GZDoom


GZDoom is, currently, one of the most popular and used Doom advanced ports. Created and maintained by Graf Zahl, GZDoom is not only able to load Doom, The Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Final Doom, but also Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Boom and Chex Quest with advanced features and general improvements.
GZDoom is forked from ZDoom's, another advanced Doom engine, but offers an OpenGL graphic renderer that the original port doesn't have. It also features a bunch of exclusive features, such as:
  • Full 3D floors (including slopes);
  • Dynamic lights, brightmaps, glowing flats, custom hardware shaders;
  • Quake II/Half-Life-style skyboxes in addition to regular ZDoom skyboxes ;
  • 32-bit colors (Sprites and textures are no longer translated to Doom's palette);
  • MD2, MD3 and limited DMD (Doomsday) model support.
While Zandronum is usually recommended for multiplayer matches, due to its larger options for this game mode, GZDoom is more used for single player, even tough it can be used to multiplayer too.

Video


The above video is a very newbie tutorial from our channel that teaches how to quickly set GZDoom for it to load mods and chose the desired IWAD you want to load them with. You can also just use it to play the games vanilla-style, if you want. The video is in Portuguese, but it has English subtitles. Just enable it on the player.

GZDoom tutorial in text:
  1. Download GZDoom, either its most stable version or the one desired here;
  2. Unpack the file in some folder. GZDoom doesn't need installation;
  3. Now, you will have to set the port to run with an IWAD (Internal Wad), that file that comes with all the original game's resources (like DOOM.WAD or DOOM2.WAD) and is needed to also load the PWADS (usually PK3, PK7 or WAD files) from the. That first time you run GZDoom, it will display an error message, but will generate a setup file (something like gzdoom-UserName.ini). Locate it and edit it with your Notepad (click with the right mouse button over the file and select "edit"). Right in the beginning of the file, you will find some lines that look like that:

    # These are the directories to automatically search for IWADs.
# Each directory should be on a separate line, preceded by Path=
[IWADSearch.Directories]
Path=.
Path=$DOOMWADDIR
Path=$HOME
Path=$PROGDIR

    Then, you will press ENTER right after $PROGDIR and type $Path= followed by the directory path that have your IWAD. It will look, for instance, like this:
    # These are the directories to automatically search for IWADs.
# Each directory should be on a separate line, preceded by Path=
[IWADSearch.Directories]
Path=.
Path=$DOOMWADDIR
Path=$HOME
Path=$PROGDIR
Path=c:\DOOM
    You can repeat the process, creating one new line for each folder that have a different IWAD. If you don't have any registered IWAD, that aren't free, you can download the Freedoom, because GZDoom doesn't let you load mods with the shareware IWADs (DOOM1.WAD or HERETIC1.WAD);

    Attention: Some newer GZDoom versions save the configuration files in an end-of-line format that renders the GZDoom.ini file screwed to Notepad. Microsoft promised to fix this, but until then, use another editor with TXT support (even Word or Dreamweaver work) or the Swiss File Knife software to convert from LF to CRLF. Back the file up first, just to be sure.
  4. Get the mod's file that you want to play (for instance, the D4D.PK4 from Doom 4 Doom), clicking over it with the mouse, dragging and dropping it over the GZDoom's executable (GZDoom.exe);
  5. If you had set the port with more than one IWAD, an option to choose which IWAD you want to load the mod with;
  6. Basically, you are good to go. Now, you will just have to set the port, its resolution, controls, mouselook, special commands and stuff. This is your call;
  7. If you don't want to load any mods to play with Doom, just double click the GZDoom.exe file.
  8. You can load more than a mod at the same time. Just select the PK3 or WAD files you want pressing the CTRL key and releasing over the executable. Note that the order you select the files will affect the result. Also, not all mods are compatible with each others.
Other methods

There is an even easier way to use GZDoom: Just copy the IWAD file to the GZDoom's folder and drag and drop the mod's file on GZDoom's executable (GZDOOM.EXE). I don't like this very much, though, because I rather leave the original games in separate folders with the original engines and stuff. This way, I can play vanilla whenever I want and won't have duplicate files on my HD.

You can also set ZDL to run GZDoom as well.

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