Doom Legacy 1.45 FAQ

Last updated 2014-01-09

If you have any trouble with Doom Legacy, you might find a solution here.

If you find a solution to a problem that was not listed here, please tell us so that we can update the FAQ and help other people!

Miscellaneous

I get the error "Error: W_GetNumForName: STBAR not found!" What is it?
You have an old version of doom.wad. Just upgrade your version to 1.9. You can find a patch on the id Software site.
The game does not look the same as other versions of Doom.
Doom Legacy is an advanced port with many new features. These features offer improved and alternative behaviors over previous versions and other ports. The controls to select your preferred behavior for these features are in the options menu. Your settings will be saved to your config file when you exit the game. These features can also be controlled by setting variables using the console. However, if you're looking for the 100% authentic 1990s Doom experience, you could try Chocolate Doom.

Mouse/Joystick/Keyboard

My mouse/joystick does not work.

First, check that the mouse/joystick is activated : go at the console and type either 'use_mouse' (or use the respective menuitem) or 'use_joystick'. If it is '0' or off then that mouse/joystick is disabled. Set the variable to 1. eg: 'use_mouse 1'.

Once the mouse or joystick is activated, you have to bind the buttons to controls in the setup controls menu.

Video

The game doesn't restore the video mode I have chosen the last time I played Doom Legacy.
The current video mode has to be made the 'default' so that it is saved to the config: press the key 'd' on the Video Options menu to set the current video mode the default.
The game display is sideways.
Some monitors can be tilted to be tall, for working with documents. They have display modes like 800x600, and 600x800. They can detect 600x800 (where the 800 is the height), assume the tilted mode, and display the raster accordingly. Other tilt monitors may sense the tilted mode with a switch instead. Use the 800x600 video mode instead.
The game display proportions are wrong.

The original Doom graphics were designed for a 320x200 VGA display with a 4:3 physical aspect ratio. Consequently the pixels on these displays had a 5:6 physical aspect ratio, unlike most modern displays which have square pixels. This makes rendering the graphics on modern displays somewhat complicated.

The menus and intermission screens are scaled at integer ratios to fit the screen. This will often leave bars at the edges. Because these are drawn using color palette graphics from the wad, attempts at finer interpolation required looking up blended colors in a palette which lead to a muddy look. Because of this the menus will be larger or smaller for some video display modes.

The game rendering is fully scaled to display the same view at all video display modes.

In software render mode, Doom Legacy will proportion the display to keep the original display appearance. It will display with filler bars if necessary to do this. The pixels will not be identical to those from the original Doom.

In OpenGL mode using fullscreen, the introduction and intermission pictures are stretched to fill the screen. This does not keep the original aspect ratio. The game rendering is adjusted to approximate the 320x200 screen size, and the field of view of the original software renderer, assuming the display is 4:3. There is a FOV control, but it zooms and does not change the aspect ratio.

When you have a 16:9 display, Doom Legacy displays expecting a 4:3 aspect, and the monitor will stretch it to the 16:9 shape. This will alter the appearance of rooms and sprites. Some monitors can be set to display a 4:3 aspect with black borders. The best alternative is to turn off fullscreen, and choose a window size that fills most of the screen.

Audio

The music volume control is not independent of the sound effects volume control.
More recent Windows products changed the sound interface to implement only one volume control for a program. All the Doom ports are having problems with this. Doom Legacy has not implemented any of the suggested solutions yet. One requires starting an independent task to play the music, just to get the independent volume control.

Network

Where can I find Internet servers?
Try Doom Connector.