Monday, February 27, 2017
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DOOM Retro v2.4

DOOM Retro v2.4 is now available. It may be downloaded here, and its release notes are as follows:

  • Extensive optimizations have been made to further improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro, particularly when rendering blood splats and shadows.
  • Improvements have been made to DOOM Retro’s renderer.
  • Optimizations have been made to the size of savegames and therefore those created using previous versions of DOOM Retro are not compatible with this version.
  • doomretro.exe is now compressed using UPX (Ultimate Packer for eXecutables) v3.93.
  • Maps built using a new node/blockmap builder called ZokumBSP are now supported.
  • The filename of a WAD may now be entered manually in the WAD launcher without its “.WAD” extension.
  • E1M1: Hangar with and without vanilla mode enabled.
  • A “vanilla mode” may now be toggled on or off using the new vanilla CCMD. Enabling this mode will disable several features to make DOOM Retro look as close to Vanilla DOOM as possible. Any further changes to CVARs in the console won’t be saved while this mode is enabled. When this mode is then disabled, or the player quits DOOM Retro altogether, all CVARs will be restored to their values prior to enabling this mode.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby sectors would be incorrectly identified as liquid when loading a savegame in some rare instances.
  • The palette effects from the berserk and radiation shielding suit power-ups are now retained after changing a CVAR in the console starting with vid_ that resets the video subsystem.
  • The radiation shielding suit power-up is now closer to the ground.
  • The “pile of skulls and candles” decoration now spawns with blood splats at its base when the r_corpses_moreblood CVAR is on.
  • Changing the r_translucency CVAR will now immediately affect blood splats.
  • Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
  • A compatibility fix has been implemented that disables the translucency of the player’s weapons in Ancient Aliens.
  • Further improvements have been made to the support of DEHACKED and MAPINFO lumps.
  • The alwaysrun CVAR will no longer be reset to off at startup.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby single quotes couldn’t be used in the control parameter when entering the bind CCMD in the console.
  • Alun Bestor’s phenomenal new WAD, Brigandine, with the r_textures CVAR turned off.
  • All textures can now be toggled off using the new r_textures CVAR.
  • The following improvements have been made to “freeze mode”, enabled using the freeze CCMD:
    • All moving floors and ceilings, as well as scrolling textures, are now disabled.
    • Doors and switches can no longer be used by the player.
    • “No clipping mode” is also enabled.
    • Liquid sectors that are off of the screen when this mode is enabled are now drawn correctly.
  • The r_dither CVAR is now off by default.
  • The vid_scalefilter CVAR is now "nearest" by default.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby some MP3 music lumps would either play incorrectly or not at all.
  • The following improvements have been made to the mapstats CCMD:
    • The format of the currently playing music lump (MIDI (converted from MUS), MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV, FLAC or MOD) is now displayed.
    • The overall height of the map is now also displayed in the map’s dimensions.
    • The dimensions of the current map are now displayed in feet/miles or meters/kilometers as specified by the units CVAR.
    • Whether the map is “limit removing” is now indicated.
  • Objects no longer bob up and down when underwater.
  • If a PWAD contains a sound lump called DSSECRET, it will now be played along with a message when the player finds a secret area.
  • A regenhealth CCMD has been implemented that toggles the ability of the player’s health to regenerate at a rate of 1% per second when it drops below 100%.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby projectiles fired to or from a monster or the player standing in liquid were still being lowered when the r_liquid_clipsprites or r_liquid_lowerview CVARs were off.
  • Grammatical errors have been fixed in the obituaries displayed in the console if the playername CVAR was changed from its default.
  • The vid_capfps CVAR will now be saved correctly in doomretro.cfg.
  • Entering cheats will no longer interfere with moving the player in HacX: Twitch ’n Kill.
  • The bob of the player’s weapon will no longer become stuck when the centerweapon CVAR is off in some instances.
  • The bob of the chainsaw is now as smooth as the other weapons when the player moves.
  • BIGDOOR7, FIRBLU1 and SKY1 textures are now displayed correctly.
  • The vid_motionblur CVAR now accepts a value between 0% and 100%, rather than just on or off. It is 0% by default.
  • An r_skycolor CVAR has been implemented that allows the player to override the current map’s sky texture and use a solid color for the sky instead. It is none by default, and also accepts a value between 0 and 255.
  • A bug present in Vanilla DOOM has been fixed whereby if the player stood between two damaging sectors at different heights, they wouldn’t be damaged.
  • The wad CVAR is now reset whenever reset iwadfolder or resetall are used in the console.
  • There is no longer any delay with the player’s face updating in the status bar upon loading a savegame or progressing to the next map.
  • Vanilla DOOM’s “status bar face hysterisis” bug is now fixed.
  • Blood splats will now be immediately removed from the current map if either the r_blood CVAR is changed to none, or the r_bloodsplats_max CVAR is changed to 0.
  • A vid_pillarboxes CVAR has been implemented that toggles using the pillarboxes on either side of the screen for palette effects. It is off by default.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby the individual monster stats in the playerstats CCMD would be recalculated incorrectly when an arch-vile resurrected another monster.
  • Fixes have been applied to three locked doors in E2M2 and E2M6 of doom.wad so that monsters can’t open them from the other side.
Friday, January 13, 2017
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DOOM Retro v2.3.9

DOOM Retro v2.3.9 is now available. It may be downloaded here, and its release notes are as follows:

  • Optimizations have been made to further improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby multiple files couldn’t be loaded using DOOM Retro’s WAD launcher.
  • Improvements have been made to translucent wall textures when the r_dither CVAR is on.
  • Savegames no longer become corrupted in some instances. Consequently, savegames created using previous versions of DOOM Retro are not compatible with this version.
Friday, January 6, 2017
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DOOM Retro v2.3.8

DOOM Retro v2.3.8 is now available. It may be downloaded here, and its release notes are as follows:

  • Optimizations have been made to further improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro, particularly in the handling of large numbers of blood splats.
  • DOOM Retro’s splash screen has been redesigned.
  • Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
  • The CVARs in doomretro.cfg will no longer be reset if DOOM Retro quits with an error during startup in some rare instances.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby in some rare instances objects would get suspended in midair when the sector they were on lowered.
  • The last WAD to be opened now prepopulates the File name field in DOOM Retro’s WAD launcher.
  • The r_shakescreen CVAR has been renamed to r_shake_damage and is now 50% by default.
  • The screen will now shake when the player is near enough to an exploding barrel. This feature may be disabled using the new r_shake_barrels CVAR.
  • The following changes have been made to the vid_showfps CVAR:
    • When both the vid_showfps and vid_vsync CVARs are on, the frames per second displayed will be red if less than the display’s refresh rate.
    • If the frames per second drops too low, a warning will now be displayed in the console.
    • If the CVAR is disabled in the console, the minimum and maximum FPS since the CVAR was enabled will now be displayed.
  • An exec CCMD has been implemented that allows a series of commands stored in a file to be executed at once as if they had been typed in the console individually.
  • Textures that have patches with negative offsets (such as TEKWALL1 and STEP2) now appear correctly.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby monsters would continue to fire at the player’s corpse after killing them in some instances.
  • When the r_dither CVAR is on, multiple translucent wall textures are now visible through each other.
  • Further improvements have been made to the support of DEHACKED lumps.
  • Aliases can now be created using the new alias CCMD. These aliases can be entered into the console to execute a string of commands, and are saved in doomretro.cfg.
  • Small amounts of damage to the player are now more evident.
  • The total amount of ammo, armor and health picked up in the current map that is displayed by the playerstats CCMD is now correctly reset when the map changes.
  • The map CCMD now has a random parameter that will warp the player to a random map.
  • All sky textures with a height other than 128 pixels will now be ignored if specified in a MAPINFO lump.
  • A freeze CCMD has been implemented that toggles freezing of gameplay while still allowing the player to move around.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby the , key couldn’t be bound nor unbound in the console.
  • The bound controls displayed by the bindlist CCMD are now enumerated correctly.
Friday, December 2, 2016
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DOOM Retro v2.3.7

DOOM Retro v2.3.7 is now available. It may be downloaded here, and its release notes are as follows:

  • Optimizations have been made to further improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro.
  • Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
  • A message is now displayed when using the IDCLEVxy cheat in the console.
  • The average frames per second will no longer be shown when the vid_showfps CVAR is on and the game is paused or the menu is open.
  • The lumps in doomretro.wad that are used for the alternate HUD can now be replaced by lumps in a PWAD.
  • When the r_shadows CVAR is on and the vid_capfps CVAR is a value other than 35, the shadows of monsters are now interpolated along with the movement of the monsters themselves.
  • The BFG Edition of doom2.wad will now be identified as an IWAD in the console, even though it has been incorrectly marked as a PWAD.
  • The number of barrels exploded is now displayed when using the playerstats CCMD.
  • The number of monsters, pickups and decorations, as well as the number of liquid and damaging sectors, are now displayed when using the mapstats CCMD.
  • The choice of colors used in the numerous translucent effects in DOOM Retro has been improved.
  • BOOM-compatible translucent wall textures are now drawn using a dithering effect. This can be disabled using the new r_dither CVAR.
  • Instead of being set to the currently selected item in the corresponding menu, the episode, expansion, savegame and skilllevel CVARs are now set to read-only strings of the episode, expansion, savegame and skill level for the current game.
  • The player’s path in the automap, enabled using the am_path CVAR, will no longer be recorded while the player is in “no clipping mode”.
  • Corpses will no longer perpetually shift back and forth over sector boundaries with small height differences.
  • The effect of changing the r_brightmaps CVAR from off to on is now immediate, and doesn’t require DOOM Retro to be restarted.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby the brightmap of the SW1STON2 and SW2STON2 switch textures wouldn’t be applied correctly in DOOM but would in DOOM II.
  • The following changes have been made to the spawn CCMD:
    • A crash will no longer occur when trying to spawn certain decorations and pickups that don’t exist in DOOM but do in DOOM II.
    • Hanging decorations are now spawned on the ceiling.
    • Things will now be in the same state they would be if they were spawned when the map started.
  • The “floating skull rock” decoration now casts a shadow when the r_shadow CVAR is on.
  • A crash will no longer occur when using the give CCMD to try to give the player the plasma rifle, BFG-9000 or cells in DOOM Shareware, or the super shotgun in DOOM.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby when the s_randommusic CVAR was on, random music would attempt to start playing at the start of a map but then stop, and the game would become almost completely unresponsive.
  • When the s_randommusic CVAR is on, the random music chosen at the start of a map will now loop rather than different music starting to play after the first finishes.