WinDoom (Microsoft)

WinDoom was a preliminary port of Doom v1.8 to Microsoft Windows 3.11 by a team initially founded by Gabe Newell, with Robert Hess as the primary engineer, using the newly developed Win32s and WinG technologies. This port never made it past beta testing due to the impending release of Windows 95 and because of performance issues on period hardware. Two beta versions were unofficially released and are available in the /idgames historic archive.

This code base was later upgraded to the full Win32 platform in order to exploit the DirectX technology available on Windows 95, where it became known as Doom95.

June 8, 1994
Distributed as. The title bar simply calls it "WinDOOM".

General

 * Launching the game with a Doom IWAD present in the same folder will start in, bypassing the in-game menu interface, as it is not present in this version.
 * There is a menu bar consisting of File and Window menus. File contains an About dialogue and the quit option. Window allows changing the size and rendering options used by the window.
 * Tab does not open the automap, escape and the function keys do not open the in-game menu, and the plus (+) and minus (-) keys do not change the screen size.
 * There is no in-game means of redefining controls or other configuration settings. The game reads its configuration from, which is identical to the DOS except for omission of fields related to sound hardware and several display options that do not function in this port.
 * Cheats do not work.
 * There is no intermission screen when exiting a level – the next level is loaded instantly.
 * Sound channels are very limited, so sound is choppy as a result.

Display

 * The engine can be run in a 320&times;200, 480&times;300, or 640&times;400 window. The game can either be rendered at 640&times;400 or at 320&times;200 stretched to fit the current window.
 * The configuration option is ignored. The game always renders at the maximum screen size without the status bar.
 * There are no palette changes.
 * No messages are displayed on the screen.
 * Spectre sprites are distorted: the "fuzz" effect is applied, but the sprites are stretched vertically.

June 14, 1994
Distributed as. The title bar calls it "WinDOOM Build 001".

General

 * There is now a Display menu, which contains two options: Display Thread (default to on) and Rate Window (default to off). Rate Window draws a second window under the main game window which shows an averaged frame rate (titled "Refresh Rate") and, if Display Thread is on, "Waited for renderer" and "Waited for display" frames/second counts.

April 13, 1995
The title bar calls this "DOOM II For Windows: Apr 13 1995", even when playing a Doom IWAD.

General

 * All features from the DOS version not present in the previous builds are now back.
 * Now supports Doom II.
 * If an IWAD is not present in the same folder as the executable, a file prompt will open. Note that this prompt is only using the folder for the chosen file, not the file itself, so if both DOOM.WAD and DOOM2.WAD are in the same folder, the latter will always be loaded, regardless of which is chosen.
 * The startup text reveals it was ported from version 1.8.
 * The menus from the DOS version have returned.
 * All text references to DOS have been changed to Windows with one exception: the "DOS is much worse" quit message has been changed to state, "The real world is much worse".
 * There is now a menu which allows the user to remap controls and enable mouse support.
 * Comes bundled with, a simple multiplayer game launcher.

Display

 * The game can run in "full screen" mode, which is actually a black bordered window running at the desktop resolution.
 * The plus (+) and minus (-) keys work the same way as they do in the DOS version until the full game is rendered in 320&times;200, increasing the screen size after this will actually increase the size of the game window. This alternates between drawing the status bar and not, until the window matches the desktop resolution. This is only scaling 320&times;200, the game does not actually support high resolutions.
 * 22050 Hz sounds are played back at 11025 Hz, making them sound slowed down.