About
Per its Steam page, DOOM 3 is id Software's horror/action first-person shooter, originally released in 2004 and later remastered as the DOOM 3: BFG Edition in 2012, which also bundled the classic DOOM and DOOM II. Classic RBDoom 3 BFG (also called the DOOM-BFA / "Big Freaking Anniversary" Edition) is a community source port based on RBDOOM-3-BFG that enhances Ultimate DOOM, DOOM II, and DOOM 3. It ships no game data — players must own a legal copy of DOOM 3 BFG Edition (or the 2019 Bethesda.net release) and patch it to the latest version — and builds on Windows (Visual Studio/CMake) and Linux (GCC/CMake), with Steam/Discord achievement and overlay integration and Bink video playback via FFmpeg.
How it differs from the original
Compared to the base DOOM 3 experience, this port adds soft PCF shadow mapping, Half-Lambert lighting (as used in Half-Life 2) and an extra ambient render pass to reduce overall darkness, 64-bit HDR lighting with adaptive tone mapping, enhanced SMAA anti-aliasing, filmic post-processing, a restored flashlight from the original 2004 DOOM 3, and extended mod/launch-argument support for the classic DOOM titles; it explicitly does not support old DOOM 3 (2004) mods shipped as compiled binary (.dll) code.
Getting started
Players need to own DOOM 3 BFG Edition (or the 2019 Bethesda.net re-release) via Steam, GOG, Epic, or the Windows Store, patched to the latest version. After building the source (or using a pre-built binary), the game's base data is copied in alongside a generated resource file before launching. Optional extras like Final DOOM, Master Levels, and an EAX reverb addon can be added by copying their files into specific folders, and mods load via a launch argument naming the mod directory.
History
The soft-shadow technique used ("Carmack's Reverse" / depth-fail stencil shadow volumes) was patented by Creative Labs and only became freely usable again after that patent expired on 2019-10-13.
Known limitations
- compatibility: In some cases activating both SSAO and Soft Shadows might result in shadow artifacts.
- performance: Using the latest AMD Windows Driver (22.7.1 and newer) might result in worse performance than with previous versions (22.6.1 or older).
Media
Additional notes
- Known issue
- Enabling both SSAO and soft shadows together can cause shadow rendering artifacts, and some newer AMD Windows drivers (22.7.1+) reportedly perform worse than older ones.
- License
- Distributed under the GPL with additional id Software/ZeniMax terms; the release includes no copyrighted game data, which remains covered by the original EULA.