Path Tracing Makes its way to DOOM II in GZDOOM Community Mod

[btarunr]

A GZDOOM community mod called "DOOM II: Ray Traced" has done the unthinkable—added path-traced lighting, shadows, and reflections to DOOM II. The mod uses high-resolution voxel models and other game assets from the Voxel DOOM Project, which replaces the game's 2D sprites as fully-fledged 3D models. Pretty much all of the game's textures also see an improvement. Where "DOOM II: Ray Traced" comes to light is its path-traced lighting, which uses ray tracing hardware of modern GPUs—nothing is pre-baked. The mod also supports NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation and AMD FSR 3.0 Frame Generation, to help step up performance. A gameplay video sees a GeForce RTX 4080 break a sweat rendering it at 4K. And to think the original DOOM II could run on an 80386—a processor simpler than a single NVIDIA CUDA core.



A gameplay trailer video follows.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Minus Infinity]

Nope, cannot ever go back to sprites. Raytraced sprites still look abysmal IMO. Might have been cool in 2000.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I would not call 386 simpler than a CUDA core tho... Pretty immature statement.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

And to think the original DOOM II could run on an 80386—a processor simpler than a single NVIDIA CUDA core.

Article sponsored by Ngreedia.

 

[Onasi]

This looks supremely ugly. DOOM has a very strong aesthetic that really only works with software rendering and all the attempts to “graphics whore” it look terrible. Doomworld, anyone? Again, the whole “just let’s add RT” crowd fundamentally seems to misunderstand that “better tech” doesn’t necessarily translate to “better visuals”.

 

[AusWolf]

"DOOM II: Ray Traced" has done the unthinkable

Why is it unthinkable? After Quake II RT, it was pretty obvious someone would come out with this sooner or later.

As for the game itself: remaking an old classic in a new engine like Black Mesa did with Half-Life is pure art. Simply adding RT and upping some textures is lazy.

 

[KrazyT]

Come on guys ! It's just a mod !

Why it wouldn't worth a try ? it's free after all !

 

[TheDeeGee]

Nope, cannot ever go back to sprites. Raytraced sprites still look abysmal IMO. Might have been cool in 2000.

They're not sprites in this mod, but Voxels.

Come on guys ! It's just a mod !

Why it wouldn't worth a try ? it's free after all !

People seem butthurt about something, but refuse to share it.

 

[AusWolf]

People seem butthurt about something, but refuse to share it.

Personally, I'm not butthurt. I just think that adding RT to such an old game without a complete engine revamp is like lipstick on a pig - completely unnecessary.

 

[Vayra86]

I was mildly impressed to be fair. This looks MILES better than that Quake RT thing. There's a lot more going on here than just the ray tracing, too. Those NPC models for example... especially in darker scenes they seem a LOT more alive and scary AF. The blood pools are cool / well done, too.

Is it the same experience as vanilla DOOM, of course not, but that's not the intent I think either. If it were, why even bother

 

[Nuke Dukem]

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Maybe it's worth reminding people that this is a free mod. People have put time and effort into this and made it available for everybody to enjoy. Time that they won't get back. Ever. Probably didn't receive proper financial compensation either. Yet all some people seem to be capable of saying is essentially "Eh, I don't like it"/"Thanks, I hate it"...

Alright.

The boxy voxel models combined with the modern lighting and effects gives this a bit of a "Minecraft with RTX" feel. With gratuitous amounts of blood, of course. It's a very particular look, but that's not a bad thing. I'm sure somebody out there loves it. Sometimes a look like this is what people are aiming for. Personally I find it charming. If it's not your thing, then maybe it would be best to just look the other way.

 

[ty_ger]

I'm burnt out on ray/path/whatever tracing and especially burnt out on these mods adding it to old games. I meh in agreement.
And what about the games I care about? I want ray traced snake.

 

[ZoneDymo]

people sure do like presenting their opinion as fact

 

[InVasMani]

It probably would've looked better with game like Wizordum. The overall lighting doesn't look great though objects. The actual scene lighting is more realistic, but yet the spell effects for example look entirely fake and unnatural and jarring. What would clearly help is layering in some post process lighting as well. I mean all that fancy path tracing and it looks worse than a game like Dead Poly that doesn't even have Ray Tracing. It's missing the point it seems like. It's ironic that it's intended to look more realistic and natural and ends up worse than faking it in ways that are tough to ignore.

I'm more impressed with Dragon Quest Builder 2 it's fairly pixelated, but look quite pleasing in terms of lighting and shading. The skies day to night transitions are kind of terrible however. The rest of the game otherwise looks pretty good though rather Chibi 3D pocket fighter in nature with a dragon ball style and we know the back drop reason for that of course.

Anyways this is just community mod so it's forgivable to be fair. It's pretty mixed in some ways it's a real atrocity, but in other ways it's interesting. At least system requirements aren't steep I guess.

 

[pk67]

How many watts per frame sucks this mod ? Way more than original Doom II I'm sure.
It isn't enviro friendly so its a crap.

edit
If we really want to save this planet we need way more efficient hardware ( than rtx 4080 or even 5080 ) to run RT effects.

 

[AusWolf]

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Maybe it's worth reminding people that this is a free mod. People have put time and effort into this and made it available for everybody to enjoy. Time that they won't get back. Ever. Probably didn't receive proper financial compensation either. Yet all some people seem to be capable of saying is essentially "Eh, I don't like it"/"Thanks, I hate it"...

Alright.

The boxy voxel models combined with the modern lighting and effects gives this a bit of a "Minecraft with RTX" feel. With gratuitous amounts of blood, of course. It's a very particular look, but that's not a bad thing. I'm sure somebody out there loves it. Sometimes a look like this is what people are aiming for. Personally I find it charming. If it's not your thing, then maybe it would be best to just look the other way.

If it's free, does it mean that we're not allowed to say what we think about it on an open forum? Just because some people put time and effort into creating it (which I appreciate), it doesn't mean I must love it.

Imo, if you put time into recreating such a classic, then do it properly, like Crowbar Collective did with Black Mesa. Otherwise, it's wasted effort.

 

[Nuke Dukem]

If it's free, does it mean that we're not allowed to say what we think about it on an open forum? Just because some people put time and effort into creating it (which I appreciate), it doesn't mean I must love it.

Imo, if you put time into recreating such a classic, then do it properly, like Crowbar Collective did with Black Mesa. Otherwise, it's wasted effort.

Well, I never said that anybody "must love it". What I did however say is that "I'm sure somebody out there loves it". Very different things.

Something else I did say:

If it's not your thing, then maybe it would be best to just look the other way.

Regarding Black Mesa -- that ended up taking endless years and man hours to complete and costing money. Apples to oranges.

How many watts per frame sucks this mod ? Way more than original Doom II I'm sure.
It isn't enviro friendly so its a crap.

edit
If we really want to save this planet we need way more efficient hardware ( than rtx 4080 or even 5080 ) to run RT effects.

My good man, if we really wanted to save the planet we would need zero hardware to run RT effects

 

[Visible Noise]

Man, that looks gorgeous.

 

[sLowEnd]

Nope, cannot ever go back to sprites. Raytraced sprites still look abysmal IMO. Might have been cool in 2000.

Cool? No, it would have been absolutely mind blowing to have real time path tracing in 2000.

 

[AusWolf]

Well, I never said that anybody "must love it". What I did however say is that "I'm sure somebody out there loves it". Very different things.

Oh yes, I'm sure, and I wish them lots of fun. As for me, I'm not gonna praise adding a single graphical effect to an old game without adapting the overall presentation to suit said modern graphical effect. It's lipstick on a pig, nothing more.

Regarding Black Mesa -- that ended up taking endless years and man hours to complete and costing money. Apples to oranges.

Now we're talking about putting time and effort into something, right?

Like I said, if you put your mind to doing something, do yourself the favour of doing it properly.

 

[phints]

Nope, cannot ever go back to sprites. Raytraced sprites still look abysmal IMO. Might have been cool in 2000.

I think it looks incredible. The way the shadows flow over the sprites is great to me. Imagining all these monsters in the darkness and gun fire lighting up the room is really cool. Yes it's quite a bit different from OG Doom but it's still very much Doom, more so Doom 3 in look maybe but just works so well when you're actually playing it. You can turn off the absurd blood and the Voxel monsters is great.

Played a bit of this RT mod, it's extremely well done for an initial release.

 

[pk67]

My good man, if we really wanted to save the planet we would need zero hardware to run RT effects

I wouldn't say that. We just need ulv hardware with ultra low idle power as well. We also need hardware aware eco friendly software which will force switch to lower res with RT enabled if running on older - energy inneficient - hardware longer than predefined time span - i e 5 minutes per day.

We also need eco friendly drivers which will force harware to work in energy efficient - undercloaking - regime if they detect hard gamer as a load on GPU.
And we also need to promote energy efficiency awaresness in hard gamers communities.

Cool games dont need a lot power to run on cool hardware. So if hardware is hot it means game is a crap or hardware is a crap or both.

 

[AusWolf]

I wouldn't say that. We just need ulv hardware with ultra low idle power as well. We also need hardware aware eco friendly software which will force switch to lower res with RT enabled if running on older - energy inneficient - hardware longer than predefined time span - i e 5 minutes per day.

We also need eco friendly drivers which will force harware to work in energy efficient - undercloaking - regime if they detect hard gamer as a load on GPU.
And we also need to promote energy efficiency awaresness in hard gamers communities.

Cool games dont need a lot power to run on cool hardware. So if hardware is hot it means game is a crap or hardware is a crap or both.

If you think that gaming is killing the planet, then I suppose you haven't watched the news in recent years, and/or don't know much about humanity's power usage and allocation.

Anyway, it's off topic, so let's get back to Doom, shall we?

 

[Nuke Dukem]

Oh yes, I'm sure, and I wish them lots of fun. As for me, I'm not gonna praise adding a single graphical effect to an old game without adapting the overall presentation to suit said modern graphical effect. It's lipstick on a pig, nothing more.

What I would rather call it is "a charming tech demo". And I most definitely don't like to use terms like to use derogatory terms such as "lipstick on a pig" to denigrate someone else's work (that I'm being provided for free), just because it doesn't quite tickle my fancy.

Now we're talking about putting time and effort into something, right?

We've been talking about putting time and effort into something all along. However, Black Mesa is neither free nor is it a mod. It's a paid standalone game. You have to purchase it in order to play. Every game asset has been redone from scratch, levels have been expanded upon, numerous new ideas have been implemented. A large team of people worked on it for years. Any comparison between the two is improper and invalid.

Like I said, if you put your mind to doing something, do yourself the favour of doing it properly.

Someone may just do a mod that adds different muzzle flashes to a game because he doesn't like the default ones. He isn't being obligated to do new textures for the weapons or new weapon sounds. Nowhere is it written that if someone decides to add ray tracing to a game, he should sit down and remaster the whole game, redo the models, textures, sounds etc.

People are allowed to make smaller projects, tech demos and experiments. If one person or a very small team of people decides to do something, it's an effort just as valid as the efforts of a team of hundreds of people. Arguably even more so, when it's being provided for free.

There are many examples of smaller mods for popular games that have been combined into large "definitive remaster" mods that rival the efforts of large game studios. In a similar fashion, many of the pieces of software you use on a daily basis use in some form libraries that individuals or small teams worked on and provided for free use. It's the same idea and it works.

Please, do the others a favour and be more positive.

 

[kanecvr]

Interesting, but very very limited. Specifically asks for the Steam version of Doom 2. I don't own that, because I stopped buying older games on steam once they dropped windows XP support, and switched to Good old Games. GoG launcher doesn't support XP either, but they do provide offline installers, great way of getting games on real vintage hardware.

Game does not work with non steam version. It will either not launch, or does not render correctly. It also has an intro clip witch is quite annoying as it is unskippable. Nobody likes unskippable intros and promos guys.

It's also not possible to sideload bigger mods like brutal doom - they cause this version of GZDOOM to crash.

All in all, good idea, but very un-polished. Adding support for the GOG and Bethesta versions of the iWads would be a great start.