Doom Is Now Playable On Microsoft Paint

Microsoft Paint has joined the absurdly long list of things capable of displaying Doom.

Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich has released DoomPaint on GitHub, an experimental project that turns Paint into a playable display for id Software’s legendary 1993 shooter. Better yet, this is not a prerecorded animation dressed up to look interactive; it uses the real Doom engine and loads the genuine shareware DOOM1.WAD file.

DoomPaint Uses A Clever Clipboard Trick

Calling this Doom running inside Paint requires one important caveat. Paint is not executing the game engine or suddenly supporting playable software. Instead, DoomPaint runs the engine separately and repeatedly sends its rendered frames to the Paint canvas.

Each frame is copied through the Windows clipboard before being pasted into Paint, effectively transforming the application into an unconventional monitor. As Russinovich explains, the rapid clipboard process allows DoomPaint to update the canvas at up to 35 frames per second.

That is not exactly the cleanest display pipeline ever created, but it is surprisingly effective. The game remains controllable, and the project also supports its original music and sound effects. In practical terms, you are playing authentic shareware Doom while Paint handles the visuals.

Doom Continues To Run On Almost Everything

At this point, getting Doom running on unusual hardware and software has become a programming tradition. The shooter has appeared on calculators, printers, cameras, and countless other devices never designed for gaming.

DoomPaint still stands out because it turns one of Windows’ most familiar applications into a responsive game display using an everyday feature most people reserve for copying screenshots.

Is it practical? Absolutely not. Is watching Paint deliver Doom at up to 35 FPS deeply impressive anyway? Without question.