DOOM Retro v1.8 is now available for your downloading pleasure! I hope you enjoy it. There are a significant amount of changes, which may be viewed here, and it may be downloaded for free here.

I would like to thank beta testers AnotherLife, Jon Krazov, Iain Macfarlane and Dani Ventas. I’d also like to thank Jonathan Dowland for his work on random pitch shifting, and everyone else for their continued support. As always, if you have any suggestions, feedback, or bug reports, I encourage you to help me make this the best version of DOOM ever. You may follow @doomretro on Twitter, leave a comment on the DOOM Retro thread on the forums, leave a comment on this post, or raise an issue on the GitHub repository. And please consider giving a donation through PayPal by clicking on that button to the right.

An extensive number of optimizations have been made to improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro.

DOOM Retro is now compiled using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015. Visual Studio’s runtime library is now statically linked to the binary, meaning it doesn’t need to be installed.

DOOM Retro now uses a prerelease version of SDL v2.0.4.

DOOM Retro now supports BOOM-compatible maps with the following features:

• Deep water effects.
• Scrolling walls, floors and ceilings.
• Translucent walls.
• Friction effects.
• Custom colormaps.
• Support for the ANIMATED lump.
• Silent teleporters.
• Elevators.
• Generalized linedef types.

The lighting of the player’s weapon is now slightly darker and more dynamic.

Direct3D is now the default renderer, which does not have the flicker that occurs with the OpenGL renderer in fullscreen. As before, the renderer can be changed using the vid_scaledriver CVAR.

The pillarboxes and letterboxes on the screen are now cleared each frame.

Configuration files (with the extension *.CFG) may now be loaded through the WAD launcher.

If a CFG file exists in the same folder as a PWAD file with the same name, it will automatically be loaded.

Support has been added for maps with DeepBSP extended nodes v4 and ZDoom uncompressed normal nodes.

Several rendering anomalies in maps have been resolved.

Any flats that are missing in a map will now be rendered as sky, and a warning displayed in the console, rather than DOOM Retro exiting with an error.

Further improvements have been made to the support for DeHackEd lumps.

The translucency of the chaingun’s muzzle flash has been improved slightly.

The “always run” feature may now be bound to a key other than CAPSLOCK in the console by using the +alwaysrun action with the bind CCMD.

Movement of the player’s weapon is now interpolated to appear smoother.

Rather than using the standard animation, which is only updated every 125 milliseconds, a much smoother swirl effect is now applied to every liquid sector. It is on by default, and can be turned off using the r_liquid_swirl CVAR.

The speed of liquid sectors bobbing up and down has now been doubled.

Things in liquid sectors no longer bob in time with each other.

If the blockmap of a map is invalid or not present, it will now be recreated.

The position of keycards and skull keys in the widescreen HUD when the player has no armor has been improved.

The input in the console will now be restored after viewing the input history using the ↑ key.

The r_playersprites CVAR has now been implemented allowing the player’s weapon to be hidden.

Several changes have been made to the descriptions of CCMDs and CVARs when using the cmdlist and cvarlist CCMDs.

A new mapstats CCMD has been implemented that will show the following information about the current map: map title, map author, node format, if the blockmap was recreated, total vertices, total sides, total lines, if Boom-compatible line specials are present, total sectors, total things, map size and music title.

The r_maxbloodsplats CVAR has been renamed to r_bloodsplats_max. Also, when it is set to 0, it will now be shown as 0 rather than off.

The totalbloodsplats CVAR has been renamed to r_bloodsplats_total.

The r_mirrorweapons CVAR has been renamed to r_mirroredweapons.

The mapfixes CVAR has been renamed to r_fixmaperrors.

The spritefixes CVAR has been renamed to r_fixspriteoffsets.

A bug has been fixed whereby weapons spawned at the start of a map weren’t being randomly mirrored if r_mirroredweapons was on.

The format of doomretro.cfg has changed considerably, and is divided into two parts: CVARs and bindings.

Tall textures are now supported.

The wall texture between two liquid sectors (often an animated waterfall texture) will no longer rise and fall with those sectors.

The randomness of such things as mirrored corpses and the spawning of blood splats has been improved.

The positions of the numbers in the widescreen HUD are now improved when custom lumps are used.

The translucency of the elements in the widescreen HUD has been increased slightly.

The health, ammo and armor counts in the widescreen HUD will now flash briefly when the player picks up the corresponding items during a game.

The game will now exit with an error if no subsectors are present in a map.

Improvements have been made to the consistency by which blood splats are spawned when a monster is shot, and when a corpse slides along the floor.

A feature is now available that randomizes the pitch of monster sounds. It is disabled by default, and can be enabled using the s_randompitch CVAR.

If a PWAD is loaded, the window caption will now be changed to its filename while no map is loaded.

A bug has now been fixed whereby the operation of the mousewheel to select the previous/next weapon was reversed, and would no longer work at all if the user attempted to change it using the bind CCMD.

The console now opens and closes slightly faster.

The background of the console now has a slight diagonal pattern, and a drop shadow.

The scrollbar track and dividers in the console are now translucent.

If a PWAD is loaded that uses a custom character set, the color of the player messages in the console will now reflect the color of those characters.

Widescreen mode will now be enabled or disabled correctly when setting the vid_widescreen CVAR.

The contents of the window now updates dynamically as it is being resized.

A bug has been fixed whereby the screen size couldn’t be adjusted in the options menu when not in a game.

The mouse pointer is now released while the console is open.

The window caption will no longer be reset to “DOOM RETRO” when the graphics subsystem is restarted by entering certain CVARs.

The blink rate of the text caret in the console is now the same speed as the Windows setting.

The window is no longer reset to a 4:3 aspect ratio at startup.

The position of the window is now restored correctly at startup, and when switching from fullscreen mode, if using multiple displays.

The minimum size that the window can be resized to is now 320×240.

The console is now closed when pressing the close button in the window’s title bar.

If a masked texture is used on a one-sided line, the transparent parts will now be displayed as black rather than randomly-colored pixels. Code by Fabian Greffrath.

Autocomplete and input history are now reset if a character is deleted in the console.

The output in the console is now correct when the music and SFX volumes are changed in the menu.

The graphics subsystem will now be reset when the vid_display CVAR is changed, so displays can now be switched during a game.

If the vid_display CVAR is found to be invalid at startup, it will no longer be restored to its default, in case the display it points to happens to be off. Instead, a warning will be displayed in the console, and display 1 will be used.

An acronym for the screen resolution, and the correct aspect ratio, will now be displayed in the console at startup.

Whether Windows is 32 or 64-bits will now be displayed in the console at startup.

A small amount of ammo is now given to the player when using the give backpack CCMD, to be consistent with what the player is given when picking up a backpack during a game.

A bug has been fixed whereby an additional character could be entered into a cheat sequence in some instances.

The use of a TiMidity configuration file is now displayed in the console at startup.

MAP05C and MAP16C in Back To Saturn X Episode 2 may now be loaded using the map CCMD.

Monsters will no longer be alerted when the player makes a noise while “No Target” mode is on using the notarget CCMD.

The s_maxslicetime CVAR has been removed.

Since it produces the same result as using linear, the anisotropic value for the vid_scalefilter CVAR has been removed.

A bug has been fixed whereby the kill CCMD wasn’t killing the player when they had armor.

A bug has been fixed whereby pressing the media keys on some keyboards would cause the player to change weapons.

The showitems, showkills, showmapped and showsecrets CCMDs, as well as the maptime CVAR, have all been combined into one playerstats CCMD.

The com_showfps CVAR has been renamed to vid_showfps.

The com_showmemoryusage CVAR has been removed.

The r_liquid_animatedheight CVAR has been renamed to r_liquid_bob.

A bug has been fixed whereby bobbing items could be pushed below liquid sectors in some instances.

Text entered into the console can now be selected, with the following keyboard shortcuts being implemented:

• SHIFT + ←: Select the character to the left of the text caret.
• SHIFT + →: Select the character to the right of the text caret.
• CTRL + A: Select all of the text.
• CTRL + C: Copy the currently selected text to the clipboard.
• CTRL + V: Paste text from the clipboard.
• CTRL + X: Cut the currently selected text to the clipboard.
• CTRL + Z: Undo the last change that was made to the text.

A bug has been fixed whereby no evil grin would be displayed in the status bar when the player picked up a new weapon.

warp can now be used as an alternative to the map CCMD.

A feature has been implemented that causes corpses to be moved slightly if a monster walks over them. It is enabled by default, and may be disabled using the r_corpses_nudge CVAR.

A bug has been fixed whereby monsters would sometimes fall off tall ledges.

Friction in liquid is now only reduced for corpses.

Active crushers will now be active again when loading a savegame.

Improvements have been made to the player using a switch, lift or door if very close to another.

The display of the value of the r_lowpixelsize CVAR has been fixed.

There is no longer any blue or green blood or blood splats in Freedoom.

A bug has been fixed whereby no maps were listed by the maplist CCMD in Freedoom.

Blues are now emphasized better in translucent sprites.

The console now automatically closes when using the map CCMD or the idclev cheat.

The HOM inidicator is now paused while the console is open.

A bug has been fixed whereby warnings weren't being displayed in the console.

The WINDOWS key is now only disabled during a game, and not while the game is in a menu, paused, in the console, or on the title screen.

DOOM Retro v1.7.1 has been released! It may be downloaded here. This is a small point release and the changes it brings are as follows:

• Optimizations have been made to further improve the overall performance of DOOM Retro.
• The stray brown pixel in the super shotgun’s sprite has now been removed from all the frames that it appears.
• Red blood splats are now slightly darker.
• A warning is now displayed in the console when a map contains an unknown object.
• Warnings are now displayed in the console when the player enters a sector, crosses a line, or shoots a switch with an unknown special.
• Sounds are now made again when liquid sectors move up or down.
• The file doom2.wad is no longer autoloaded if the –FILE command-line parameter without –IWAD.
• A warning is now displayed in the console if the versions of sdl2.dll and SDL2_mixer.dll don’t match the versions that DOOM Retro was compiled with.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the game would crash when trying to render sprites that had been manipulated with DeHackEd.
• The “screen shot” string may now be changed with DeHackEd.
• Several further improvements have been made to DeHackEd support.
• The HOME and END keys will now scroll to the top and bottom of the console output, if the player has started scrolling up with the PGUP key.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the game would crash when using the bind CCMD to bind an action to some keyboard controls.
• save and load CCMDs have now been implemented.
• Savegames are now saved with a file extension of .save rather than .dsg.
• The new savegamefolder CVAR shows where savegame files are saved.
• The new totalbloodsplats CVAR shows the total number of blood splats currently in the map.
• The r_bloodsplats CVAR has been renamed to r_maxbloodsplats.
• If the player saves a game on one map, finishes that map and then starts the next one, if they then die without saving again, the savegame for the previous map will be loaded, rather than the player “pistol starting” on the new map.
• The Arch-vile’s fire attack is no longer clipped in liquid.
• A bug has been fixed in some instances whereby some objects were still being clipped and bobbing when the sector they were in was no longer liquid.
• The new thinglist CCMD will list all things in the current level, including their (x,y,z) coordinates.
• The new maplist CCMD will list all the maps available to the player.
• Graphics will now automatically be reset if the vid_screenresolution is changed to desktop.
• The player’s view height is now smooth when descending between two liquid sectors of different heights.
• The widescreen HUD will now remain on the screen while the player is dead. No ammo will be displayed, though, to be consistent with the status bar.
• The par time displayed on the intermission screen is now positioned better.
• The normal use of the CAPSLOCK key is now disabled in the console, and will toggle the “always run” feature on/off instead.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the value displayed by the totalkills CCMD wouldn’t take into account any Pain Elementals killed using the kill CCMD.
• The console is now automatically closed when using the endgame, exitmap, kill and map CCMDs.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the map name in the automap was displayed incorrectly when using ZDL to launch the game.
• The “fuzzy” edges of Spectre shadows are now paused while the console is open.

After almost 3 months of some pretty solid development, I'm proud to finally announce the availability of DOOM Retro v1.7. This is a major release, and contains many differences to prior versions, the most significant of which are:

SDL2 Support

DOOM Retro now uses SDL 2.0.3 for its graphics and audio. This brings significant performance improvements, as the screen is now scaled using hardware acceleration.

The Console

DOOM Retro now includes a console. It may be opened at any time by pressing the ~ key. The DOOM Retro Wiki will be updated in the coming days with instructions on the many different commands and variables that can be entered in the console, but in the meantime, try cmdlist and cvarlist.

Uncapped Framerates

DOOM Retro now has uncapped framerates, and through the use of interpolation, player, monster and sector movement is now much smoother, resembling the feel of more modern shooters. (Of course, you can always cap the framerate back to 35 FPS by changing the vid_capfps cvar in the console.)

You may download DOOM Retro v1.7 for free here, and browse its ridiculously exhaustive release notes here.

I would like to thank AnotherLife, Jon Krazov and Jeff Doggett for providing so many bug reports and suggestions over the past few weeks, AlexMax for his uncapped framerate code, Fabian Greffrath for his SDL2 code, and everybody else for their continued support. DOOM Retro has come a long way since its release on December 10, 2013, and although it may not be to everybody’s liking, it truly is my ideal version of DOOM. As always, if you have any suggestions, feedback, or bug reports, I encourage you to participate. You may follow @doomretro on Twitter, leave a comment on the DOOM Retro thread on the forums, leave a comment on this post, or raise an issue on the GitHub repository. And only if you want to, please consider giving a donation through PayPal by clicking on that button to the right.

DOOM Retro now uses SDL 2.0.3 for its graphics and audio. This brings significant performance improvements, as the screen is now scaled using hardware acceleration when possible, as well as the following features:

• The monitor to display the game on can now be specified.
• Vsync can now be toggled on/off.

DOOM Retro now includes a console. It may be opened at any time by pressing the ~ key.

DOOM Retro now has uncapped framerates, and through use of interpolation, player, monster and sector movement is much smoother.

Several memory leaks have been fixed, making DOOM Retro more stable.

A bug has been fixed whereby if a PWAD was selected in the WAD launcher that didn’t contain any map data, DOOM Retro would give up and not look at the other PWADs selected.

If none of the PWADs selected in the WAD launcher contain any map data, and no IWAD is selected, DOOM2.WAD will try to be loaded.

Many performance optimizations have been made to the rendering of blood splats and shadows.

The following changes have been made to animated liquid sectors:

• They are all slightly higher.
• The edge where two adjacent liquid sectors at different heights meet is now rendered correctly.
• The player will now move smoothly when ascending from one liquid sector to a higher one.
• No sounds are made when they move up or down.

A bug has been fixed whereby if more than one flight of stairs was meant to be triggered at the same time, only one would be.

The gaps around “1” digits in the HUD have been removed.

A bug has been fixed whereby the game could crash when rendering Spectres in some instances.

Underscores now appear under the message displayed when entering the IDBEHOLD cheat.

The map title will now be displayed correctly in the automap if a PWAD is loaded using ZDL.

Corrupt savegames will no be created if saving a game while a button is active.

Blood splats and shadows will no longer appear on sectors without floors.

The blood splats produced when the corpses of Barons of Hell and Hell Knights are crushed under a lowering sector are now the correct color.

The player’s weapon is no longer off to the right by 1 pixel in some instances.

The bottom righthand corner of the view border is now rendered correctly.

The message that is displayed when DOOM Retro is run for the first time now includes a button that opens the DOOM Retro Wiki in the default browser.

The cursor keys will no longer make a sound when pressed on the help screen.

A bug has been fixed whereby decorative corpses wouldn’t smear blood when sliding in some instances.

Smoke trails are now displayed for Cyberdemon rockets as originally intended.

The “always run” setting is now remembered between games as originally intended.

If you load a savegame that had monsters but now the –NOMONSTERS command-line parameter is enabled, the correct percentage of monsters you actually did kill now appears in the intermission.

A bug has been fixed whereby DOOM Retro would crash when trying to save a game in Final DOOM if the savegame description was changed to anything other than a map name.

Additional blood splats spawned under decorative corpses when a map is started now won't be randomly shifted away from the corpse if the corpse is hanging from the ceiling.

Several improvements have been made to DOOM Retro’s support of DeHackEd lumps and files.

Now BEX files as well as DEH files, with the same name and in the same folder as the PWAD selected in the WAD launcher, will now be automatically loaded.

DEH files are no longer automatically loaded if a PWAD is loaded from the command-line. They will need to be explicitly loaded using the –DEH command-line parameter.

A bug has been fixed whereby some teleporters in Back To Saturn X were animating as if they were liquid.

The position of the player arrow is now drawn much more accurately when in the automap and rotate mode is on.

The automap will no longer disappear, nor the game crash, when zooming out in very large maps.

Translucency is now applied to MegaSpheres as originally intended.