Every now and then a Doom port comes along that truly surprises, and the new DoomPaint does exactly that. It was built by Mark Russinovich, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Azure, who decided to use Microsoft Paint as the display for the legendary 1993 shooter. The result is an open-source project that runs the actual Doom engine with the original DOOM1.WAD file, but without a dedicated window. Instead, every frame is copied to the Windows clipboard and pasted into Paint's canvas, just like a real document edit.
The project, called DoomPaint, shows how a creative use of system APIs can turn a simple drawing program into a video game output device. Russinovich explained on the GitHub repository that the engine is ViZDoom, a headless version of the classic id Software title, and that the episodes not included in the shareware are covered by the BSD-licensed Freedoom WADs. Everything runs quietly, but players can see the action directly inside the Paint window.
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A mechanism based on the Windows clipboard
The real magic of DoomPaint lies in how it works. The game engine runs without video rendering and produces each frame invisibly. That frame is then placed on the Windows clipboard and pasted into the Paint canvas as an actual document edit. This system, which takes advantage of the OLE clipboard mechanism, allows the game to reach a surprising smoothness, up to 35 frames per second. It is not the level of a modern PC, but for a title from the nineties it is a more than respectable result.
Russinovich added that the low frame rate is part of the project's charm. In certain situations the game can drop to speeds comparable to a spreadsheet, but that does not make the experience any less fun. The author has made all the files, resources, and instructions available on the GitHub site for anyone who wants to try DoomPaint on their computer. Depending on the machine, you can play at a resolution of 640 by 400 pixels, still at 35 FPS, complete with sound effects and music.
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A tribute to the history of computing
This is not the first time Doom has been run on improbable devices, but the choice of Paint has a special meaning. At the end of the README file, Russinovich jokes that Paint displays the game but does not compute it. Paint computes nothing. Paint has never computed anything. That is the joke. The reference to how Paint was historically seen as a simple and underpowered application makes the project even more fascinating.
Russinovich has been at Microsoft since 2006 and turned Sysinternals into a fundamental tool for Windows diagnostics. More recently, he has contributed to Azure's architecture, security, and reliability. Over the past year, he has also become a frequently heard voice on the shortcomings of Windows 11. The fact that this busy CTO found time for a project like DoomPaint is surprising, but it shows how a passion for programming can go beyond official duties.
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A future still full of surprises
While the industry looks at upcoming smartphones and major releases like the Pixel 11 or the iPhone 2028, projects like DoomPaint remind us that technology is also about experimentation and fun. The source code is released under the MIT license, so anyone can study it, modify it, and create their own version. It is a demonstration that, sometimes, the brightest ideas come from an unexpected combination of old and new tools.
For those who want to learn more, Wikipedia has a page dedicated to Doom that tells the story of the most ported game in history. A title that continues to surprise even after more than thirty years.
