Today is DOOM’s 30th birthday! This also means it’s DOOM Retro’s 10th birthday! To celebrate this, DOOM Retro v5.1 is now available to download as either a 32 or 64-bit Windows app. Here’s a list of what’s changed since the last version:

• DOOM Retro is now built using v17.8.3 of Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022.
• DOOM Retro now uses SDL v2.28.5 and SDL_image v2.8.0.
• Support has been added for John Romero’s newly released SIGIL II.
• Several changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• The automap is now also shown in low detail when the r_detail CVAR is low.
• A bug is fixed whereby the effects of changing a color CVAR for the automap wouldn’t be immediate.
• Explosions from rockets fired by the player and cyberdemons are now randomly mirrored.
• These changes have been made when vanilla mode is enabled:
  • Extra blood is no longer spawned when a monster is injured.
  • Blood and bullet puffs are no longer randomly mirrored.
• Monsters now only become non-solid at the end of their death sequence rather than at the start.
• When the r_shadows CVAR is on, if a monster is fullbright when they attack, the shadow they cast now momentarily becomes slightly lighter.
• The player’s crosshair now displays correctly when the crosshair CVAR is cross and the r_hud_translucency CVAR is off.
• Minor improvements have been made to the parsing of DEHACKED, MAPINFO, MUSINFO and BRGHTMPS lumps.
• The -dog parameter, as well as -dogs 1 to -dogs 8, can now be used on the command-line to spawn one or more MBF-compatible helper dogs at the start of the game. Those dogs that survive each map will then follow the player into the next.
• These changes have been made when pressing the TAB key to autocomplete text in the console:
  • The case of the autocompleted text now always matches the text that’s already been entered.
  • Any text to the left of a semi-colon is no longer cleared.
• The border of the menu’s background is no longer displayed if the vid_fullscreen CVAR is off and the vid_widescreen CVAR is on.
• The spin of the player’s view in the menu’s background can now be disabled by changing the new menuspin CVAR, which is on by default.
• The help screen can now be shown when the menu is open by pressing the F1 key.
• The window’s caption now includes the current episode or expansion when playing a game.
• DOOM Retro no longer remains paused once its window regains focus.
• A bug is fixed whereby the main window would lose focus and the splash screen would be corrupted if an external automap was successfully created at startup because the am_external CVAR was on.
• When the animatedstats CVAR is on:
  • The player’s health now animates correctly if they are telefragged.
  • The player’s health, armor and ammo now animate correctly when loading a savegame.
• A bug is fixed whereby numbers in the alternate widescreen HUD could be positioned incorrectly in some rare instances.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support of Chex Quest, Chex Quest 2, Harmony Compatible and REKKR.
• A bug is fixed whereby monsters would respawn only once when playing on Nightmare! or if the respawnmonsters CCMD was used.
• The “Map explored” stat displayed by the playerstats CCMD is now accurate.
• The mapstats CCMD now shows the number of voodoo dolls in the current map.
• The play CCMD now also accepts a music title as its value, such as atdoomsgate or runningfromevil.
• A bug is fixed whereby screenshots taken by pressing the PRINTSCREEN key would become corrupted in some rare instances.
• Actions may now be bound to the numeric keypad using the bind CCMD with a value numpad0 to numpad9.

DOOM Retro v5.0.7 is now available to download as either a 32 or 64-bit Windows app. Here’s a list of what’s changed since the last version:

• A crash no longer occurs when a spectre touches the bottom of the screen in some instances.
• Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• Minor improvements have been made to the border of the menu’s background.
• The help screen is now shown when pressing the F1 key while playing the registered version of DOOM.
• A bug is fixed whereby stairs rising up from the floor wouldn’t rise to their correct height in some instances.
• Changing the vid_capfps CVAR to 35 now caps the framerate at 35 FPS again.
• If the vid_capfps CVAR is off or greater than 60, and the vid_vsync CVAR is off, the framerate is now capped at 60 FPS when on the title screen, in the menu, in the console, or the game is paused.
• The frames per second are now displayed in the menu when the vid_showfps CVAR is on.
• Minor improvements have been made to determining when to lower the player’s view if the r_liquid_lowerview CVAR is on.
• A bug is fixed whereby entering kill monsters in the console could then affect splash damage to the player.

DOOM Retro v5.0.6 is now available to download as either a 32 or 64-bit Windows app. Here’s a list of what’s changed since the last version:

• DOOM Retro is now built using v17.7.5 of Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022.
• DOOM Retro now uses Direct3D 11 rather than Direct3D 9 when the vid_scaleapi CVAR is direct3d, resulting in a considerable boost in performance.
• The handling of errors caused by SDL has improved.
• The capping of the framerate when the vid_capfps CVAR is not 35 has improved.
• Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• The ALT key can no longer be used to open the menu from the title screen.
• Item and teleport fogs no longer appear when using the spawn CCMD in the console while freeze mode is on.
• A crash no longer occurs when the player explodes a barrel using their BFG-9000 in some instances and the con_obituaries CVAR is on.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support for DEHACKED lumps.
• The “Games loaded” stat now updates correctly in the output of the playerstats CCMD.
• A bug is fixed whereby PWADs wouldn’t autoload when placed in the autoload folder.

DOOM Retro v5.0.5 is now available to download as either a 32 or 64-bit Windows app. Here’s a list of what’s changed since the last version:

• DOOM Retro now uses SDL v2.28.4.
• Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• Minor changes have been made to the branding in the console.
• The if CCMD works with boolean CVARs again.
• Blood splats are now visible in the top half of the player’s view if not completely obscured by the map’s geometry.
• If the player enters kill player in the console while buddha mode is enabled, their health is now reduced to 1%.
• SIGIL.WAD is no longer autoloaded if a PWAD is loaded that contains an E1M1 lump.
• If SIGIL.WAD or NERVE.WAD have been placed in the autoload folder:
  • They are now loaded before any other PWADs in the autoload folder,
  • But not if the PWADs already loaded contain any conflicting lumps.
• NERVE.WAD now loads correctly if specified using the -file parameter on the command-line.
• Minor improvements have been made to the highlight effect in the menu in some rare instances.
• A bug is fixed whereby music changer objects would no longer work once loading a savegame.