Talk:How to download and run Doom

Whew. :>  The start of a long article, I hope &mdash; newbies are a somewhat underserved population around here. I was inspired by this conversation (and considering the sheer number of gaming sites in existence, I think we're damn lucky that that person stayed long enough to shout at us).

I'm hoping that, eventually, this can absorb How to play Doom on Windows XP. The information in that article about Doom95 bugs can be moved to Doom95 (and maybe cross-referenced also, as with Intermission screen).

I can only test a few of these myself; the graphics card on my Performa just broke. :D   But I can do Windows XP, Mac OS 9, and Linux (RHEL 4.0), and maybe Windows 2000 and Mac OS X.

Most of the links at the end are to pages which already exist. But I agree with Jdowland that the editing tutorials are still very incomplete, and I think that if we keep this article, we also need one on configuring network games (which is a far more forbidding topic than just buying the Collector's Edition for US$15 on ebay). Conceivably, in the far future, we could also write tutorial articles about general solo strategy and particular speedrunning styles.

Opinions? Ideas? Flames?    Ryan W 05:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Some of the stuff I just added to the Windows XP section would definitely fit better into the hypothetical tutorial articles mentioned above.  :>    Ryan W 23:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)



 Update: If I am making any errors important enough to be worth mentioning, please do so. :>    Ryan W 09:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I tried to run the Solaris versions of shareware Doom on the SPARC machines at my workplace, but they wouldn't go. I suspect that said machines (a) are six or seven years younger than that program and (b) contain the kind of horribly misconfigured kernels that only an overworked committee of individually intelligent people can supply.
 * I tried to install the shareware version of Doom95 on the Windows 2000 machines at my workplace, but couldn't do so because I do not have root access (or whatever that's called in Windows 2000).
 * I tried to get Doom running on the Mac OS X machines with which I am acquainted (again with no special privileges), but didn't see anything I felt like writing about. The Classic version ran at about 3 fps, Legacy developed paralyzing keybinding issues after a few seconds, and Doomsday was so non-vanilla that I personally could not recommend it to a first-time player with a straight face.


 * For Windows 2000, the superuser is "Administrator". Also, like XP, Windows 2000 does not support VXDs, so mouse support in Doom 95 will be broken. The original DOS executable works with -devparm and sound disabled.
 * On a related note, wouldn't the full IWADs from a PC version of Doom need to be converted to Mac (big endian) before being usable in Mac OS? Your instructions on the page don't mention this. Bloodshedder 21:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That's because it turned out not to be necessary. I put the Collector's Edition maps in, and they worked.


 * This is more impressive as of today &mdash; it happens the same way in System 7.5, before all those kernel updates!   Ryan W 23:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * (Except for Thy Flesh Consumed, which I couldn't find even when I used idclev. I suppose you could extract the maps with an editor and save them as levels 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 31 in Doom II.  The exit at the end would still work correctly, I think &mdash; I've seen it done in some PWAD from 1994.)    Ryan W 02:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Early versions of Windows NT
I've set up another computer to test with, and as soon as I find a suitably working hard drive, I will install and attempt to run Doom on Windows NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, and perhaps 4.0. Bloodshedder 22:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Win9x
This section may not be optimal as currently written. It is rumored that Doom95's installer overwrites your existing version of DirectX with version 4, without asking first. As this was not obvious on the dumpster-machine I tested with, I left it out. If the rumors are true, however, we are probably better off just recommending PrBoom, despite the supposed "native" status of Doom95 to this line. Ryan W 00:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)