FastDoom 0.8.4

Added support for two new sound cards:

• PC Speaker digitized (1 bit, 11KHz, mono).
• COVOX LPT DAC (8 bit, 11KHz, mono)

FastDoom 0.8.3

Bugfix release. Fix buttons incorrect behaviour. Lowered RAM usage.

FastDoom 0.8.2

• Two new executables for VBE 2.0 modes (320x200 and 8 bit color support required). Most modern video cards should be faster with this mode (Vesa Local Bus and PCI cards). Only supports high detail mode.
  • FDOOMVBR.EXE - Uses basic real mode VBE 2.0 support. Most compatible mode, if you use UniVBE, use this executable
  • FDOOMVBP.EXE - Uses protected mode extensions from VBE 2.0. Should be a little bit faster with some video cards, but it's more problematic in most circunstances
• Fixed important bug that made Ultimate Doom switches not work as expected (#32)

FastDoom 0.8.1

• New video modes!!
  • VGA Mode 13h (320x200 256 colors, without page flipping). Same mode as Heretic/Hexen. Only high detail mode is implemented, but it's usually faster than the original Mode Y. Recomended for fast 486 processors and upwards
  • CGA (320x200 4 colors). Ugly, needs a better conversion algorithm. Requires a fast CPU. Based on Mode 13h
  • CGA (640x200 monochrome, ordered dithering 2x2). Requires a fast CPU. Based on Mode 13h
  • EGA (320x200 16 colors, page flipped, 128Kb VRAM minimum). SLOW, most ISA 8-bit EGA video cards can't update fullscreen at decent framerates. Based on Mode 13h
  • Hercules (640x400 monochrome, ordered dithering 2x2). Requires a fast CPU. Based on Mode 13h
• Added basic IWAD selector on bootup (if multiple IWADs are detected)
• Fixed Super Shotgun animation
• As always more optimizations. Now text modes are much faster
• Fixed multiple bugs
• Removed color correction parameter "-fixcolors" for 16 color modes. Easier to use

FastDoom 0.8

• Better RAM usage (also reduced memory footprint)
• More code optimizations
• Compiled with the latest OpenWatcom v2 version
• Stripped episode finale texts from the executable, now are stored in external text files
• Support for Doom II BFG edition. Use the command line parameter "-bfg"
• Smaller executable thanks to UPX compression tool
• New option to render the status bar background a little bit faster. Use the command line "-simplestatusbar". It replaces the status bar background with a simple grey color.
• Two new executables: FDOOMT25, which renders in text mode at 80x25 resolution (CGA, EGA and VGA supported, 16 colors and virtual resolution of 80x50) and FDOOMT50, which renders in text mode at 80x50 resolution (VGA only, 16 colors). Both support triple buffering. These executables have reduced even more the memory footprint as multiple graphics don't need to be loaded (fonts for example). Automap feature isn't supported. This release also includes the WAD ega_pal.wad, which replaces the original colormaps to a better one for text modes.
• New command line parameter "-cga", this let's the new video modes run properly with CGA video cards
• New command line parameter "-fixcolors", this is needed to correct the 256 to 16 colors conversion, as the original Doom palette is too dark for a direct conversion.
• Unified the 386 and 486 executables, the 486 executables were always slower and bigger than the 386 ones. Never figured out why this happens, maybe you can blame OpenWatcom.
• Unified executables between different versions of Doom onto a single one. The supported wads are the following:
  • DOOM.WAD -> DOOM Registered (3 episodes)
  • DOOM1.WAD -> DOOM Shareware (1 episode)
  • DOOMU.WAD -> Ultimate DOOM (4 episodes)
  • DOOM2.WAD -> DOOM II
  • PLUTONIA.WAD -> Final DOOM The Plutonia Experiment
  • TNT.WAD -> Final DOOM TNT Evilution
• New SETUP program! I've found how to edit and compile the original IDSETUP program, and modified it to create a custom version for FastDoom.
• Renamed the configuration file from default.cfg to fdoom.cfg. Also renamed save files from doomsav*.dsg to fdoomsv*.dsg.

FastDoom 0.7

• Added Stereo OPL2, OPL3 and Stereo OPL3 music support (Adlib uses basic OPL2, Sound Blaster tries to detect the best possible option)
• Added Disney Sound Source (also Tandy Sound Source) sound support. You have to manually set "snd_sfxdevice" variable in the "default.cfg" file to 12 (Disney Sound Source) or 13 (Tandy Sound Source). There are three new command line options to force the parallel port in case auto-initialization process doesn't work ("-LPT1" -> port 3bc, "-LPT2" -> port 378, "-LPT3" -> port 278). COVOX / LPT DAC is not supported.
• Fixed Gravis Ultrasound music support
• Added profiling support in the makefile (Intel Pentium processor required)
• Added option that forces 8 bit audio mixing instead of 16 bit (-8bitsound)
• Fixed potato invisible column renderer (issue #2)
• Fixed chainsaw incorrect behaviour (issue #9)
• Fixed all items respawn when loading a savegame (issue #10)
• Fixed Arch-Vile fire spawned at the wrong location (original Vanilla Doom blatant error)
• Fixed Chaingun makes two sounds firing single bullet (another Vanilla Doom error, fixed as there is no multiplayer support)
• Fixed invulnerability sky colormap
• Fixed issue #14
• Fixed issue #16
• Fixed some command line parameters not working as expected
• Removed IDMYPOS cheat
• Added VSYNC support (-vsync)
• Added new command line parameters that disable some optimizations (bypassing the saved configuration, made for benchmarking): -normalsurfaces, -normalsky, -normalshadows, -normalsprites, -stereo, -melt, -capped, -novsync, -nofps.
• All new options finally are saved in default.cfg
• As always added more optimizations (mostly ASM optimized multiplications, divisions and modulo, faster screen melting code, faster cheats detection, optimized sound code, faster potato mode [thanks @Optimus6128 !!], faster melting screen, faster flat drawing functions)

Compared to FastDoom 0.7 RC2:

• Fixed issue #16
• Small optimizations

FastDoom 0.7 Release Candidate 2

• Fixed some command line parameters not working as expected
• Vsync option now is stored correctly
• Faster melting screen
• Faster flat drawing functions (unrolling by 4)
• More ingame code optimizations
• Fixed issue #14

FastDoom 0.7 Release Candidate 1

• Added Stereo OPL2, OPL3 and Stereo OPL3 music support (Adlib uses basic OPL2, Sound Blaster tries to detect the best possible option)
• Added Disney Sound Source (also Tandy Sound Source) sound support. You have to manually set "snd_sfxdevice" variable in the "default.cfg" file to 12 (Disney Sound Source) or 13 (Tandy Sound Source). There are three new command line options to force the parallel port in case auto-initialization process doesn't work ("-LPT1" -> port 3bc, "-LPT2" -> port 378, "-LPT3" -> port 278). COVOX / LPT DAC is not supported.
• Fixed Gravis Ultrasound music support
• Added profiling support in the makefile (Intel Pentium processor required)
• Added option that forces 8 bit audio mixing instead of 16 bit (-8bitsound)
• Fixed potato invisible column renderer (issue #2)
• Fixed chainsaw incorrect behaviour (issue #9)
• Fixed all items respawn when loading a savegame (issue #10)
• Fixed Arch-Vile fire spawned at the wrong location (original Vanilla Doom blatant error)
• Fixed Chaingun makes two sounds firing single bullet (another Vanilla Doom error, fixed as there is no multiplayer support)
• Fixed invulnerability sky colormap
• Removed IDMYPOS cheat
• Added VSYNC support (-vsync)
• Added new command line parameters that disable some optimizations (bypassing the saved configuration, made for benchmarking): -normalsurfaces, -normalsky, -normalshadows, -normalsprites, -stereo, -melt, -capped, -novsync, -nofps.
• All new options finally are saved in default.cfg
• As always added more optimizations (mostly ASM optimized multiplications, divisions and modulo, faster screen melting code, faster cheats detection, optimized sound code, faster potato mode [thanks @Optimus6128 !!])

FastDoom 0.666

• Renamed executable to FDOOM.EXE / FDOOM2.EXE
• Added all FastDoom display options and sound options in the options menu (only screen size option is saved, next versions will fix this)
• Added "-reverseStereo" command line option to reverse Left/Right stereo speakers. Your Sound Blaster PRO will love this.
• Added "-size |screensize|" command line option to force screen size. Values allowed are 3 to 11, being 3 the smallest possible, 10 full screen with HUD and 11 the biggest, fullscreen without HUD.
• Added "-logTimedemo" option to save the benchmark result onto the file "bench.txt". With this it's possible to run multiple FastDoom benchmarks in a batch and save the results in a single text file. Requires "-timedemo".
• Removed "-cdrom" command line option.
• Fixed bug that made some sprites look corrupted (depending on screen size, only FastDoom 0.66)
• More engine code optimizations

FastDoom 0.66

• Savegames are working again (broken in 0.6). Still not compatible with vanilla doom savegames, but at least it's working (latest version with compatible savegames is 0.5).
• Potato detail mode is now selectable from the options menu. Also it's selectable by pressing F5 ingame.
• Support for unlimited sprites. Doom II MAP30 now doesn't crash if there are too many enemies. Also NUTS.WAD is partially working (albeit your 386 won't be doing 144 fps 🤣).
• Experimental new uncapped fps mode. Enabled with "-uncapped". It has rendering problems and won't interpolate movement between frames. It allows you to see how "fast" can be your pc in realtime.
• Added "-forcePQ", "-forceLQ" and "-forceHQ" parameters. It allows setting the video detail quality from command line. Useful for benchmarks.
• More internal optimizations.