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TUTORIAL: Playing the latest DoomGLES version with full Doom / Doom2 maps &other tips

After publishing my tutorial on the, then-current version 0.04 of Kokak’s excellent Pocket PC port of Doom offering 2700G (3D acceleration) support, DoomGLES/PPC, a lot has happened. The 0.5 series of DoomGLES offers a lot of goodies you MUST check out if and only if you have a Dell Axim x50v or x51v equipped with an Intel 2700G 3D accelerator by default. (Unfortunately, the brand new O2 XDA Flame, the, currently, only other Pocket PC to sport a 3D accelerator, doesn't run DoomGLES.)

Note that the changes & new features are NO longer implemented in the version meant to play the shareware version of Doom I. This means the latter can’t play back music and doesn’t offer for example Portrait screen orientation support.

(Doom 2 main screen in Portrait mode on my Dell Axim x51v)

Unfortunately, unlike with the shareware version (which comes with a pre-converted WAD file), you must manually convert your WAD files to both get a playable version and also to extract music. As this question generally causes a LOT of headache to Pocket PC users (some PocketGamer.org forum members even use the line “trying to convert wads for DoomGL” as their “favorite game”), I’ve decided to devote a full tutorial to the question. In the following two sections, I elaborate on this.

The first step is essential – without this, you won’t be able to make anything run. The second is optional and will only be needed if you would also like to listen to the original music while playing.

Converting WAD files

To convert the WAD files of your games, extract the main DoomGL ES file (with the current, 0.56 version, it’s DoomGLESB056.zip) and go to the Converter subdirectory of it. Copy doom.wad (and/or doom2.wad) in the same directory and start either DoomConvert.bat or Doom2Convert.bat, depending on whether you want to convert Doom I or Doom II. After some dozens of minutes (on my 3.2 GHz P4, it took almost an hour to convert Doom I and almost 1.5 hours to convert Doom II) of converting (during which the converter application will open a LOT of DOS batch windows), a newly created, OpenGLES directory will contain the converted data. You will need to copy the contents of this directory to your Pocket PC.

Converting music

To convert music, stay in the Converter subdirectory. Assuming you still have doom.wad (and/or doom2.wad) in there, you will only need to decompress the contents of timidity.zip in the same (!) directory. That is, there will be several new files in the Converter subdirectory and also a new timidity subdirectory.

After this, just issue the

DGLESConvert -iwad doom.wad -convertmusic

(where just change doom.wad to doom2.wad with Doom II) command to convert the midi files inside the WAD file to WAV files. The new music files will be created in a brand new Music directory; with subdirectories separating the two Doom versions. You will need to copy this Music subdirectory to your Windows Mobile device.

Fortunately, music conversion is MUCH faster than WAD conversion (see the previous section).

Making everything ready

After you’ve converted the WAD files and, possibly, extracted the music, you will need to copy the following files to your Windows Mobile device (either a storage card or the internal storage, if the latter is large enough; you can use any directory name):

the PPC subdirectory of DoomGLESB056.zip containing the executable and the config file (DoomGLES.exe and doomgles.cfg) and the subdirectory OpenGLES with only one file, haze.pvr, in it. You do NOT need to copy the Converter subdirectory on your Windows Mobile device – it’s only meant for desktop-side WAD conversion. Also note that, unlike with ALL the other directories (OpenGLES and Music), you don’t need to preserve the PPC directory name either.

the converted WAD files – that is, the contents of the automatically-created OpenGLES directory. During this, you will also overwrite haze.pvr, which is also auto-generated during the conversion.

the converted music files, if any – that is, the contents of the automatically-created Music directory.

the contents of the OpenGLES_Datas.zip file, which must be separately downloaded. As with Bullet 2, you must put its content in the OpenGLES directory.

copy doom.wad (or doom2.wad) in the same directory where DoomGLES.exe resides – that is, the main directory.

All in all, you MUST have the following directory structure in your home (main) directory containing DoomGLES.exe and doomgles.cfg:

OpenGLES/doom (or doom2) containing both the converted files AND the files from OpenGLES_Datas.zip. (The latter are in sky* directories)

OpenGLES/MD2, entirely coming from OpenGLES_Datas.zip

Music/doom (or doom2), entirely coming from your Timidity conversion

In the home directory DoomGLES.exe, doomgles.cfg (coming from DoomGLESB056.zip) and doom.wad (or doom2.wad) (manually copied there).

After this, you can start the game by executing DoomGLES.exe.

Switching between Doom I and II

It’s pretty easy to switch between the two games – just make sure only one of the two WAD’s (doom.wad or doom2.wad) is in the home directory of DoomGLES before starting the game. You can just rename / move the other WAD file to somewhere else so that the other WAD file is activated. Note that you don’t need to touch the contents of the OpenGLES\doom or OpenGLES\doom2 subdirectories – it’s only the single WAD files that you need to (re)move / rename.

That is, if you (after, of course, converting the WAD and making sure you also copy the contents of OpenGLES\doom2 to your storage card) just leave doom2.wad in there, then, Doom2 will be played.

Switching between the portrait and the landscape mode

Kokak has also implemented a comparatively easy screen orientation change method, which is a godsend to everybody suffering from the polarization issues of the x50v/x51v screens.

By default, the game is started in Landscape mode. Should you want to override this, just edit doomgles.cfg after at least once running the game on your handheld (this key/value pair isn’t in there by default) and change

Orientation	1

to

Orientation	0

After the following restart, the game will start in Portrait.

Don’t mix up the shareware and the commercial versions!

They’re entirely different and shouldn’t be mixed up. Fortunately, Kokak’s homepage separates them pretty well – the three commercial files are listed under DoomGLES V0.56 (beta) and the four files of the shareware version are listed under DoomGLES V0.04 (shareware version - last alpha) in the Downloads section. Naturally, if you want to play the version meant for the commercial version of Doom I / II, you won’t need to bother with the latter four files – just download the first three (or two – without the Timidity converter – if you don’t need in-game music) under DoomGLES V0.56 (beta).

Other news / tips for another, free, 2700G-enabled FPS game, Quake 3

Anyone having read my article “Great games for Dell x50v/x51v” knows Quake 3 doesn’t run on Dell Axim x51v devices using official ROM versions. BEEF34T3R’s post HERE explains how you can provide sufficient memory for Quake 3 on the Dell Axim x51v by decreasing the pagepool and reflashing the x51v. (A related thread is HERE.)