DOOM finally runs on the Neo Geo AES thanks to a custom-built raycasting engine

Long considered one of the most powerful consoles of its era, but also one of the hardest to program for 3D, the Neo Geo AES has just received an impressive demonstration: DoomGeo-AES, a homebrew prototype by developer Sabino that runs a DOOM-like engine directly on unmodified original hardware.

Rather than trying to turn the Neo Geo into a mini-PC capable of drawing a full framebuffer image the way DOOM does on a computer, Sabino completely rethought the rendering engine. Each column of the 3D view is represented by a sprite strip, whose vertical scaling is handled by the console's hardware sprite-scaling capabilities, while the engine itself only needs to calculate wall heights through raycasting.

An already feature-rich demo, but still silent

The current prototype already offers an 80-column first-person view with recognisable walls, movement, turning, strafing and firing, as well as doors, keys, pickups and secrets. A HUD displays the health bar, selected weapon and ammo count, for a total of eight animated weapons and several enemy types with projectiles and explosions, on a hand-drawn 16x16 showcase map. Sound, however, is not yet implemented, a notable absence for a DOOM experience.

The project, which builds on earlier work by Modern Vintage Gamer (MVG), is freely available on the project's GitHub repository. For curious readers who don't own a Neo Geo AES, Sabino also offers a version playable directly in the browser via the EmulatorJS emulator, allowing anyone to try the prototype with no installation required.

Source: GenerationAmiga