Calculating Realistic Running Speed for DOOMGuy

For reasons I do not fully comprehend, I decided to see if I could do some calculations and see how fast the DOOMGuy would run in-game were he a real person. The only problem is, I suck at math, so I have no idea how accurate any of this is, but here goes:

• DOOMGuy's foot length (judging from his left foot in PLAYF3F7) = 12 pixels
  
• Average male shoe length (Googled it) = 10.8 inches (thus 12 pixels = approx. 10.8 inches)
  
• Average long distance sprint speed (Googled it) = 8 MPH
  
• Number of feet in a mile = 5,280 feet
  
• At 1 MPH, distance that can be ran in 60 seconds (5,280 divided by 60) = 88 feet
  
• At 8 MPH, distance that can be ran in 60 seconds (88 x 8) = 704 feet
  
• Number of inches in 704 feet (704 X 12) = 8,448 inches
  
• Number of average male foot lengths in 8,448 inches (8,448 divided by 10.8) = approx. 782
  
• 782 (10.8-inch foot lengths) x 12 (length of foot in pixels) = approx. 9,384

Result = If DOOMGuy had the 8 MPH long distance sprint speed of an average person, he could run across 9,384 pixels in approximately 60 seconds.

I then made a test map with start and finish lines spaced exactly 9,384 pixels apart, and ran them in ZDoom, repeatedly tweaking the "turbo" parameter in the console until DOOMGuy reached the finish line in approximately 60 seconds. "Turbo 28" seemed very close to the correct speed.

Again, I have no idea if any of this is accurate, but if you ever wanted to make a mod where the DOOMGuy runs at the speed of an average person, something around turbo 28 would do the trick, I suppose.

I just did my own calculation, using id's official scale for Doom (8 pixels per foot both horizontally and vertically (despite the aspect ratio)). It would be 5632 map units per minute.

What an alarming discrepancy!

Where'd you get that scale, anyway?

Rather than using shoe size, why not use his height? This is a larger number and less subject to graphical distortion (besides, they are space boots, rather than normal shoes...), and should lead to a more reliable result.

Max normal strafe-50 running speed (without wallrunning or other speed boosts) is 23 units per tic, and there are 35 tics per second. Assuming Doomguy is 6 foot tall (he wouldn't be less, would he?), a little arithmetic will lead to a speed in MPH. As a trained mathematician, I'll leave it to someone else to do the calculation. :p

I guess I never considered using his height since it seems like he's never standing up straight.

Such calculations have been done time and again. In an older thread it was mentioned that 16 horizontal units are 1 foot, and 10 vertical ones are also one foot (which seem, about right, making Doomguy average height, around 5.6 ft, and 64x64 tiles about 16 ft^2 in area).

In any case, it turned out that Doomguy's running speed is close to 90 km/h, so he must be on rocket skates all the time. In any case, I prefer it from controlling some dummy that moves like a frozen cod.

Is 5.6 feet average height for a guy? I'm 5.7 feet "5 feet, 8") and I'm generally considered a little on the short side.

5.6 feet seems awfully short to me, yes.

Here's some stuff I wrote examining in-game dimensions a while back. Basically, the unit is 6 feet every 64 units of width, because as noted by Maes, height pixels are stretched, but only 20%. This makes the character heights and textures make sense. Other things, like view height, physical player width or item sprites may not be consistent, but the general impression of sizes is given by the characters and the map structure, not so much by those details that have game play or simplification reasons to have other dimensions. The 6 feet per unit scale makes sense because most board games like RPG miniatures use 10 feet or 6 feet units and the developers must have been thinking in similar terms when they made the game, to ensure a more or less sensible starting point for the graphics and maps. I use 6 feet rather than 2 meters because id is a company from the US, of course.

Player = 56 height units or pixels
DOOM area standard = 64 units

Player = just over 6 feet tall

64 height pixels = about "7 feet"
(the approximate height of a baron of hell)

60 height pixels = about "2 meters"
(to get a rough idea in the metric system)

64 units = 6 feet wide
height pixels x 1.2 for an equivalent

DOOM measure = 8 pixels
Pixel (width) = 18/16 (1.125) inches
Pixel (height) = 21.6/16 (1.35) inches
DOOM width measure  =  9.0 real inches
DOOM height measure = 10.8 real inches

10 real feet = 106.666 pixels wide
10 real feet =  88.888 pixels high

According to this, the 12 pixels you used are 13.5 inches, not 10.8. That may seem a lot for the foot in PLAYF3F7 even with a thick boot on it, but keep in mind that the details in the sprites aren't necessarily proportional, only the general character size is, to a reasonable extent. In the same scale, 9384 units are 879 feet and 9 inches. A mile is 56320 width units (8 units every 9 inches).

You said the player runs 9384 units in a minute with turbo 28, which equals a bit over 33514 units at normal turbo settings. This is the equivalent of just under 0.6 miles per minute, or somewhat over 35 miles per hour.

Here's one old thread about this topic, that treats the 56 unit tall player as 6 feet tall and later makes some corrections due to the difference between height and width metrics in DOOM:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/5909-so-just-how-fast-does-the-marine-run/

@myk

So by those calculations, if a 64x64 grid on the floor is 6x6 feet... Let's see... 704 feet per minute at 8 MPH. 704 divided by 6 is 117 (rounded down), so that's 117 64x64 grids, so 64 multiplied by 117 is 7,488.

So the DOOMGuy should realistically only be able to cross 7,488 map units in one minute? Oh wow, that's really slow.