Doom8088 in everybody's favourite video mode: CGA 320x200 4 colors.

Oh my god I'm going to try this out immediately. I can't wait to see what happens on my 12MHz 286.

Frenkel wrote on 2024-12-26, 21:40:

Doom8088 in everybody's favourite video mode: CGA 320x200 4 colors.

My eyes... my EYES!!! 😁

Thank you Frenkel! i did not know the proyect! finally a dream came true, and i can play doom in a lovely Toshiba t3100e/40, 8mhz 286, 1mb ram, orange plasma CGA screen

Really nice all. Also the cga version. I wonder whether that 16colors composite cga mode would also work or would it be too slow? As mentioned earlier in this thread instead of remapping all 256 colors to the cga palette, a redesign of the textures could greatly improve the cga appearance at the costs of simple flat one color textures comparable with wolf3d. Simplier but maybe more comfortable for the eyes 😀

Frenkel wrote on 2024-12-26, 21:40:

Doom8088 in everybody's favourite video mode: CGA 320x200 4 colors.

I have a question, is possible to not loading textures? just diferent flat colors and sprites? in a plasma CGA display like mine will look much much better, because the dithering is made in real time
thanks

Marco wrote on 2024-12-29, 12:32:

Really nice all. Also the cga version. I wonder whether that 16colors composite cga mode would also work or would it be too slow? As mentioned earlier in this thread instead of remapping all 256 colors to the cga palette, a redesign of the textures could greatly improve the cga appearance at the costs of simple flat one color textures comparable with wolf3d. Simplier but maybe more comfortable for the eyes 😀

Yes, i will love to photoshop all textures to be more nice to cga palette, in my case b/w one. Just flat colors

For example, this textures edited will look much better in CGA

The problem is the super low resolution, i cant see anything on screen... jaja

Yessss that’s indeed what I was talking about. Thanks for the example.

The resolution itself should be 320x200 as for vga but only 4 colors. Only for 16 colors you get 160x100 iirc.

Wiki:
„A number of official and unofficial features exist that can be exploited to achieve special effects.
In 320 × 200 graphics mode, the background color (which also affects the border color), which defaults to black on mode initialization, can be changed to any of the other 15 colors of the CGA palette. This allows for some variation, as well as flashing effects, as the background color can be changed without having to redraw the screen (i.e. without changing the contents of the video RAM).“

The composite mode is I think rarely something a lot of people could use as it requires special displays. Or just Dosbox but that’s not the target here 😀

Marco wrote on 2024-12-29, 14:37:

Yessss that’s indeed what I was talking about. Thanks for the example. […]
Show full quote

Yessss that’s indeed what I was talking about. Thanks for the example.

The resolution itself should be 320x200 as for vga but only 4 colors. Only for 16 colors you get 160x100 iirc.

Wiki:
„A number of official and unofficial features exist that can be exploited to achieve special effects.
In 320 × 200 graphics mode, the background color (which also affects the border color), which defaults to black on mode initialization, can be changed to any of the other 15 colors of the CGA palette. This allows for some variation, as well as flashing effects, as the background color can be changed without having to redraw the screen (i.e. without changing the contents of the video RAM).“

The composite mode is I think rarely something a lot of people could use as it requires special displays. Or just Dosbox but that’s not the target here 😀

For what i check, will be 240x160

For example, title screen, i think will look much better the one from 32x, resized to 240x160 and lowered to 4 colors

Frenkel wrote on 2023-12-10, 21:33:

To celebrate Doom's 30th anniversary, here's a port of Doom for 16-bit DOS computers: Doom8088. […]
Show full quote

To celebrate Doom's 30th anniversary, here's a port of Doom for 16-bit DOS computers: Doom8088.

Doom was originally designed in 1993 for 32-bit DOS computers with 4 MB of RAM. It's mostly written in C code with very little assembly code. It has been ported to all kinds of systems. Usually these systems are 32-bit or more and have a flat memory model.
Doom8088 is a port for PCs with a 16-bit processor like an 8088 or a 286, with 1 MB of RAM and with VGA or MCGA graphics. It's based on GBADoom.

To make it work on a 16-bit processor with 1 MB of RAM, some sacrifices had to be made. This means only Doom 1 Episode 1 is supported (expect E1M6), no texture mapped floors and ceilings, no light diminishing, no music, no saving and loading, no multiplayer, no PWADs, no mouse and joystick support. One fixed resolution, PC speaker sound effects, rotating overlaid automap, only demo3 is in sync.

Doom8088 and RealDOOM., "one of the most important milestone in Doom porting ever" 😜

Hello! Amazing work!
I have a system with an intel 8088-2, 256KB RAM, another 256KB of battery backed NVRAM for storage (via virtual floppy), and a single sided 3.5” floppy drive.. the biggest problem may be that it can only boot CP/M-86.. what are my chances of getting anything resembling doom on it?

Very impressive!

Hi! i write here because i cant remember my github password 🙁

To the author, is it possible to have more resolution? in my 286 25mhz, the speed is great, a benchmark give me 15fps, but I cant play... the reoslution is so low that is impossible to do any serious gaming. I dont care to have 7fps, in fact i played all my life doom in a 386 at that speed, i just want to know im shoting a imp or a barrel jeje

thanks!

The largest effective resolution Doom8088 supports is 60x128.
Doom8088: Atari ST Edition supports 120x128.
I guess I can add that resolution to the DOS version.

Frenkel wrote on 2025-06-04, 07:11:

The largest effective resolution Doom8088 supports is 60x128.
Doom8088: Atari ST Edition supports 120x128.
I guess I can add that resolution to the DOS version.

Hi! thanks a lot for your reply

I thibk will be amazing a 120x128 resolution, will be very playable in my 286 and for sure will help a lot in gameplay

I really love doom and my 286 in very exited to use it to play one of my favorite games, but really 60x128 is almost impossible to do anything exept just test

Thank a lot hope if in future you can add the 120x128 resolution

and congratulations for the great port

Doom8088 now has 240x128 and 120x128 256 color modes.

Frenkel wrote on 2025-06-07, 10:39:

Doom8088 now has 240x128 and 120x128 256 color modes.

Thanks a lot man!!!! you are amazing, in just a few days, thanks for hearing my request

In my harris 286-25 4MB ram CL5422 1MB timedemo3

Mode Y

240x128 = 6.02fps
120x128 = 10.06fps

Mode 13

240x128 = 6.6fps
120x128 = 9.5fps

Anyways, i dont care much about fps, then 240x128 is my mode!

I noticed it too, that at 240x128 Mode 13h is faster than Mode Y, but at 120x128 Mode Y is faster. I don't know why.

Frenkel wrote on 2025-06-07, 21:53:

I noticed it too, that at 240x128 Mode 13h is faster than Mode Y, but at 120x128 Mode Y is faster. I don't know why.

Yes i double check and in high res, mode13 have a small advantage

Now is time to replace all low resolution textures and sprites in wad to regular ones, what editor do you use? i tried slade, but make a wad file that doom 8088 complain to open after save

GamesForJames wrote on 2025-02-26, 09:36:

Frenkel wrote on 2023-12-10, 21:33:

To celebrate Doom's 30th anniversary, here's a port of Doom for 16-bit DOS computers: Doom8088. […]
Show full quote

To celebrate Doom's 30th anniversary, here's a port of Doom for 16-bit DOS computers: Doom8088.

Doom was originally designed in 1993 for 32-bit DOS computers with 4 MB of RAM. It's mostly written in C code with very little assembly code. It has been ported to all kinds of systems. Usually these systems are 32-bit or more and have a flat memory model.
Doom8088 is a port for PCs with a 16-bit processor like an 8088 or a 286, with 1 MB of RAM and with VGA or MCGA graphics. It's based on GBADoom.

To make it work on a 16-bit processor with 1 MB of RAM, some sacrifices had to be made. This means only Doom 1 Episode 1 is supported (expect E1M6), no texture mapped floors and ceilings, no light diminishing, no music, no saving and loading, no multiplayer, no PWADs, no mouse and joystick support. One fixed resolution, PC speaker sound effects, rotating overlaid automap, only demo3 is in sync.

Doom8088 and RealDOOM., "one of the most important milestone in Doom porting ever" 😜

Hello! Amazing work!
I have a system with an intel 8088-2, 256KB RAM, another 256KB of battery backed NVRAM for storage (via virtual floppy), and a single sided 3.5” floppy drive.. the biggest problem may be that it can only boot CP/M-86.. what are my chances of getting anything resembling doom on it?

What system is that? Sound like a portable

theelf wrote on 2025-06-07, 22:20:

Now is time to replace all low resolution textures and sprites in wad to regular ones, what editor do you use? i tried slade, but make a wad file that doom 8088 complain to open after save

The WAD files are created by jWadUtil. It takes the WAD file from the shareware version of Doom and it outputs WAD files in which the sprites and walls have been lowered in detail to save memory. For sprites every odd column is removed and for walls 3 out of every 4 columns are removed.
This saves about 800 kB in case of the 256 color WAD file.

This improves performance by a tiny bit. Attached to this post are WAD files with the regular sprites and walls.
There is code in the game for composite textures that take only every 4th column into account. So composite textures still look like they are in low detail.

Frenkel wrote on 2025-06-08, 08:05:

The WAD files are created by jWadUtil. It takes the WAD file from the shareware version of Doom and it outputs WAD files in whic […]
Show full quote

theelf wrote on 2025-06-07, 22:20:

Now is time to replace all low resolution textures and sprites in wad to regular ones, what editor do you use? i tried slade, but make a wad file that doom 8088 complain to open after save

The WAD files are created by jWadUtil. It takes the WAD file from the shareware version of Doom and it outputs WAD files in which the sprites and walls have been lowered in detail to save memory. For sprites every odd column is removed and for walls 3 out of every 4 columns are removed.
This saves about 800 kB in case of the 256 color WAD file.

This improves performance by a tiny bit. Attached to this post are WAD files with the regular sprites and walls.
There is code in the game for composite textures that take only every 4th column into account. So composite textures still look like they are in low detail.

Hi thanks!! look much much better with this wad. My 286 have 4mb of ram and i can upgrade to 16mb if need, then no problem about memory

I can confirm that with normal wad file, i still get same fps, no penalty 6.7 fps in mode 13 in high res

Thanks, i checked your github, and see jWadUtil but did not understand what to do, for example, Build: mvn verify ?¿?¿ i googled mvn, and look like related to something called Maven, then i check and too many downloads, and most of them are x64, im running XP 32bits, start looking for old versions... and get bored 😀, then i start looking other options, i found extendable wav editor that can edit wav without break for doom 8088

One thing i was thinking is maybe possible to use mscdex to play audiocd, this in theory will not have any penalty in performance, just need to do a timer or something to repeat the track after the time, no need to check if audiocd stoped because each track have a fixed lenght