Remembering DOOM

[tezza]

Yesterday I re-cased an old Pentium 1 I had lying around into something more asthetic. I took the occasion to install FINAL DOOM and play through a few levels. Boy that takes me back! "God mode" was very tempting as some of the bottlenecks were almost impossible to get through even on the easiest setting.

One thing I missed though was the midi music. It didn't play. I'm not sure if this was because of something in FINAL DOOM (it's a Win95 application) or my soundcard (el chepo ISA SB-16 compatible). I suspect the latter but Windows driver properties tells me everything is ok. The grunts, evil-sounds and shreeks of the monsters were all there though and the sounds of the weapons (my favourite sound is the click of the super shotgun).

Yes, I'm just a big kid really

[SpidersWeb]

hehe I did the same thing on my P200 on Saturday Also Quake. Currently playing Police Quest III though.

Will have to test my music, but I think it worked for me in native DOS but didn't under Win98. I have an on-board ES1888 though.

What's freaky, and I'm sure you noticed it to, is hoping in the game and remembering where opponents will be, remembering the cheat codes, and some/most of the secret passages - I hadn't played it seriously in around 12-15 years. Have memories of 14.4K baud modem to modem multiplayer

Edit: realised I'm playing Ultimate DOOM 1.9 and not "Final Doom" - not sure if they're the same or not.

[tezza]

What's freaky, and I'm sure you noticed it to, is hoping in the game and remembering where opponents will be, remembering the cheat codes, and some/most of the secret passages - I hadn't played it seriously in around 12-15 years. Have memories of 14.4K baud modem to modem multiplayer

Edit: realised I'm playing Ultimate DOOM 1.9 and not "Final Doom" - not sure if they're the same or not.

Yes, it's essentially the same DOOM except (I guess) using different WAD files. Final Doom has a Win95 shell where you can set some parameters.
What surprised me, not having touched it for about 14 years is how difficult it is to survive even in the easiest mode. Maybe I'm not as fit as I used to be.

I like simple games like DOOM. There are puzzles to solve but In essence, if anything moves..shoot it! (except your buddy if you are in multiplayer mode) . But yes, real tricky in parts. Some of those beasts are hard to kill. And stimpacks seem few and far between.

[SpidersWeb]

How far did you get through?
Found it way easier to just use the keys than the mouse, since it seems to auto-aim on the Y axis anyway, and sticky mouse ball

I remember saving up for Ultimate DOOM when younger, and it basically being "THE" game.
Also remember being a dirty little pirate over a 14.4Kbaud connection fetching Doom2, then my mates sister picks up the phone at 99% noooooooooooo

[Carcenomy]

Ahhh Doom. The current Collectors Edition with very slight tweaking works perfectly under Windows 7 64-bit on a Core i7 just FYI

I've bought Doom easily five times already... most recently I bought the 360 XBLA re-release. It still plays great. But then again, when I started playing Doom in earnest I had plenty else to draw my attention away... specifically, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and Descent.

It's quite interesting that although all these games are quite old now - even the original Quake is now sixteen years old - they still play fantastically well. And since there's people like us who still actively want to play them, all of them have modified versions of their engines available to allow use on modern hardware. I haven't looked into Doom 'cause the current Doom95 engine from id works, but Quake has DirectQ (Direct3D based and VERY fast), Duke has eDuke32 and Descent has D1X-Rebirth.

Still, nothing like firing up the real deal and enjoying it the way it was... it's almost the bare metal versus virtualization argument

[tezza]

How far did you get through?
Found it way easier to just use the keys than the mouse, since it seems to auto-aim on the Y axis anyway, and sticky mouse ball

I remember saving up for Ultimate DOOM when younger, and it basically being "THE" game.
Also remember being a dirty little pirate over a 14.4Kbaud connection fetching Doom2, then my mates sister picks up the phone at 99% noooooooooooo

LOL. So cruel...

I got to the third level of Plutonia. I'd like to say I did it without cheating but...err....

[tezza]

Still, nothing like firing up the real deal and enjoying it the way it was... it's almost the bare metal versus virtualization argument

Absolutely!

Actually I've never seriously played Quake. At the time it needed more grunt than my current hardware had.

[Carcenomy]

Total size for my current version of Quake using DirectQ 1.8.8 with the soundtrack included is 105MB... it's still tiny but it looks amazing with real Direct3D and having the original Nine Inch Nails soundtrack definitely adds to the game. And by god, it still plays amazingly at LAN parties

My legit old timey copy resides on my Compaq which is fitted with a Voodoo, so it's running the id official OpenGL bits. Looks great, but the performance of both the Voodoo and the Pentium 166MHz processor isn't really great enough to enjoy the game... works fine in smaller rooms but as soon as you get to a larger room, it drops frames

[tezza]

Fixed the midi problem in DOOM. I needed to change the Midi instrument to the non-default one (Yamaha). It's so much better with music!

[Carcenomy]

I remember there being a whole bunch of shagging about with the SET BLASTER command to get everything 100% for these games at the time... what was it, 'SET BLASTER=I5 D1 A220 T6'?

[cjr]

I know I have a voodoo 2 around here somewhere if you want it Carcenomy.

[Carcenomy]

I've got one Voodoo2 already, but I could always use a second, could try out some of that delicious oldschool SLI action! But that's a topic for the non-vintage section...

[tezza]

I remember there being a whole bunch of shagging about with the SET BLASTER command to get everything 100% for these games at the time... what was it, 'SET BLASTER=I5 D1 A220 T6'?

Something like that. This Windows 95 version seems to do that automatically. It just had to be set to the right midi intrument in the control panel.

[Gibsaw]

I remember there being a whole bunch of shagging about with the SET BLASTER command to get everything 100% for these games at the time... what was it, 'SET BLASTER=I5 D1 A220 T6'?

Something like that. This Windows 95 version seems to do that automatically. It just had to be set to the right midi intrument in the control panel.

Depends on how your SB is set up, but BLASTER=i5 D1 A220 P330 H5 T6

IRQ 5, assuming that your LPT port is occupying IRQ 7. God only knows why they defaulted to 7 out of the box
DMA 1, i/o port 220 for SB control, and i/o port 330 for midi, high DMA 5. T6 is the type of card. (don't remember which card "6" is)

[Carcenomy]

T6 was Soundblaster 16 and above I believe.