Doom Game Runs Inside Windows 11 Paint Application
A new project, DoomPaint, allows the classic Doom game to be played directly within the Windows 11 Paint application. The game renders in the background, with its visuals transferred to the Paint canvas.
A project dubbed DoomPaint, developed by Microsoft Azure's Chief Technology Officer Mark Russinovich, enables the classic Doom video game to run inside the Windows 11 Paint application. This endeavor uses the Paint application's canvas as the display window for the game.
The game is rendered in the background using the ViZDoom engine branch. Each frame of the game is then transferred to the Paint application's canvas via the Windows clipboard. The original Doom game files and soundtrack are provided by DOOM1.WAD.
DoomPaint supports full keyboard controls and reproduces the game's sound effects and MIDI music. The default resolution is set at 640x400 pixels, achieving up to approximately 35 frames per second. Lowering the resolution to 320x200 can increase the frame rate.
Unlike previous methods that mirrored or screen-recorded a separate game window into Paint, DoomPaint uses the Paint canvas as the sole display area, with no secondary Doom window. Player input is also routed through Paint. The game's Heads-Up Display (HUD) elements, such as health and ammo, are positioned at the bottom of the canvas.
Sound effects are outputted via OpenAL, and music is extracted from the WAD file, converted to MIDI format, and played through the Windows MIDI sequencer.