Brief overview of the game Fast DOOM

We all remember this game from childhood. She turned our idea of what a computer game should be. John Carmack's original creation had great graphics, multiplayer, and support for custom modifications. Yes, there was a great Wolfenstein 3D before it, but in DOOM the graphics and sound have reached a new level, and most importantly - action, incessant logging that does not allow us to rest for a second. The plot is conditional, it is placed in the form of typewritten text on the floor of a sheet, the main thing is the wandering along the corridors and the incessant annihilation of monsters.

For the sake of this game alone, users bought new computers, adjusting to the system requirements that were considerable at that time. Although it was announced that it was possible to play on a 386DX with 4 MB of RAM and 20 MB of hard disk space, in reality even the power of the Cx486SLC processor was not enough for a good frame rate (30 fps), but at that time 15-20 fps was enough for us, and We didn't even think about more. Still, for a comfortable game in DOOM, you needed a 486DX processor and higher, as well as a fast video card.

But what about those fans who built i386 from childhood, recorded games on their hard drive, some of which (like Wing commander) are processor dependent and go too fast on 486, but at the same time they want to run DOOM on their machines? There is a solution - the Fast DOOM project allows you to run DOOM on weak machines (386) with an acceptable FPS. The project published on GitHUB by viti95. download FastDoom 0.8.16 >>

FastDoom is a source port created by Victor Nieto, alias Viti95. Its goal is to improve the performance of the Vanilla Doom engine on lower end computer systems, in particular the 386 and 486 class of processors. It does so by removing features deemed unnecessary, reducing rendering complexity and general engine optimization. It includes code from other ports, such as Crispy Doom, MBF and International Doom, as well as the original Sony PlayStation and Atari Jaguar Doom ports.

FastDOOM vs Original

• Added FPS ingame viewer
• Added FPS calculation after timedemo runs
• Added option to render visplanes (ceiling and floors) without textures
• Added option to render Spectres and invisible objects like real transparent objects (harder to see, a little faster to render)
• Added option to render sky as a flat fixed color
• Added option to render Spectre and invisible objects like the Sega Saturn port did
• New option to show only objects that are not far away from the player. All the enemies are still rendered as they're important
• PC Speaker uses all sounds available (just for fun!)
• New mode for PC Speaker (digitized sound!)
• Disney Sound Source support
• COVOX LPT DAC support
• COVOX LPT DAC support
• Creative Music System / Game Blaster support
• Hercules automap support
• Lot's of optimizations to make the game run faster / smoother
• Removed low memory limit (may cause crashes with low RAM)
• NEW DETAIL LEVEL: POTATO. It renders the full scene with a quarter width resolution (max 80x200). 8-bit and 16-bit ISA video cards can play the game full screen much better! My Western Digital Paradise PVGA1A ISA (1989) can render the game at a constant >25 fps with a 486DX-50
• New option to allow more than 8Mb of memory allocation. Enabled with "-ram"
• Removed network gaming support
• Removed joystick support
• Removed Y mouse movement (move forward/backwards)
• Added autorun support (F12 key)
• Added mono sound support
• Added low quality sound support (8000Hz instead of 11025Hz). Enabled with "-lowsound" parameter.
• Replaced DOS/4GW with DOS/32A providing a good speedup!
• New setup program
• New video modes (Mode 13h, CGA, EGA, Hercules, Text modes, VESA 2.0)

Legacy

Even without using the low-resolution modes, FastDoom generally performs faster than the stock executable due to optimization efforts. Viti95 tested the performance of FastDoom compared to stock Doom 1.9 in a benchmark, using the 0.2 release.

Removed features

In addition to several new features been implemented, FastDoom also removes a number of features. These are:

• Network gaming support
• Joystick support
• Y mouse movement (move forward/backwards)

External links

I highly recommend installing this game on your retro PC. You can download it from the links below:

P.S. Doom game is iconic and not knowing it is simply a sin. First of all, this word should be associated with the game of the distant, for some it may even be too distant 1993, and not with the restart of 2016. With computer games, as with literature, you need to know the classics, otherwise, as the book world was flooded with graphomania, game dev will drown in casual...

All the best to you, comrades!