I've been playing the original Strife (DOS version) via gzdoom. From my tests, it only works with gzdoom 1.9.1 (OpenGL 2.0). The later versions of gzdoom have issues running Strife.

gzdoom, all releases, can be found here: http://gzdoom.drdteam.org/page.php?page=download

Download the "STRIFE: THE ORIGINAL DOS VERSION" from your library
Extract the Strife folder.
Copy the "strife1.wad" to gzdoom 1.9.1.
Launch gzdoom.
Select "Strife: Quest for the Sigil".

There shouldn't be any issues running Strife in later versions. There were no changes to Strife-related code.

Also I've added built-in support for GOG paths to ZDoom, so development builds of and [url=http://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdoom/]GZDoom dated May 21 and later should detect your installed game automatically, no need to copy strife1.wad.

Furthermore, if you do copy strife1.wad, you should not forget to also copy voices.wad. The game can run without, but you'll miss all the voice-acting, which in Strife was surprisingly good, especially for a game of that era.

To me, Strife still stands as a game with quality voice acting, its only beat out with its own contemporary Half-life and half-life 2.

Indeed, I'm currently using the GZDoom 2.2 pre-889 nightly build and it seems to run Strife fine. Are you a ZDoom source port programmer then?

Occasional contributor, yes.

Adding SVE was really little work since most of the code was already there for the Doom releases. If/when GOG gets Heretic and Hexen it'll be just as simple.

I also work on the editor SLADE 3. Which, by the way, will now also autodetect GOG Strife.

I should mention all this autodetection business, being based on reading data in the Windows registry, works only on Windows, not Linux/MacOS/anything else.

May I ask... what are the differences between GZDoom and Chocolate Strife ?

Big differences.

Chocolate Strife is like Chocolate Doom. A source port that is completely faithful to the original Doom engine, including its bugs and limitations. So if you want to play the game as it was originally released, but want to avoid using DOSBox, then the Chocolate source ports are the way to go.

GZDoom, on the other hand, allows you to play it with modern FPS controls if you so wish (WASD and mouse, crosshair, autoaim turned off, etc.), has newer lighting effects, different sprite clipping handling, and can take extras such as 3D models and high res textures (again if you wish to so so, but I still think the original sprites and textures look fine). Modding capabilities are far greater with GZDoom (and other source port engines) than they are with Chocolate.

Far too many to list. These ports have completely different design goals.

Chocolate aims to be nearly exactly the same, in look and feel, to vanilla (that's the joke behind the name). So it will bug in the same way, crash in the same way, etc. The game resolution is 320x200 and no higher (any higher resolution will only work by scaling up the pixels). There are no new feature of any sort, except as compromises for getting the engine to run on more platforms (so it's only possible to bind buttons to actions such as "next weapon" or "previous weapon", which didn't actually exist in the original game, because some platforms don't have keyboards with the 1-2-3-etc. row of keys needed to select weapons normally; or it's possible to replace the MIDI music by external music pack because some platforms may not have a built-in MIDI player). Notably, there definitely isn't any sort of new editing features, and there won't ever be any sort of cosmetic enhancement.

GZDoom aims to be an enhanced port with more editing features and some cosmetic enhancements. You can change gameplay completely. Bugs are fixed instead of preserved. Sometimes behavior is changed if the original behavior is found to be wrong: for example in Strife, the corpses of enemies you killed eventually decay (normal corpses are replaced by gibbed corpses) and then eventually disappear entirely (gibbed corpses, whether they started this way or not, are removed). This also happens for "decorative" corpses (which are placed directly in the map editor), if it's something that is shared by a dead creature instead of a purely decorative sprite, then it'll disappear after a while; you can see that on the altar of the temple where you meet your first specter, there's normally a dead peasant on the altar but if you take your time getting there you won't see it. In ZDoom and therefore also GZDoom, this doesn't happen, corpses are persistent just like in Doom, Heretic, or Hexen.

If you want more details, you can look and [url=http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Engine_bug]there for bugs you can get in Chocolate Strife but not in GZDoom; and and [url=http://doomwiki.org/wiki/ZDoom]there for a quick overview of new ZDoom/GZDoom features.

You're right. I just re-launched Strife with gzdoom 2.1 (OpenGL 3) and it worked. I think my goof was trying to run it in the same folder with the latest version of Brutal Doom, where the 'brutal20b.pk3' file had over-written a bunch of stuff.

Thanks a lot for the well explained answers ! (and links)
Well, I'm playing Doom games with chocolate doom and Duke Nukem 3D withe eduke, because I want to play as close as the original (including resolution), but with best "user experience" possible (being able to rebing keys is very appreciated, bugs corrected can be nice too if not breaking original experience). I'll consider ZDoom (or GZDoom ?) if it's easy to use.
Thanks again for help :)

I've been playing Duke Nukem 3D via eduke32 for years. I like the modern FPS controls and smaller file size compared to running Duke thru DOS Box.

Both zdoom and gzdoom work pretty good for all the old Doom games as well as Strife. Just remember to copy Strife's voice file (voices.wad) as well.

Okay, thanks for the tip :)
What are the difference between zdoom and gzdoom ? Only OpenGL support ? Imagine that I'm a total neophyte : should I take z or gzdoom ?

Pretty much it is the graphical effects, as GZDoom is a branch of ZDoom, so when ZDoom gets an update you can be sure that GZDoom will get an update to incorporate the changes.

With GZDoom you get all the OpenGL graphics and lighting effects and such. You can see here the extra display options that you get with GZDoom: http://zdoom.org/wiki/Display_options

Yes, only the renderer differs now. (GZDoom used to have a few extra features outside the renderer, but they've all been ported to ZDoom long ago, so now the renderer is the only difference.)

Which one you take is largely a question of personal preference. You can get both: some GZDoom mods require OpenGL to work correctly, and some other mods actually look better in software.

Okay ! I'll look at this ;) Thanks :)

Well, I never knew what is "OpenGL", so I'm neutral. If it's only a matter of personal preference, well... I'll try one (certainly firstly ZDoom), and maybe the other one after.
Thanks again for the help !