New to Classic DOOM? Read this tutorial for help!

IMO, the main benefit of Doom Launcher is as a database organizer in addition to a launcher. It actually makes copies of wads added and stores them in the launcher folder; as such, if the source ports are in the Doom Launcher folder, the entire thing is portable (and so you could just stick the folder on a USB, for example). It's great if you want the launcher to be your organizer as well; a poor choice if you want your launcher to just be, well, a launcher (in that case, I'd recommend ZDL instead).

Also, since we're flexing screenshots...

14 minutes ago, 3saster said:

IMO, the main benefit of Doom Launcher is as a database organizer in addition to a launcher. It actually makes copies of wads added and stores them in the launcher folder; as such, if the source ports are in the Doom Launcher folder, the entire thing is portable (and so you could just stick the folder on a USB, for example).

A good tek is to mirror it on google drive (get 15gb for free) so you can have a portable and offsite backup.

On 4/11/2020 at 2:29 AM, xvertigox said:

A good tek is to mirror it on google drive (get 15gb for free) so you can have a portable and offsite backup.

I should mention that the data for Doom Launcher is stored in DoomLauncher.sqlite, so if you downloaded Doom Launcher again alongside any files you uploaded for backup, all your descriptions, stats, and custom profiles can be restored from there. It happened to me once where I basically lost all my stuff so it helped to have a personal backup with the .sqlite file. One of the many things that made it my personal frontend for years.

On 4/7/2020 at 9:08 PM, ReaperAA said:

Good job DoomKid. This thread should be stickied/pinned.

On 4/8/2020 at 3:41 AM, NoahRules said:

We should pin this or something so it isn't forgotten 

On 4/8/2020 at 3:28 PM, dmslr said:

there's no reason not to pin this thread. It's useful for newcomers, well-written and it may end neverending threads with questions on basics. Doomkid always kindly replies them with tons of text.

I'm still hoping this will get stickied, the only reason I wrote it is because it seemed strange that the leading site for Classic Doom didn't have any guides on how to buy and play Classic Doom and it's many mods. If there's anything wrong with how the thread is written I'm definitely willing to update it or change it!

As it is now the easiest to find guides still encourage people to pirate the games... It's just not a good look. People should be told where they can get them legally, it's not like pirates don't know how to do what they're gonna do anyway.

I'd actually like it to serve as a template for any Classic Doom themed sites, really. As with anything I make, I don't care if people reuse it and I really don't even care about credit, I just want people to know how to experience Doom "at it's fullest" easily. So many storefronts pack it with DosBox or Doom95 or some other super archaic shit, it just leaves people who aren't tech gurus from the 90's kinda SOL.

A couple of things to mention. 

1. You might want to mention for using the source ports, the relevant files are doom.wad, doom2.wad, etc. It's not clear that to run some of the ports (like PrBoom+), the iwads need to be put in the same directory as the port. GZDoom, and possibly others, can detect a steam install though.

2. Since I imagine a lot of people will come here thanks to Doom Eternal, it's worth noting that Doom Eternal actually contains the Doom 1 & 2 IWADs themselves, easily accessible. They are in Doom Eternal/base/classicwads. Afaik, they are the BFG editions, so you might want to link to the downpatcher (not sure it actually works though, but it might be worth mentioning the downpatcher anyway).
 

On 4/12/2020 at 4:01 PM, Erick said:

I should mention that the data for Doom Launcher is stored in DoomLauncher.sqlite, so if you downloaded Doom Launcher again alongside any files you uploaded for backup, all your descriptions, stats, and custom profiles can be restored from there. It happened to me once where I basically lost all my stuff so it helped to have a personal backup with the .sqlite file. One of the many things that made it my personal frontend for years.

As another fun tool, you can use something like DB Browser to edit the file if necessary. I did that so I could update Sunder with the new maps, without replacing the old entry, for example.

2 hours ago, 3saster said:

Doom Eternal actually contains the Doom 1 & 2 IWADs , they are the BFG editions

Do you get NRFTL with the Doom II WAD?

I only have one demand.

• Please sticky this thread for the love of unholyness.

I have another, but i am not going to question the Council of Linguica for that... yet. ;)

I bet our request will remain unheeded.

☺

On 5/4/2020 at 10:18 PM, ReaperAA said:

@Doomkid In light of the recent discussion on "Post Your Controversial Opinions" thread, I think this guide could also add a section that discusses about the various complevels/compatiblity modes and about the jumping/crouching/freelook situation. The section could guide newbie players what settings should be used for what kinds of mapsets.

Sorry I missed this post earlier, but I definitely agree. I'll be modifying the guide to include info about the compatibility situation some time soon here.

EDIT: There we go!

@Doomkid In light of the recent discussion on "Post Your Controversial Opinions" thread, I think this guide could also add a section that discusses about the various complevels/compatiblity modes and about the jumping/crouching/freelook situation. The section could guide newbie players what settings should be used for what kinds of mapsets.

Classic Doom is in Eternal?

Jeez, quoting the whole thing is just good...

Doom 1/2 are in Eternal, and I think people replaced those WADs to play other WADs in Doom Eternal.

2 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Jeez, quoting the whole thing is just good...

 

Doom 1/2 are in Eternal, and I think people replaced those WADs to play other WADs in Doom Eternal.

What source port was used?

5 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

What source port was used?

I think what you mean to ask was what it's derived from, otherwise what you just asked the equivalent of "What shape is a cube?". :P

It appears to be derived from the Doom3BFG lib.

16 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

I think what you mean to ask was what it's derived from, otherwise what you just asked the equivalent of "What shape is a cube?". :P

It appears to be derived from the Doom3BFG lib.

So the iwads are the censored versions?

7 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

So the iwads are the censored versions?

Kind of - the censored contents in these are not as excessive as BFG - the crosses are only recolored instead of being re-shaped to a pill.

Just wanted to bump this to ask about the Unity ports - I think it would be ideal to get it added with all necessary links under the ports area, but I am simply not familiar enough with the finer details. I still need to look into it myself, but if anyone has any suggestions on how to best incorporate it's existence into this guide I would be most appreciative.

Just updated this for the first time in forever to include the Classic Doom Unity port and DSDA-Doom! Everything else still seems to be up to scratch.

(Also it's been a whole year since this was typed up, jeez the time sure does fly..)

This is a pretty useful thread. Can one of the mods pin this? Also @Doomkid it might be helpful to link the Doom wiki page on running wads?

As the ancient folk expression goes: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again; Doomkid's tutorial will eventually get pinned" (or something).

Hey, this looks helpful and useful
Good job on making this :)

Does anyone know how to open lmp files in crispy doom?

1 minute ago, Hachi-Roku said:

Does anyone know how to open lmp files in crispy doom?

Open your favourite command prompt terminal, navigate to your crispy doom directory,

crispy-doom.exe -playdemo myawesomedemo.lmp

When I used Microsoft command prompt terminal it says this app couldn't run it. Is there another one I could use? or am I doing something wrong?

Did you navigate to the folder that crispy-doom.exe is contained in? You can't just run an executable from anywhere.

I find it's easiest to create a shortcut of Crispy Doom, right click the shortcut, click Properties, and add "-playdemo thing.lmp" after the bit where it says "Target". After watching the demo, just delete the shortcut.

On 4/7/2020 at 7:59 AM, Doomkid said:

Note: Most source ports will require the IWADs (doom.wad, doom2.wad, etc) to be placed inside each port's directory.

That is not really the case. If you set up the DOOMWADDIR environment variable pointing to the directory where you have your IWADs (which is dead easy to do), pretty much every source port will recognize it. Alternatively you could just use ZDL or something similar which will call the source ports with the path to the IWAD. Either is preferrable to having multiple copies of every IWAD each in the root of a different source port's directory, IMHO.

I set up this environment variable way back when I only used GZDoom, now I have like a dozen different source ports, and never once I had to copy an IWAD to the root directory of a source port.

Thanks for looking into this, I had no idea about it until now - I’ll get the first post updated soon with that added. I’ve been copying the iwads to every dir all this time.. which is not a big deal with modern hard drive space, but still, this approach is far cleaner.

That information is in the "Installation and execution of ZDoom" page of the ZDoom wiki, and is also mentioned in the page about command line parameters, both of which I read before I ever played DOOM on a source port. Speaking of which, with the environment variable set up, the -iwad parameter can be used as if the desired IWAD were present in the port's root directory, so you can specify for instance "-iwad tnt.wad" when running a port from the command line or batch file, or in a desktop shortcut, etc. Otherwise the port will of course automatically run with the DOOM II one unless it behaves the same as Eternity Engine or the ZDoom variants.

Hey, I'm not exactly new to Classic Doom as I have been playing the Unity Ports on consoles since Day 1 but, recently, I have been attempting to shift somewhat towards playing Doom on PC.

I have installed both Chocolate Doom and Crispy Doom and I can get the latter running WAD files fine, however, I'm a bit lost at trying to get any WAD besides Doom II running on Chocolate. I read that I would need to call upon different WADs through command lines. Am I supposed to go to Command Prompt to do this or do I create a configuration for them in the Chocolate Doom set-up application?