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 and an Open GL 3.3 capable GPU.
Doom E1M1 - True Color Mode
Doom E1M1 - Palette Color Mode
Eviternity MAP26 - Automap Overlay
Knee-Deep in Knee-Deep in ZDoom Z1M1
PUSS X Summer of Slaughter MAP32 (SOS_BOOM.wad)
Sunlust MAP28
Eviternity II MAP32
The latest stable release for Windows and most Linux distros can be downloaded here. Nightly experimental builds are also available here for users who want to test the latest features before they’re ready.
Helion uses .NET 9. The self-contained Helion releases include it, otherwise Windows users will need to install the Desktop Runtime, and Linux users will need to follow the 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 game documentation.
If you want to compile from source, see the build instructions.
If you want to talk about the game, follow development, or get involved, we have a Discord server as well as a thread on the Doomworld forums.
If you encounter issues using Helion and would like to report a bug, you can do so either here on GitHub Issues or in the Doomworld thread above.