DOOM Retro v2.9 is now available. It may be downloaded here and a 64-bit version may be downloaded here. Its release notes are as follows:

• DOOM Retro is now compiled using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019.
• 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.
• Support has been added for John Romero’s highly anticipated megawad SIGIL. When loading The Ultimate DOOM’s IWAD from the WAD launcher, if sigil.wad is in the same folder, it will automatically be loaded and a fifth entry, “Sigil of Baphomet”, will then be available in the episode menu.
• The WAD launcher will now only automatically load nerve.wad when the BFG Edition of DOOM II: Hell On Earth’s IWAD is selected.
• Further improvements have been made to the console’s autocomplete feature.
• An obituary is no longer displayed in the console if either the source or target is a voodoo doll.
• Thing triangles are now displayed in the automap for voodoo dolls if the IDDT cheat is used.
• A bug has been fixed whereby a gamepad’s left thumbstick couldn’t be used to navigate the menu, nor pan around the automap when the am_followmode CVAR was off. (A gamepad’s right thumbstick can now also be used in these instances.)
• The player’s favorite skill level is now displayed by the playerstats CCMD.
• The accuracy of the player’s weapons has been improved when the mouselook CVAR is on and the autoaim CVAR is off.
• Exploding barrels will no longer slide due to their own blast damage.
• To improve accuracy, a monster’s actual bounding box is now checked when it is attacked.
• A couple of rendering problems related to the use of line special 242 (“Create Fake Ceiling and Floor”) in BOOM-compatible maps have been fixed.
• The scrollbar in the console is now slightly wider.
• Scrolling up and down in the console using the PGUP and PGDN keys will now become faster the longer they are held down.
• If the player dies in either E1M4B: Phobos Mission Control and E1M8B: Tech Gone Bad they will now respawn in the correct map.
• Further improvements have been made to the support of DEHACKED lumps:
  • An error will no longer be displayed in the console if the NOTDMATCH flag is used.
  • The par times for the maps in Episode 4 of The Ultimate DOOM, as well as MAP33 in DOOM II: Hell On Earth (BFG Edition), can now be specified in the [PARS] section.
  • A bug has been fixed whereby par times specified in the [PARS] section would not be read correctly in some rare instances.
  • A warning will now be displayed in the console if a .deh or .bex file was found but a DEHACKED lump was used instead.
• The following changes have been made to the resetall CCMD:
  • If a control is bound to the +mouselook action, the current map’s sky will now be unstretched immediately.
  • All aliases created using the alias CCMD will now be deleted.
• The following changes have been made to the take CCMD:
  • A bug has been fixed whereby if the player’s health was less than 100% it would be increased to 100% when using the all parameter. Now any health over 100% will be taken from the player.
  • The red palette effect will now be applied to the screen if any health is taken from the player.
  • The gold palette effect will no longer be applied to the screen if any item is taken from the player.
• The following changes have been made to the crosshair CVAR:
  • Instead of on or off, the CVAR can now be none (the new default), cross (to display an actual cross) or dot (to display a dot).
  • The crosshair now becomes brighter when the player fires their weapon.
  • The crosshair is now displayed when the autoaim CVAR is on.
  • The crosshair will no longer appear when the player has their fists or chainsaw equipped.
  • The color of the crosshair may now be changed using the new crosshaircolor CVAR. It is 4 (white) by default.
  • The crosshair is no longer translucent if the r_hud_translucency CVAR is off.
• DOOM Retro will no longer crash at startup when loading sunder.wad.
• The current map’s title is now displayed on the correct screen when both the am_external and r_althud CVARs are on.
• The widescreen HUD will no longer briefly appear in the background when toggling messages on or off in the options menu.
• Low graphic detail will no longer be affected by the value of the r_screensize CVAR when not playing a game.
• The edges of liquid sectors are now rendered better in some instances.
• The color of player messages in the alternate widescreen HUD is now correct when the r_textures CVAR is off and a COLORMAP lump that replaces colormap 32 is present in the current PWAD.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the menu could appear with a corrupted palette during startup in some rare instances.
• The red palette effect when the player is injured will now fade out quickly when the console is opened.
• The play CCMD can now be used to restart music.
• The player’s health, armor and ammo will no longer flash when low in the widescreen HUD if freeze mode is on.
• The Monsters killed stats shown by the playerstats CCMD now only include kills actually made by the player, and not those due to infighting among monsters.
• A bug has been fixed whereby pressing the F11 key on the intermission screen could affect the screen’s palette in some instances.
• The crosshair in the automap when follow mode is off is no longer translucent if the r_hud_translucency CVAR is also off.
• The status bar is now drawn in the background as necessary when a centered message is displayed.
• midiproc.exe will no longer remain open when quitting DOOM Retro and no MUS or MIDI music lumps have been played.
• Elements in the alternate widescreen HUD that are meant to be blue now appear blue rather than purple when playing Back To Saturn X E1: Get Out Of My Stations or Back To Saturn X E2: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the splash damage from rockets would be doubled in some instances.

DOOM Retro v2.8.1 is now available. It may be downloaded here and a 64-bit version may be downloaded here. 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.
• The current map’s title is now displayed again in the automap when the vid_widescreen CVAR is off.
• Further improvements have been made to the console’s autocomplete feature.
• A bug has been fixed whereby loading separate .deh or .bex files would cause DOOM Retro to hang.
• STBAR patches wider than 320 pixels will now be displayed correctly when the vid_widescreen CVAR is off.
• Restoring behavior present in Vanilla DOOM, exploding barrels will now trigger line specials.
• Weapons that have been altered using a DEHACKED lump to use the A_FireOldBFG code pointer will now fire in the right direction based on the values of the autoaim and mouselook CVARs.
• The correct amount of ammo is now taken from the player when entering take backpack in the console.
• A crosshair can now be displayed by enabling the new crosshair CVAR. It is on by default, but also requires the mouselook CVAR to be on and the autoaim CVAR to be off.
• If the iwadfolder CVAR is reset using either the reset or resetall CCMDs, the WAD launcher will try to find a common DOOM or DOOM II installation again the next time it is opened.
• The value of the facebackcolor CVAR is no longer applied to the background of the player’s face in the widescreen HUD.

DOOM Retro v2.8 is now available. It may be downloaded here (a 64-bit version 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.
• Noise is now applied to the menu’s background. Also, if the menu is opened while playing a game, the status bar or widescreen HUD as well as all sprites will be hidden, and the player’s view will slowly rotate either left or right.
• Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• By enabling the new autotilt CVAR, the player’s view will automatically tilt while they go up or down flights of stairs, inspired by a feature present in Quake. This CVAR is both off by default and when vanilla mode is enabled, and will also have no effect if the mouselook CVAR is on.
• The r_hud CVAR will now be reset correctly when using the reset or resetall CCMDs while no game is being played.
• Keycards and skull keys in the widescreen HUD are now spaced slightly further apart.
• The player’s health, ammo and armor in the widescreen HUD will now flash when they decrease as well as increase.
• DOOM Retro will no longer hang when the player crosses a line with a BOOM-compatible special action of 154 (“WR Change Texture and Effect”) or 240 (“WR Change Texture and Effect to Nearest”).
• Pressing the F1 key to open the help screen will no longer cause a crash in some very rare instances.
• Minor improvements have been made to the cast sequence at the end of DOOM II.
• The value of the facebackcolor CVAR is now also applied to the background of the player’s face in the widescreen HUD.
• Further improvements have been made to the support of DEHACKED lumps:
  • Things will no longer cast a shadow if they are spawned on the ceiling.
  • A thing’s name can now be changed as intended.
  • The finale text screen will be completely skipped if there is no text to display.
• Further improvements have been made to the support of MAPINFO and RMAPINFO lumps:
  • Strings containing escaped double quotes can now be used.
  • The title and composer of the music playing in the current map can now be displayed by the mapstats CCMD by using the new musictitle and musiccomposer entries.
• The support for MUSINFO lumps has been fixed.
• Music will now quickly fade out when quitting DOOM Retro.
• MP3 music lumps now play as intended.
• A crash will no longer occur when trying to display large patches on the intermission screen.
• A bug has been fixed whereby the unbind CCMD would only accept an action as a parameter and not a control.
• DOOM Retro now more intelligently determines if an animated flat depicts liquid. Only the following animated flats are now considered to be liquid:
  • All animated flats present in the original IWADs (with the exception of RROCK05 to RROCK08 and SLIME09 to SLIME12),
  • All animated flats specified in an ANIMATED lump in a PWAD that include keywords such as “WATER”, “BLOOD”, “LAVA”, etc. (or certain abbreviations of those) in their names,
  • Certain animated flats specified in an ANIMATED lump in a PWAD that are part of the Community Chest 4 and OTEX texture packs.
  • A few animated flats from a curated list of PWADs.
  • All animated flats specified using a LIQUID entry in a MAPINFO lump in a PWAD.
• The blockmap of every map will now be rebuilt when loaded if -blockmap is specified on the command-line.
• The following changes have been made to the playerstats CCMD:
  • The number of times the player has saved a game is now displayed.
  • The Map explored stat is now completely accurate.
  • The number of cyberdemons and spider masterminds that the player has killed are no longer shown in DOOM (Shareware).
• When saving over an existing savegame, that savegame will now be backed up in the savegame folder.
• A new take CCMD has been implemented that can be used to take ammo, armor, health, keys, weapons, or all or certain items from the player. It accepts the same parameters as the give CCMD.
• If the player uses the mouse wheel to select the shotgun or super shotgun in DOOM II, the first shotgun to be selected when pressing the 3 key will now be set correctly.
• No sound will be made if the player has their fists selected, has the berserk power-up, has no ammunition for any of their weapons, and tries to change weapons using the mouse wheel.
• The player’s health in the widescreen HUD will now flash if it regenerates due to use of the regenhealth CCMD.
• Fixing a bug present in Vanilla DOOM, the player’s face in the status bar will no longer grin when the first item is picked up after loading a savegame.
• The player’s face in the status bar will now behave correctly when the player injures themselves by exploding a barrel.
• The player will no longer automatically switch to their fists upon picking up a berserk power-up if they have already picked one up elsewhere in the current map.
• There is no longer the possibility of a crash when the player dies and the mouselook CVAR is on or a control is bound to the +mouselook action.
• The STTMINUS patch is now positioned better in the widescreen HUD if it has been changed in a PWAD.
• The fixes intended for E1M4 and E1M8 in doom.wad are no longer inadvertently applied to E1M4B and E1M8B when the r_fixmaperrors CVAR is on.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support of Chex Quest.
• Voodoo dolls are now specified in the output of the thinglist CCMD.
• The initial sound that a monster makes when it sees the player for the first time will no longer be interrupted by any further sounds that monster makes.
• A bug has been fixed whereby text copied from outside DOOM Retro to the Windows clipboard and then pasted into the console using CTRL + V would be corrupt.
• The player’s corpse will now still trigger line specials that exit the map when walked over.
• The vertical distance something is away from blast damage, as well as when telefragging, is no longer taken into account when the infiniteheight CVAR is on.
• The player’s rocket launcher will now be displayed correctly when fired in vanilla mode.
• Both the r_messagepos and r_messagescale CVARs have been deprecated. The position and scale of player messages now depend on the value of the vid_widescreen CVAR.
• Barrels will now animate correctly if their sprites have been replaced in a PWAD.
• The player’s view will now always be at the correct height when they are spawned at the start of a map.