Engineers at Silicon Labs have added a brand new entry to the basic “can it run Doom” record, taking SparkFun’s Web of Issues (IoT) centered Factor Plus Matter board and porting the favored 90s first-person shooter to the platform — full with Bluetooth Low Vitality (BLE) multiplayer capabilities.
“Within the spirit of Doom’s thirtieth birthday (blissful birthday Doom!) our associates over at SiLabs ported this basic to our greatest collaborative launch of the 12 months, the SparkFun Factor Plus Matter Board that includes the MGM240P wi-fi module,” SparkFun writes by means of introduction to the undertaking. “The very best half, it runs BLE-based multiplayer!”
The SparkFun Issues Plus Matter launched earlier this 12 months as a tool closely centered on Web of Issues (IoT) initiatives, packing a SiLabs MGM240P wi-fi module — offering assist for IEEE 802.15.4 and Bluetooth Low Vitality (BLE) connectivity, making it suitable with the brand new cross-vendor Matter sensible dwelling commonplace.
SiLabs’ newest undertaking with the board, although, focuses much less on the sensible dwelling and extra on a demonic one: porting Doom, Id Software program’s basic 1993 first-person shooter which spawned a era of “Doom-likes,” to the platform, becoming a member of an extended record of Doom-compatible units starting from the Raspberry Pi Pico to Teletext-capable TVs — and even, in a single notably uncommon undertaking, porting Doom to Doom.
A service with eight-key gamepad-style keyboard, battery, and show flip the SparkFun Factor Plus Matter right into a handheld Doom console. (📷: Silicon Labs)
“Porting Doom to a microcontroller or RF [Radio Frequency] system on a chip (SoC) is commonly very difficult,” SiLabs’ Nicola Wrachien writes of the undertaking, “as a result of usually the out there RAM is far smaller the unique Doom necessities, that are a minimum of 4MB for the unique DOS model.”
The goal gadget in SiLabs’ undertaking has simply 256kB of static RAM (SRAM), together with 1.5MB of inside flash. To complement this, and to satisfy the goal of a tool which has “no discount within the graphics or sport engine [quality] and might run on a 320×240 show with stereo audio and full music assist, SiLabs added two 8MB SPI flash chips for storing the sport recordsdata, an SD Card, and a shift register for an eight-key keyboard offering native management.
The port permits for full multiplayer, with the units connecting over Bluetooth Low Vitality. (📷: Silicon Labs)
Maybe probably the most spectacular a part of the port, although, is that it contains multiplayer capabilities — connecting suitable units collectively over Bluetooth Low Vitality for some basic deathmatch motion. “Multiplayer runs usually at 320×240 pixels at round 30 fps [frames per second] even with 4 gamers,” Wrachien says.
“All these performances are achieved when the music is enabled (default configuration). All of the full-edition sport maps work even on the ‘Extremely-Violence’ problem stage, i.e. the place all of the objects are spawned within the map, representing probably the most memory-intensive operation.”
The total undertaking write-up is obtainable on the Silicon Labs web site, with further technical particulars on Subsequent-Hack.com; the undertaking supply code and {hardware} design for the service board which provides the eight-key management system, can be found on GitHub beneath numerous licenses.
