The Unofficial Doom 64 Tweaks Guide

A couple of things to do that may improve your Doom 64 experience.

Introduction

UPDATE: Many changes and fixes has been implemented in an official patch released on February 24, 2022, thus many of the tweaks and fixes for glaring issues with the game has become irrelevant. Things has been cleaned up to reflect the new updates.

Doom 64 was originally a Nintendo 64 game developed by Midway Games with supervision from id Software. The game was the true sequel to Doom II, however, thematically it was also one to the PlayStation version as they share a similarly darker atmosphere over the original MS-DOS games (and ports thereof), reused sound effects from the PlayStation version, features a haunting and foreboding soundtrack composed by Aubrey Hodges, and the same code base as the Jaguar version. It was also the last hoo-rah for the id Tech 1 Engine, featuring unique effects and features such as colored lighting, fog, animated skies, and an advanced lighting system among other things.

For many years, Doom 64 was a game thought to be lost in time, being exclusive to the Nintendo 64 (outside of the fan-made Doom 64 EX port) and Midway's dissolution in the late 2000's certainly didn't help matters, however, thanks to Nightdive Studios and Bethesda, we can now experience this overlooked gem among the Doom franchise in a modern context on multiple platforms. That said, while I am enjoying this updated version of Doom 64, there are some things that bother me with this re-release on PC, and whether or not these issues will be officially addressed, I decided to make this guide to encapsulate some tweaks and fixes for the game.

Important note: Back-up your original Doom 64 installation and configuration files before you make any of the changes shown here!

Skipping intro videos

The latest patch for Doom 64 has added ways to skip the intro videos from keyboard or controller, however, these workarounds can allow the game to skip them without user input. Here are the following ways to make getting into Doom 64 even quicker when launching the game.

Using a command-line parameter

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2027379157

Renaming / moving / deleting the "movies" folder

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2041751166

Disable intro videos in configuration file

Not as widely used as the above two methods, but you can disable intro videos from starting playing by editing the configuration file.

1. Go to your <user-profile>\Saved Games\Nightdive Studios\DOOM 64 folder and open your kexengine.cfg file with a text editor. You can quickly access this folder by using Run or Windows Key+R, then enter the following and press Enter to open this folder.
   

   %UserProfile%\Saved Games\Nightdive Studios\DOOM 64

   
   
2. Look for this line and change the value of this CVAR to "0".
   

   seta g_showintromovie "1"

   
   
3. Save the changes. This should tell the game to not play the intro videos anymore unless you re-initialize your settings; see the default.cfg tweaks section if you want to have it always disabled.

default.cfg tweaks

This is a tweaked default.cfg I originally put together for the game to address then formally broken DirectX 11 shaders and make the game run off OpenGL by default. Some of the tweaks remains, namely the modified default controller and keyboard to fit more in line to the console versions of Doom and Doom II.

So in between trying to correct having "Use" set to both Left Trigger and A button, I was making some other changes for some things I didn't quite agree with from the default settings with Doom 64's default.cfg file. Some of the changes I went and made are:

• Have the game use OpenGL API instead of Vulkan in case someone's PC doesn't have access to Vulkan support on their video card.
  
  
• Disabled intro videos completely by default (in case anyone forgets to delete the video files/use command-line parameters).
  
  
• Changed default controls to not only fix the "Use" on Left Trigger problem, but also took inspiration from the newer console ports of classic Doom with added classic PC controls along with some tweaks to the modern keyboard and mouse set-up. Right-click can also be used as "Cancel" in the menus.

If you wish to make use these tweaked settings for the default.cfg file, then follow these instructions:

1. Open the Doom64.kpf file with an archive edit like 7zip or WinRar like in the Fixing the DirectX 11 Shaders procedure (7zip will be used in this example).
   
   
2. While viewing the contents of Doom64.kpf, right-click its default.cfg file delete it, we will be replacing it with a new one.
   
   
3. Download this default.cfg file with the edits I've made: Download[drive.google.com]
   
   
4. Take the default.cfg that you have downloaded and insert it back into the root of the Doom64.kpf file.
   
   
5. (Optional) Delete your existing kexengine.cfg file found in this location if you wish to see the changed default settings immediately:
   

   %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Nightdive Studios\DOOM 64\kexengine.cfg

Restoring the original red medical crosses

Due to the Red Cross stomping down on the use of red medical crosses in media, Doom 64, along with the 7th gen ports of Doom games and onwards, the red medical crosses were altered. There are two ways you can go about this: A) Use a PWAD to restore them without editing the game's files, which sadly counts as a cheat (unless you use this fix below), or B) edit the game's IWAD file with SLADE. If you want to see how to restore the red medical crosses back into the PC version, see this guide by General Plastro:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2028148168

Other useful tools

Doom 64 Unofficial Configuration Tool

This tool written by Suicide Machine allows users to modify settings of the official 2020 re-release of Doom 64, simplify the cumbersome rebinding process of the game (especially useful for non-QWERTY keyboards), and change basic graphics settings (including enabling the DirectX 11 shaders fix).

Download: https://github.com/SuiMachine/Doom-64-Unofficial-Configuration-Tool/releases

Credits and closing remarks

I hope this helped anyone reading this guide with addressing issues present in the official 2020 re-release of this overlooked gem among the Doom franchise. I also want to thank the respective authors featured below of each guided featured here and granting permission to feature them here, they definitely deserve thanks for lending their support for fixing up this game.

Credits

Suicide Machine - Providing the instructions for the intro skip via command-line via his Steam guide, instructions for fixing the DirectX 11 shaders within the game, creating the Unofficial Configuration Tool and Sui's Hacks for Doom 64.

Kaiser - Providing a workaround for the current DirectX 11 shaders.

Grooves - Providing a way to skip intro videos by deleting the intro videos folder via his Steam guide.

General Plastro - For providing players a way to restore the original red medical crosses into the official 2020 port of Doom 64 through SLADE or the PWAD.

Zelkar - Mentioning how the chaingun's clipping error can be fixed via SLADE.

SlayeR - Author of the SLADE editing tool which helped restore the original red medical crosses and fixed the offset of the chaingun's sprites.

Have a DOOG.



Source: akashibag (credit to The Chicken Hunter)

https://twitter.com/akashibag/status/1269280995594735623

[Nameless]

@Dark Jaguar Open BNet.kpf with 7zip and replace gfx\spinner.png with a blank 96x96 png

[Bloodfalls]

BASED

[Abbanon]

The download to the edited "default.cfg" file leads to a 404, so it can't be accessed.
Mind supplying a new link?

[Blaz]

@AmethystViper I have this problem where these sorts of horizontal lines appear in the rocket launcher and unmaker's sprites when I fire them. Is there any way I can fix this? The lines appear on any renderer but are most notable on Vulkan.

[magazine permafrost]

@Dark Jaguar
could possibly find that texture for that bit of UI and replace it with a completely bare .png image so you see nothing. thats the simplest solution i can think of to remove the ugly and out-of-place loading symbol

[Dark Jaguar]

Is there a mod available that would remove that annoying spinning Bethesda loading square from view? Most of the game has a nice retro feel but that spinning white box drags me kicking and screaming back to 2021. Of course it's not a big deal and I have no clue what sort of mod work would go into hiding or removing that graphic, but it would be appreciated in any case.

[Harpy Hugger]

yeah but i use vulkan

[aliensectfriend]

@The Dutch Cyborg You need to make sure you take the "hard" exit, which needs all 3 keys, as opposed to the "easy" one needing only 1 key. Then it should unlock a Features menu in the options.

[The Dutch Cyborg]

I read something about being able to jump in DOOM 64 on the DOOM Fandom wiki, but even after beating Hectic (which the page for MAP29 implies you have to do to unlock jumping) I am not able to jump.

[Oh The Folly]

Yeah, turning on "Allow background processing of Vulkan shaders" fixes it. Steam Overlay does work now in Vulkan with it set to fullscreen.