How To Use PWAD (new level) Files ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 4th Edition. 27/Feb/95 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Note to Doom II players: The examples given here are for Doom, but the same command line options apply to Doom II as well. Note that there are currently two programs to convert PWADs written for Doom I so that they'll work with Doom II. These are on the various Doom ftp sites in: /utils/wad_tools and the file names are: wad1to2b.zip dm2cnv16.zip In this file, all example commands have been indented to distinguish them from the surrounding text. How to use PWAD files: After you have unzipped the PWAD zip file, place the WAD file in the same directory as your DOOM.EXE and DOOM.WAD file. Then enter: doom -file pwadname.wad e.g. doom -file stones.wad Then just start a new game on the appropriate episode and/or level. Some PWADs replace levels that are not level 1 on an episode. For these, you can start by activating any new game and then just use idclev to get to the appropriate level; e.g. if a PWAD replaced E2L5, for example, then you could run Doom with the usual: doom -file whatever.wad then you could start a new game on any episode and once the game has begun, you would type: idclev25 And that would teleport you to the appropriate level (note: every PWAD should come with a text file which says which episode and/or level it is replacing). Alternatively, you could warp straight to the level using a command line; e.g. for the above example you would use: doom -file whatever.wad -devparm -warp 2 5 -skill Where is in the range 1 to 5. Yet another way to use PWADs, and the easiest I think as it saves you worrying about which level the PWAD is replacing, is to use a PWAD manager program of some kind. DWM is one. Another is DOOMENU. There are several more available as well. These will let you select a PWAD to play, which skill level, etc. and will warp you straight to the appropriate level. They will also keep track of how many times you have played a particular PWAD, and so on. Both of these programs allow you to supply a short descriptive comment for each PWAD as well. These programs become more and more useful once your PWAD collection grows beyond 20 or 30. They also support multi-player games, modem play, etc. One final thing on WAD manager programs: they usually allow you to keep your PWADs in a separate directory (e.g. DOOM\WADS). You simply specify where this directory is when first installing the PWAD manager. This is how DOOMENU works. I use DOOMENU, in case you're wondering. :) It is currently up to version 17 and is a pretty cool program. You can get it from: ftp.cdrom.com in the directory: pub/doom/misc and the files are: doomen17.zip doomen17.txt Don't forget to enter 'bin' before downloading. Note 1: all the usual things can be done with PWADs. e.g. doom -file stones.wad -devparm -warp 1 1 -skill 4 -respawn -record stdemo To play this back you'd use: doom -file stones.wad -playdemo stdemo -respawn Note 2: the '.wad' extension IS needed! This is unlike .lmp demos, where the '.lmp' extension is not needed. Note 3: for some reason, I know not what, some PWADs will not allow you to save your position when playing them. Other info: You must be using the registered version of Doom. WADs written with one version of Doom (e.g. v1.2) will often not work properly with another version of Doom (e.g. v1.666), usually because of the various small differences between the DOOM.EXE files, etc. The usual effect of this is that the game will freeze up after a short period of play, or will not load at all. Check the accompanying text file to see what version of Doom the WAD is intended for. However, there are programs available to convert PWADs from one version to another, available from the Doom ftp sites. Some WADs are pretty extensive patches and change many things in Doom, often using the 'Dehacked' program. These kinds of patches often come with useful batch files to save you all the bother of figuring out how to run the WAD. An example is Aliens TC. This is installed by entering "INSTALL" and is thereafter run by entering "ALIEN". Have fun! :) Ian. The Doom Help Service (DHS). Co-ordinator of rec.games.computer.doom.help. WWW addresses: Home page: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/ DHS: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/doom/doom.html Help Archive: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/doom/doomhelp.zip Dissertation: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/diss/diss.html SGI Stuff: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~mapleson/sgistuff/sgindex.html Ian C. R. Mapleson BSc., Oceans Systems Research Group, Room G86, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Heriot Watt University, Riccarton Campus, EH14 4AS, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. email to: mapleson@cee.hw.ac.uk