Doom95

Start up screen for Doom 95.

Screenshot of the main launcher application, showcasing several of the options that can be selected.

Doom95 is an official port of Doom to the Microsoft Windows operating system, and is included in many later releases of The Ultimate Doom, Doom II, and Final Doom. This port was developed by a team at Microsoft headed by Alex St. John, the creator of the DirectX specification. It was to serve as a flagship for the new technology, and was initially released as a preview on the Games for Windows 95 CD released on January 15, 1996 by Microsoft. Its initial retail release occurred in Japan on May 31, 1996, with the US retail release following in June 1996. A shareware version of Doom95 was released on August 22, 1996.

It supports four screen resolutions (320x200, 320x240, 640x400 and 640x480), which can all be used either in a windowed or a fullscreen mode. The port also has a launcher to configure options for external PWADs, player controls and multiplayer settings. It has a slightly higher visplane limit than the original Doom, allowing more complicated maps. It also has cheat codes that are exclusive to it, such as the ability to kill all of the monsters in a level. Several additional command line parameters were also implemented.

Development

In late 1995, Doom was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system Windows 95, despite million-dollar advertising campaigns for the latter. The game's popularity prompted Bill Gates to briefly consider buying id Software, and led Microsoft to repurpose their Doom porting project into a promotion of the new operating system as a gaming platform. This first led to the work on an initial Windows port of Doom called WinDoom, based on a technology called WinG, that was shelved. After work started on DirectX, the successor to WinG, Microsoft reattempted porting Doom to Windows.

"Don't interrupt me!"

While the pre-release version of DirectX had been released at Computer Game Developers Conference 1995, Microsoft was still struggling with the same problem they were initially trying to solve: no one was using it for developing games. Alex St. John decided that they needed to proactively reach out to developers and offer porting of their games free of charge, with the original developer still getting to keep any profits generated by the port. First on St. John's roadmap were the companies Origin, known for the Ultima game series, and id Software. By utilizing the relationship that had formed between St. John and John Carmack during the development of WinDoom, he was able to convince Carmack to approve the creation of the port.

Since the underlying technology was changed from WinG to DirectX, much of the new port had to be rewritten from scratch. The engineering team also saw some major changes compared to the original WinDoom team. The primary engineers on this new DirectX port were Fred Hommel and Roger Weiss.

An initial semi-public preview release of Doom95 occurred in early September 1995 with the release of the first End User Beta of DirectX. Included in the games directory on the preview CD was an early version of Doom95. This initial version was still lacking in many aspects: music support was missing (though sound effects were supported) and there was no support for mouse input. Joystick support was also limited. It also did not offer configuration options itself, but was compatible with the DEFAULT.CFG file written by the original DOS version setup. A slightly updated preview version followed shortly after with the second End User Beta of DirectX. For this update, Jim Geist had joined the development team, adding support for music to the port. While further beta versions of DirectX were released, there were no further updates to Doom95 in those betas.

Initially, plans were to release the Windows 95 port of Doom on October 30, 1995. However, last minute feature requests by id Software caused the planned release date to slip. Despite the planned release date getting postponed, Microsoft organized a major event called Judgment Day on October 30, 1995. The date was probably meant to coincide with the actual release of Doom95, but no longer did after the release was delayed. One of the presentations had Bill Gates digitally superimposed into the game, killing a zombieman with a shotgun (rather strangely while holding it by the barrel with both hands) between segments of exposition. Microsoft stated that this release heralded the end of the reign of MS-DOS (though ironically enough, the Windows 9x series of operating systems are a hybrid 16/32-bit architecture that still depended on DOS at least in a vestigial way).

Doom95 saw its first wide release on January 15, 1996, on the Games for Windows 95 sampler CD. The version of Doom95 included on this CD had already been completed months prior; the build titled version 2.0.0.1 had been compiled on November 14, 1995. This version contained an earlier version of the configuration options seen in the final game as a separate executable, DOOMCFG.EXE.

A major update to the port was released as part of the Dwango E3 1996 CD, released as version 3.0.0.0. This version introduced a front-end launcher that let players configure game options, including those previously accessible only through the separate executable, and select various game modes. The version also had improved joystick support, courtesy of Marcus Andrews. An autorun launcher was also introduced to the port; this autorun was written by Roger Weiss.

The first documented retail release of Doom95 occurred in Japan. The Windows version of Doom II was released there on May 31, 1996. This release is notable for not only supporting the common IBM compatible PCs, but also included a version that was compatible with Windows 95 running under PC-98, which was a common setup in Japan at the time. The release included two separate CDs: one included the IBM compatible PC version and the other disc contained the PC-98 version of the game. The port version seems to be very similar to the version included on the Dwango E3 CD.

Doom95 was released at retail in the US as part of Final DOOM, DOOM II for Windows 95 and the Ultimate DOOM for Windows 95 during summer 1996. These were reported to have appeared on store shelves in late June 1996. The included version of Doom95 had been updated to add support for Final Doom. This same version was later used for the shareware of Doom95 on August 22, 1996.

The final update to Doom95 was released as part of a later printing of id Anthology. It fixed the bug with skies never changing while also introducing a crash bug when playing The Ultimate Doom. Despite this update being issued, it was never released as a patch to previous owners.

Differences

The following are known changes between vanilla Doom and Doom95:

• Unlike the later DOS versions of the Doom games, Doom95 cannot play back true MIDIs, only real MUS files.
• The engine supports a larger amount of sound channels, with a maximum of 32, whereas vanilla supports only eight.
• The sound effects are played back at a slightly lower pitch than in regular Doom played under DOS.
• Depending on the resolution chosen, less of the player's weapon is shown on screen when compared to the DOS version.
• Some of Doom95's quit messages differ slightly from vanilla Doom, mostly by removing references to DOS.
• The port handles its configuration differently from the DOS version, which in turn disables the always run trick.

Bugs

• A bug in Doom95 prevents demo recording when starting the game via the Doom95 launcher. As soon as the game is launched (with instructions to record a demo), Doom95 quits and returns to the desktop with an error: "I_Error says: demo <demoname> recorded". An unofficial patch has been released that fixes this bug (by altering the file DOOMLNCH.DLL).
• In resolutions above 320x240, the automap function for marking the current position with a number is extremely buggy. In addition to severe rendering bugs, the actual markers are not displayed at all or are displayed in the wrong positions. Adding the markers can even crash the game, though this is rare. The automap can be restored from the buggy state by moving the view away from the marker or by clearing all marks.
• The intermission screen background shown during Thy Flesh Consumed intermissions is the one from Knee-Deep in the Dead, and the level names are from that episode as well. The bug only affects the intermission screen; in the automap the level names are correct.
  • As a consequence, the screen attempts to display par times for these maps, which are not defined in g_game.c. The times given are actually for MAP02 through MAP10 because the function G_DoCompleted() is reading past the end of the array pars[] into its Doom II counterpart cpars[], which happens to be adjacent in memory.
• After MAP30 of Doom II has been completed, a few frames of the monster animations are displayed in the upper left corner of the screen instead of the center. This seems to affect the Hell knight, arachnotron, revenant, arch-vile, and spiderdemon.
• In the Doom95 launcher the title of E1M1: Hangar is misspelled "Hanger" (the name for a TNT map).
• Depending on the resolution chosen, the screen may appear slightly stretched, horizontally. As a result, enemies look shorter, rocket explosions are oval instead of round, etc.
• The rarer EXE version (see "DOOM95.EXE" below) fixes Sky never changes in Doom II but introduces Crash when accessing Read This!

Compatibility issues

• By default the game does not launch on Windows Vista or 7 at all due to the lack of the file DPLAY.DLL. The issue can be fixed using this workaround.
• Mice do not work with Doom95 under Windows 2000 and later Windows versions. This is because these operating systems do not support VxD files, and Doom95 uses the file DMOUSE.VXD to communicate with the mouse. An unofficial patch for this issue was released in 2010.
• Most of Doom95's video modes do not work with modern video cards and Windows versions. Users frequently report displays squashed into one corner of the screen, washed-out colors, or choppy and grainy animation, irrespective of any video options selected.
• The IPX protocol multiplayer mode does not work in Windows Vista and later Windows versions as they do not support the protocol. The TCP protocol mode is also broken in those Windows versions.
• Due to a bug in its handling of certain types of graphics cards and DirectX versions, Doom95 does not render the partial invisibility effect in its original form. Instead of seeing directly through the sprite, with some cards the user sees a wall texture or other background "refracted" through the creature's body at a slight angle, as though looking at an object through a glass of water. This makes invisible enemies somewhat easier to see, especially in dark rooms; on the other hand, tracking the movement of non-invisible creatures behind them can be more challenging, especially when trying to aim one's weapon through a pile of invisible corpses (which can easily occur, for example, in E1M9: Military Base). On other cards the effect produces bright yellow and magenta pixels which make the affected things stand out very clearly. Both visual glitches can be prevented by disabling DirectDraw acceleration using the -emulate parameter.

How to run Doom95 under newer Windows versions

Windows Vista/7

To be able to run Doom95 on Windows Vista or 7, you need to obtain a file named DPLAY.DLL. This file can be found inside the Doom95 installation archive in the DIRECTX folder. An updated version of the file named DPLAYX.DLL can also be found in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 (or WINDOWS\SysWOW64) folder. A copy of this file can be renamed to DPLAY.DLL. After you have the file, it should be moved over to the location of the Doom95 executable (Doom95.exe). After this the game should launch normally.

Windows 8/10/11

Doom 95 will not launch at all on Windows 8 or 10 due to the removal of various files with DirectX, this can be fixed by downloading and installing a program named DXGL and copying DDRAW.DLL from the DXGL installation folder and placing it in the Doom95 folder. Then, copy the DPLAY.DLL file from the DirectX installation archive folder in the Doom95 folder and place it in the Doom95 folder. Lastly run the DXGL program, click "Add" and select the Doom95 executable, and set it to "Aspect corrected stretch" with 4:3 aspect ratio. This should scale the correct aspect ratio even on widescreen LCD monitors. The unofficial mouse patch does still work, however causes heavy delays and makes the game almost unplayable. The mouse patch executable must be launched in administrator mode.

Alternately, Doom95 Portable can be used, a patched version of Doom95 by Kalcos which combines all prior fixes and comes with Freedoom. This enables the game to be played on modern Windows versions without mouse delays or other similar issues.

Screenshots

• 

  The "Advanced" tab of the launcher

• 

  The "Configuration" tab of the launcher

• 

  The start of Doom II's MAP01 in Doom95

Physical media

• 

  Front cover art for Doom II

• 

  Back cover art for Doom II

• 

  Disc for Doom95

Versions of Doom95

Version	File date	Compile date	Size (bytes)	MD5	SHA-1	CRC-32
1.95.77.2	1995-09-05	1995-09-05	739,840	58a862e3629c230c04d7cc9583d4a573	828e5f1624eec93d524b1a250f686c5b492c7730	92bb1356
1.95.82.3	1995-09-14	1995-09-14	795,648	1989d1305cc22dac51ca315dd6bf8c37	8371b94a3fb5f4e9724d75d7285f77ecf3128edb	a667ae9d
2.0.0.1	1995-11-14	1995-11-14	738,059	50dffb0cd7d3ce9d1cb67dae5a7a2998	5c074e5a6c5275570d41867b9c27cd3baed21f1c	f13dcc29
3.0.0.0	1996-04-30	1996-04-30	761,161	ce7a5b87a6540150e4b013e5aa2603f4	e8a51d4109051f06a053bf3781fe7eaf3cc62bd6	d449f9b6
3.0.0.0	1996-05-10	1996-05-10	761,644	8907488f6d482701270e8895bbc5bd74	d611a13801b52175ee7641cb60cb6c024b181ee1	e6e91887
3.0.0.0	1996-06-06	1996-06-06	775,117	df4fe250a76ae2e6c7ae32d6fea6674a	4c8f7359fa9e82d34d606c12af873e3708d15d59	d58d38e2
3.0.0.0	1996-11-26	1996-11-25	775,629	61606afd9ead3b79cb88b920edd6f2ea	c37b92ae0fb66f1303eb8fe2a43bd9332a2caad3	712f1b74

v1.95.77.2

• Compiled September 5, 1995 and released as part of DirectX End User Beta 1.
• Initial release.
• Missing music support and mouse input handling.

v1.95.82.3

• Compiled September 14, 1995 and released as part of DirectX End User Beta 2.
• Added music support.
• Some distributions of this version also include a SETUP.EXE dated 1995-09-28, which is an early version of the same setup that is later seen in v3.0.0.0.

v2.0.0.1

• Compiled November 14, 1995 and released as part of Games for Windows 95 Sampler.
• Added DOOMCFG.EXE, which allows configuring various game options (even though mouse options are present, this version does not support mouse input yet).
• This version contained a bug in the demo playback system that causes the player to become a resurrected ghost.^{[citation needed]}

v3.0.0.0 (April 30, 1996)

• Compiled April 30, 1996 and released as part of Dwango E3 1996 CD.
• Added launcher front-end.
• Added setup.
• Added mouse input support.
• Improved joystick support.

v3.0.0.0 (May 10, 1996)

• Compiled May 10, 1996 and released as part of Doom II for Windows 95 in Japan.
• This version seems to have been compiled with a Japanese language development environment, since the EXE MS-DOS stub is in Japanese. However, the game itself is still fully in English.
• No changes known.

v3.0.0.0 (June 6, 1996)

• Compiled June 6, 1996.
• Added support for Final Doom.
• Changed autorun music track from Intermission from Doom to Sinister for Doom Shareware and The Ultimate Doom, and The Demon's Dead for Doom II and Final DOOM.

v3.0.0.0 (November 26, 1996)

• Compiled November 25, 1996 and is found on some, but not all, id Anthology discs.
• The bug Sky never changes in Doom II is fixed.
• Crash when accessing Read This! is introduced.

PC-98 Versions of Doom95

There are also two variants of Doom95 for the Japanese PC-98 system. These can be executed on a regular Windows PC, but some oddities can be expected e.g. the keyboard mappings won't work properly.

Version	File date	Compile date	Size (bytes)	MD5	SHA-1	CRC-32
3.0.0.0	1996-05-15	1996-05-15	761,644	4e148504fb18290457cca59070bdd30b	b00611b5ad6df080fe82ede97e7f67938d7689d3	23282d03
3.0.0.0	1996-07-31	1996-07-24	775,803	9cde9edd652824dedfd33e0811bb4f64	c3505d438dc53d5c31e5dbc8e2496a5739e3cf33	a5837150

v3.0.0.0 (May 15, 1996)

• Compiled May 15, 1995 and released as part of Doom II for Windows 95 in Japan.
• Initial release.

v3.0.0.0 (July 31, 1996)

• Compiled July 24, 1995 and released as part of Final Doom in Japan.
• Added support for Final Doom.

See also

• Excel 95 Easter egg
• Doomworld thread on alternate version
• Doomworld thread with patches

External links

• Download Doom95 at Doomworld/idgames
• Download Doom95 mouse compatibility fix and view related forum thread at Doomworld forums
• Download Doom95 demo recording bug fix at Doomworld/idgames
• Doom95 Portable at Mod DB

Sources

• This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Doom.
• Bill Gates "DOOM" Video

References

Source code genealogy
Based on	Name	Base for
WinDoom (Microsoft)	Doom95	Hexen95