing is I tried that as well sometime after I had made my initial post and I got the same result. Is it possible that the .wads themselves from Steam might be borked?

Have you considered buying from GOG? Unlike Steam, their whole deal is taking old games and putting in the work to make them run on modern hardware before offering them for sale. They have Ultimate Doom for $6.

I've had issues with getting stuff from GoG to work before, however seeing as all I need are the .wad files anyway I can give it a shot.

Mord wrote:Have you considered buying from GOG? Unlike Steam, their whole deal is taking old games and putting in the work to make them run on modern hardware before offering them for sale. They have Ultimate Doom for $6.

Also, Steam's whole thing is "fuck you, we already got your money."

DOOM is old enough that any reasonable and legal source is going to be floppy disks, which presents a problem. I'm not even certain it would be available on illegal sources, and I wouldn't recommend them even if it were.

Maybe look up the people who install DOOM on toasters or whatever stupid crap they've got, and see if any give a source?

DOOM isn't so ancient as to be floppies only. I used to own a copy of Ultimate Doom on a CD, and I'm more confident that I still have somewhere a copy of Doom Collector's Edition on CDs.

Which is a bit irrelevant if you only need the WAD.