7th July 2025, 10:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th July 2025, 10:34 PM by A Black Falcon.)
For whatever reason this still is not preorderable, but LRG sent prototype copies out for review, including to some critics of their recent retro products. The impressions are positive, as you see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0NqVxfXzLI
Basically, the "Super FX 3" board, by Bitmap Bureau, uses a Raspberry Pi 3 chip on the board to emulate a 150Mhz version of the Super FX. This allows for them to double framerates in SNES Doom versus the Super FX 2 chip it used. They are using the Pi because it's the cheapest chip they could find that can emulate the Super FX 3 chip that SNES Doom's original programmer, Randy Linden, who again is also behind this remake of his work from almost 30 years after the original, designed.
What do I think of this? Well, obviously, using a modern chip like the omnipresent Raspberry Pi to do the work is kind of lame, I don't like it. I prefer modern retro games that use hardware possible at the time. I know that this one is trying to split the difference there by using a modern chip to emulate something possible in the later '90s (though probably not in 1995 or 1996, not at 160Mhz), so it's not as bad as some uses of powerful modern chips, but... eh, I have mixed feelings. Will I buy this though once it finally comes up for preorder, sure. But it's not a real "something that could have happened then" game in terms of framerate and game speed.
Also, apparently they are adding a password system for accessing levels directly, in addition to other improvements like a main menu, circle-strafing, something like 14 more levels, and more. I really wonder how this will work, given that SNES Doom keeps track of your weapons and ammo and not only the level you are at, so that when you die you respawn with the weapons ammo you started the level with. Will the passwords be really long and annoying, or will it only save the level and not the weapons and ammo, making the game much harder than it's supposed to be? A save chip would have been a much better solution than passwords. Too bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0NqVxfXzLI
Basically, the "Super FX 3" board, by Bitmap Bureau, uses a Raspberry Pi 3 chip on the board to emulate a 150Mhz version of the Super FX. This allows for them to double framerates in SNES Doom versus the Super FX 2 chip it used. They are using the Pi because it's the cheapest chip they could find that can emulate the Super FX 3 chip that SNES Doom's original programmer, Randy Linden, who again is also behind this remake of his work from almost 30 years after the original, designed.
What do I think of this? Well, obviously, using a modern chip like the omnipresent Raspberry Pi to do the work is kind of lame, I don't like it. I prefer modern retro games that use hardware possible at the time. I know that this one is trying to split the difference there by using a modern chip to emulate something possible in the later '90s (though probably not in 1995 or 1996, not at 160Mhz), so it's not as bad as some uses of powerful modern chips, but... eh, I have mixed feelings. Will I buy this though once it finally comes up for preorder, sure. But it's not a real "something that could have happened then" game in terms of framerate and game speed.
Also, apparently they are adding a password system for accessing levels directly, in addition to other improvements like a main menu, circle-strafing, something like 14 more levels, and more. I really wonder how this will work, given that SNES Doom keeps track of your weapons and ammo and not only the level you are at, so that when you die you respawn with the weapons ammo you started the level with. Will the passwords be really long and annoying, or will it only save the level and not the weapons and ammo, making the game much harder than it's supposed to be? A save chip would have been a much better solution than passwords. Too bad.
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