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Last modified: Sun Mar 15 14:32:24 EDT 2009

Best faithful source port:  Chocolate DOOM

(Screenshot scaled from 640×400 to 640×480 to preserve original appearance.)

Description:  Faithful source port of DOOM 2 to Windows, Linux, et al.

Source:  see OS below

At http://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/About, Fraggle writes:

Almost all modern Doom source ports change the game in some way.  In some cases, this is to fix bugs.  In others, it is to add new features or even change the behavior of the game.  Chocolate Doom is different, in that the focus is on creating a maintained version of Doom that looks, feels and behaves exactly like the original DOS version of Doom.

Consequently, Chocolate DOOM does not suffer from the engine incompatibilities that cause most source ports to flunk out before finishing E1M1.  All of the normal DOOM things like F11 gamma correction and command line switches like –warp and –skill just work.  However, as usual, sound is not identical to Vanilla DOOM because the sound code was omitted from the public release of DOOM source, and because we can't count on an ISA SoundBlaster.

Chocolate DOOM offers a command line switch to select which of the three variants of Vanilla DOOM Version 1.9 it should emulate, but normally it will do the right thing depending on the IWAD.

Chocolate DOOM comes with a setup utility that is nicely reminiscent of the Vanilla DOOM one but has been updated to do what is needful.

Consistent with its mission, Chocolate DOOM does not attempt to improve on the 320×200 graphics of Vanilla DOOM.  It supports various larger screen resolutions, but all of them are up-scalings of the 320×200 source.  Unless you have a monitor or video driver that refuses to handle 320×200 correctly, the only thing you get with the higher resolutions is more scan lines.

Linux

Version tested:  1.2.1

Released source:  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=144368&package_id=158721

Latest source:  svn export https://chocolate-doom.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/chocolate-doom/trunk/chocolate-doom

To get music to work, you have to install TiMidity and put timidity.cfg somewhere that it will be found (like the current working directory).  TiMidity music is not identical to what Vanilla DOOM produced using a SoundBlaster, but it is passable and possibly the best that is doable.

The response to the trak ball is acceptable and remains smooth even as the mouse speed and acceleration parameters are increased to my preferred level of sensitivity.  However, vertical and horizontal sensitivity cannot be configured separately.

If Chocolate DOOM cannot switch to the screen resolution that it was set up to use, it will change your settings to the largest resolution that fits on your screen and go with that.  For best results, do the following.

1. Add the 320×200 resolution to your xorg.conf.  The relevant section should look something like this:

   Section "Screen"
       Identifier  "Screen 1"
       Device      "GeForce 6800 GT"
       Monitor     "EV910"
       DefaultDepth 24
   
       Subsection "Display"
           Depth       24
           Modes       "1024x768" "320x200"
           ViewPort    0 0
       EndSubsection
   EndSection
   

2. Restart X11.
3. Verify that the new mode works using the <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_−> hot keys.
4. Use chocolate-setup to configure the game to use 320×200.
5. Chocolate DOOM should now switch the screen to 320×200 when it is invoked and change it back to your normal working resolution when it exits.

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier  "ASUS VK246H"
  Modeline "424x200@76d" 16.43 424 456 480 512 200 204 207 211 doublescan  # HorizSync = 32.09 kHz
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier  "Screen 1"
  Device      "GeForce 6800 GT"
  Monitor     "ASUS VK246H"
  DefaultDepth 24
  Subsection "Display"
    Depth      24
    Modes      "1920x1080" "424x200@76d"
    ViewPort   0 0
  EndSubsection
EndSection

With older versions of Chocolate DOOM I had some gripes about the quality of sound effects when using AC'97 motherboard sound that only does 48 kHz.  Fraggle was nice enough to incorporate and clean up a patch I sent to fix the problem.  The final, debugged version of that patch was checked in as r1479 (2009-03-15).  You can either get the current release from subversion or you can apply this patch to Chocolate DOOM 1.2.1.

For best results with 48 kHz sound, do the following.

• Make sure that libsamplerate is installed first.  If libsamplerate is not present, Chocolate DOOM will compile without it and the sound won't be any different.
• Build the current subversion release of Chocolate DOOM or version 1.2.1 with the patch.
• In ~/.chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom.cfg, set snd_samplerate to 48000 and set use_libsamplerate to 5.
• Run Chocolate DOOM with the command-line option -mb 64 (or use a higher number if you like).  This makes the heap bigger so that there will be room for the expanded sound effects.  (If I ever fork Chocolate DOOM, eliminating the memory management cruft will be high on my list.)
• When Chocolate DOOM starts, there should be a pause while it resamples all of the sound effects:

  I_PrecacheSounds_SRC: Precaching all sound effects........
  

  Then it should play normally with high-quality sound.

Windows XP SP2

Version tested:  chocolate-doom-r845-win32.zip

Source:  http://84.40.169.249/al/files.php?sAddDir=/raztk/chocolate-doom (linked from http://www.chocolate-doom.org/)

Although it is usable, the Windows binary suffers significant Windows-inflicted lossage that does not occur under Linux.

I have to increase mouse speed to 15 and mouse acceleration to 3 before my trak ball is sufficiently responsive.  After that, it's playable, but the motion is jerky.

Sound quality is poor.  The problem mentioned in the BUGS file about not setting the volume of sound effects correctly is definitely happening here, but in addition the sound effects just sound lousy.  (N.B., this test was conducted with a much earlier version that did not include the libsamplerate support.)

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