Right here we go once more! One other day, one other bizarre option to play Doom . This time it’s not an obscure IoT system or retro pc that’s operating everybody’s favourite demon-blasting FPS sport. Michael Ayles has executed one thing far stranger and fewer sensible than that by combining KiCad and Doom into one bundle. If you happen to want a break from working in your PCB design, now you gained’t even have to shut KiCad to do some gaming.
Ayles’ creation, known as KiDoom, technically doesn’t run Doom — that’s dealt with by the same old sport engine through the doomgeneric supply code port. Nonetheless, KiCad’s PCB Editor is used because the frontend, displaying the graphics one of the simplest ways it is aware of how. What it is aware of, after all, is PCBs. As such, copper traces have been drawn to characterize partitions, whereas element footprints served as enemies, well being packs, and different sport gadgets. Be careful for these QFP-64 chips! These are the unhealthy guys.
As a substitute of trying to render Doom pixel-by-pixel — which preliminary checks confirmed would crawl alongside at roughly 0.15 FPS — Ayles realized that the unique engine already builds geometry as vectors. PCB traces, in spite of everything, are simply vectors in copper. By extracting wall and sprite knowledge instantly from the sport’s drawsegs[] and vissprites[] buildings, KiCad solely has to replace 100–300 line segments per body as a substitute of pushing tens of 1000’s of pixels. That effectivity is what makes this weird experiment playable, clocking in at round 10–25 frames per second, relying on the {hardware}.
It’s onerous to name KiDoom helpful, however that’s not likely the purpose. Doom has been run on every thing from printers to oscilloscopes, and this venture raises the bar in its personal distinctive manner. And if you happen to’ve received nothing higher to do that weekend, you possibly can attempt it out for your self .Enjoying Doom in KiCad (📷: Michael Ayles)
