As usual, AI researchers have got Doom running on Stable Diffusion

Key findings

  • Google researchers have made Doom run on an AI image generator.
  • The GameNGen project used AI agents to play Doom and simulate gameplay for the image generator.
  • The AI ​​version has some oddities, but overall it's an impressive achievement.



If it has a screen, it can run Doom. That mantra has encouraged people to run Doom on everything from Def-Con badges to lawnmowers. Now the trend continues, as researchers at Google have gotten a playable version of the classic FPS running inside an AI image generator.


Researchers make Doom work with stable diffusion


Discovered by Tom's HardwareThis project was developed by several researchers under the name GameNGen. The researchers created AI agents to play many games of Doom, rewarding them when they collected items and killed enemies, and punishing them when they got hurt or died. The researchers were then able to feed a lot of game data into a robust diffusion model that “remembered” what the levels looked like, where the enemies appeared, and how the game worked.

After completing the training, people were able to play Doom through Stable Diffusion. The player could give inputs to the model, and the AI ​​image generation model remembered what that action meant in terms of the game and replicated it as AI images. This includes fighting demons, with Stable Diffusion simulating both taking out monsters and taking damage from them.


The researchers claim that “human raters are only slightly better than chance at distinguishing short clips of gameplay from clips of the simulation,” but keen-eyed Doom fans will notice some oddities in the AI ​​version of the game. For example, the AI ​​has a lot of trouble displaying the ammo count in the bottom right, as the numbers regularly blend into one another. Additionally, Doom Guy's portrait either shakes uncontrollably or stays on one face for long periods of time. Still, getting a playable version of Doom running with an AI image generation mode is an impressive feat.

If you want to create some AI images yourself, be sure to check out the best AI image generators on the market.



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