Engineers at Silicon Labs have added a brand new entry to the basic “can it run Doom” checklist, 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 (completely happy birthday Doom!) our pals over at SiLabs ported this basic to our greatest collaborative launch of the yr, the SparkFun Factor Plus Matter Board that includes the MGM240P wi-fi module,” SparkFun writes by the use of introduction to the venture. “The perfect half, it runs BLE-based multiplayer!”
The SparkFun Issues Plus Matter launched earlier this yr as a tool closely centered on Web of Issues (IoT) tasks, 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 good dwelling customary.
SiLabs’ newest venture with the board, although, focuses much less on the good dwelling and extra on a demonic one: porting Doom, Id Software program’s basic 1993 first-person shooter which spawned a technology of “Doom-likes,” to the platform, becoming a member of a protracted checklist of Doom-compatible units starting from the Raspberry Pi Pico to Teletext-capable TVs — and even, in a single significantly uncommon venture, porting Doom to Doom.
A provider 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 venture, “as a result of sometimes the accessible RAM is way smaller the unique Doom necessities, that are at the very least 4MB for the unique DOS model.”
The goal gadget in SiLabs’ venture has simply 256kB of static RAM (SRAM), together with 1.5MB of inner flash. To complement this, and to fulfill 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 information, 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 essentially 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 sometimes 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’ issue degree, i.e. the place all of the objects are spawned within the map, representing essentially the most memory-intensive operation.”
The total venture write-up is on the market on the Silicon Labs web site, with extra technical particulars on Subsequent-Hack.com; the venture supply code and {hardware} design for the provider board which gives the eight-key management system, can be found on GitHub beneath varied licenses.