What are your preferred visual settings?

Just curious - do you play in widescreen or the glorious 4:3? With aspect ratio correction or without? Do you like it pixelated or with 3D acceleration? Truecolor or the reduced palette?

Plus, if you can, post your screenshot and show how YOUR Doom looks.:)

1080p, usually classic Software rendering and not Truecolor, but I do use it sometimes in GZDoom. If Software is too slow for the wad I'm currently playing I switch to GL. Obviously with aspect ratio correction.

I use Crispy and Choco sometimes as well, but I'm not big into 4:3 (and I certainly don't see it as "the true Doom experience").

I like to have it as "truecolor classic in HD." What that means is: GZDoom with no texture filtering (crisp pixels), dynamic lights on, and 1080p resolution.

This keeps it clean and basic while looking better than ever.

Basically the same as (seed's settings). With GZDoom and PrBoom+/GLBoom+ i'll just use 1080p, regular software rendering (unless a mod or map needs OpenGL features then i'll use OpenGL mode). Same thing as above too, with aspect ratio correction.

If i use Crispy or Chocolate Doom (which i haven't been lately) i don't mind using a 4:3 aspect ratio. My monitor isn't that big compared to most monitors nowadays (21.5") and i only have 1 so i'd rather keep it in fullscreen and at 1920x1080 if possible.

For software rendering i keep the dynamic lights off in GZDoom but in OpenGL i keep them on (i don't think Doom had dynamic lighting). In OpenGL, i set the Sector Light Mode to Software as i tend to like that one the best. I don't use any texture filtering or AA or anything of that sort either.

I have to keep V-Sync on but i don't experience any lag in GZDoom (thankfully). Rendering Interpolation is also on so it's technically capped at 60fps. Visually that helps with screen tearing. I also use the classic (original) HUD too as sometimes people make special ones for their WADS and i'm just used to it as well.

**I made the pictures 50% smaller**

Epic (Map 02) - GZDoom 4.0.0 - OpenGL Rendering (w/Brightmaps/Dynamic Lights ON)

The Evil Unleashed (Map 04) - GZDoom 4.0.0 - Software Rendering

I prefer without aspect ratio correction. If it's forcibly on, I'll use a screen resolution that makes it look like it's without aspect ratio correction on my 16:9 monitor. Used to play more in GL, but now more in software.

11 minutes ago, CyberDreams said:

For software rendering i keep the dynamic lights off in GZDoom but in OpenGL i keep them on (i don't think Doom had dynamic lighting). In OpenGL, i set the Sector Light Mode to Software as i tend to like that one the best. I don't use any texture filtering or AA or anything of that sort either.

 

I have to keep V-Sync on but i don't experience any lag in GZDoom (thankfully). Rendering Interpolation is also on so it's technically capped at 60fps. Visually that helps with screen tearing.

Heh, I usually keep vsync off, it isn't very smooth in Eternity and PrBoom (didn't bother to check in GZDoom), plus the input lag. The daily builds of Choco and Crispy are very smooth with vsync though.

Doom no, did not have dynamic lights, AA, tonemapping, bloom, and the rest of the fancy features GZDoom offers. You can also use the Vanilla sector lighting in GL by the way, which is closer to the original experience, with banding and tonemapping set on palette it makes a pretty good Software emulation.

I can't decide between aspect ratio correction on and off, it's like I'm playing different games and I don't know which one is the "correct" option. Other than this I like my Doom widescreen, truecolor, no texture filtering.

- Widescreen

- 1080p

- Texture filtering off. Turn it off! Turn that shit off!!

- 24 bit colors, though

- Antialiasing even

- Ambient occlusion

- Smooth Doom! 

With this setup everything still looks crispand you still have pixelated textures, decorate, monsters, etc. Smooth Doom and its nice liquids (aka smoothtextures.pk3, iirc?!) give it that extra „oomph“, without making it look like an awkward attempt to „modernize“ the graphics, like some HD textures or other mods, do. 

But ultimately it‘s everyone‘s call. Do whatever you wish, as long as it looks awesome to you! 

Enjoy your Doom! Now and forever.

Software (most of the time) in 4:3 with a custom resolution of 1440x1080. I'm using a widescreen but this aspect ratio has grown back on me with old shooters.

My settings:

- 1920x1080 resolution

- Hardware renderer (Laptop CPU and software renderer don't go well together)

- Texture filtering OFF (In GZdoom this setting is: Texture filtering=none[Trilinear] )

- Dynamic Lights ON

- Bloom OFF (Plasma gun + Bloom = Blindness)

- ambient occlusion OFF (though this is only because of performance issues on my end, otherwise I like it)

- Anisotropic filtering 16x (To improve clarity of far away textures)

- Antialiasing 4x

With these settings, the game looks crisp and sharp while also maintaining high visibility.

For pWADs I use glboom:

• widescreen
• aspect ratio correction ON
• texture/sprite filtering OFF
• true color

For iWADs - crispy doom:

• 4:3
• 32-bit color

I just aim the graphics to whatever I choose since my PC runs quite a bit of wads quite well with the exception of highly HD quality wads such as Trailblazer and Russian Overkill.

4 hours ago, Szuran said:

I can't decide between aspect ratio correction on and off, it's like I'm playing different games and I don't know which one is the "correct" option. Other than this I like my Doom widescreen, truecolor, no texture filtering.

Auto or the ratio of your current resolution is the correct option (ex: 1920x1080 = 16:9), so that things display correctly.

Iwads:

4:3 

truecolor

almost all accelerates off to maintain the 1993 quality

(i know it's not practical but i like the original look)

custom:

all accelerates on, bloom off

4:3

truecolor

I recently went back to 320x200 4:3 exclusively. Using Choco/Crispy.

Good choice...  i changed the settings a bit in dosbox with 2xsai. Game gamma correction level 1

Everything else in dosbox is default.

Tiny  window mode.... I just play and let it stay this way.... its the best vanilla quality i can get with dosbox.

My desktop resolution is 1280x1024, it made the dosbox tiny window look nice.

i use dosbox doom because the chaingun fires at a more accurate framerate when you use it (it just sounds better to me)

If I'm running a more vanilla faithful port like PrBoom+ or Crispy then I like using a 4:3 aspect ratio. So Crispy at 4:3 fullscreen and PrBoom at 4:3 windowed for me.

If a wad requires GZDoom then I'll go 1920x1080 fullscreen, none (nearest mipmap filtering), and software lighting mode. I'll also switch to GZDoom's software renderer if the wad uses a lot of vanilla textures.

As high a resolution as my monitor can manage, 1:1.2 pixel aspect ratio, true colour, no texture filtering, no transparent projectiles/lost souls, original-style "fuzzy" invisibility effect.

No bloom or dynamic lights.

Antialiasing on, but I can barely tell the difference.

I like GZDoom's wall decals, but I do wish they were a bit lower resolution and didn't have any alpha blending. I've been meaning to drawn my own for ages.

Right now I've got SSAO turned on, but I'm not 100% sure it's going to stay. I like it, but it does tend to glitch out around the edges of the screen and it might be a step too far away from the original aesthetic.

For me this is Doom looking as good as possible, but still like Doom. It's all pretty arbitrary though. Personal tastes and all that.

None. Am used to all settings they don't even have much impact on me. Although I'd go with software if the mapper didn't put a lot of effort into lighting so the map looks blander than a 1996 game in opengl.

I tend to favor Chocolate Doom, but I use 1080p widescreen when playing GZDoom. And I use the widescreen HUD mod. Cause that drives me nuts otherwise.

4:3 for life! I use laptop from 2005 with 4:3 display. Oldest game i play in HW accel mode is vanilla Quake II with "gl_round_down 0" in autoexec.cfg (to make game look more detailed).

My TV is huge Philips CRT 4:3, while everyone else in my home have new LEDs 16:9 with odd colors and no true black color (it's closer to dark grey).

GZDoom at 1920x1080 with no texture filtering or resizing (Me like them pixels), OpenGL Renderer with settings tweaked to look almost exactly like vanilla rendering but at a high res.

When I feel like experiencing it completely old school with almost no high res rendering, I go for Chocolate Doom or Crispy Doom.

I'm considering making the status bar fit the whole screen, but I feel like it keeps its intended size and looks better this way.

GZDoom in 720p, no texture filtering, VSync on.

13 hours ago, vanilla_d00m said:

Good choice...  i changed the settings a bit in dosbox with 2xsai. Game gamma correction level 1

 

Everything else in dosbox is default.

 

Tiny  window mode.... I just play and let it stay this way.... its the best vanilla quality i can get with dosbox.

 

My desktop resolution is 1280x1024, it made the dosbox tiny window look nice.

 

i use dosbox doom because the chaingun fires at a more accurate framerate when you use it (it just sounds better to me)

 

Why not DOSBox latest version (0.74-2) though? I will try 2xsai some day.

GZDoom 640x400 no filter whatsoever.

Soundblaster sounds different on 0.70.

The Ultimate Doom intro screen... then compare it with 0.74

Soundblaster Adlib

ZDOOM 2.8.1   window mode (Expand)

320x256 4:3

85 Brightness

Desktop resolution 1280x1024

stretch sky: no

vsync off

rend interp: off

column rend mode: original

cl_capfps True (35)

I like this one more, but DOSBOX is more vanilla.

OpenGL, Doom3-style dynamic lighting, heavily rewritten ketchup, custom arsenal. let's ro... aw, wrong game again.

I just looks the BEST in vanilla way. Only enhancement i accept is higher resolution (640x480). Capped framerate, no interpolation. Screenshot made with superb Eternity Engine port in "It Goes Away In The End" map by @Misty.

The original software renderer, by far. Dark areas look a lot better with the original fades imo.

it's very atmospheric as well: