VOGONS


First post, by feipoa

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I just learned about jDoom, jHeretic, and jHexen. It uses what is called the Doomsday Engine to enable 3D accelerated graphics. I was just at the website for this project and noticed that the current system requirements are: Windows Vista+,DirectX 8+, and GPU with OpenGL 2.1. https://manual.dengine.net/guide/2.0/readme_windows

Does anyone know the the latest revision of the Doomsday engine, or if going back further in time, the latest versions of jDoom, jHeretic, and jHexen which run well on older hardware? In particular, I am using a Voodoo2 with a Matrox G200. I currently run DoomGL on this setup (Cyrix 5x86-133) and it runs beautifully on my hardware, however, I was looking for an accelerated analogy for Heretic and Hexen, and came upon the Doomsday engine. I do not want to install above DirectX6.1.

Looking at the Wayback Machine for Doomsday HQ and picking a random date of August 1, 2002, I see that the requirements were DirectX6 and NT4/Win9x. I was hoping that someone might know the version most suitable for my system to save me some trial and error.

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Reply 1 of 17, by dr_st

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You can learn from here that the WinXP support ended in 1.10.

According to this forum thread, 1.8.6 may be runnable on Win9x.

However, there is a bigger point. I don't think any version of Doomsday would ever run well on your Cyrix. Doomsday is not just DoomGL. It's a complete new engine, much heavier. I do remember running it on the K6-II 500MHz system at one point, but I don't recall it running very fast on it. Was playable, though.

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Reply 2 of 17, by feipoa

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I downloaded 1.7.14 and will try it out this evening. If too slow, I'll look for 1.7.<14. If still too slow, then oh well. At least there is DoomGL. And the GL version of Hexen II runs just fine at 800x600.

Heretic is playable at 320x200, but hurts the eyes. Hexen95 runs a a bit too slow at 640x480 in software mode, so again, would be limited to 320x200. I originally hoped Doomsday was fast like DoomGL.

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Reply 3 of 17, by feipoa

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Wait... was there a GLHexen like there is a GLHexen II?

I see reference to a GLHexen here: Miro Highscore 3D (voodoo 1) - some thoughts. and https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/15160-g … hereticglhexen/ and https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=633404

Also reference to GLHeretic 1.0 and GLHexen 0.7 on wayback. https://web.archive.org/web/20030305162311/ht … .php?platform=2

glheretic_v100.zip and glhexenb090.zip

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Reply 4 of 17, by leileilol

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Doomsday *used to* run good on older hardware and even had a glide backend at one point, but every year they felt the need to reinvent the GUI and menu system without a consideration for anything else (not even widescreen). Many of the platform regressions are due to the launcher. It's the most overrated, stagnant engine around.

It hasn't really visually changed since 2002, if you don't care for those bad bad bad looking "hd" models anyway.

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Reply 5 of 17, by feipoa

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leileilol wrote:

Doomsday *used to* run good on older hardware and even had a glide backend at one point...

Do you know the versions or filenames I should be looking for?

There's some old Heretic and Hexen files here I might test out, http://metal.slipgate.org/Files/Heretic%20files/ and https://www.doomworld.com/3ddownloads/ports/

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Reply 6 of 17, by dr_st

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leileilol wrote:

Doomsday *used to* run good on older hardware

"Older" as in how old? Including Pentium1-class systems?

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Reply 8 of 17, by feipoa

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I downloaded Doomsday_Engine_deng-inst-1.7.14. It contains the doomsday engine, jdoom, jheretic, and jhexen. It comes with an installer, setup.exe. When I run setup.exe, I receive the following error:

Error Starting Program
The SETUP.EXE file is linked to a missing export SHELL32.DLL:SHGetSpecialFolderPathA.

and

C:\Temp\Doomsday_Engine_deng-inst-1.7.14\Setup.exe
A device attached to the system is not functioning.

If I extract the zipped engine files, there is an executable called "Kicks.exe". Upon opening kicks.exe, I am faced with a stop error,

Access violation at address 0045CB12 in module 'KICKS.EXE'. Read of address FFFFFFFF.

However, I can still use the DickStart 2.09 program, which looks like a means to set graphics and sound parameters. The renderer options in graphics include OpenGL or Direct3D 8, plus various options to tick. I'm guessing that this Doomsday engine requires at least DirectX 8. So, time to move onto some older options I found.

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Reply 10 of 17, by DosFreak

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"The SETUP.EXE file is linked to a missing export SHELL32.DLL:SHGetSpecialFolderPathA."

This error means you are missing IE4 Active Desktop.

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Reply 11 of 17, by feipoa

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I am using Windows95c. Do not want to use DX8.

IE4 active desktop. Good to know that is what the error message implies. The IE4 enhancements tend to slow down an already slow system, so I purposely didn't install it.

So far, I have tested GLHeretic version 1.00. I had to create an heretic/md2 folder and copy gargoyle.md2 file into this directory.

When trying to run GLHeretic (voodoo2.bat) I receive an error message stating that the Opengl32 file in my Windows/system directory is corrupt. The glhexen.txt readme file states that for 3dfx, one must use the 3dfx opengl32 version 2.1b or later. Display properties in Windows states that I am using WinGlide 2.x version 2.56. So my first impression is that this criterion is satisfied.

Looking for alternate solutions, I copied the opengl32.dll file from my DOOMGL folder, which the file properties specifically state is 3dfx Beta 2.1. GLHeretic runs now at 800x600. It runs beautifully and fast, with one caveat, sound effects do not work. The music plays fine, but no effects sound. I double checked that the non-GL version of heretic has working fx sound. I double checked that DOOMGL has fx sounds. Any idea why sound effects are broken in GLHeretic and how to correct this?

EDIT: GLHexen 0.90 works with sound effects, so only issue is getting GLHeretic to work with sfx. Perhaps try an older version?

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Reply 14 of 17, by feipoa

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I tried jHeretic v1.00. It only calls for DirectX 6. When loading jHeretic from the launcher, I get InitDGL: loading of dropenGL.dll failed (error 31). I get the same error when using jHeretic v0.93. I added the 3dfx Opengl 2.1 beta to the jHeretic folder, which allows the game to run, but the game is so slow it is practically stalled. Like 0.01 fps. So something isn't right, that is, it doesn't worl properly with the 3dfx opengl32.dll. jHeretic was intended to run with dropengl32.dll or drd3d.dll.

If I use the jHeretic.bat file to load the game, I am able to run the game using drd3d.dll, however, some of the textures do not display properly when moving around the room. They appear like a white box, then back to bricks, then back to white box. The game also doesn't play as fast as the GLHeretic version. EDIT: using the MatroxG200 instead of the Voodoo2 corrects the white box texture issue, however the game play is still too slow.

Not wanting to source and try all the pre-0.93 versions of jheretic, I think it might be easier to figure out how to enable sfx in GLHeretic. I feel like there is some configuration file which is disabling it.

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Reply 16 of 17, by feipoa

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What do I do with jdoom082.zip? Are there files in there I need to copy over to the jheretic folder? I already have GLDoom working. I'd like to find some pre version 1.00 files for GLHeretic. I couldn't find anything in the settings and config files to turn on sfx.

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Reply 17 of 17, by feipoa

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I was able to get sfx working in GLheretic. The solution was rather silly and I don't understand it well. I copied the original heretic.wad file over to the heretic folder and tried to run GLheretic from the GLheretic_launcher. The screen turned black and I had to hit restart. Upon reboot, I copied the back over the WAD file from Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. I ran GLheretic from launcher. I noticed SFX when navigating the menus, which I had not heard before. Unfortunately, the music volume, even on volume 1, is about twice as loud as the SFX volume, even with it on 15. This is a condition I can live with. GLheretic runs really smooth at 800x600 with Voodoo2, about as smooth as software heretic at 320x200. Much faster than jHeretic with D3D.

In conclusion, GLDoom, GLHeretic, and GLHexen all run at about the same speed now, however, the volume differential between SFX and music is better in GLDoom and GLHexen.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.