Key Takeaways
1. Doom has been successfully run on various unusual devices, including earbuds, in a project called Doombuds.
2. The game operates on the PineBuds Pro earbuds using an overclocked ARM Cortex M4F chip and optimized firmware.
3. Video output is managed through a serial UART connection, converting frames to JPEG format for streaming.
4. The setup achieves around 18 frames per second at Doom’s original resolution of 320 × 200 pixels.
5. Users can join a waiting list to play Doom through the earbuds, which are priced at $69.99.
The iconic game Doom has a reputation for functioning on almost any device. Over time, enthusiasts have successfully gotten the 1993 first-person shooter to work on various gadgets, including calculators, ATMs, and even digital pregnancy tests. Now, it has made its way onto earbuds. This innovative project, known as Doombuds, is built on the PineBuds Pro and was developed by Arin Sarkisian, a web developer from Australia.
Technical Details
The game operates solely on the headphones’ internal processor, thanks to the open-source firmware of the PineBuds Pro and several technical tweaks. The ARM Cortex M4F chip was overclocked from 100 MHz to 300 MHz, power-saving settings were turned off, and extra RAM was accessed by disabling a co-processor. Furthermore, the game itself underwent significant optimization—constant variables were relocated to flash storage, internal caching was removed, and a simplified version of the game known as “Squashware,” which is just 1.7 MB in size, replaced the standard shareware file.
Display and Performance
Since the earbuds do not have a screen, video output is managed through a serial UART connection. Each frame is converted to JPEG format and streamed to a browser as an MJPEG feed. At Doom’s original resolution of 320 × 200 pixels, the setup achieves approximately 18 frames per second. While it could theoretically reach up to 27 FPS, the actual performance is constrained by the CPU’s capacity to process real-time JPEG encoding.
Users can access the project’s website to join a waiting list and play Doom directly through the headphones, which are presently priced at $69.99 on the manufacturer’s site. Despite offering no real-world advantages, this experiment contributes cleverly to the ongoing “Can it run Doom?” phenomenon, proving the game can even function on devices that lack a display.
Source:
Link