
Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform - kiisupai
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=684969
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nailer
WAIT. Newell's Windows port (commonly referred to as DOOM95
[http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95](http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95)) was
_never_ popular and very few DOOM players knew it even existed. It certainly
didn't prove to the masses that Windows was a viable gaming platform.

Those that do recall the Windows port do so in the the context of Microsoft
telling people that '32 bit Doom will be twice as fast' before finding out
that wasn't true.

The most popular - read 'only' \- PC version of Doom was the DOS 4GW version.
Ditto Doom 2, Hexen, etc. Quake also assumed DOS. No Windows port of those
games was mainstream. Go read the DOOM FAQ - everything assumes DOS,
DOOM95/WinDOOM is only mentioned as one of many ports of 'regular' (DOS) DOOM
[http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/doomfaq/sect1.html#5-6](http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/doomfaq/sect1.html#5-6)).

DOOM was released in the era of 386s (when 486s were new). 32 bit Windows
required at practically at least 16MB of memory and a 486. For the people that
had those specs, if the Windows DOOM port was faster, people would have used
it - but they didn't, because DOOM95 wasn't faster.

DOOM95 may have been used to inspire _developers_ however - the regular PC
version of Quake 2 came with a Windows installer / launcher and was frequently
launched on Windows.

Source: spent my teenage years building stuff like
[http://mikemaccana.com/#/doom-the-path/](http://mikemaccana.com/#/doom-the-
path/) in DEU, the first algorithm I ever heard of was BSP, and I know what
IDSPISPOPD stands for.

PS. Go play my and John's WAD linked above. It has working toilets. In DOOM!

~~~
jasonlotito
> WAIT. Newell's Windows port (commonly referred to as DOOM95
> [http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95](http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom95)) was
> never popular and very few DOOM players knew it even existed. It certainly
> didn't prove to the masses that Windows was a viable gaming platform.

Not sure where the original article ever makes those claims.

~~~
nailer
In the post's title: "Newell's history porting Doom to Win to show it can be a
gaming platf." The general context of the post seems to be about proving Linux
to consumers, rather than developers (which is more accurate).

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pjmlp
Well, those of us that were already coding for Windows back then, remember
that what brought game studios to Windows was WinG, the percursor of DirectX.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinG)

Gabe Newell had nothing to do with it.

~~~
agumonkey
<digression> reading this took me down memory lane, I ended rediscovering
windows midi songs
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtoHxMWw354](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtoHxMWw354)

~~~
pjmlp
Thanks for sharing the link.

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ekianjo
OMG, the comments below that first post are full of ignorance. It's just so
painful to see what people think and say of Linux (even the ones who defend
it).

~~~
sbarre
Was this your first introduction to NeoGAF or other gaming boards? It's pretty
depressing isn't it?

It's the primary reason I stopped frequenting video game communities.. Which
is a shame because I've been a gamer all my life, and I wish there was a
vibrant (and large) community for intelligent discussion like Hacker News but
that was game focused.. I'm sure there is somewhere, but I haven't found it..

~~~
ChrisClark
You could try the highly moderated
[http://reddit.com/r/Games](http://reddit.com/r/Games) community. It was
started in reaction to the horrible posts on /r/gaming.

They even post warnings on threads that real /r/all where people not
subscribed to /r/Gaming will see it and come in to comment.

There is also /r/linux_gaming which will have better discussions on the Linux
aspect of Valve's new developments.

But it's not perfect. Just one of the better options.

~~~
sbarre
I found /r/Games last year sometime, and you're right it's actually quite good
so far...

~~~
acous
rockpapershotgun.com might be worth a look too.

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lazyjones
That's a bit simplified. More details about this story can be found in the
very entertaining book "Masters of Doom" (about John Carmack and John Romero).

~~~
Auguste
This is an excellent book. It's not just about Carmack and Romero (although it
focuses on them) but also about id Software as a company, from its inception
through to a few months before Quake III came out, if I remember correctly. A
very insightful read.

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sbarre
I would think that times were a bit different back then, and it's not really a
fair comparison to make.

Companies today that are the size of id software back then, and that are
making games of relatively equal complexity, are already publishing to Linux.

There were no 200-person studios cranking out $10 million dollar (or more)
game projects when Doom came out, and that's a much more complex issue to
address..

We're barely seeing OS X ports of major titles now, so while I think SteamOS
is great, I don't think it's going to suddenly mean an influx of AAA Windows
titles appearing on Linux.

~~~
evadne
A bunch of titles are available for OS X thru Aspyr [1] with porting latency
measured in months.

[1] [http://www.aspyr.com/](http://www.aspyr.com/)

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mekpro
Although DOOM95 was not a success, it doesn't mean that what Newell believe
was wrong. Also it's pretty clear that many people buy/use computer for solely
entertainment purpose and that's why consoles sold.

