How to get Doom running on your NES.

[Dark Pulse]

Stumbled upon this video while eating dinner, and no, before you ask, obviously this isn't running natively on an NES - it's cheating and using a Pi.

 

What it *IS* doing, however, is making use of the NES' PPU to control the graphics (so colors and so on are handled by the chip), and the CPU itself is still running at least sound-generating code (in addition to communicating with the PPU). Essentially it's using the Pi as a sort of graphics accelerator.

 

 

Chalk up one more victim to the "It Runs Doom" running list. I'm convinced eventually someone will figure out how to do off nothing but smoke signals and strings of yarn.

 

If you'd rather just watch the damn thing run and listen to some of those sweet, sweet 2A03 renditions of those classic Bobby Prince tracks, watch this instead.

 

 

[LadyVader1138]

You were on Reddit, weren't you?

[Dark Pulse]

I am on Reddit, but no, I stumbled across this independently of Reddit.

[LadyVader1138]

Then it is sheer coincidence I saw this there earlier today!

[amackert]

This looks really cool. Wish I was skilled enough at soldering to pull this off, but alas, I am not. It would make for a fun stream.

[Murdoch]

My eyes began to twitch just looking at the first frame. 3 seconds and I had to stop it. An interesting experiment though I guess.

[Dark Pulse]

Personally, the best part of it is that on the label, it's part of the "Ultra-Violence Series."

 

I laughed harder at that than I'd like to admit.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

This is an AWESOME build. I love it when people try putting DooM in to literally everything. NES is now (semi?) confirmed DooM-able! :3

[Maximum Matt]

That cartridge is TIGHT

[noisebloom]

Next thing you know they'll have it running on PC!

[Doomkid]

I saw this a month or so ago, it’s a super impressive feat. Even though it’s cheating, it’s still goddamn incredible. I remember some efforts to get doom clones (more like wolf3D) running using the NES’ native hardware:

 

 

NES and Doom are two of my favourite things. How does it control though?? D pad to walk around, B and A to strafe, start to shoot and select to scroll to next weapon? Run and Open would still need keys too. I guess he possibly explains it in the video but I’m just wondering what would be the most playable.

 

Christ, Odamex runs on a PI - you could theoretically connect to Doom servers from your NES... that’d be a real trip! The closest modern analog to playing SNES Doom on XBand, I guess. Awesome video!

[Dark Pulse]

51 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I saw this a month or so ago, it’s a super impressive feat. Even though it’s cheating, it’s still goddamn incredible. I remember some efforts to get doom clones (more like wolf3D) running using the NES’ native hardware:

 

 

The health being 6502% in the first video was a nice touch.

[Maximum Matt]

Now I wanna play old-school Starfox.

[WadArchive]

I saw the how to video the other day and have ordered some parts to give it a go

[Dark Pulse]

35 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

Now I wanna play old-school Starfox.

And now you've got me thinking about how sad it is that the younger generation of gamers just don't get that "Wow!" factor we had when that stuff was progressing at breakneck speeds. Going from jumping on Goombas to full-on 3D worlds within half a decade.

 

Hell, I remember that coming out and just being utterly floored by it. (Mind you, at this time I hadn't been exposed to stuff like Doom - that'd come within a year or two.)

 

12 minutes ago, WadArchive said:

I saw the how to video the other day and have ordered some parts to give it a go

Would love to see you roll that beautiful bean footage make some crisper footage captured off some kind of capture device. :)

[WadArchive]

10 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

 

Would love to see you roll that beautiful bean footage make some crisper footage captured off some kind of capture device. :)

It will take a while for the parts to arrive but I think I still have a capture device somewhere. If there isn't decent footage/screens by then I will see if I can capture some

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, WadArchive said:

It will take a while for the parts to arrive but I think I still have a capture device somewhere. If there isn't decent footage/screens by then I will see if I can capture some

As far as I know the only footage that exists is what that guy posted, and obviously camming your CRT is less than ideal quality from a visual standpoint :P

[KVELLER]

I'd love to have a full playlist with those awesome NES renditions of the game's music.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, KVELLER said:

I'd love to have a full playlist with those awesome NES renditions of the game's music.

Someone could rip the NSF. But I want it too.

[BBQgiraffe]

is this like a Python script that sends RGB data to the cart or is the Doom code itself modified? if it's an external program it should technically possible to run Quake

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, BBQgiraffe said:

is this like a Python script that sends RGB data to the cart or is the Doom code itself modified? if it's an external program it should technically possible to run Quake

Far as I know, it essentially uses the Pi as a graphics processor, but the movement to and from video data is done using the actual NES. So the Pi is making the graphics processing happen, but the NES is doing the actual display, refresh, etc. of the image.

[BBQgiraffe]

4 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Far as I know, it essentially uses the Pi as a graphics processor, but the movement to and from video data is done using the actual NES. So the Pi is making the graphics processing happen, but the NES is doing the actual display, refresh, etc. of the image.

No I know the pi is running the graphics but I'm trying to figure out if a external program is doing it or is it a mod to the souce?

[Dark Pulse]

39 minutes ago, BBQgiraffe said:

No I know the pi is running the graphics but I'm trying to figure out if a external program is doing it or is it a mod to the souce?

No external program; I think it's pumping data straight to and from the NES' APU.

[WadArchive]

On 9/4/2019 at 9:45 AM, Dark Pulse said:

As far as I know the only footage that exists is what that guy posted, and obviously camming your CRT is less than ideal quality from a visual standpoint :P

So I finally got it put together and captured some images. I only have a cheapo capture card using composite so the quality isn't as good as it could be. I have recorded some video but for some reason there started to be some popping/cracking in the video.

 

edit: here is a video https://youtu.be/xE7ig2bmD-g audio is a bit crap along with the video

 

Edited November 15, 2019 by WadArchive : added youtube link

[Malurek]

run doom on a commadore, or an atari

[NaturalTvventy]

I’m going to go play NEIS on my NES.

[Chipper35]

This is PROFOUNDLY excellent!!