Why do people like texture filtering in Doom?

GL_NEAREST and NO filtering whatsoever here. Also no mipmaps and stuff... I just like the look it is supposed to have. I have to admit I play in 1080p, but sometimes I reduce the resolution to 640*480 or 320*240.

For those that are still wondering, the difference between GL_NEAREST and GL_LINEAR has to do with how pixels are sampled from a texture. GL_NEAREST basically 'enlarges' the pixels by sampling the 'nearest neighbour' when scaled.

GL_LINEAR gets the average of neighbouring pixels when scaled. That part about 'average' is the reason why it gets blurry.

I really dislike how filtering makes the loop/lobe things hanging on the bottom of the Cacodemon look.

And let's not forget all those kooks that though that texture filtering looked good enough to make "high resolution" assets by simply applying a fugly resize filter in photoshop...

It's really weird how people seemed to hate pixels back in the day and now they're all the rave. I'll take good pixel art over crappy smudgy filtering any day.

Cyanosis said:

It's really weird how people seemed to hate pixels back in the day and now they're all the rave. I'll take good pixel art over crappy smudgy filtering any day.

Modern 2D games are generally unapologetically pixelated. For that warm retro look. That's the way I like my Doom, that's why I like Doom Retro :D

No idea. I always frown at how often I see screenshots with it.

VGA said:

Modern 2D games are generally unapologetically pixelated. For that warm retro look. That's the way I like my Doom, that's why I like Doom Retro :D

Ducktales Remastered wasn't pixelated and it actually looked quite good with filtering, but the backgrounds were 3D however so it wasn't fully 2D.

The problems with texture filtering are many, but the main one that I've noticed is that it breaks clever texture alignment, or any texture use where more than one use case is intended (using one texture for multiple panels, drawers, screens, etc.). This is because the filtering brings in neighboring pixels into the edges of the seen texture. That's gross.

Avoozl said:

Ducktales Remastered wasn't pixelated and it actually looked quite good with filtering, but the backgrounds were 3D however so it wasn't fully 2D.

I play GZDoom with SCALE4X and trilinear texture filtering and it looks like an animated graphic novel.... a nice style for Doom if you ask me. :3

Back then, after slapping a Voodoo Glide card into my machine and seeing everything all "smooth", I thought it was the best thing ever. Keep in mind though, some games where like night and day. Like Tomb Raider, that game's software mode is UGLY. For some games it vastly changed the feel of the game.

Anyways, nowadays I think we've come to realize that smudging the textures ruins the fine details. I mean look at a game like Quake 2 in OpenGL, sure the colored lights are nice, but the textures get fucked hard in the process and it just looks like muddy ass.

DOOM's art was designed not with texture filtering in mind, so I tend to keep it that way.

DoomzRules said:

I play GZDoom with SCALE4X and trilinear texture filtering and it looks like an animated graphic novel.... a nice style for Doom if you ask me. :3

I keep my GZDoom with texture filtering set to none, I like all the fancy gee-whiz effects like dynamic lights and brightmaps but I prefer my hardware mode Doom with pixels.

Texture filtering really only looks appropriate when the texture resolution is very high, and especially if some nice normal maps are applied. Remember Mario 64? The the grass texture on the first course is massively stretched, and the texture filtering doesn't mask this; it ends up looking like goop!

Cyanosis said:

I keep my GZDoom with texture filtering set to none, I like all the fancy gee-whiz effects like dynamic lights and brightmaps but I prefer my hardware mode Doom with pixels.

Sometimes I also like to do the same, especially when I'm running through vanilla Doom with smoother weapon animations, my custom sub-mod of RDND, and that PC Caulking sound effect project that Jaxxoon R made. :)

GoatLord said:

Remember Mario 64? The the grass texture on the first course is massively stretched, and the texture filtering doesn't mask this; it ends up looking like goop!

What do you expect from one of the first games with the system? Later games were able to utilize the system better like Banjo Tooie.

4:3 + 2xsai + Desktop Resolution = Perfection <3

MetroidJunkie said:

What do you expect from one of the first games with the system? Later games were able to utilize the system better like Banjo Tooie.

To be honest, the texels were enormous, though I didn't realize this until years later. But you're right about that; it was their first game, and it was their first truly 3D game.

CARRiON said:

DOOM's art was designed not with texture filtering in mind, so I tend to keep it that way.

thats how i approach the issue. of course every rule has its exceptions.

it's like boi: rebirth's flash filter: it looks horrendous