Savegame

Note: This page documents the save format used by GZDoom prior to late 2016. The save format has been changed to JSON since then.

ZDoom's savegame files are contained with PNG files since v2.0 Beta 13. The game snapshot is the image itself, and the game data is contained in various custom ancillary chunks: huBs, ptIc, snAp, viSt, pcLs and raNd. Since build^r666, the SVN revision number is used to mark the savegame (earlier, an arbitrary number was used).

The snapshot can be disabled by setting the storesavepic variable to false. This replaces the snapshot by a single black pixel.

Autosaves

By default, ZDoom automatically creates savegames whenever the player enters a new level. This is needed for playing through hubs correctly, as a normal respawn (also known as "pistol start", or "wand start" in Heretic) would potentially break the ongoing game by resetting all levels in the hub. The number of autosave slots is commanded by the autosavecount console variable, and whether autosaves are performed is decided by the disableautosave variable. Both can be changed from the miscellaneous options menu.

Backward compatibility

ZDoom features some measure of backward compatibility in loading savegames, but sometimes the addition of new features or architectural changes in subsystems force a compatibility break.

• 2.1.0^r204: up from ^r34
• 2.1.1^r226: up from ^r34
• 2.1.2^r257: up from ^r250
• 2.1.3^r265: up from ^r250
• 2.1.4^r273: up from ^r250
• 2.1.5^r321: up from ^r289
• 2.1.6^r346: up from ^r289
• 2.1.7^r524: up from ^r289
• 2.2.0^r748: up from ^r714
• 2.3.0^r1455: up from ^r1452
• 2.3.1^r1480: up from ^r1452
• 2.4.0^r2075: up from ^r1848
• 2.4.1^r2126: up from ^r1848
• 2.5.0^r2508: up from ^r1848
• 2.6.0^r3730: up from ^r3100
• 2.6.1^r3794: up from ^r3100

Revisions which broke backward compatibility

The MINSAVEVER constant was increased in the following revisions:

^r4, ^r30, ^r250, ^r289, ^r437, ^r506, ^r666, ^r667, ^r714, ^r796, ^r810, ^r817, ^r825, ^r832, ^r836, ^r837, ^r853, ^r855, ^r880, ^r887, ^r889, ^r894, ^r924, ^r932, ^r954, ^r964, ^r992, ^r1001, ^r1020, ^r1027, ^r1028, ^r1033, ^r1034, ^r1036, ^r1044, ^r1055, ^r1060, ^r1061, ^r1065, ^r1076, ^r1107, ^r1114, ^r1129, ^r1179, ^r1181, ^r1190, ^r1209, ^r1215, ^r1253, ^r1271, ^r1304, ^r1397, ^r1448, ^r1452, ^r1507, ^r1583, ^r1587, ^r1599, ^r1619, ^r1636, ^r1643, ^r1823, ^r1848, ^r3030, ^r3085, ^r3100, ^{r3427 (restored in r3435)}

See also

• Version history