2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2022score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN points to it as coverage of an impressive 3D game port on very limited hardware.
Modern Vintage Gamer looks at OpenLara, an open source Tomb Raider engine, running on the Game Boy Advance. The video explains how the port achieves playable speeds on the GBA's slow ARM CPU, with input from the developer XProger.
“I found some fascinating coverage of the OpenLara project, specifically for the port of Tomb Raider to the GBA.” (HN, 2022)
My favorite handheld port is this fan-made port of Tomb Raider to GBA. It's not even a demake, just a really optimized re-implementation of the engine. [this video]
A fan-made optimized engine re-implementation of Tomb Raider on GBA
You can get a measure of the performance from doom2 on an a4000 [link] 12mhz arm2 on a vga monitor (so slower fps than composite). Some other impressive feats are tomb raider and quake on the GBA (16mhz arm7tdmi), halflife on the Falcon, and Dread on the St and Amiga. [this video] [link] [link] [link]
Example of impressive 3D game ports on slow hardware
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