DOOM Retro is intentionally minimalist in its approach, and so it does a few things differently
 if compared with other modern DOOM source ports. Open the ¥ DOOM Retro Wiki for details.

DOOM Retro v6.1 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 v18.6.2 of Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026.
• DOOM Retro now uses SDL_mixer v2.8.2.
• Several changes have been made to further improve the overall stability of DOOM Retro.
• Minor changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• These bugs have been fixed on older versions of Windows that were affecting some users:
  • An error message about SetProcessInformation would appear at startup.
  • The screen’s palette would be corrupted.
• The Master Levels are now supported. When loading doom2.wad, if masterlevels.wad is found in the same folder, it will be loaded automatically and “Master Levels” may then be chosen from the expansion menu.
• A bug is fixed whereby the TEKWALL1 texture would be misaligned in some instances.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support of ID24-compatible intermissions.
• Warnings in the console now wrap correctly.
• Brightmaps can now be applied to sprites and flats by specifying them using a BRGHTMPS lump in a PWAD.
• Changing the screen size using the + and – keys can now be rebound to other controls using the new +sizeup and +sizedown actions with the bind CCMD.
• These changes have been made while a confirmation message is displayed:
  • Screenshots can now be taken using the PRINTSCREEN key.
  • The console can now be opened using the ~ key.
  • When ending or quitting a game, or selecting the Nightmare! skill level, if the m_pointer CVAR is on, and the mouse has been moved to show the pointer, YES and NO buttons that can be selected with the mouse are now displayed instead of the usual text.
• The ellipsis has been removed from “CONSOLE…” in the options menu.
• The correct M_DOOM lump is now displayed in the main menu when playing Freedoom: Phase 1 or Freedoom: Phase 2.
• The menu’s background now continues to animate as the screen fades to black when quitting.

DOOM Retro v6.0 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 v18.5.2 of Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026.
• DOOM Retro now uses SDL_image v2.8.12.
• Extensive changes have been made to further improve the overall performance and stability of DOOM Retro.
• If DOOM Retro does happen to crash, a dialog box is now displayed and a crash report is generated that you are then encouraged to send to the developer.
• DOOM Retro now uses Direct3D 11 rather than Direct3D 9 to scale every frame on the screen when the vid_scaleapi CVAR is its default of direct3d, resulting in a considerable increase in performance.
• Changes have been made to DOOM Retro’s splash screen.
• Several changes have been made to text that is output to the console.
• These changes have been made to scrolling in the console:
  • Wrapped lines are no longer skipped.
  • A bug is fixed whereby it sometimes wasn’t possible to scroll all the way to the top of the console.
  • The scroll bar’s thumb is now sized more accurately, and no longer gets too small such that its grip isn’t shown.
• Long lines in the console can now wrap over multiple lines.
• Minor improvements have been made to text autocompleted in the console.
• When a semicolon is used so another command can be entered in the console’s input, any whitespace preceding it will be removed, a space will be added after it, and the TAB key can be pressed to autocomplete that command.
• Changes made to the console’s input that have been undone by pressing CTRL + Z can now be redone by pressing CTRL + Y.
• These changes have been made to the support of MAPINFO lumps:
  • Maps greater than MAP99 are now supported.
  • A bug is fixed whereby MUSIC wouldn’t be parsed correctly in some rare instances.
  • ALLOWMONSTERTELEFRAGS is now parsed correctly.
  • ENDGAME = TRUE is now parsed correctly.
• A bug is fixed, present in the original DOOM, whereby some floor textures wouldn’t change when line specials 37, 84, 159 or 177 were triggered in some instances.
• These changes have been made to the automap:
  • The color of undiscovered secrets when using the IDDT cheat can now be changed using the new am_secretcolor CVAR, which can be set to none (the default), or 0 to 255. All secrets flash three times in this color upon entering the cheat.
  • Panning around using the mouse has changed. When the am_mousepanning CVAR is on, pressing the F key to turn follow mode off and moving the mouse will now show the mouse pointer. You may then click and drag the mouse to pan around instead of just moving the mouse. (This feature also requires the m_pointer CVAR to be on.)
  • The crosshair displayed when the am_followmode CVAR is off now remains behind the console while it is open.
  • The accuracy of the lines drawn when the am_rotatemode CVAR is on has improved.
  • Both zooming and panning, using the keyboard, mouse or controller, are now smoother.
  • The player’s path is now anchored to the back of the player’s arrow when the am_path CVAR is on.
  • The +maxzoom action has been renamed +fullzoom.
  • The correct player arrow is now shown when the player has a partial invisibility power-up.
• Flat textures between both F_START/F_END and FF_START/FF_END markers are now always found.
• A bug is fixed whereby if the ENTER key was bound to an action using the bind CCMD, when pressed it would also still show the previous player message.
• A bug is fixed whereby strings of commands bound to mouse buttons using the bind CCMD wouldn’t always execute.
• Actions may now be bound to more keys on the numeric keypad using the bind CCMD with the values numpad/, numpad+, numpad-, numpad* and numpad..
• Actions may now be bound to tilting the mouse wheel left or right using the bind CCMD with the values wheelleft and wheelright.
• Looking up, down, and centering the view can now be bound a control using the bind CCMD with the actions +lookup, +lookdown and +lookcenter.
• The bindlist CCMD now also lists all unbound controls and actions.
• The thinglist CCMD now also lists the DoomEd number of each thing.
• The ammo CCMD now always successfully changes the amount of ammo for the currently equipped weapon.
• The fade CVAR has been renamed smoothtransitions.
• A transition effect now occurs when pressing the + and – keys to toggle widescreen. This effect can be disabled using the smoothtransitions CVAR.
• The player’s vertical field of view is now exactly the same in both widescreen and non-widescreen modes.
• Screenshots taken while the menu is open, or if the palette CCMD is in use, now have more descriptive filenames.
• Texture offsets are now corrected in certain maps built with ZDBSP extended nodes.
• A bug is fixed whereby the con_timestampformat, english, r_detail and units CVARs couldn’t be changed in the console. These CVARs also weren’t being reset when vanilla mode was enabled.
• The playername CVAR can now be changed back to its default of “” in the console.
• If the playername CVAR is “you” (its default value in earlier versions of DOOM Retro), it is now automatically changed to “” at startup as it was affecting the grammar of obituaries in the console.
• The restartmap CCMD can now be used during intermission.
• Support has been added for maps with ZDoom’s XGLN, ZGLN, XGL2, ZGL2, XGL3 and ZGL3 extended formats.
• Maps without nodes, or unsupported node formats, will now be rebuilt using the integrated NanoBSP node builder.
• Custom palettes and M_DOOM patches now work as intended when playing Freedoom: Phase 1 or Freedoom: Phase 2.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support of Back To Saturn X E1: Get Out Of My Stations and Back To Saturn X E2: Tower In The Fountain Of Sparks.
• The FPS graph displayed when the vid_showfps CVAR is on now displays correctly when the menu is open and a DBIGFONT lump is being used.
• Minor improvements have been made to the colors used for the DOOM Retro logo in the console when the edge color is bright.
• The player’s face now flashes in the status bar when they have the invulnerability power-up and it starts to wear out.
• A crash no longer occurs when the player picks up an invulnerability power-up and the r_textures CVAR is off.
• The underscores below the player message displayed when using the IDBEHOLD cheat are now always aligned correctly.
• Smoothing of the mouse can now be toggled off using the new m_smoothing CVAR, which is on by default and off when vanilla mode is enabled.
• The mouse’s vertical sensitivity when the freelook CVAR is on can now be changed separately from its horizontal sensitivity using the new m_sensitivity_vertical CVAR, which is 16 by default.
• The m_sensitivity CVAR has been renamed m_sensitivity_horizontal to reflect that it now only affects horizontal sensitivity. Also, adjusting “mouse sensitivity” in the options menu now only changes this CVAR.
• These changes have been made to the menu’s background:
  • The r_textures CVAR no longer affects it.
  • The player’s view now tilts upwards slightly.
  • Things such as barrels now animate.
• Elements in the widescreen HUD now have drop shadows when the r_hud_translucency CVAR is on.
• These changes have been made to blood splats:
  • Extensive optimizations have been made to the rendering of blood splats.
  • A bug is fixed whereby the shapes of blood splats weren’t as random as intended.
  • There are no longer slight random variations in the colors of blood splats.
  • When the number of blood splats spawned in the current map reaches the amount set by the r_bloodsplats_max CVAR, the oldest blood splats are now removed to make room for new ones, rather than blood splats stopping being spawned altogether.
  • Blood splats are now selectively culled the further they are away from the player.
  • There is now a new read-only CVAR called r_bloodsplats_visible that shows the number of blood splats currently visible to the player.
  • The r_bloodsplats_total CVAR is now reset to 0 when the player finishes a map.
  • Blood splats spawned when the player is injured in Chex Quest and Chex Quest 2 are now green.
• These changes have been made to shadows when the r_shadows CVAR is on:
  • Monsters that are in liquid sectors now cast shadows.
  • Shadows can now be cast on multiple floors at different heights.
• The player is now able to slide along walls at any angle without getting stuck.
• A bug is fixed, present in the original DOOM and called the “long wall error”, whereby very long walls would shift back and forth as the player moved relative to them.
• Wide sprites that are partially obscured by a wall are now less likely to disappear.
• Freeze mode, enabled using the freeze CCMD, is now remembered in savegames.
• Whether god mode, no clipping mode, freeze mode or no target mode are enabled or disabled as a result of loading a savegame is now displayed in the console.
• The r_playersprites CVAR has been renamed r_playerweapon.
• Instead of using the r_sprites_translucency CVAR, the translucency effect when the player fires their weapon can now be disabled on its own using the new r_playerweapon_translucency CVAR, which is on by default and off when vanilla mode is enabled.
• Obituaries are now still recorded every time something is killed when the obituaries CVAR is off, but are just not displayed in the console.
• Changing the con_warninglevel CVAR will now cause all previously generated warnings in the console to appear or disappear as necessary.
• Wildcard expressions now work correctly with the reset CCMD to reset multiple CVARs at once.
• The BIGDOOR1 texture is now vertically aligned correctly.
• A bug is fixed whereby the player’s weapon could bleed from the right side of the screen to the left in some rare instances.
• When DOOM Retro is run for the first time and an installation of DOOM is found, the IWAD in the “File name” field of the WAD launcher is now in the correct case.
• If multiple files are selected in the WAD launcher, each of those files are now saved in the wad CVAR, and then restored in the “File name” field of the WAD launcher the next time DOOM Retro is run.
• The wad and wadfolder CVARs now retain any non-Latin characters when saved to doomretro.cfg.
• The files output from the condump CCMD now retain any non-Latin characters.
• The console will now be closed while the resetall CCMD’s confirmation message is displayed.
• When the m_pointer CVAR is on:
  • The console’s input can now be selected by double-clicking, triple-clicking, or clicking and dragging the mouse.
  • You can now scroll up and down in the console by clicking and dragging the mouse on the scroll bar.
  • The mouse pointer no longer briefly appears centered on the screen before it is hidden.
  • The mouse pointer no longer becomes hidden when certain CVARs are changed in the console.
  • In the save game menu, clicking on a savegame slot to edit its description now shifts the text caret to where the mouse pointer is clicked rather than always placing it at the end.
• The text caret in the save game menu is now slightly darker.
• Animated flats with SWAMP or SWMP in their names are now recognized as liquid textures.
• The vertical sprite offset of dead pinky demons has improved when the r_fixspriteoffsets CVAR is on.
• Looking up and down is now smoother when the freelook CVAR is on.
• The accuracy of the player’s aim has improved when firing their weapon while the freelook CVAR is on and the r_fov CVAR is a value other than its default of 90°.
• When the player teleports, a zoom effect is now applied to their field of view. This can be disabled using the new r_teleportzoom CVAR, which is on by default and off when vanilla mode is enabled.
• A bug is fixed whereby the screen would momentarily go black if the player was injured and the r_shake_damage CVAR was on, the vid_scalefilter CVAR was nearest and the vid_showfps CVAR was on.
• VSync is now forced on when the vid_motionblur CVAR is greater than 0%.
• Motion blur is now also applied when the player looks up and down while the freelook CVAR is on and the vid_motionblur CVAR is greater than 0%.
• All friendly monsters, not just dogs, are now able to drop down from high ledges to follow the player.
• Minor improvements have been made to the support of ID24 line specials.
• Better colors are now chosen to fill the pillarboxes when a 320×200 fullscreen lump such as TITLEPIC is displayed in widescreen mode.
• These changes have been made to the support for controllers:
  • Controller movement has been made slightly smoother.
  • Controller sensitivity has been reduced.
  • The LED lights on PS5 DualSense controllers now change color based on the player’s health (from green to yellow to orange to flashing red).
  • The touchpad on PS5 DualSense controllers can now be used to pan around the automap when the am_followmode CVAR is off.
  • Horizontal autoaiming is now applied when the player fires their weapon. This can be disabled using the new joy_autoaim_horizontal CVAR, which is on by default and off when vanilla mode is enabled.
  • When the joy_rumble_fall CVAR is on, controllers no longer rumble when the player falls into liquid.
• An accessibility feature has been implemented that allows the player to automatically fire their currently equipped weapon when there’s a monster in front of them. This can be enabled using the new autofire CVAR, which is off by default and when vanilla mode is enabled.
• A bug is fixed whereby the angles of things passing through silent teleporters wouldn’t be preserved.
• The map CCMD now works correctly when playing Legacy Of Rust.
• A bug is fixed whereby the wrong stat was being updated when the player fired their calamity blade in Legacy Of Rust.
• These changes have been made to the support of BOOM-compatible deep water:
  • A swirling effect is now applied to the player’s view when the r_liquid_swirl CVAR is on.
  • The effect when the player has an invulnerability power-up is no longer affected.
• AASTINKY and AASHITTY textures in maps are now treated as blank as intended.
• MUSINFO things 14,100 and 14,164 are now supported.
• These changes have been made to the support of DEHACKED lumps:
  • Using Fullbright to make the frames of all things fullbright now works as intended.
  • Corpses whose Exploding frame has been altered no longer gib when the r_corpses_gib CVAR is on.
  • HUSTR_SECRETFOUND can now be used to change the player message that is displayed when a secret is found and the secretmessages CVAR is on.
• Additional bars indicating the amount of ammo the player has for all ammo types can now be shown in the alternate widescreen HUD by enabling the new r_althud_ammobars CVAR, which is off by default.
• Noise is no longer applied to the pillarbox areas when displaying the help screen over a non-widescreen TITLEPIC lump.
• Turning the messages CVAR on no longer causes the last player message to be immediately displayed.
• The spectre’s fuzz effect now appears correctly in DOOM II’s cast sequence.
• DOOM II’s cast sequence no longer tries to display Legacy Of Rust’s new monsters towards the end.
• If the TITLEPIC lump in a PWAD is an unsupported PNG or JPG image, the IWAD’s TITLEPIC lump is now displayed instead, rather than DOOM Retro exiting with an error.
• Platforms that are not going to move no longer make their start or stop sounds when activated.

DOOM Retro v5.8.2 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 v18.1.0 of Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026.
• Minor changes 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.
• When changing a CVAR in the console, a message is now displayed indicating that the CVAR has been changed and what it was previously.
• The values of color CVARs in the console, shown either by entering a CVAR individually or by using the cvarlist CCMD, are now shown with a colored background.
• A new palette CCMD has been implemented that will display a table of all 256 colors in the current palette.
• The spawn CCMD now still tries to spawn things anywhere around the player if there isn’t enough space directly in front of them.
• Minor improvements have been made to the colors used for the DOOM Retro logo in the console when the edge color is bright.
• These changes have been made to the support of DEHACKED lumps:
  • The trail of smoke behind rockets fired by the player and cyberdemons when the r_rockettrails CVAR is on now appear if thing 149 and/or its accompanying states are replaced.
  • A bug is fixed whereby the execution of certain codepointers could be repeated in the same tic in some rare instances.
• Navigating to E1M0, E2M0 and MAP99 in Legacy Of Rust using the map CCMD or IDCLEV cheat has been fixed.
• These improvements have been made to the support of DBIGFONT lumps:
  • Black pixels are no longer translucent.
  • ON/OFF and HIGH/LOW now appear in the options menu.
• A bug is fixed whereby music wouldn’t be played in some rare instances when extras.wad was autoloaded.
• The screen now always clears to black at startup.
• A bug is fixed whereby certain player’s stats would become invalid when a monster is resurrected.
• The default values of the crosshaircolor and am_crosshaircolor CVARs are now correct.
• Improvements have been made to the position of the STTMINUS lump in the status bar and widescreen HUD when the player is dead and the negativehealth CVAR is on.
• The map title and author in the automap are now always truncated correctly when the r_screensize CVAR is 8.