Recently I completed the original 1993 Doom campaigns Knee Deep in the Dead, The Shoes of Hell & Inferno. My recent dive back into the original Doom and subsequent focus is still going strong and one fun part of that is that I've tried out many of the major Doom source ports. If you want to dive back in to Doom it might not be obvious the best way to play so I hope this post helps that.
I'm going to order the Doom ports top to bottom as a sort of recommendation system where the top most, I recommend most.
The Official Doom Unity Port
iD Software worked with Nerve to create these modern Doom ports built on the Unity Framework. Whereas originally these ports weren't the highest quality Nerve and iD have continued to add features such as 16x9 widescreen, add on support, local multiplayer and more to make one of the best Doom source ports around. If you are looking for an easy way to jump in and try Doom and Doom II the official ports are the most accessible way to play on Switch, PS4, XBox One, Android, iOS and PC.
On PC you can buy these on the Bethesda.net launcher or Steam by way of purchasing "The Ultimate DOOM" or "DOOM II: Hell on Earth."
iD includes all the Final Doom, Ultimate Doom and extra WAD's they've historically sold separately making these versions a great deal with a ton of extra content.
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Doom:_Unity_Edition
Crispy Doom
Chocolate Doom is a source port that aims to be the most compatible with the original DOS Doom while running on modern systems. It's a great community effort and many speedrunners and classic Doom players use this version exclusively. With that, it doesn't have a lot of modern features many updated source ports do which is why I play Crispy Doom. Crispy Doom uses the Chocolate Doom base and adds extra features such as increased resolution a full 16x9 native aspect ration and support for increased lighting effects as well as modern Doom wads such as Sigil.
If the new Doom Unity ports aren't for you, Crispy Doom is a great alternative and frankly it feels like iD Software is trying to achieve feature parity with Crispy Doom in it's official Unity Ports.
I recommend you configure Crispy Doom to WASD keyboard movement and select always run. I also bump up mouse sensitivity in game so I can get quicker turns.
http://latest.chocolate-doom.org/
Zandronum Is The Best Way To Play Doom Multiplayer
Doom has an very large and vibrant community and many of them still play online. Zandronum is a GZDoom port that adds in enhanced multiplayer support and rolls in Doomseeker to make a really streamlined multiplayer experience. One awesome benefit of using Doomzeeker is that it automagically downloads all the WAD's you need to play on any server you want. This is nice because before you had to have each WAD and the correct version in place but Doomseeker makes the whole process simple.
Zandronum is built on GZDoom and as such adds a lot of modern features such as player jumping, increased speed and the ability to run incredible Doom mods such as Brutal Doom.
If you notice Zandronum blurs the Doom pixels graphics one way to return you to the chunky pixels is in Display Options you set Texture Filter Mode to None.
https://zandronum.com/
GZDoom The One Port To Rule Them All
"ZDoom is a family of enhanced ports of the Doom engine for running on modern operating systems. It runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X, and adds new features not found in the games as originally published by id Software. "
ZDoom/GZDoom is one of the most important Doom ports as it adds so many new features to Doom. These features enable the Doom mod community to do some amazing work that would not have been possible otherwise such as free look, jumping, crouching, swimming, portals, crosshairs, high resolutions, 8 player multiplayer and a ton more.
If you notice GZDoom blurs the Doom pixels graphics one way to return you to the chunky pixels is in Display Options you set Texture Filter Mode to None.
https://zdoom.org/about
I also want to highligh GregoPeck's Doom Source Port write-up. He focuses on Chocolate Doom & GZDoom as well as some of the WAD's included in Master Levels for Doom.
https://cheerfulghost.com/GregoPeck/posts/4401/getting-the-doom-complete-collection-to-run-on-windows-10
I'm going to order the Doom ports top to bottom as a sort of recommendation system where the top most, I recommend most.
The Official Doom Unity Port
iD Software worked with Nerve to create these modern Doom ports built on the Unity Framework. Whereas originally these ports weren't the highest quality Nerve and iD have continued to add features such as 16x9 widescreen, add on support, local multiplayer and more to make one of the best Doom source ports around. If you are looking for an easy way to jump in and try Doom and Doom II the official ports are the most accessible way to play on Switch, PS4, XBox One, Android, iOS and PC.
On PC you can buy these on the Bethesda.net launcher or Steam by way of purchasing "The Ultimate DOOM" or "DOOM II: Hell on Earth."
iD includes all the Final Doom, Ultimate Doom and extra WAD's they've historically sold separately making these versions a great deal with a ton of extra content.
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Doom:_Unity_Edition
Crispy Doom
Chocolate Doom is a source port that aims to be the most compatible with the original DOS Doom while running on modern systems. It's a great community effort and many speedrunners and classic Doom players use this version exclusively. With that, it doesn't have a lot of modern features many updated source ports do which is why I play Crispy Doom. Crispy Doom uses the Chocolate Doom base and adds extra features such as increased resolution a full 16x9 native aspect ration and support for increased lighting effects as well as modern Doom wads such as Sigil.
If the new Doom Unity ports aren't for you, Crispy Doom is a great alternative and frankly it feels like iD Software is trying to achieve feature parity with Crispy Doom in it's official Unity Ports.
I recommend you configure Crispy Doom to WASD keyboard movement and select always run. I also bump up mouse sensitivity in game so I can get quicker turns.
http://latest.chocolate-doom.org/
Zandronum Is The Best Way To Play Doom Multiplayer
Doom has an very large and vibrant community and many of them still play online. Zandronum is a GZDoom port that adds in enhanced multiplayer support and rolls in Doomseeker to make a really streamlined multiplayer experience. One awesome benefit of using Doomzeeker is that it automagically downloads all the WAD's you need to play on any server you want. This is nice because before you had to have each WAD and the correct version in place but Doomseeker makes the whole process simple.
Zandronum is built on GZDoom and as such adds a lot of modern features such as player jumping, increased speed and the ability to run incredible Doom mods such as Brutal Doom.
If you notice Zandronum blurs the Doom pixels graphics one way to return you to the chunky pixels is in Display Options you set Texture Filter Mode to None.
https://zandronum.com/
GZDoom The One Port To Rule Them All
"ZDoom is a family of enhanced ports of the Doom engine for running on modern operating systems. It runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X, and adds new features not found in the games as originally published by id Software. "
ZDoom/GZDoom is one of the most important Doom ports as it adds so many new features to Doom. These features enable the Doom mod community to do some amazing work that would not have been possible otherwise such as free look, jumping, crouching, swimming, portals, crosshairs, high resolutions, 8 player multiplayer and a ton more.
If you notice GZDoom blurs the Doom pixels graphics one way to return you to the chunky pixels is in Display Options you set Texture Filter Mode to None.
https://zdoom.org/about
I also want to highligh GregoPeck's Doom Source Port write-up. He focuses on Chocolate Doom & GZDoom as well as some of the WAD's included in Master Levels for Doom.
https://cheerfulghost.com/GregoPeck/posts/4401/getting-the-doom-complete-collection-to-run-on-windows-10
