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Revision as of 22:51, 5 February 2006 by Ryan W (talk | contribs) (blank article, no history)

There, you now have administrator rights. Fredrik 11:33, 7 Feb 2005 (PST)

OK, thanks. Bloodshedder 11:39, 7 Feb 2005 (PST)

do you think the logs are a bit much?

Yup, sorry :) I think a simple summary would do. -- Jdowland 18:09, 30 Aug 2005 (UTC)

User name

I like your User name. —The Thing We need to talk. 20:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

...oookay. I've been using it since 1999... Bloodshedder 03:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Did you go to my page on this?? —The Thing We need to talk. 15:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Changes to How to download and run Doom

Thank you for reorganizing the Unix part (I really should have thought of that myself).

The link to "Doom" at the top strikes me as slightly misleading — most of the console ports are heavily based on Doom II, and I think a significant minority of Windows users may just buy (or steal) one of the boxed sets, so they won't necessarily be starting with Doom/Ultimate Doom.

Well, I don't know, I just tend to always link the first occurrence of "Doom" in any article. And I'm not sure about "most of the console ports are heavily based on Doom II" - there are more Doom 1 console ports than Doom 2 out there.
Hmmmm.  allgame.com and Wikipedia say (I admit that their screen shots are often inconclusive):
  • The SNES and Sega Genesis 32X versions are based on Doom.
  • The Sega Saturn, Jaguar, Nintendo 64, 3DO, and Zodiac (!) versions are based on Doom II.
  • There are GBA versions of both Doom and Doom II.  (I knew that already because we have a fairly complete article about them.)
  • There are PlayStation games called "Doom" and "Final Doom".  (I remember seeing these in the five-dollar bin when I was thinking of getting a PlayStation.)  The "Doom" title is however the same code base as the Jaguar version, and therefore includes Doom II levels/items/monsters.
So, not counting the Dreamcast thing, and noting that I'm leaving out the iPod and WebTV ports (although the application of the term "console" to either of those can be debated), that makes three ports of Doom and seven of Doom II.  (Or eight using Doom II-based EXEs.  :D     Ryan W 07:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but how many of those Doom II-based ports actually use Doom II's resources (most notably, levels)? How many of them are actually ports of Doom II, the game? This is what I meant, as, if the game is actually Doom (mostly, even if it includes some Doom II resources, or is based on Doom II's engine), the instructions we give are for running Doom, not Doom II.
In my experience, Doom level vs. Doom II level can be defined in a purely operational way (analogous to id's definition of "shareware PWADs" in 1994): would it crash/generate exceptions if I tried to use it with a Doom 1 executable?  By that standard, AFAICT, the majority of the console ports can at least be called "Doom II-like", since they include most or all of the Doom II monsters.  The engine doesn't care whether the rooms are shaped more like E1M1 or MAP01.
I agree with you that there are more holistic ways of categorizing a given port, but obviously there's a lot more room for debate there.  Since it doesn't make any difference to the reader of this article (if he wants to use console X, the name of the cartridge/disc he looks for is T, the end), I'm willing to leave this whole question to the brave editor who starts one of these.  ;>
Anyway, this is pretty irrelevant to the original topic of discussion... and IMHO that link should actually stay where it is because we'll usually be encouraging the readers of that article to get the shareware IWAD first.  :>     Ryan W 02:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I decided not to expand the console part, since I thought our advice would be pretty much the same for everything except the GBA/Dreamcast: "This software is all discontinued, so look for it at garage sales or on ebay/Gamespot."

That's what I figured - "stick the cartridge/CD in and play"

I'm not sure how widespread the abbreviation "Windows 9x" is nowadays (compared to, say, five years ago).  And all the non-embedded software is organized by OS, not hardware, so "Pocket PC" should really be "Windows Mobile", right?

I always thought "Windows 9x" was a pretty common term nowadays, but I suppose the column heading can always include all the versions in it for the sake of completeness. And you're right, the mobile operating system is always called Windows CE. I was under the (mistaken) impression that PocketPC was also the name of a newer version of their mobile OS that replaced Windows CE, since I rarely hear the term "Windows CE" thrown around anymore.
I've never owned a palmtop or PDA, but AFAICT Windows CE and Windows Mobile are two different operating systems, though forked from the same code base.  (In fact, some observers question whether Windows Mobile is an OS at all, as opposed to a bunch of embedded applications that happen to share data.)  Anyway, the real point is this: I don't know of any ports of Doom to Windows Mobile.  If you do, great; it should be on that list as well as the ones in Games and Source port.    Ryan W 03:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't, but you should take a look at this. PocketPC, Windows Mobile, etc. are all based on Windows CE, so if there are ports for them, they can be listed under it. Bloodshedder 03:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought Doom could be played on NT 3.51, too.  No?     Ryan W 03:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of anybody trying, and I'm not too sure about the usability of source ports on NT 3.x. I don't even think it supports DirectX at all (and it obviously has no real DOS mode), and there are very few Win32 ports that DON'T use DirectX somehow.
That's a very sound argument, and I think perhaps I will change the section heading to "NT 4" until we hear different.  (Or until someone asks me to try it out myself, and is willing to deposit US$200 for hardware.   :D      Ryan W 03:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, I've got some spare hardware I could use for a testing system... but the problem would be getting a copy of the operating system. It's probably nowhere to be found on the Interweb (OMG WAREZ), and only a few companies might have it locked away in some storage cabinet. Bloodshedder 04:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Hey, don't make this too easy.     Ryan W 06:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I may buy this just for the nostalgic value... Bloodshedder 06:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Note that it's 3.5, not 3.51.  I'm not sure how extensive the update to the graphics library actually was — maybe 3.5 can run certain DOS programs too.  If I had thought of this two weeks ago, I could have shown you this instead.  (There's also this, although personally when my nostalgia demands that I part with US$30+  I tend to look for something I can, y'know, play.)    Ryan W 06:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Going by this, the difference looks sort of important, as I don't think there are many source ports that will run on a version of Windows older than 95. But, I doubt any would use its common control library. Bloodshedder 02:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As a corollary to the above research topics, who do I talk to about every link on the Doomworld shareware page being broken?    Ryan W 01:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

CodeImp usually takes care of links, but I can take a look at it. Bloodshedder 02:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I've fixed them. Bloodshedder 03:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
In the words of a noted American philosopher,  "Whoa!  That ruled."     Ryan W 04:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

blank article, no history

Thank you.  My error.    Ryan W 03:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)