heretic.cfg(5)

💖 heretic.cfg(5) — the File Formats Manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, buckle up, because we're about to talk about heretic.cfg — the config file for chocolate-heretic(6). it lives in the File Formats Manual section of the man pages, and honestly? it's giving "quietly running your entire gaming setup behind the scenes." 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

heretic.cfg — the Chocolate Heretic configuration file. that's it, that's the name, she's simple and she's iconic 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so heretic.cfg is the configuration file for chocolate-heretic(6). the options it stores are literally the same ones the original DOS Vanilla Heretic stored — no cap, same energy, just a glow-up. 🌈

the extra Chocolate Heretic–specific stuff? that lives in a whole separate config file, chocolate-heretic.cfg. two files, two vibes, one very organized queen. 👑

normally heretic.cfg hangs out in your home directory like:

~/.local/share/chocolate-heretic/heretic.cfg

but the path can be overridden with the XDG_DATA_HOME environment variable (iykyk, it's the XDG Base Directory Specification doing its thing). ✨

and if editing config files by hand isn't your moment, the chocolate-heretic-setup(6) tool is a super simple front-end for editing heretic.cfg. bestie behaviour, honestly. 🫶

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🦋 FILE FORMAT 🦋

it's a plain-text file. nothing fancy, nothing scary. it's just a list of configuration options and their values, separated by whitespace, with each option chilling on its own line. 🌸

options come in different types — an option can have an integer, a floating point, or a string value. if it's a string type, the value gets wrapped in quotes ("). periodt.

for example:

integer_value                1
integer_value2               1
floating_point_value         4.2
string_value                 "hello world"

invalid lines or comments in the file get ignored — but lowkey, don't put them in there. the file gets rewritten from scratch every single time the game exits, so any invalid lines or comments you snuck in are just... gone. 💀

some options are for keyboard key bindings, and those get stored as integer values containing the keyboard scan code of the key you're binding. boolean values are also stored as integers, where zero usually means "false" and a non-zero value means "true." simple as that. ⭐

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👑 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 👑

here's the whole squad, one by one:

• mouse_sensitivity — mouse sensitivity. this value multiplies your input mouse movement to control how much moving the mouse actually does. the "normal" maximum value you can pick through the in-game options menu is 9.

⚠️ a value of 31 or greater will cause the game to crash when you enter the options menu. not a vibe. do not do this. 😭

• sfx_volume — volume of sound effects, range 0-15. 🎵
• music_volume — volume of in-game music, range 0-15. 🎶
• key_right — keyboard key to turn right.
• key_left — keyboard key to turn left.
• key_up — keyboard key to move forward.
• key_down — keyboard key to move backward.
• key_strafeleft — keyboard key to strafe left.
• key_straferight — keyboard key to strafe right.
• key_flyup — keyboard key to fly upward.
• key_flydown — keyboard key to fly downwards.
• key_flycenter — keyboard key to center flying.
• key_lookup — keyboard key to look up.
• key_lookdown — keyboard key to look down.
• key_lookcenter — keyboard key to center the view.
• key_invleft — keyboard key to scroll left in the inventory.
• key_invright — keyboard key to scroll right in the inventory.
• key_useartifact — keyboard key to use the current item in the inventory.
• key_fire — keyboard key to fire the currently selected weapon. 🔥
• key_use — keyboard key to "use" an object, eg. a door or switch.
• key_strafe — keyboard key to turn on strafing. when held down, pressing the key to turn left or right makes the player strafe left or right instead. ✨
• key_speed — keyboard key to make the player run.
• use_mouse — if non-zero, mouse input is enabled. if zero, mouse input is disabled.
• mouseb_fire — mouse button to fire the currently selected weapon.
• mouseb_strafe — mouse button to turn on strafing. when held down, the player will strafe left and right instead of turning left and right.
• mouseb_forward — mouse button to move forward.
• mouseb_speed — mouse button to turn on running. when held down, the player will run while moving.
• use_joystick — if non-zero, joystick input is enabled.
• joyb_fire — joystick virtual button that fires the current weapon.
• joyb_strafe — joystick virtual button that makes the player strafe while held down.
• joyb_use — joystick virtual button to "use" an object, eg. a door or switch.
• joyb_speed — joystick virtual button that makes the player run while held down. if this has a value of 20 or greater, the player will always run, even if use_joystick is 0. iconic loophole honestly.
• screenblocks — screen size, range 3-11. a value of 11 gives a full-screen view with the status bar not displayed. a value of 10 gives a full-screen view with the status bar displayed. 👀
• snd_channels — number of sounds that will be played simultaneously.
• snd_musicdevice — music output device. a non-zero value gives MIDI sound output, while a value of zero disables music.
• snd_sfxdevice — sound effects device. a value of zero disables in-game sound effects, a value of 1 enables PC speaker sound effects, while a value in the range 2-9 enables the "normal" digital sound effects. 🔊
• snd_sbport — SoundBlaster I/O port. Unused.
• snd_sbirq — SoundBlaster IRQ. Unused.
• snd_sbdma — SoundBlaster DMA channel. Unused.
• snd_mport — output port to use for OPL MIDI playback. Unused.
• usegamma — gamma correction level. a value of zero disables gamma correction, while a value in the range 1-4 gives increasing levels of gamma correction. ☀️
• chatmacro0 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+0 is pressed.
• chatmacro1 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+1 is pressed.
• chatmacro2 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+2 is pressed.
• chatmacro3 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+3 is pressed.
• chatmacro4 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+4 is pressed.
• chatmacro5 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+5 is pressed.
• chatmacro6 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+6 is pressed.
• chatmacro7 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+7 is pressed.
• chatmacro8 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+8 is pressed.
• chatmacro9 — multiplayer chat macro: message to send when alt+9 is pressed. 💬

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these next, bestie, they're all connected:

• chocolate-heretic(6)
• chocolate-heretic.cfg(5)
• chocolate-heretic-setup(6)

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and that's the whole page, gorgeous. this little love letter to heretic.cfg ships with Chocolate Doom 3.1.1 and it's dated 2017-11-30. go forth, tweak your gamma, bind your keys, and do not — I repeat, do not — set mouse_sensitivity to 31. mwah 💋🎀