Decline ZDoom sounds and looks better than GZDoom

[Lyric Suite]

So i was going over my collection of wads for Doom, Hexen etc etc and i have both zdoom and gzdoom installed in the same folder since some old wads work better with zdoom and i just noticed that zdoom looks and sounds better than gzdoom. I loaded up an Hexen map and instantly noticed how much better the music sounded and also the visuals were more pixelated. This is despite the fact i'm running GZdoom in software render under Vulkan, which somehow it's not exactly the same.

As for the music, i checked the settings in zdoom and it's on "sound system" whatever that means. I tried every single MIDI device in GZDoom and none of them sound close to what i'm hearing on ZDoom.

Anybody knows what's with this fuckery?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ok, i was able to fix the visuals by erasing the ini file and starting over. Not sure what that was about.

Music still sounds WAY better in ZDoom.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think i may have figured it out. Old ZDoom used FMOD for audio where as nu-GZDoom uses OpenAL. I found some thread complaining people didn't like OpenAL, so i think i'm on to something here.

 

[Curratum]

Just remember to turn on fake contrast on to make all games on the engine have infinitely better depth perception.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Fake_contrast

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't forget to wear your doom gaming socks

 

[Haba]

And sip from the doom gaming sippy mug.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Why would you ever play vanilla wads in any variant of ZDoom, let alone that trash GZDoom? Play Crispy Doom and its Heretic and Hexen variants. It looks way better.

 

[Jasede]

I only ever used zdoom. Why would I want to use Crispy Doom? Does it look more like the original?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I only ever used zdoom. Why would I want to use Crispy Doom? Does it look more like the original?

I never played the original so I can't speak for the authenticity, but Crispy Doom is a variant of Chocolate Doom which is said to be the most 1:1 port of the original game. It's just Chocolate Doom but with an unlocked framerate and higher resolution options, plus some additional optional features. For me, it looks WAY better than any other source port. Download it and give it a try for yourself. In my opinion, the only reason to use ZDoom, GZDoom, LZDoom, etc, is to play mods.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Why would you ever play vanilla wads in any variant of ZDoom, let alone that trash GZDoom? Play Crispy Doom and its Heretic and Hexen variants. It looks way better.

It's the convenience of knowing i can throw any wad at it, old and new and it runs. It's so rare i get an old wad that doesn't work even on the latest GZDoom that i rarely booted up ZDoom instead, which is why i never noticed the difference until now. Apparently FMOD is gone for good which means i now have to default to ZDoom as much as i can.

And of course some modern wads are made for GZDoom specifically and i always preferred not having to juggle source ports around.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

It's the convenience of knowing i can throw any wad at it, old and new and it runs. It's so rare i get an old wad that doesn't work even on the latest GZDoom that i rarely booted up ZDoom instead, which is why i never noticed the difference until now. Apparently FMOD is gone for good which means i now have to default to ZDoom as much as i can.

And of course some modern wads are made for GZDoom specifically and i always preferred not having to juggle source ports around.

That's a valid reason, I suppose. I used to have the same reasoning, but the ZDL launcher makes juggling source ports really easy. I don't use it anymore, since now I just make an .sh file for any wad combination I want to use.

 

[Curratum]

Set up the Steam copy of Ultimate Doom to run this when I choose the "Run DOS version" option, never looked back

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

I play (and mod) Zdoom extensively and have so for many years.

First thing, you want to set the scaling mode to "nearest", which will give you the zdoom-pixelly look in your gzdoom while using the hardware renderer. I HIGHLY suggest using hardware since it's way faster, especially in wads with a lot of special effects (Project Brutality, etc).

Second, ZDoom is absolutely ancient, so you won't be able to play any new wads with it. I would recommend switching to QZDoom instead

I think it's possible to compile FMOD into GZdoom, but not sure how.

That's a valid reason, I suppose. I used to have the same reasoning, but the ZDL launcher makes juggling source ports really easy. I don't use it anymore, since now I just make an .sh file for any wad combination I want to use.

I am exactly the same. Since switching to Linux I have been constantly surprised how many Windows programs can be essentially replaced with a 3-5 line shell script. Windows software is a complete meme at this point.

 

[Lyric Suite]

LMAO, so the visuals weren't fixed at all, GZDoom is still slightly blurry compared to ZDoom, nearest scaling, software rendering and everything.

So visuals are worse and audio is worse. The fuck did they do to this shit.

I was at least able to bump the volume of the music a bit by raising the gain in FluidSynth but OpenAL is total colossal shit i must say.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Second, ZDoom is absolutely ancient, so you won't be able to play any new wads with it.

The 2.8.1 version came out in 2016, right? So it should be safe to use any wads up to that point, right?

Keep in mind i don't play modifications. Don't give a shit about Br00tal Doom or weapon mods and the like i just play mission wads exclusively.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

And sip from the doom gaming sippy mug.

And pet your cacodemon.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I would recommend switching to QZDoom instead

Hooo i just saw the FMOD dll in the zip file. Is this thing compatible with modern wads? Because if that's the case i'll just ditch GZDoom altoghether.

[EDIT] Guess not as i just tried one and it didn't load. Gave me a version mismatch error.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Have you set your soundfont in GZDoom? I suspect the music issue has 0 to do with OpenAL/FMOD and more to do with the fact that GZDoom ships with its own soundfont that is frankly just shit.

Dunno about the graphics thing, no-one who uses GZDoom cares about the software renderer anyway. You could try Vanilla Essence for a nice software look in GL or give ZZDoom a go (updates 2.8.1 with a bunch of stuff from GZDoom). Compatibility may or may not suck with either option, V.E. has caused some switches to not function as intended when I've used it, and I've never tried ZZDoom so no idea about how well it's gonna run anything. Have a look at this article about recommended GZDoom settings too I guess, it could be helpful.

TBH consider ditching the Z-ports and just run Woof! which is the Crispy-successor port and is compatible with basically everything that isn't intended for some form of ZDoom (vanilla/boom/MBF/MBF21), and has many nice graphical features. You're already starting on the demo-compatible path and frankly most GZD-only stuff is mediocre at best.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Have you set your soundfont in GZDoom? I suspect the music issue has 0 to do with OpenAL/FMOD and more to do with the fact that GZDoom ships with its own soundfont that is frankly just shit.

That seems easy to verify. Where's the sound font used by ZDoom 2.8.1?

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, there's too many of those z ports. ZDoom, GZDoom, QZDoom, ZDoom32, LZDoom, ZZDoom. Did i forget any?

[EDIT] Lmao on the ZZDoom wiki it mentions even more forks, ZDoom64 and RZDoom wtf who needs so many?

 

[Jasede]

In the software developer world we have something called build tools. Every so often, a developer decides that, since we have 15 terrible build tools, he'll create a new one.

The result? 16 terrible build tools.

It's a lot like that.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

LZDoom has worked with every wad I've thrown at it, even supposedly GZDoom specific ones. And GZDoom's developer is a giant megafag, so LZ's my source port of choice when not playing vanilla.

 

[Curratum]

LZDoom has worked with every wad I've thrown at it, even supposedly GZDoom specific ones. And GZDoom's developer is a giant megafag, so LZ's my source port of choice when not playing vanilla.

"LZDoom targets users still running with OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics cards but who want to stay in touch with the latest in GZDoom development."

It's literally someone catching up with the giant megafag and refactoring shit so it runs on old-ass GPUs...

 

[Lyric Suite]

I suspect the music issue has 0 to do with OpenAL/FMOD and more to do with the fact that GZDoom ships with its own soundfont that is frankly just shit.

Alright, so i made more tests and whatever sound font ZDoom and all the other derivatives that are still using FMOD (i picked ZZDoom as it seems the best out of the ZDoom 2.8.1 forks for what i need, I.E., compatibility with as many mission wads as possible) beats all of them. It even beats the SC-55.sf2 sound font (which does certain things better but i still like it less than what i'm hearing on ZDoom).

There's also something odd going on because ZDoom is not using any of the MIDI players (FluidSynth etc) but something called "Sound Sytem". If i switch to FluidSynth or anything else i actually get no music at all. No such option appears when i cycle through the soundfonts in GZDoom. There's also no soundfonds in the zip folder of ZDoom and derivatives so i guess this "Sound System" is using the soundfont that comes with the audio driver.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Not sure if this works as i guess your audiocard may change the sound (i'm on a Realtek ALC1220 right now) but i decided to record both of them to show you what i mean.

GZDoom with SC-55.sf2 soundfont:



This mysterious "Sound System" on ZZDoom using FMOD:



Also curiously, on actual old ZDoom the music sounds much louder than on ZZDoom, but the sound font is the same.

Please someone explain to me how i get GZDoom to sound like that.