PrBoom demo support =================== PrBoom has lots of demo options compared to most Doom ports, so I decided to write a brief document outlining the features. If you're thinking of recording demos, you're strongly advised to read this. To play demos, you of course use "prboom -playdemo demoname" (the .lmp is optional). To the best of my knowledge, PrBoom should play all MBF and new PrBoom demos perfectly. It also plays most Doom v1.9 demos (significantly more than Boom or MBF); almost all demos recorded with ultimate doom or doom2.exe version v1.9 should work (please let me know if you find ones that don't), but there are still problems with doom95 and final doom though. It should play most Boom v2.01 and v2.02 demos, although I don't know of that many to test with. It will also try to play older Doom demos, LxDoom demos, and Boom v2.00 demos. Recording demos is done with "prboom -record demoname". **IMPORTANT** PrBoom will record to a number of demo formats, namely Doom v1.9, Boom v2.02, MBF, and PrBoom - which format it records is determined by your current compatibility level, see README.compat. The purpose of this feature is so people like me that won't let DOS anywhere near their computers can record demos compatible with other engines. PrBoom supports the -recordfrom parameter, which starts recording a demo from a given savegame. "-recordfrom demoname n" is a synonym for "-record demoname -loadgame n", which records a demo from savegame number n. People doing speedrun demos may be interested in the comp_moveblock option, see README.compat. PrBoom supports loading and saving games during demo recording and playback (but only for new PrBoom demos, not for older demo formats, obviously). Don't worry, saves in demo playback are written with different names, they don't overwrite your own saves. Saves when recording, do. You can load games during recording, but they'd better be games saved during the same recording, otherwise it won't play back. PrBoom supports continuation of recorded demos. This is the scenario this feature is designed for: say you're beta testing a level for someone, and you want to send them a *complete* demo of how the level went (saves, deaths and reloads and all). You start with "prboom test.wad -record test", play for half an hour, save and exit. Next day, you go to play again, with "prboom test.wad -record test" again. PrBoom will scan the existing test.lmp, find the savegame command, and insert a loadgame command to reload that game; it will reload the game and continue recording of the demo. This is an experimental feature, but hopefully it works :-). **IMPORTANT** The observant will have noticed from the above that PrBoom won't overwrite existing demos anymore. If you want to record over a demo, delete it first. I think that's all for now. - Colin