FastDOOM in CGA on 86Box (Amber Hellscape)

So anyone who isn't a stranger to this channel knows that I look for any excuse to play Doom. As such, when I heard about FastDOOM, I knew that I had to give it a try. Plus, I needed videos for Halloween. What's more Halloween than Doom! So, what is FastDOOM. FastDOOM is a massively optimized port of DOS Doom for the 386/486 PCs. Designed by Victor "Viti95" Neito, with contributions by many others, it has all that you would expect for Doom classic. However, it uses many CPU and visual optimizations to get the most out of Doom on that 386/486 PC.

However, the thing that got my attention is the support for legacy video modes. One who plays Doom knows that the official game only supports VGA/SVGA/VESA. However, this port adds support for the various CGA modes, Hercules, and EGA graphics. Now, these display modes usually tended to be a afterthought on 386 and later PC's because by the time of their proliferation, VGA had become the defacto standard. However, if I wanted to make use of such modes, I would need to setup a 386-based PC with such graphics support. Using a Juko AT0446DX3, an IBM-Compatible 386 PC, but with a Cyrix Cx486DRx2, which is basically a 486 processor designed for a 386 motherboard, one could get close that that max 486 performances demanded by DoomGuy. Of course, 8MB's of RAM is needed.

If Alley Cat, Moon Patrol, and Paratrooper run in CGA mode, then why not Doom! What would Doom look like in this legacy video mode, complete with the PC speakers from the machines of old. On one hand, Holy Crap is it hard to play Doom on anything that isn't VGA. On the other hand, the fact that I was playing Doom in CGA brought out unstrained joy as Imps started to die in gruesome ways. Even the technical limitations and drawbacks of CGA can't save them! Just seeing Doom on an Amber-scaled CGA display echoes a reddish Hellscape of intense slaughterer and torment for all who partake in.

86Box is emulating a IBM Compatible PC (Juko AT046DX3) with a Cyrix Cx486DRx2 CPU running at 66MHz and 8MB's of RAM. There is a PC/AT XTIDE Hard-disk controller with a 127MB hard-drive. MS-DOS v5.0 is installed. Doom is running in the 320 by 200 4-Color CGA screen mode (amber display). The PC speaker is used for sound effects, but the music is still there for your brains to rock out too!

Songs Used:
The Imp's Song
By Robert Prince
DOOM I Soundtrack
(85% of Playback Speed)

Software Used:
Recorded With OBS Studio
Composed In Kdenlive

Hardware Used:
PC equipped with a
AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU
6 Cores Running At 4.2GHz
AMD Radeon RX570 GPU
Windows 11