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I wanted to share the settings I'm using to make GZDoom 4.11.3 feel like classic Doom while using the Vulkan renderer. The easiest way to configure GZDoom is to use the Options Search function. If you're looking for one of the below settings without searching, make sure you set Simple options menu: Off gzdoom.ini is saved in a user folder now, so there is no need to copy your gzdoom.ini to a new install. Save the file somewhere safe for future use. The below settings may need tweaking depending on your preferences and screen resolution. Mouse Options Always Mouselook: Off Compatibility Options Compatibility mode: Doom Automap Options Map colour set: Traditional Doom HUD Options Crosshair: Off Scaling factor: 1.0 Aspect ratio: 1.2 HUD Options > Scaling Options User interface scale: Adapt to screen size Alternative HUD: 1 HUD preserves aspect ratio: Off Sound Options Randomize pitches: On Display Options Sprite shadows: Default Use fuzz effect: Fuzz Classic Transparency: ZDoom (Forced) Use fake contrast: On Rocket Trails: Off Blood Type: Sprites & Particles Bullet Puff Type: Sprites & Particles Display Options > Hardware Renderer Sector light mode: Software Banded SW Lightmode: On Fog mode: Standard Fog forces fullbright: Off Enhanced night vision mode: Off Adjust sprite clipping: Smarter Smooth sprite edges: Off Fuzz style: Software Particle style: Square Rendering quality: Quality Multisample: Off Display Options > Hardware Renderer > Postprocessing Bloom effect: Off Lens distortion effect: Off Ambient occlusion quality: Off FXAA quality: Off Dither output: Off Tonemap mode: Palette Display Options > Texture Options Texture filter mode: None Anisotropic filter: 16x High Quality Resize mode: Off High Quality Resize multiplier: Off Resize textures: On Resize sprites: On Resize fonts: On Resize model skins: On Display Options > Dynamic Light Options Dynamic lights (software): Off Dynamic lights (hardware): Off Lights affect sprites: No Lights affect particles: No Light shadowmaps: No Set video mode Resolution scale: Lowest possible scale Scale Factor: 1.00 Use Linear Scaling (Fullscreen): No

I'm wary of using settings that can't be changed in the menu, I assume they could be removed by GZDoom in future.

That's what I've always thought too, it's a pun about FPSes that are designed like they were in the past - fast, furious mayhem - as opposed to Halo/Call of Duty type shooters which were slower.

In GZDoom I haven't noticed much difference.

I just checked as well and actually that's Software fuzz (8), and yeah it looks pretty good 🙂 I'll update my post, I prefer that look.

I just look at e1m1 of DOOM.WAD at the ceiling. As far as I know Doom doesn't implement any fog, but you might be able to test with Hexen. Here's some screenshots: Fog mode: Standard // gl_fogmode=1 Fog mode: Radial // gl_fogmode=2 Interesting - it may be wrapping around back to 0 (Shadow). Or just defaulting to 0 because it's not a value it recognises. What makes you hate =1? Just don't like the look of it? I think that will only work well with r_fuzzscale=1 or the pixels are too small to look good. Just to note as well, that wiki page for the CVARs hasn't been updated since 2022, so I'm not sure if it's completely accurate 🙂 I know some GZDoom settings changed since the old Dwars YouTube video.

I did see your post after I'd put mine up. I don't think there's any "right" or "wrong" configuration, just your preferences 😊 If you're wanting to get that more classic look, think about tweaking: // fog: standard gl_fogmode=1 // fuzz gl_fuzztype=1 r_fuzzscale=true // tonemap: palette gl_tonemap 5 I found the Fuzz looks much better even at high resolution, and the fog setting made the biggest difference in my case to getting light banding looking right.

The key settings to get light banding seemed to be: Fog mode: Standard (or Off) - Radial smooths the banding. I believe Hexen or Heretic use fog so Off would presumably affect those games. Tonemap mode: Palette The fuzz settings look great on Spectres! I like the lowest possible resolution scale, but if you're using a different resolution you can scale the HUD and interface yourself or let GZDoom do it automatically.

"Peripheral" must be modesty. The music in ROTT is amazing. Thank you!

Not sure if unpopular, but 640x400 is at least twice as good as 320x200 resolution, but on widescreen monitors anything x400 is best.

This doesn't replace front-end launchers or command-line options for users using those - it adds functionality for people not already using front-end launchers or unfamiliar with command-line (or on console-style setups without mouse and keyboard input). It's not a launcher that runs before the port starts; it's built into the port and menu to avoid needing a launcher. You don't need a file browser for this implementation, it would just list assets found in the source port folder and in $DOOMWADDIR and $DOOMWADPATH locations. Code already exists to load resources; you'd need an unload function to allow switching between IWADs and unloading PWADs/DEHs/etc. before calling the load functions again after the user has selected the resources to load. For a similar implementation, take a look at OpenTTD's NewGRF loader. I'd load config and parse command line options first; if an IWAD is already specified, you load and use that. If none is specified, instead of displaying GZDoom's popup to select one (for example), you load the base resources for the menu and have people select an IWAD in the in-game menu before they can New Game or Load Game. But, this isn't about GZDoom specifically - all source ports display the Doom menu on all platforms. Many extend the menu with custom settings pages etc. so this is nothing new from that perspective - just the code to load and unload assets while the port is in the menu. I'd love to see some portable code that does this that ports can adopt and adapt for their use-cases (and if I can find time to brush up on my C I may have a go at implementing it). GZDoom has the broadest compatibility and is the recommended port for newbies usually, so if you were implementing /idgames downloads from within the port, GZDoom makes the most sense since it should play pretty much anything on there.

I know this is a pretty old post, but this is nonsense. You already have a cross-platform GUI - the DOOM menu - that every single port includes. GZDoom already has custom menu code and a massive, filterable settings menu. It could be expanded to add in-game selectable IWADs and PWADs, DEHs and load orders, and even /idgames search and download integration. If the pre-start popup is a problem, bundle a menu_assets.pk3 file (or include in gzdoom.pk3) which will automatically load to be able to display the menu, change the "New Game" option to say "Which WADS?", and present an interface with filterable/selectable IWADs and PWADs on the left and TXT file display on the right (in case someone's forgotten to check the TXT before trying to run a WAD). You can even parse TXT files to autoload IWADs and DEH files etc. - the format is pretty standard. There shouldn't be a separate front-end launcher like ZDL or DSDA-Launcher; it should be integrated into the menu the same way the Unity port does. This allows for full controller usage, for example on PCs connected to TVs where a mouse/keyboard may be undesirable.

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, but I randomly came across JPHOUSE.WAD by JP LeBreton and was struck by the similarities with MyHouse.wad, especially when considered with the YouTube videos/trailers linked from the author's webpage. There's a similar surreal feeling and some interesting things going on in the level.

I agree - I think that DSDA and Woof! feel better than Choco and Crispy descendants. I’m not sure it’s just mouse control, I feel like movement in general feels a bit better but it’s hard to explain exactly why. Might be Boom handles movement and mouse inputs slightly differently, I’m not really sure. Or that acceleration is off by default in DSDA and I haven’t changed it (just sensitivity to 20).

I'm not sure it's the same scaling, but you're right - the experience is very similar. Do you play with mouse and keyboard, or keyboard-only? If you use the mouse, do you use NOVERT? I find the mouse sensitivity is too low for my liking in DOSBox - if I really want a vanilla experience I just go with Chocolate Doom.

Slot 1 is called quicksave so if I’m using a quicksave it just goes there. Others are whatever the port automatically picks.

I'm playing through vanilla with Woof! (after a loooong time), and I love the aesthetics and feel of this port- it renders in classic 640x400 but hardware scales it up - looks great, feels great due to unlimited framerate, and you'll have Boom, MBF, UMAPINFO etc. for when you start on other WADs. DSDA-Doom is also good, but I prefer Woof!'s look rather than DSDA-Doom's higher resolution.

Are there any plans for a new stable release? There are a lot of commits since 3.0.1. There is a NEWS.md update about a 3.1.0 (which I guess was planned for 2019 but didn't eventuate). With 1500+ commits since 3.0.1 it's a bit hard to understand what's new/changed - is there an updated NEWS.md available?

So for some reason id only have Windows builds of the Unity port (aside from App Store versions), and I was wondering which other source port is “closest” to the Unity port. It’s a broad question on purpose - by “feel” or features or any other metric, what do you feel is the source port that is closest to Unity? Also, please note if you’d recommend any additional WADs like WideFix etc. to bring it even closer.

You're right, both BFG and Unity are based off the Xbox 360 Doom Classic port. However unfortunately BFA also requires Doom 3 BFG data (not just Classic Doom WADs) - I was thinking primarily of ports that only need IWADs.

Congrats on the refactor and release! It looks like in this version we've lost the crosshair. Was that intentional?

That's true - but community ports wouldn't be restricted to a curated list and wouldn't use IWADs. I think combined with autoload folders, or configurable load lists, this would be doable. No real reason to prevent a user selecting multiple PWADs and ordering them (much like launchers do already). It depends on the use case. On a PC, where you can setup shortcuts, batch files, use CLI etc. and use a launcher, no it doesn't really add convenience. But if you've setup a Raspberry Pi for example with controller-only input, being able to do this from within a port would be quite convenient. Especially if it includes a feature for browsing and downloading from /idgames and parsing TXT files - they already contain the base IWAD information, BEX/DEH requirements, tested with (for displaying warnings etc.), and Map # for automatic -warp to the first included map. It wouldn't be perfect of course, but I don't think it needs to be. Where the file couldn't be parsed but a BEX/DEH was detected, display a warning and allow the BEX/DEH to be selectable like a PWAD. I'm thinking of something like OpenTTD's in-game NewGRF loader. The TXT file can be displayed on the same screen next to the list, in case it contains any specific instructions.

Ooh, that’s exciting!

Taking another look at Classic Doom Unity, I think the following features stand out for me: In-game PWAD selection with automatic IWAD loading (e.g. if started with DOOM.WAD IWAD, still allows enabling TNT.WAD and will automatically load additional resources as required) 640x400 resolution, scaled to full screen size, including WidePix and Widescreen Statusbars Framerate greater than 35 FPS with interpolation Limits removed Demo compatibility Full controller support In-game control rebinding menu Crosshair, changing to red when aiming at an enemy Map shows Kills/Items/Secrets counters on separate lines, and level name and timer Secrets messages - displayed as normal pickup messages in Unity Items 2-9 are usually either standard or customisable in most ports. Item 1 is the "killer feature" for this port - as far as I can find, no other port supports this (although Doomsday is probably closest, but only in this aspect). Odamex and Eternity Engine have some similar features, although as far as I can find neither does it as simply as Unity (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point). I've been looking at various ports to find what is the "closest", and with a couple of config changes I think International Doom comes closest (minus #1 above). Woof! can be customised to come close as well (can't quite do #9 and #10 - but not far off), using a WOOFHUD lump in the autoload folder: hud 0 title bottomleft monsec topleft sttime bottomright I'd love to see #1 implemented in GZDoom - it already has a mouse-driven menu and having an "Add-ons" menu item that can do dynamic loading of PWADs, lumps etc. would be amazing for newcomers to Classic Doom source ports. But I'd also love to see a portable version of this that could be adopted by a wider range of ports like Crispy, Woof! and Inter-Doom.

Thanks Fabian! Ahh, I hadn't thought of that. But, not sure it's a big problem - in the Unity port it's just overridden. I think allowing it to be coloured would be enough - if it's a golden colour compared to the usual red pickup messages it will stand out in the second it flashes up. On the other hand, if it was WOOFHUD lump customisable I could have it come up in topright instead. But, isn't topleft automatically adjusted already? I have my monsec up there and it automatically moves down when a pickup message comes up. So it could appear (would it shift down monsec?) and then remain there for a short time while pickup messages continue to appear above it.