ZDoom

"Correct way of playing Doom". This strange term shows up from time to time. What is the correct way of playing Doom?

It's simple. There is the only correct way of playing Doom (and any other game): the one that you enjoy. If the game doesn't bring you fun, you're playing it wrong, or you're playing the wrong game. Some games are meant to be played in a certain fashion, and cannot be tweaked or modified to one's liking. Fortunately, it's not the case for Doom.

Since December 23, 1997, when id Software released the engine source code, there is no single mandatory way of playing Doom. The fact of publishing under a permissive license signifies that a program is meant to be changed and developed further. In a way, every source port is encouraged directly by id, including GZDoom.

This engine contains many additions to the original Doom engine, and a lot of the original code was replaced. With extensive modding capabilities, it allows even more radical shifts in gameplay and visual style. It made possible creating standalone games that barely resemble the first-person shooter from 1993.

But in its core, in its soul, GZDoom remains an engine to run Doom and its derivatives. It continues to support a surprising amount of the vanilla gameplay mechanics, including options for id Tech 1 engine limitations and even bugs. Finding and fiddling with all the settings may be tedious, and this is where Vanilla Essence mod comes in handy.

Vanilla Essence started off as a simple shortcut menu, grouping together GZDoom options that make the game behave and look more like the original Doom. Now, it includes a key that toggles between the default mode and vanilla mode.


(images are clickable)

You can also configure how strong the vanilla flavor will be by tailoring the settings to your heart's content. For each option, Vanilla Essence hints what value conforms to the original, which is very convenient.

There are options for the game behavior, appearance, lighting, special effects, sound, and user interface.



Vanilla essence not only highlights the options that are already present in GZDoom but adds its own feature: configurable low resolution.



With this mod, you can easily have any combination of vanilla and modern dooming. For example, this is a combination of dynamic lights, brightmaps, and low resolution:



Or play with any gameplay mod and have near-1993 experience:





With GZDoom and Vanilla Essence, everyone can find their own favorite color on the wide and deep dooming spectrum.

Forum Thread

Retro MS-DOS resolution is to me, it's a double dealer. Sometimes it makes the game great and gives retro-feel to it, but also makes it almost blurry and bland. But it seems this Addon is doing its job right without making it unbalanced! This Addon is possibly the accurate and faithful to the old retro resolution. And feels pretty nice using it.

Kudos for Pixel Eater for this impressive graphical tweaker!

Best mod ever. It's useful when confronting the odious possibility that a slaughter-map will chafe your system setup and you don't need to verify extreme long distances. So, F5 and boom, diminished visuals but improved performance.

Would be nice to see 21:9 as one of the 'appearance' options.

Hello,

is there a way to auto-enable the mod at game start ? Without the need of a key press, i set key to F1 !

I use batch file to launch my WADs :
Doom I II Final Nerve Sigil XbX - Vanilla essence.bat I could add a specific .ini for VEssence if the auto-switch needs it (-config configfile).

Thanks for the mod, and certainly other things.


EDIT:

accordind to the answer received in my other topic, the PK3 itselt only can enable the option by default, as it's part of itself, not the engine.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=75215

It'd be a good idea to make PK3 addon with the option enabled by default. To be loaded after main PK3.

What gameplay mods are you using in the last two screenshots? And how did you get your HUD to look like that in the fourth one?

daemonspudguy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 6:55 pm What gameplay mods are you using in the last two screenshots? And how did you get your HUD to look like that in the fourth one?

The first one of the last two screenshots appears to be Doom Delta and the last one is Guncaster.

daemonspudguy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 6:55 pm What gameplay mods are you using in the last two screenshots? And how did you get your HUD to look like that in the fourth one?

4th image is an edited version of the Back to Saturn-X HUD (the map set is BTSX as well, very good btw), but I'm not sure who did the edit. this is the closest I could find to the one in the image