Classic DOOM/Brutal DOOM Linkage & How-To

Updated: 04/26/23. Fixed the DOS DOOM Pack launcher thing. It's all set now. Try it out! I made the installer with WinRAR 'n the launcher is just an ascii logo, batch files & DOSBox working together to make a simple menu, but it works really nicely. It runs in fullscreen, (ALT+Enter to toggle) goes back to the menu after you exit a game, so you can get the fairly legit DOS experience of having to manually exit. :u (or launch the next game after you beat the first)

~Vanilla DOOM~
Classic (DOS) DOOM Pack:
https://mega.nz/file/L1ZASaSZ#beDSruUEHxZ6dzNdSqDsZhci2GdxoFDpeueN7_ur9gQn
Original DOOM, DOOM 2 & Final DOOM. Plus DOSBox 'n a launcher, ready to use, made by me!

Modern Ports:
Choose GZDoom for 99% of use-cases, copy iwads into folder. It is strongly recommended,
though not required, to put GZDoom & all you add in with it, in a folder on the same drive
preferably an SSD for fast load times.
Simply running it from your Windows desktop or downloads folder will complicate the set up.
https://zdoom.org/downloads

ZDoom Launcher (ZDL):
Copy into same folder as Zdoom & all wads. Run ZDL.exe & set it up.
This involves selecting your IWAD (Doom2.wad), Port (GZDOOM.exe) & your PWADs/PK3s
(brutalv21.pk3, edaymusic.wad, etc) You may have to adjust the order you select them
a few times before you find the most compatible order. Some wads can just be extra picky.
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=32596

~SgtMKIV's Brutal DOOM~
https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/downloads/brutal-doom-v21-beta
This will enhance your vanilla doom experience to the extreme. It not only increases blood &
gore, but improves the shooting & balance, adds new weapons, etc. Basically, this will turn
DOOM up to about 12 on a scale of 1-10. I STRONGLY recommend you play the original games
on GZDoom, modern controls or no before this, to get the full experience of both.

~SgtMKIV's Brutal DOOM Map Pack, Extermination Day~
Extermination Day is an excellent map pack made for Brutal Doom which has a
sort of Doom 1 + 2 progression. Starting on the Mars base & ending up on Earth.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/yk892g3ckybcd26/edaytestmar27.zip/file
(The latest beta by Mark)
https://www.moddb.com/games/doom-ii/downloads/eday-vanilla-for-vanilla-and-mods
(Optimized version by someone other than Mark)
https://mega.nz/file/C9Il2I7L#wPtvfvbGHUZFruXvODLUnbdiOlUh8dvtp_SuqFfuu7w
(Most-compatible version for use with Project Brtuality 3.0 by JMartinez which I can't find the original link to)

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~Additional WADs~

Eday Music WAD:
Some of the included music in the beta feels a bit- placeholder-ish & to me, doesn't necessarily
fit the tone of a number of the maps, this pack is a collection of almost entirely heavy metal tracks.
https://mega.nz/file/uk5Q1bxS#5-LXV8U_KVR7kgX6q8DjhU5TKkrHNELBJVxu31GPXUE
(Optional for use with Extermination Day in Brutal Doom or Project Brutality)

https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/addons/doomvisor-hud-for-pa1nki113r-v51
A HUD enhancement that makes it appear more as though you're wearing the helmet the
Doom guy is always depicted with. Customizable, but generally limits your ability
to see clearly regardless of config, also fairly resource-intensive. Optional.

~Project Brutality~
https://github.com/pa1nki113r/Project_Brutality/tree/master
(click Code, Download ZIP, change filetype from ZIP to PK3, add to folder)
A much more over the top and even less vanilla-feeling than Brutal Doom, inspired
by and built onto brutal doom- this mod may feel more akin to Doom 2016/Eternal
with double jumps, and ledge-grabbing. As well as hilarious Doom comic one-liners.
Near 100% compatible with the official Extermination Day beta.

~Setting up GZDoom for Brutal Doom or other wads (without the use of ZDL)~
Keep in mind, the latest versions of GZDoom will save config files into C:\Users\YourName\Documents\My Games\ Once you have run GZDoom.exe, a file "GZDOOM-name.ini" will have been created, where name, is
your Windows username. Make a copy of this file & give the copy a short but descriptive name,
such as BrutalV21.ini. Then, in the file scroll down to
[Global.Autoload], below this, enter the path in this format for, say, brutalv21.pk3. Example:
[Global.Autoload]
Path=\brutalv21.pk3
Path=\edaytest001.pk3
Path=\ed music.wad
Next, create a shortcut to GZDoom. Name it something appropriate, such as "Brutal Doom v21"
Right-click & select properties on the shortcut. In the "Target" box, after gzdoom.exe, add the following:
"-iwad doom2.wad -config brutalv21.ini (the name you used) [For example] And yes- that's a thing.

AMD "Virtual Super Resolution" is actually pretty effective.

You can see where the setting is located in the AMD Settings application here:

Let's all love Lain.

This effectively cranks up the resolution past your monitor's native rez & does some fancy scaling BS at the cost of some minor horsepower and the result is, well...

You get that much more desktop/screen real-estate. I set Windows' scaling settings to 105% to make the text a little more clear, though it was quite legible anyway. This will of course vary depending on the size of your monitor. In my case, it's a 27 inch model. If you have to set the scaling to 125% or more to see everything, then there's not a whole lot of point to increasing the resolution without increasing the size of your screen, cause it'll be just as cluttered as it was before if your folders 'n other windows have to be sized up to be legible. Though I did not have it enabled in the screenshot, enabling Integer Scaling is absolutely necessary. It clears up the smaller text greatly.

The only drawback here aside from that ^ is that if you intend on gaming or watching higher-rez movies, the power & resource usage will be that much higher even though you're not getting a "true" increase of resolution. I noticed Wallpaper Engine, a live/animated wallpaper application sold on Steam, was using a good chunk more resources despite my preference of animated wallpapers that are not very active. Some water trickling, something to illustrate that the wind is blowing, etc. Not enough to use a lot of power as opposed to many of the more lively wallpapers you can find.
I should add that whether or not the resolution is higher will not affect resource usage on live wallpapers which utilize movie files or gifs of which each are a set size will only be scaled up or down (at apparently no cost to resources) depending on the rez vs live render-type wallpapers which have no predetermined resolution.

Idle GPU usage went from around 2-5% to 15-20%. Granted, my GPU is rather old, an R9 270X OC from 2013 or so. Fine for casual use, but not able to just run 4K animations in the background without a little sweating. So your results will definitely vary, especially if you're on a laptop.
(assuming many laptops even support this kinda thing?) It's worth trying out though, it can't hurt your device though it might strain your eyes if you're not careful. Give it a try! Nvidia has their own version of it, though I don't know what they call it for sure & I'm too lazy to look it up. :v

Halloween Wallpaper Pack Varying resolutions & orientations. Minimalist art styles, etc

Link to the 7-zip archive of the pack: Halloween.7z on my MEGA Updated: 04/26/23 added about 50 images! In April because I just remembered I had 'em!

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