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When it launched at the end of November 1994, the Jaguar port of Doom was a revelation, though it was not without its compromises.

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The sense of depth in many scenes is significantly enhanced, with none of the depth banding seen on the PC original.

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It even delivered an upgrade of sorts over the PC game, supporting the CRY colour format, which sacrificed the range of colours available in favour of introducing a luminance element, allowing for smoother shading. John Carmack himself handled the initial Atari Jaguar port, tailoring aspects of the engine to better exploit the hardware's capabilities. The consoles had strengths of their own, of course, specifically bespoke scrolling and sprite rendering hardware, allowing for smooth 2D arcade games - game types that PC struggled to cope with.Д«ut change was inevitable and new consoles were en route, with 3D acceleration capabilities and much faster CPUs, making them a better fit for Doom's requirements. Wall segments can move up and down but not horizontally, rooms cannot exist on top of one another and slopes can't be drawn.Д®verything is powered by the CPU - the PC's core advantage over consoles of the period - which made ports to the likes of Mega Drive and Super NES virtually impossible, without custom hardware assistance, at least. It's still limited due to its two-dimensional nature, which is revealed by the fact that you can hit enemies at any elevation. What this all means is that Doom can present more complex levels than Wolfenstein: walls can be placed at any angle, variable floor heights are possible, leading to stairs and even moving platforms can be added. Wall textures are stretched and displayed using an almost scanline-like approach, drawing in strips from one side of the screen to the other while floors, or the 'visplane', use more of a flood fill approach. By going through the tree, the game tests which walls are visible and draws them on-screen from front to back. BSPs would become useful in many games going forward and in Doom, they allow the game to break up 2D map data into chunks or sectors, which are then stored in a BSP tree. Doom is not a raycaster though, instead relying on binary space partitioning.

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Doom doesn't actually deliver a full 3D engine: instead, it interprets and extrapolates out 2D level data while using clever tricks to give the illusion of 3D.Д«efore Doom, Wolfenstein 3D made use of raycasting, which uses the player's position and facing to determine what is drawn, by sweeping from left to right and drawing appropriately sized columns. Ingenious coding is, of course, the answer. The arrival of Doom left many wondering how John Carmack managed to pull off one of game's most impressive generational leaps in graphics technology. The irony is that back in 1993, PCs weren't exactly designed to support fast 3D graphics - or indeed 2D graphics, for that matter. However, back in 1993, full-fat Doom required a medium to high-end PC - and the race was on to accurately translate this incredible new experience to more affordable console hardware. Last week, Nintendo and Bethesda announced a handheld version of the Doom 2016 reboot, seemingly a technological miracle in handheld form. One of the most popular and influential titles of all-time, id software's Doom played a key part in gaming's challenging 90s transition from two to three dimensions, and its legacy of technical innovation continues to this day. It's a piece we're happy to republish today! Last year, DF Retro revisited Doom on every console platform, using today's Digital Foundry tools and methods to assess the quality of each port.

December 10th 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of Doom, the first-person shooter that changed everything, not only for PC gaming but for consoles too, as the hardware of the time attempted - with varying levels of success - to bring that classic PC experience to the living room.

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