Archive format

ZDoom can read content from the following archive formats:

• WAD: Doom's native format; it is sequential and does not offer compression
• GRP: Build's native format
• RFF: Blood's native format
• PAK: Quake's native format
• ZIP/PK3: Contrarily to most implementations, ZDoom fully implements the ZIP standard and is able to open zipped archives that many utilities do not
• 7z/PK7: One of the best all-around compressed archive format
• Directory: Technically not an archive format, nevertheless ZDoom is able to load the entire content of a directory
• Single file: Also technically not an archive format, nevertheless a single lump can be loaded
• Embedded wad: a .wad file contained within a non-wad archive will be recursively loaded

Important: maps are made of a series of lumps which cannot be separated. For this reason, maps must remain in wad files; though these wad files can in turn be embedded in a different archive.

See also

• Using ZIPs as WAD replacement