Operating DOOM on ARM? Previous hat. Operating Doom (2016) on an ARM SBC? Effectively, that’s a bit extra attention-grabbing, and [Interfacing Linux] reveals us how with this useful information, and in a video embedded beneath.
The ARM SBC in query is the Radxa Orion O6, which claims to be the world’s first open supply ARMv9 motherboard. It has a 12-core ARM9.2 SoC from Cix, and crucially for gaming, a PCIe x16 slot to suit a graphics card. There’s onboard graphics within the SoC, after all, however that’s solely going to chop it for outdated DOOM, not Doom (2016).
Clearly there isn’t a ARMv9 construct of this nine-year-old basic. Thus, a sure diploma of hacking is required. An x86 emulation layer known as FEX is used to run Steam, which incorporates the Proton compatibility layer to take a seat between the Linux system and the Home windows system calls the video games are making.
So, once more: Home windows video games, working through a compatibility layer on a Linux system working on an x86 emulator, working on one other Linux system, working on ARM {hardware}. Yeah, we’d name {that a} hack, and simply probably cursed. The wonderful factor is that it works. So long as you utilize a PCI 3.0 graphics card, anyway; apparently newer ones don’t work, or no less than not the one [Interfacing Linux] needed to strive. (Some report higher luck with newer NVIDIA playing cards.) Which is a pity, as a result of each sport examined is GPU-throttled on this technique. Contemplating the CPU must be dealing with all of the emulation, that simply goes to indicate how GPU-heavy even 10-year-old video games are.
[Interfacing Linux] appears to get pleasure from working issues the place they need to not; we simply wrote up their SteamOS console.
This isn’t the primary time a Radxa board has proven up on Hackaday both, however they don’t appear to be practically as common because the fruit-flavoured competitors for the type of tasks we often see. When you’ve bought venture utilizing certainly one of these highly effective ARM boards– or anything, don’t hesitate to ship us a tip!
