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Good source ports for DOOM 1 and 2? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/games@hexbear.net
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I have been wanting to play the original DOOM 1 and 2 but I am not sure what's a good way to experience it proper.

I know about UZdoom but I hear it changes things that affect the original gameplay. There's also just playing the re-release version but not sure how optimal it is. I am also open for QoL mods like visibility/eye-strain stuff.

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[–] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 child)

Chocolate-doom for "pure" vanilla experience, including all limits and bugs (a bit rough, but a very well maintained port. Beautiful clean C codebase, especially compared to some other source ports, but even compared to the original id Software LinuxDoom source).

DSDA-Doom for true vanilla gameplay (as deemed by the speedrunning community) with lots of modern accoutrements. Broadest demo playback compatibility and mod support sans ZDoom (highly recommended, my first choice for anything).

UZDoom for mods which require it (there are many good ones, despite it playing a bit differently).

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    Thanks for the examples and thoughts on them, I see one called BOOM which is apparently a pretty old source port too and is still maintained. What are your thoughts on that one?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    The original Boom was (only ever) published for DOS. Active development ended in 1999. The thing which makes it notable is that it was the first 3rd-party source port to add new map design features (quite a number of them, too). You almost certainly don't want to use Boom today unless you are in a true retro-computing mood and are prepared to bust out DosBox or a PC emulator (the requirements are essentially identical to running the vanilla Doom binaries).

    The good news is that Boom came out and stabilized so early that it effectively became a defacto standard. Many, many custom levels are developed with Boom-compatibility as a target (even today), and nearly all modern source ports support these maps (with the deliberate exception of Chocolate Doom).

    There is also a lineage of ports which descend from Boom, like DSDA-Doom by way of PrBoom+, or even the official engine which ships with "Doom + Doom II." Even modern ports which can't trace their heritage back to Boom will typically include snippets of code from it for one reason or another.

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