Helion

A modern Doom engine written from the ground up with a focus on performance.

Content creators have created maps that struggle to render at high framerates with even the latest and most expensive hardware. With Helion, Doom's most complex maps are no longer stressful on modern GPUs and playable on old hardware that was previously impossible.

Helion uses static rendering with a state management system to reconcile dynamic map changes in Doom. In contrast to the typical BSP tree rendering that requires significant CPU processing, Helion is able to manage dynamic changes and optimally utilize the GPU resulting in dramatic performance increases.

Helion supports WADs targeting vanilla, Boom, MBF, MBF21, UDMF (partial support), and ID24.

Minimum requirements are Windows 7 or Linux and an Open GL 3.3 capable GPU.

Screenshots

image:https://i.imgur.com/YBQJAc2.png[Doom E1M1 - True Color Mode] + Doom E1M1 - True Color Mode

image:https://i.imgur.com/WfNu68M.png[Doom E1M1 - Palette Color Mode] + Doom E1M1 - Palette Color Mode

image:https://i.imgur.com/lrksM1C.png[Eviternity MAP26 - Automap Overlay] + Eviternity MAP26 - Automap Overlay

image:https://i.imgur.com/iA4bVzs.png[Knee-Deep in Knee-Deep in ZDoom Z1M1] + Knee-Deep in Knee-Deep in ZDoom Z1M1

image:https://i.imgur.com/dVbYPg4.png[PUSSX Summer of Slaught MAP32] + PUSS X Summer of Slaughter MAP31: No Living Land (MAP32 in SOS_BOOM.wad)

image:https://i.imgur.com/XyD6UA2.png[Sunlust MAP28] + Sunlust MAP28

image:https://i.imgur.com/1w9t5N1.png[Eviternity II MAP32] + Eviternity II MAP32

Benchmarks

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19INwMjrppDO-n90HOc-Hhrs1tcqphrItQ_LhzRgurZc[Full Benchmark Spreadsheet]

image:https://i.imgur.com/DbxGlNy.png[Sunder MAP15]

image:https://i.imgur.com/QYXFuz4.png[Summer of Slaughter MAP32]

Installing and Playing

The latest stable release for Windows and most Linux distros can be https://github.com/Helion-Engine/Helion/releases/latest[downloaded here]. Nightly experimental builds are also https://github.com/Helion-Engine/Helion/releases/tag/nightly[available here] for users who want to test the latest features before they're ready.

Helion uses .NET 10. The AOT and self-contained Helion releases include it, otherwise Windows users will need to https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/10.0[install the Desktop Runtime], and Linux users will need to follow the https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux[instructions for their distro]. On Linux, you will also need to make sure OpenAL, libsndfile, and libmpg123 are installed.

For information on setting up and playing, see the bundled link:/Assets/Documentation/README.md[game documentation]. Note that you will need to provide an IWAD (game data file); we do not distribute these. Options include https://store.steampowered.com/app/2280/DOOM__DOOM_II/[Doom + Doom II], https://github.com/Doom-Utils/shareware-collection[Doom shareware], and https://freedoom.github.io/download.html[Freedoom].

If you want to compile from source, see the link:/INSTALL.adoc[build instructions].

Contact Us

If you want to talk about the game, follow development, or get involved, we have https://discord.gg/sb8P7Nuby8[a Discord server] as well as https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/132153-helion-c-0940-824-goodbye-bsp-tree-rendering/[a thread on the Doomworld forums].

If you encounter issues using Helion and would like to report a bug, you can do so either https://github.com/Helion-Engine/Helion/issues[here on GitHub Issues] or in the Doomworld thread above.