DF Retro: Doom - Every Console Port Tested and Analysed!

(news report) in many of the most popular games the only goal is to kill... is to kill... groundbreaking doom and the groundbreaking doom... in these games players experience spectacular levels of violence as if they are looking straight through the road eyes and wipe down the barrel of a gun don't (end report) doom even today it stands as one of the most influential games of all time from its platform smashing first-person gameplay and impressive technology to the controversy surrounding its violence do made a mark on the industry that remains to this day it's also playable on just about any device you can imagine from smartwatches to thermostats Doom has become the violent equivalent of hello world but that wasn't always the case and it's day doom was cutting-edge and the demand for ports to more affordable console hardware was sky-high on this episode of DF Retro then we're focusing on doom and its ports from the original PC release to each of its official console ports every version is on the table and it's all unreal hardware some ports are great others borderline and playable and we're going to examine all of them so let's get started it's difficult to overstate the impact of doom when it made its shareware debut on the software creations BBS back in December 1993 its fast-paced first-person gameplay extreme violence and rockin soundtrack took the gaming world by storm this is very much more popular than football doom along with Mortal Kombat and night trap triggered the first wave of controversy surrounding video games and violence it was one of the games that ultimately led to the rating systems we have in place today but as visceral as the game is there's so much more to its appeal than blood and demons the basic design of Doom is incredibly elegant and there are three key elements which I feel allowed doom to work so well the first is the combat Doom contains a limited number of enemies and each enemy is unique in its behavior and sound allowing players to immediately identify and react to threats designers can build a combination of threats in each combat area requiring players to think on their feet from hits canny shotgun troopers to fire ball throwing imps and melee focused pinky demons each enemy requires a specific strategy and rapid threat assessment a combination of unique enemy types that are easy to understand with fast player movement and satisfying weapon animation results in an experience that is easy to learn but often challenging yet always appealing combat just feels perfect the second key element lies in its level design modern shooters often focus on a linear path with an A to B to C style design but doom'd presents a series of nonlinear puzzle boxes of sort that unfold before you take this early level for instance right away it presents a fork in the level design one path leads to a locked door the other to an unlocked one proceed through the unlocked door and you'll face a series of combat challenges eventually leading to a key take this key fight your way back to the fort unlock the next door and then proceed to the exit simple but later levels become far more complex requiring lots of exploration backtracking and thought the combat and level design work together to create something that satisfies a very specific portion of your brain you're learning enemy patterns offering simple navigational puzzles and testing your reflexes it's a delicate design that's not easy to emulate the term dune clone was thrown around a lot back in the day but very few games truly embraced the elegance of this design the third element then is what impressed me the most back in 1993 and what made do such a challenge to port elsewhere its visuals pcs of this era weren't exactly designed to support fast 3d graphics or even fast 2d graphics for that matter so when Doom appears with a super fast 3d visuals many were left wondering how the heck John Carmack pulled this off well for one thing Doom is not a true 3d game instead its engine is designed to interpret 2d level data while using clever tricks to give the illusion of 3d before doom Wolfenstein 3d made use of ray casting which uses the players position and facing to determine what is drawn by sweeping left to right in drawing appropriately sized columns now doom is not a ray caster instead relying on binary space partitioning BSP would become useful in many games going forward and in doom allows the game to break up 2d map data into chunks or sectors which are then stored in a BSP tree by going through the tree the game can test which walls are visible and draw them on screen front to back this approach saves on precious processing time by basically pre calculating everything wall textures then are stretched and displayed using an almost scanline like approach drawing in per pixel strips from one side of the screen to the other while floors or the VIS plane use more of a flood fill style approach what this all means then is a doom can present more complex levels than Wolfenstein walls could be placed at any angle variable floor Heights were possible which included stairs and even moving platforms could be added to levels it's still limited due to his two-dimensional nature of course which is revealed by the fact that you can hit enemies at any elevation wall segments could move up and down now which allowed for doors and platforms but they could only do so vertically not horizontally rooms cannot exist on top of one another and slopes couldn't be drawn all of this ultimately means that doom could run fast even on a mid-range 480 taken together doom offers refined level design clever combat and cutting-edge visuals it should come as no surprise then that there was a huge desire to see doom brought to consoles but a game like doom which relies heavily on CPU grunt wasn't exactly a great fit in that sense doom illustrates the huge difference between console and PC technology at the time if you look at console Hardware during this era these machines were built to quickly display tiles and sprites the hardware was designed to perform these operations at 60 Hertz often with dedicated background layers which enabled beautiful parallax scrolling so while the CPUs were very slow and limited by PC standards the design of the hardware enabled fast-moving action games like this now this was less true on the PC where the video hardware was not really designed to handle scrolling play fields at high speeds it's true that it's software got its start working on games like Commander Keen but they really didn't scroll or move anywhere near as smoothly as actual console games now clever programming tricks overcame some of these limitations eventually but even the best efforts like jazz jackrabbit for instance still fall far behind the best console games of this era in terms of background and stage complexity ultimately consoles were more capable than the PC when displaying 2d action games at 60 frames per second but the stronger CPUs in the PC could enable pseudo 3d games like doom to exist which is why bringing doom over to consoles was not an easy test the market leaders the Super NES and Sega Genesis could never handle doom without additional hardware for instance thankfully 1993 marked the introduction of next-generation machines such as the atari jaguar and the 3do along with the promise of machines from other manufacturers in the future as such the era of doom ports began and slowly but surely each moderately capable machine would receive its own incarnation of the game rather than tackling each console version chronologically then I've decided to approach this by starting with the least playable port all the way up through the most playable sure that sounds like worse the best and in some ways it is but there are certain nearly unplayable ports which might still be impressive for the hardware got it let's get started there's no getting around it doom for the 3do is terrible sluggish performance and awful controls make for a borderline unplayable version of the game so what happened we don't know for sure what was going on back then but we have a pretty good idea thanks to the account of doom 3do coda Rebecca Hyneman according to Becky the port was produced on a ridiculously short schedule due to mismanagement by the CEO of art data interactive Randy Scott he acquired the rights to doom and kick the hype train into full gear according to Heinemann's account this is a guy that believed you could just draw new weapons and insert them right into the game easy as that needless to say he didn't really get it but the 3do company itself caught wind of the hype and checked up on this port that was supposedly in production only to find that nothing was really done which is where Rebecca Hyneman comes in Hyneman is a top tier programmer that worked on a huge number of games over the years and just prior to accepting the doom project she had completed work on Wolfenstein 3d for the 3do which is an excellent port so doom is set to ship in time for Christmas in the 3do company is begging for help Hyneman accepts under the impression that much of the game was already done but in reality nothing was done she spent ten weeks porting the atari jaguar version of due to the 3do and the results are as you'd expect with such a difficult schedule randy didn't even bother checking out the submitted code in the end and wound up printing a quarter of a million copies the same number of 3do consoles in the wild needless to say when it only sold 10,000 copies the mistake became obvious and art data interactive was no more while 3do do may have been at Jaguar port a lot of changes were made to support the 3do system new code was written to take advantage of the 3do cell engine for instance which allows for 2d objects to be rotated and scaled freely the artwork was converted into proper palettes in 3d or sells a new user interface was made and modifications to the controller input were implemented the initial port completed after just five weeks was run entirely in software at roughly three frames per second and while some arm assembly work did improve things further it wasn't until the cell engine was brought into the mix that things started to improve further but what about the floors and ceilings well the 3d Hardware on 3do does not support perspective correct texturing and using it resulted in severe warping issues that forced her to instead draw the floor and ceiling textures in software using the slow twelve point five megahertz CPU in addition all textures in the game were resized as 64 by 64 pixels rather than variable sizes like in the original game allowing Heineman to save memory by packing textures into the resource file without coordinate data included this means calling and displaying textures was simplified as the art size was consistent across the board of course as with the Jaguar version 3 dr doom features fewer overall textures which helps with memory constraints but leaves us with a very Brown looking version of doom she also implemented and movement acceleration for the d-pad based on how long you hold the d-pad in in combination with the current movement speed the 3do version also features six screen sizes though two are locked down as a cheat as with the pc original a full screen view required more cpu grunt than a smaller window and on 3do it works much the same way the game was advertised as having four speeds which really refers to the four window sizes at the default size the game runs very slowly but shrink it down to the minimum and it becomes somewhat more playable this version includes a cheat to unlock to larger window sizes however including one that is nearly full screen which is where the screenshots on the back of the package were taken from by the way the full screen mode is basically unplayable with a framerate that feels like a low-end 386 at best as you can see from this framerate analysis the performance is simply abysmal with numbers that hang below 10 frames per second most of the time so why include this at all then well 3do is promising the arrival of the next generation m2 at some point in the future and this new machine would supposedly run original 3do games at a higher speed if you were using an m2 then this cheat would allow for a larger view and increase performance of course now we know that the m2 console would never be released though the hardware was used in a smattering of arcade games fortunately we can simulate this using the emulator 3do play do run similarly to real hardware it's a choppy mess however it's also possible to raise the CPU clock from its 12.5 mega Hertz default up to 30 megahertz this is basically virtually overclocking the software CPU and it works the virtual CPU crunches through Doom and a much higher framerate resulting in a smoother overall experience then there's the sound Hyneman noted that she wasn't able to get the sound driver working in time for ship which would have meant no music just like the Jaguar version despite his lack of business acumen then it turns out that Randy Scott our data CEO was a guitarist and had a band so Becky sent off a cassette tape recorded using the PC soundtrack and Scott and his band actually produced new versions of these songs which were then implemented back into the game as digital music the music is one of the most interesting aspects of the sport in the end if you can believe it okay so at this point it's clear that the framerate is an issue but for me the real problem lies with its input latency despite the interesting tweaks to movement acceleration the fact remains that Doom is highly unresponsive press a button and it feels like an eternity before the weapon fires now you might think that this is due to the low framerate but there are other versions which run nearly as poorly yet still managed to offer responsive controls when combined with the low framerate it makes for a game that is nearly impossible to control altogether though despite the lack of quality doom for 3do as a fascinating port with an interesting history behind it that it was made in 10 weeks primarily by a single person is incredibly impressive but unfortunately Randy's poor business decisions ultimately resulted in a game that was much worse than it could have been perhaps with more time Becky could have turned this into one of the best versions of doom instead of the worst of course going forward Becky used the knowledge gained from working on this project and implemented ideas into the engine design for the 3do game killing time interesting how these things work out welcome to the port that defied all expectations doom for the Super NES from the outside this felt like an impossible task at the time but Randy Lyndon and his team thought otherwise Randy Lyndon is a talented coder that would go on to create the bleem PlayStation emulator years later but in the mid 90s Lyndon saw an opportunity on Nintendo's outgoing machine if you haven't figured it out already doom was a huge deal at this time and if he could get it up and running on the Super NES surely success would follow but the system's slow CPU was no match for doom and thus Randy turned to the super FX GS you too clocked at 21 point 4 megahertz the super FX 2 chip was an improved design on argonauts original chip used to create star fox this custom-made RISC processor assisted the system by performing operations such as drawing the polygons in star fox using more advanced math and the system was otherwise capable of which could then be passed to the main system of course even with this chip the doom engine itself is likely beyond what the system could handle especially regarding memory requirements so Randy came up with something else his own engine referred to as the reality engine the game is rendered at the typical resolution of the Super NES which is 256 by 224 but is displayed in a much smaller window in addition horizontal pixels are doubled resulting in a much chunkier looking game this is the equivalent to the low detail mode on PC by doubling each pixel in one direction the rendering load is reduced well there isn't a lot known on the reality engine itself based on what we know about the original doom engine it likely draws walls and floors using different techniques perhaps due to speed or memory limitations only the walls are drawn in this version in addition enemy sprites are only stored with the front-facing artwork meaning that you can no longer sneak up on them particles smoke and other effects are also absent from this version something which impacts the way the weapons work the shotgun spread for instance is gone meaning that it acts more like a sniper rifle a sword sound propagation is disabled as well rendering enemies effectively deaf though without rear facing sprites that wouldn't be that useful anyway on the other hand music is handled by the SPC 700 and it sounds reasonably okay not amazing due to some of the instrument choices of course but well listen to this comparison what do you think there is one impressive aspect of this port however the maps themselves the layout and design of the maps more closely mirrors the PC original in areas where say the stairs were removed in other versions they are present on the Super NES just like the PC most ports were derived from the work done on the atari jaguar version which we'll talk about soon but that's not the case here and it shows unfortunately no matter how impressive it looks for the system the frame rate is very low though admittedly still a lot higher than the original starfox as you can see it hangs closely to the 10 frames per second mark it's slightly faster overall than the 3do version I'd say but really not by much what this frame rate analysis reveals about the engine though is a little more interesting notice the frame time spikes on the graph here that's not a glitch the tool calculates results based on the appearance of duplicate frames but each of the frames that we see here are actually unique why is that well the Super NES features multiple background layers which are typically used for scrolling play fields in this case however the HUD and weapon graphics appear to operate on a different layer than the 3d game graphics it's likely that the data from the super FX chip is blasted into one of these layers while the other graphics operate on independent layers control wise well the game is serviceable and that it's more responsive than the 3do version but it lacks the option to circle strafe due to the way the engine works you often find yourself getting caught on walls which doesn't really feel very good so why is this version of doom the eighth least playable then well ultimately the framerate is comparable to 3do but ever so slightly more consistent while the controls are generally slightly more responsive beyond that I think it's worth considering the feat itself doom on the Super NES is an incredible achievement for the time despite its flaws it's not a version you'd want to play today mind you but it is absolutely one with an important history doom for Sega Saturn is a slow game with very slow this now-infamous port released after the PlayStation version is one of the last official ports to be released and it's not good but it didn't have to be that way Saturn doom was ported by rage software and the main programmer on this project was Jim Begley if you were into the ZX spectrum back in the day you might be familiar with Jim's work but he's programmed games for many other platforms as well and currently he's working on the ZX Spectrum next which is looking pretty great so with all that experience under his belt then what went wrong well the original pitch was to port the PC version of doom to the Saturn with the entirety of doom 1 and doomed to included in the package but ultimately had to settle on porting the PlayStation version why is that well that's where things get interesting originally Begley wanted to build doom with the Saturn Hardware in mind that means taking advantage of both video display processors and the dual hitachi sh 2's jim wrote a hardware accelerated version of the engine in which walls were handled by vdp1 this version was reportedly running at 60 frames per second according to Jim but ultimately it was vetoed from on high you see everything still hinged on approval from its software Jim's high speed version of doom had one major caveat texture warping Carmack is understandably not a fan of a fine texture warping and shot down this version of the game asking Jim to rewrite it to more closely match the original PC version he even suggested using the system's 2d s piece to render the screen which only have four kilobytes of memory this decision ultimately handicaps the port though Carmack later admitted in a tweet that perhaps he should have allowed for more experimentation and I think the end results support this after changing gears then the dev team was in a rough spot without assistance from vdp1 Saturn is basically an overclocked Sega 32x so it should come as no surprise that the end results were rather slow the workload then is divided up between 2's H 2 s 1 s h2 handles the walls while the other handles the VIS plane ps1 maps then were selected for this version as they were already prepared for a low memory environment as expected then Saturn doom shares a lot with the PlayStation version it uses the same watt format maps are stored the same way in both versions and much of the on disk data is identical including graphics only used in the PlayStation version like ps1 Doom then the Saturn version includes a selection of maps from doom and doom to most of the original doom maps are derived from the Jaguar version but ultimate doom and doom 2 maps were only modified very slightly compared to the original PC maps making them more demanding while Saturn is based on the ps1 version the end results are ultimately very different for one thing the colored sector data which lends the ps1 version some semblance of colored lighting is still present on the saturn disk in terms of its data but it's not used in the game at all the saturn version is dim in monochromatic compared to the ps1 version there's also a bug with the audio the sound effects are panned left when using the stereo mode forcing you to use mono instead if you want to hear sound effects in both speakers the ps1 version also introduces actual transparency effects but on saturn this is once again replaced with the mesh transparency instead as you can see here it is at least interesting that vdp2 which handles 2d tile-based planes primarily is used for the HUD and sky layer so it often updates separately from the main 3d portion of the image but hey at least the game is fullscreen avoids any texture warping issues and feels surprisingly good at control it also features a Bree Hodges music though on Saturn it's stored as Redbook audio on the disc the main issue here though is performance Saturn doom runs an attempt scene lease low frame rate it's slightly faster than 3do and siness to mind you but only just the original doom levels are the most playable in the sport thanks to the simplified Jaguar layouts but as you move into the ultimate doom Maps or the doom 2 Maps for that matter things grind to a halt rather quickly and this is ultimately the real issue with this port it looks nice enough but when the performance is this slow it becomes very difficult to enjoy at least the controls feel nice despite this the firing rate of the weapons for instance appears to be increased in this version to compensate for the low frame rate an input is surprisingly responsive especially compared to the 3do version lastly I finally tested the rumor which suggested that the japanese version of saturn doom runs faster than the american release and the results well they're virtually identical using this demonstration level which plays from the title screen you can see that the results here are like for like both versions turned in an average frame rate of just 13 frames per second for this segment now keep in mind that if you were playing the power release back in the day you would see lower frame rates but the Rumour Has typically focused on the ntsc you versus ntsc-j versions and well at least we can finally put that rumor to bed but ultimately this is still one of the least playable ports out there it comes in at number 7 on the playability list due to its more responsive controls and slightly higher frame rate compared to 3do in Super NES but it's fair to say that this version remains the most disappointing of all to understand the impact look no further than digital foundry zone rich Ledbetter's review of doom for the Sega Saturn magazine back in the day after years of waiting Doom finally arrives on the Saturn he writes unfortunately it's a breathtakingly bad conversion of a classic game Saturn owners have every reason to be outraged by this game so here's a surprise less than 10 years after the arrival of doom it was ported to a handheld system the Gameboy Advance version of Doom was ported by David a Palmer productions and is directly based on the atari jaguar version but with a few changes now before we dig into this I should note that all the footage you've seen here was captured using a Game Boy player connected to a Gamecube but instead of using the awful Game Boy player disk supplied by Nintendo I've opted instead for homebrew software called Game Boy interface which produces much better results this is captured from the ultra-low latency version using an RGB cable with a pal GameCube ok so firstly doom GBA runs at a lower resolution designed to match the output of the Game Boy Advance of screen it also uses the double pixel width or low detail mode to improve rendering speed resulting in rather chunky looking graphics keep in mind though that this was designed for a very small screen and as such this limitation would have been a lot less noticeable unreal Hardware this version also ditches the depth shading president other versions where surfaces near the player would be drawn with a higher light level than those at a distance this lens the game a very monochromatic look of sorts which isn't especially attractive due to the lack of contrast in addition sprites are always displayed at full brightness and stand out against the backgrounds as a result there's even an option to enable static lighting in the options menu which slightly improves performance it's entirely possible that these changes were implemented to better suit the Game Boy Advance screen which was not backlit in the original models the original lighting levels may have rendered the game unplayable on a standard system that said it's equally likely that eliminating these features improve rendering speed as well Owen likes nest do sound propagation is disabled but this time it has an impact since all sides of sprites can be drawn fire a weapon in an adjacent area and enemies will not react unlike other versions of the game so what about the music then well take a listen what do you guys think there are a lot of subtle changes across the board in this version but ultimately it's still mighty impressive for a handheld console from this era what pushes this version of the sixth most playable however is its frame rate GBA Doom runs smoother than all previous versions we've looked at thus far and as a result it feels better to play that's not to say things are perfect here the performance is a little strange for one thing it features screen tearing which is unexpected and secondly game speed is tied to the frame rate which can lead to some wild swings and consistency but still taken for what it is this is a mighty impressive effort indeed oh and how could I forget the GBA version has green blood it's just mortal kombat and the Super NES all over again doom 2 was also released in the GBA but this time it uses taurus game's own engine as they develop this port rather than anything related to doom itself doom 2 is a more complex game so it was necessary to adapt to the hardware the results aren't bad per se but again lighting is all but removed leading to a flat pixelated version of the game distant objects also pixelate to a rather severe degree it doesn't look great but still it's doomed to in your pocket ultimately though both versions are interesting for the time and works surprisingly well on the GBA for the historical value alone it's worth checking out these versions of doom ah yes the 32x after running through every single game on the system during the last two episodes doom for 32x stands out as one of the better conversions for the system this is the very first console version of doom to be released though technically the second to be developed and as with so many others the 32x iteration is derived from the atari jaguar version but with more limitations for one thing there's just 17 levels in the game all of which are modified to match the jag version this means that the entirety of the third episode is absent here and when you beat the game using cheats you get nothing but a DOS prompt this version like the Super NES port only features front-facing sprites due to memory limitations the 32x iteration is somewhat ugly compared to these other ports though due to a limited color palette and grainy visuals it even plays in a rather small window then there's the music which was poorly converted from the original PC MIDI files and sounds like this honestly the music is so bad that even something like MIDI disasters version of the same track played on a dot matrix printer sounds more appealing but this is one case where I'd argue that the sound chip is not at fault however take this remix from evil telephone for instance it makes far better use of FM synthesis then what was shipped on the 32x much better right of course there's plenty of other remixes out there if you look but this is just one example of the missed potential with this version okay so thus far I've been pretty harsh on this version of the game so why did it score so highly on the playability scale then well it's pretty simple doom on the 32x runs smoothly that's really all it comes down to its limited ugly and lacking features but it runs it a much better framerate than the other versions we've tested at this point thus is far more playable it controls well runs consistently and most importantly is doom but here's the thing there was more to the support at one point John Carmack himself helped work on the 32x version which might explain it's smooth performance and thanks to leaked prototypes we have a better idea of how things changed this build here's from September 94 just a few months before ship and it's rather impressive it features a larger viewport than the shipping game which results under the lower frame rate no doubt but more importantly it more closely resembles the PC original that's right the level complexity and texture detail is much higher than the shipping game and by extension the Jaguar version take this section in the final build it's flattened out and simplified here with the slime raised up all around the player it's the same and all the other ports aside from the Super NES version in the 32x prototype however it's just like the PC version and much more detailed though clearly it doesn't run very well here we see a lot of the PC textures included as well this blue texture early on it was used a lot in the PC version and it's missing from most of the console ports but it's here in this prototype same with these pillars in this first room the stairs in the second stage though are absent but the middle section is still raised which is interesting clearly even this close to ship then the 32x version was rather ambitious and was likely cut down dramatically in order to ship on time and get the performance up with another six months who knows what could have been but hey by that point the 32x would already be on the way out amazingly even with these enhanced levels the game still manages to run better than the other previous versions save for the GBA version ultimately though the final shipping game is a good version of doom it's missing features and is relatively ugly but it runs smoothly and is fun to play hence why it comes in at number 5 the next port though is perhaps the most pivotal console conversion of the game the port which spawned so many others and I say to you my brothers and sisters a deep top at last it's time for the atari jaguar version this legendary port was the very first console conversion completed and it was handled entirely in-house by John Carmack himself it's an excellent part of the game and in my opinion the second-best console port of doom from this era it takes full advantage of the hardware to deliver a full screen doom experience on a console in 1994 at a time when an IBM PC was still extremely expensive alright so let's start with the basics 10 as mentioned jag doom is full screen but like several other ports makes use of the low detail mode which doubles horizontal pixels cutting the effective horizontal resolution in half while this is certainly a compromise it still manages to look reasonably sharp on a CRT TV but where the Jaguar port really excels is in its use of color and it's here that it absolutely decimates the PC original jag doom uses the system's CR Y color format as opposed to RGB or another option when using this color format you have 8 bits for color and 8 bits for luminance RGB will offer a greater number of colors overall for sure with smoother blending but CR Y can offer smoother shading the idea was that Jaguar games would focus on smooth shaded polygon surfaces rather than textured polygons and the CR Y color format allows for this but it has its limitations the format is designed around shading towards black out of 255 values 255 will represent the peak value of a color like say blue while 0 represents black in between then you have different shades of that color until it reaches black this is why color blending isn't especially smooth an a CR Y color system in the case of doom however this is a perfect fit doom is a very dark game and shading - black is precisely what the art calls for thus it works brilliantly here where can you see it most prominent in the depth shading the gradient as objects move into the distance is completely smooth on Jaguar no obvious color banding other versions of the game exhibit obvious banding instead the PC original only supports 256 colors period and is especially bad for this so while the resolution is lower the shading is so much smoother on the jig compared to other versions that it really sticks out unfortunately due to cartridge size limitations this is where the cut-down versions of the maps were born maps were modified from the PC originals to better fit the system but these maps would be passed forward in subsequent ports even when it wasn't necessary the other issue here is the lack of music music playback on the jig is handled by the system's DSP but in the case of do this is reserved for other needs such as collision detection as such the resources necessary for music playback simply aren't available music is only heard in this version between missions now if this had been available for the Jaguar CD they could have used a Redbook audio instead which would have been awesome one thing you can do while playing the game though is simply pipe music through the same set of speakers you use into play jag doom when you combine the sound effects from the jig with music of your choice it sounds pretty good okay so how about performance then compared to every other port we've examined thus far the Jaguar version reigns supreme on the jig the framerate is capped at 20 frames per second and the game manages to deliver that relatively often there's still plenty of dips below that line of course but the lowest performance on the Jag is equivalent to the fastest performance on Saturn and 3do Doom now granted 20 FPS isn't exactly a high frame rate but compared to the competition it was pretty impressive this is 1994 after all and competing games couldn't even come close the well-regarded alien vs. predator on the jag for instance runs at a much lower frame rate than doom while featuring more simplistic level design when taking into consideration the landscape then it's clear that the jag version is excellent as mentioned earlier pcs were still expensive much more so than today so the Jaguar offered players a chance to experience doom at a comparable level of quality at a much lower price but it gets more interesting the Jaguar scene is very active today if you didn't know and we'll be exploring that in an upcoming video I'm planning on the system itself but for now I want to discuss this doom 2 for the Jag ok so this isn't actually doom 2 rather a rom hack of the original doom it's limited to the same weapons and assets throughout the original of course and lacks any of the death shading but it works unfortunately without a skunk board and with the upcoming SD rom card still in development I was only able to test this out via emulation the game speed isn't quite right here and the controls are extremely leggy making it very difficult to play but this is still cool I can't wait to try it on real Jaguar Hardware in the future now I haven't really discussed multiplayer yet and I can't show it here but if you connect two Jaguars together you can actually play this game in multiplayer unfortunately in my experience in the past this often results in disconnects but still it's a very forward-looking feature and by the way the Super NES version that also had support for the x-band modem so you could play that one in multiplayer as well even the European and Japanese versions of doom for the Saturn also had multiplayer ultimately the main takeaway from the jag version is simple in 94 this was a fantastic way to play doom and one of the best reasons to own a Jaguar it runs at full screen at 20 frames per second on average with an interesting implementation of color shading it's also the only fully official Eid software programmed port of doomed yes Carmack contributed to the 32x version as well but this one was all in but just two years later the Jaguar met its match with what I feel to be the very best console port of doom from the 90s doom for the PlayStation is a perfect example of how to convert a game it's packed with content featuring most of the levels from doom including ultimate doom and doom - and some new ones for a total of 59 Maps while this version still shares aspects with the Jaguar conversion including the simplified doom 1 maps the rest of the port feels incredibly fresh and new they even managed to cram every single enemy into the game aside from the arch-vile which is impressive enough ok so let's start with the basics for this one then this version of doom does not use the low detail mode and is presented at full resolution it's much cleaner and sharper than any other console port from this era the renderer was also upgraded to support a high color mode this allows for colored sectors where individual sectors could now have a defined color value essentially faking colored lighting this allows for some very moody scenes indeed this version also includes true alpha transparency for many surfaces and effects which looks great and another nice feature is the introduction of animated skies something lacking from all other official versions of doom beyond that doom for the PlayStation is also drawn using techniques that differ from the original game the system draws walls using a series of small rectangles rather than in a per pixel strip but this can result in distortion at steep angles still texture warping is kept to a minimum here compared to many other PlayStation games so it manages to work out in the end all told the visuals on display in PlayStation Doom are excellent and remain unique to this version this is clearly the best-looking port of its era then there's the audio Bree Hodges was brought on board to score this version of doom and the results are incredible yes the rocking soundtrack of the original is still great in its own right of course but this lends the game an entirely different atmosphere and it works the music is dark and foreboding and unlike the Saturn version which uses similar tracks but plays them back as Redbook audio the PlayStation version uses its audio chip to playback these tracks instead each piece is stored as a dot LCD file with just a few samples stored within these are then played back by the system sound chip and the results are excellent some users even dug up an Easter egg of sorts in one track you might already be familiar with this but check it out listen to this one cool right okay that's the normal version but if you speed it up you can hear this instead I'd love to know the story behind this one now in addition to the music all of the sound effects were remade as well and sound pretty nice I still have a soft spot for the original sound effects but it's nice to have something new with this version PlayStation Doom also supports the PlayStation link cable for co-op and deathmatch unlike the jag link version this one is actually reliable I played through a huge chunk of the game with a friend of mine using the PlayStation link cable and it was a blast this is the PAL version here by the way as I don't have multiple NTSC copies handy but as you can see it works rather well I'll be at the frame rates a little lower the controls are also excellent here with the ability to circle strafe and move freely through the world this is before dual analog was an option on the PlayStation but even still it feels very nice to play then there's performance it's not perfect but compared to every previous version including the Jaguar version ps1 Doom runs faster and smoother the frame rate cap is now bumped up the 30 frames per second from 20 but the average frame rate does still drop below this line so it's not completely stable the overall experience is smooth enough though and it feels great compared to the other conversions that said the game is at its smoothest when playing doom 1 maps as they are somewhat simplified the doom 2 levels are much closer to their PC counterparts and as such can definitely exhibit some pretty serious drops but even these drops are still higher than what you get in other ports from this era so it's not too bad and ultimately that's why this version rates so highly on the playability scale it's the smoothest console port from this era and as a joy to play beyond that it looks and sounds unlike any other version and features loads of content this version is so good that even if you had access to the PC version back in the day it was still worth experiencing doom on a Playstation it really is that good but with the next two ports we move into the next millennium and come closer than ever to matching the original experience it took more than ten years but we finally have a near perfect port of the original PC game and it came from an unexpected place late in the life of the original Xbox Vicarious Visions released a port of Doom 3 from Microsoft's console it was an incredible port at the time boasting cutting-edge 3d graphics for the platform doom 3 seemed to exceed what the system could do and it was absolutely fantastic if you purchased the special edition of the game or later resurrection of evil one of the big extras included was a complete port of doom 1 & 2 and unlike every other version we've seen thus far this is a straight PC port all the maps enemies and weapons are included in this version and in addition to brand new maps it even includes multiplayer and split-screen options it also runs fullscreen at a perfect frame rate I'll be it with some judder the main issue here is that doom was designed to operate at 70 Hertz on a CRT monitor with a frame rate of 35 fps or half the refresh on a 60 Hertz display however this 35 FPS cap remains and introduces slight judder even still it's smoother than any other console version before it and feels amazing to play something further enhanced by the addition of dual analog control but it's not perfect for one thing the skyboxes and later levels of doom 1 are all missing replaced instead with the skybox from the first episode in addition the resolution of the game is a little strange it's rendered at 320 by 240 but the Xbox only supports a minimum resolution of 480 I so this version runs in either 40i or 480p resulting in an image that isn't quite as crisp as the original PlayStation version there's also no gamma control here and the game can appear rather dark depending on your setup the sound is also locked to a very low sample rate and isn't quite on par with the original the music isn't bad though but again it could have been further enhanced still given its release date this was an excellent bonus feature and a fantastic way to play Doom on a more modern machine now I've been pairing my PC with a TV since 2003 but it was still uncommon during this era and small livingroom pcs weren't really much of a thing either as such its existence at the time was great and it would remain supreme in the console space until the next generation but before we get to the best available console version of doom we have to talk about this doom 64 this iteration of doom does not fit in with the rest of the games on the list simply because it's a brand-new game but it's so good that I would be remiss if I didn't mention it doom 64 was developed by Aaron sealer productions and Aaron himself worked alongside John Carmack in building the hardware renderer used for the game that's right doom 64 is the first 3d accelerated conversion of doom it takes full advantage of the n64 heart we're enabling effects and techniques never before seen in the doom engine because at its core it still very much was based on the original doom engine just heavily modified and improved for one thing it runs at 320 by 240 and unlike other versions operates at a rock-solid locked 30 frames per second this is the most fluid console conversion of doom ever released it supports bilinear texture filtering features all new artwork and introduces effects such as fog moving skies advanced lighting and a higher overall color depth it also features a brand new selection of maps crafted specifically for this version these are tough well-made maps that channel everything that makes doom great doom 64 is an interesting game then it's basically a full-on hardware-accelerated sequel to doom 2 and looking back at the entirety of the n64 library I truly believe that doom 64 is absolutely one of the very best games on the platform it takes brilliant advantage of the hardware runs like a dream and offers some incredible doom gameplay all with a moody Aubrey Hodges soundtrack if you've never played doom 64 I cannot recommend it enough now on to the last best and most playable conversion of the original games here it is at last the most playable port of doom on consoles the idea behind this one is simple bring the PC experience to a console without compromise yes the frame rate is still capped at 35 frames per second like the original game but it's full screen runs at a higher resolution and features the entirety of ultimate doom and doom 2 networking options are available in the control is highly your fine taking full advantage of modern controllers it feels absolutely spot-on and is a blast to play so why group PlayStation 3 and 360 together while there are certainly minor differences here these two ports at their core are basically the same and both are excellent it started with the original doom released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2006 for the 360 this disappeared in 2010 after Activision lost the rights but reappeared in 2012 thanks to Bethesda along with doom to the ps3 first received its port alongside do 3 BFG edition which included the ultimate doom and doom - same goes for the 360 version of course later on doom classic complete was released with the master levels 4 do 2 and final doom included making it the most complete version of doom on consoles but ultimately this version of doom is really all about that the original experience there's no texture filtering here the soundtrack is based on the original PC version and no additional effects of present only the resolution is increased that said there is one drawback they did replace the cross on the health kiss with this pill icon but hey what are you gonna do ultimately though this version truly is the best of the console releases it runs without a hitch offers the best visuals the most responsive controls the most multiplayer options and the most content now on the flip side it's also somewhat less interesting to discuss than the older ports simply because no compromises need to be made here at all but still it's the best way to play Doom on consoles but this is really just one tiny subset of doom discussion those console ports even a solid hour of DF retro isn't enough to handle all aspects of doom there's the other official versions for instance a port for the tap zodiac and even a Pocket PC version exists it even released on the iPhone by John Carmack himself and if I had the time I would have covered these as well but hey and that's not even touching on the crazy world of source ports which could warrant an entire second episode on doom perhaps someday and with that we've come to the end of another episode of DF retro looking back it's clear that getting doom up and running on consoles back in the day was no small feat but the results are fascinating all the same of the bunch I am a soft spot for the PlayStation version with its colored sectors and Moody soundtrack but the atari jaguar version sticks out as well for its relatively smooth performance and impressive usage of the c ry color space which is your favorite port be sure to let us know in the comments below but in the meantime if you enjoyed this video be sure to LIKE subscribe and follow me over on twitter and until next time stay retro

Channel: Digital Foundry

Views: 879,312

Keywords: DF Retro, retro, retro games, digital foundry, frame-rate, doom, doom 2, Doom II, ultimate doom, carmack, bagley, heineman, 3DO, playstation, saturn, 32x, jaguar, atari jaguar, game boy advance, gba, xbox, xbox 360, playstation 3, ps3, super nes, snes, super nintendo, doom 64, nintendo 64, df, frame rate, console, performance, retro gaming, digital foundry retro, framerate, fps, ps1, psx, sega saturn, comparison, graphics comparison, visual comparison, id software, n64, analysis

Id: 784MUbDoLjQ

Length: 56min 15sec (3375 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/TrojanGoldfish]

I love the DF Retro videos, and have watched and enjoyed all of them, even for those games I've not much personal interest in. Great, indepth retrospectives.

Unfortunately, one of my friends pointed out that the presenter looks like Edward from the League Of Gentlemen, and now I can't unsee it.

[u/Sukhdev_92]

Saw that earlier today and it was a very enjoyable video. The first proper time I played Doom 1 and 2 were the PS3 ports alongside the BFG edition. Good thing to know I played a version closest to the PC originals. But I would love to go back to play Doom 64 and the PlayStation 1 version.

[u/Ghostfistkilla]

Loved the shoutout to Doom 64, other than the first doom for PC, Doom 64 is definitely the best Doom made in the 90's. Highly recommend people play Doom Absolution (closest to vanilla 64) or Brutal Doom 64 (Total converstion pretty much) and play the hidden gem that is Doom 64. I remembered playing the game when I was a kid and the music scared the crap outta me.

[u/SnakesMum93]

Surprised they never touched upon the split screen feature of the Xbox, PS3 and 360 versions. Loved playing four player split screen Doom with friends

[u/Spjs]

I've never played the original Doom myself, but I loved Doom 2016. Is Brutal Doom a good place to start, or is there a better conversion/mod for it to begin with?