- Serial Doom Faq v1.0 *SOLUTIONS* - Copyright (c) 1994 by Branden L. Spikes. - - All rights are reserved. The text found in this document may not be - copied, photographed, reproduced, or translated or reduced to - any electronic medium or machine-readable form, in whole or in part, - without prior written consent from Branden L. Spikes. -- HERE IS THE INFO YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR -- SOLUTIONS TO SERIAL DOOM! -- After somewhere around 50 hours of experience with kludging and smashing my computer to work with DOOM serial games, I've gathered quite a bit of knowledge about serial DOOM gaming. Here's what I have to offer: The absolute best results I've ever seen out of a doom game, whether it be compared to a Novell network with 3 players, a 14400 baud IHHD, or a 14400 modem connection, would have to be the Null-Modem at 115200 baud. This is by far a very reliable and smooth connection for dooming. Too bad that it's only for 2 players. -=-=- Here's how to make doom work with a null modem cable -=-=- - The cable can consist of a 9-pin or 25-pin RS-232 cable, a gender-changer, a telephone cable kludge, or a patch cable kludge (at least that's all done so far and had work well) - The cable can span any length and speed, don't worry about line noise, my most common set up right now (due to computers being in separate rooms in the house) spans 35' of 8-pin patch cable kludged and a combined 12' of 25-pin RS-232 cable at a 115200 serial baud rate using 16550's. - To have the serial port operate at anything above 19200 baud you MUST have a 16550 uart serial card (usually not the stock config for any computer so you'll prolly have to go to the store to get one if you want one) a 19200 baud null modem game is still smooth, but will slow down in higher skill levels (since there's more monsters). A 115200 baud game will rarely slow down even in Nightmare mode. NOTE: Some 16550 cards will not default to have the FIFO 16k buffer enabled. I found a program somewhere that does it called 16550.exe. - The best sersetup.exe program I've seen (and I've tried them all except the ser4.exe patch since it just came out as of this document's creation) is by far the dserf27.zip (found at ocf.unt.edu in /pub/doom/multi_doom/) - Serial settings should be N81, no flow control. - I've seen the game screech to a halt in startup when a certain computer was 'sending network info...' yet when it was vice versa it always worked fine, I have no clue why this happens. -=-=- KNOWN SERSETUP COMMAND LINE THAT WORKS FOR NULL MODEM -=-=- Using DSERF27.ZIP as SERSETUP.EXE (115200 baud null modem): SERSETUP -COM2 -DEATHMATCH -SKILL 4 -DEVPARM -WART 3 9 Using SER3.EXE (19200 baud null modem since SER3.EXE won't support 115200): SER3 -COM2 -19200 -DEATHMATCH -SKILL 1 -DEVPARM -WART 3 9 -=-=- Here's how to make doom work with a modem connection -=-=- - The modem play will work fine if you have -NOMONSTERS flag set or perhaps even skill 1 (skill 2 if modem is 19200 baud). - A good init string is important, but do not worry to much about a bad init string making the game not work. I've seen it work even with a bad init string, only it's a bit slower. My init string for an Intel modem I have (this init string seems to work pretty much on other modems too) is: AT E0 M1 %C0 \G0 "H0 \Q0 - E0 disables local echo - M1 turns on the speaker (handy for knowing when connection is made) - %C0 disables MNP-5 compression - \G0 disables XON/XOFF flow control - "H0 disables LAPM compression - \Q0 disables hardware flow control - I've heard that ser4.exe will slow down the modem init commands, I had problems with them being sent too fast, so perhaps ser4.exe would work better for modem games than dserf27.zip. dserf27.zip can be used with the doom setup menu though, ser4.exe cannot. -=-=- KNOWN SERSETUP COMMAND LINE THAT WORKS FOR MODEM (14.4) -=-=- Using DSERF27.ZIP as SERSETUP.EXE (38400 w/16550): if connected: SERSETUP -COM2 -DEATHMATCH -SKILL 2 -DEVPARM -WART 3 9 otherwise: SERSETUP -COM2 -DIAL # -DEATHMATCH -SKILL 2 -DEVPARM -WART 3 9 or -ANSWER Using SER3.EXE (19200 baud null modem since SER3.EXE won't support 115200): SER3 -COM2 -19200 -DEATHMATCH -SKILL 1 -DEVPARM -WART 3 9 Note: I've only had this work when I used Procomm Plus to connect first. The modem commands never worked well enough (supposedly SER4.EXE will work correctly though) -=-=- TROUBLE SHOOTING TIPS -=-=- * If there is no success with 'Attempting to connect accross serial ports..' - Make damn sure your serial port baud rate is supported by your doom sersetup program, ser4.exe and dserf27 can work up to 115200 baud. - Make sure your modem (if not a null-modem of course) is talking to your serial port at the same speed as DOOM is. With Procomm Plus I can just set the serial port speed and hit ALT-J to adjust the modem apropriately. - Make sure your modem has disabled flow control and your sersetup program is not using it. * If your modem commands do not respond correctly in dialing, initializing, or answering. - Make sure your IRQ is not conflicting with anything (the IRQ is the pathway your modem uses to talk to your computer (rough statement)) - Make sure your IRQ is set correctly in your sersetup program. - Perhaps issue at ATE0 command to your modem if you see double characters on modem responses. If doom runs with E1, sometimes the game can run half as fast as it could be. * If the game hangs in the first screen draw once connection has been made successfully. - The only cure for this I've seen is to have the computers switch roles. - PLAYER1 flag is supposed to do this, but I've never seen it work. Usually starting the computers in the other order, from the command line, will change their roles in sending/receiving network info. * If during game-play the game pauses great lengths of time and is really annoying. - Try stopping all action by pause or stop moving both players. This allows the game to "catch-up". I've actually seen this work, so what else can I tell ya. I really don't understand why. - Try using one of the new sersetup patches. ser3 or dserf27. They can be found at ocf.unt.edu in /pub/doom/multi_doom/ As I find more information from trial and error more clues to your serial doom problems may show up on this list. GOOD LUCK ALL YOU AMBITIOUS DOOMERS! -= Branden L. Spikes (mario@netcom.com) =-