32X Ultimate Doom Mod

[AstroCreep]

I hope I put this in the right section. I was going to make a thread on Doomworld in the original post, however I'm having trouble with activating my account over there, so hopefully this'll do.

If anyone has been following e-Doctor over on Doomworld forums, he has managed to hack in the levels from Ultimate Doom and Doom II into the Sega 32X version of Doom. However, I have not been able to enjoy those mods to the fullest, because they refuse to work on my Everdrive. With his earlier hacks it is because he used a PAL region rom, however I cannot explain why his newer Ultimate Doom and Doom II mods won't work on actual hardware. So I have taken the liberty of extracting the WAD from his mod and cleaning it up a bit, splitting it up into 4 IPS patches that can be patched to fresh Doom 32X roms.

"But Sam, why the hell would you split it into 4 files?! That's annoying!"

A couple reasons:

- The original hack could not hold the final secret level, as it surpassed the 4 MB rom size limit. Without a specialized flash cart, the Sega Genesis cannot support roms bigger than 4 MB

- Unfortunately, I don't know donkey dick about hacking Sega Genesis games. e-Doctor somehow hacked the game so it could hold more maps than usual and changed up the level orders so it would play correctly. I can't do that. So instead, there is one ips patch per episode, and the other 6 maps are filled up with a filler map, and also the secret levels do not work correctly with the exception of the first episode. The levels are all in the right spots, if anyone that knows anything about hacking Genesis roms, you're welcome to give it a go.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Find a ROM of Doom 32X. Make sure it's a clean dump and NTSC region. Piracy is illegal , so please do not message me asking for copies.
2. Download the IPS patches and an IPS patcher of your choosing. Lunar IPS works pretty good.
3. Make 4 copies of your Doom ROM and rename them accordingly
4. Apply patches to each copy (1 patch per copy)
5. Copy your new Ultimate Doom ROMS to your Everdrive SD card. Or if you are really THAT lame, you can use Kega Fusion or another emulator of your choosing. Make sure you have your 32X BIOS files correctly setup if you take the emulator route.

LIMITATIONS

1. Secret levels don't work correctly
2. Game does not end directly after MAP08, so filler maps are added
3. All the rest of 32X Doom's quirks (forward facing sprites, shit music)

Anyway, here's all the links

ORIGINAL POST 1
ORIGINAL POST 2

EPISODE 1
EPISODE 2
EPISODE 3
EPISODE 4

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I asked the question back then, but could not get an answer: out of curiosity, why make content for the 32x port?

I was under the impression that it was one of the worst ports out there.

[wildweasel]

I asked the question back then, but could not get an answer: out of curiosity, why make content for the 32x port?

I was under the impression that it was one of the worst ports out there.

I'm assuming "because they can" is not a valid reason?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Well, I can understand someone modding Doom 64 and Playstation Doom because of the exclusive content and different aesthetics, but Doom 32X does not seem to have such redeeming features.

[wildweasel]

Sometimes a person does a thing for the fun of it, logical reasoning be damned. Hell, look at the entire demoscene. Why make graphical demos for a computer that hasn't been relevant for 30 years? Because it's fun.

[Rachael]

Well, I can understand someone modding Doom 64 and Playstation Doom because of the exclusive content and different aesthetics, but Doom 32X does not seem to have such redeeming features.

If everything must have a purpose then everything we do here is irrelevant. Hell, being alive is irrelevant because without levity it's a stream of bullshit and shenanigans and fuckery. We inevitably die and are forgotten about, anyway.

Glean what you can from life, useful or not - it's all you're getting. And with that in mind, why NOT do things like make things for the 32x port? If you can't see a purpose in this then don't try - just ignore it and move on. What's senseless to you is fun to another person and you're in no position to judge.

[Chris]

Because it's fun.

Exactly. For some people, there's also an element of nostalgia. For me personally, even though Doom on PC was the first version of the game I was exposed to, I have a soft spot for the SNES version because it was a big deal for SNES gamers to get a version. On one level, it was Nintendo finally softening their stance on violent video games, and on another level, I saw it as a technically impressive achievement. I was also particularly impressed with the music. Prior to the SNES version I had only been exposed to the OPL3 music of the PC version, even though I had always wanted to get an AWE32 card with wavetable MIDI. And despite certain "unfortunate" instrument limitations of the SNES version's music*, I liked it better than the FM music. Even though I know it's one of the poorer versions, and the PC version is better in every measurable way, thinking about SNES Doom makes me remember those feelings. I would be tickled pink for someone to make a version of Doom2 run on real SNES hardware, using some variation of the SuperFX chip that could have existed at the time (then provide a ROM image to play on an SNES emulator).

* I say unfortunate, but there are popular bands in modern times that get notoriety for playing rock and metal songs using classical instruments. It might not have been the most faithful to the original sound, but it had a unique quality to it while also sounding quite decent for the time.

Also, when it comes to game development and design, you're constantly running into limitations. It's a skill to know how to deal with limitations, to know where to cut corners or where to make compromises, and when to hack for that last ounce of juice. Working within a severely limited system can help you grow that skill, which would still apply when making modern titles for modern systems (the specifics may be different, but the concepts and experience will still be quite useful).

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I suppose. Then again, I would argue that the SNES sound system is in itself a significant redeeming quality of its Doom port.

And I have to admit, I do like the fan-made 32x renditions of the Doom soundtrack.

[Chris]

And I have to admit, I do like the fan-made 32x renditions of the Doom soundtrack.

I wonder if anyone's made a mod with GYM files of those songs (the music files as the Genesis/Mega Drive would actually play it, not just mp3 or ogg recordings of it). The SNES Doom mod contains SPCs in a separate wad for SNES music emulation, it might be neat if there was a similar thing for those renditions.

[AstroCreep]

Can't do that unfortunately but if you know anything about GEMS you might be able to give it a go. Sounds and music are stored outside the wad in the 32x version so you have to actually hack the rom

[AstroCreep]

And to answer the why question, the answer is because sometimes you just need Doom on a sega

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Is there not already a Saturn port that is much better, though?

[wildweasel]

Is there not a Saturn port that is much better, though?

It's arguably worse, owing to crippling frame rate issues.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Yeah, I saw a video comparison of the Saturn and Playstation ports. Still, it looks better than the 32X port and it uses the same music as the Playstation port.

All in all, I would think it has more potential than the 32x port.

[wildweasel]

This all completely ignores, though, that the devs made this for the 32X version because they wanted to, and because it was fun for them, regardless of how good a port the 32X version actually is.

Now does anybody have any comments on the actual project here, or just arguments over which Doom port sucked less?