{"id":52728,"date":"2026-03-14T23:55:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=52728"},"modified":"2026-03-14T23:55:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:55:50","slug":"how-a-raspberry-pi-saved-the-super-nintendos-infamously-inferior-version-of-doomutm_sourcerss1-0mainlinkanonutm_mediumfeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/03\/14\/how-a-raspberry-pi-saved-the-super-nintendos-infamously-inferior-version-of-doomutm_sourcerss1-0mainlinkanonutm_mediumfeed\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Raspberry Pi Saved the Super Nintendo&#8217;s Infamously Inferior Version Of &#8216;Doom&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"text-180988194\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t&#8220;Just the anachronism of seeing <em>Doom<\/em>, one of the poster children for the moral panic around violent video games, on a Nintendo console is novel,&#8221; writes <em>Kotaku<\/em> \u2014 especially with the console&#8217;s underpowered &#8220;Super FX&#8221; coprocessor<\/p>\n<p><i>Hampered by a nearly unplayable framerate, especially in later levels, and mired by sacrifices, like altered levels, no floor or ceiling textures, and the entire fourth episode being cut, [1995&#8217;s] <em>Doom<\/em> on the Super NES was not a good version of the game, but it was <em>Doom<\/em> running on the Super NES, and, for that alone, [programmer Randal] Linden&#8217;s genius deserves recognition.<\/i> <\/p>\n<p>But then in 2022 when Audi Sorlie interviewed Linden on the YouTube show <em>DF Retro<\/em>, &#8220;Not really knowing where fate was going to take us, I asked [Linden] a throwaway question regarding the source code for <em>Doom<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><i>If you ever worked on this again, Sorlie asked, would you make any improvements or do anything differently?&#8221; <\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah,&#8221; Linden replied. &#8220;I have plenty of ideas if I could go back, but, you know, I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s asking me to go back to Super Nintendo <em>Doom<\/em> and improve it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>A few years passed, and Sorlie joined Limited Run Games as lead producer for their development department. When LRG asked him to run down his craziest ideas, a new, improved release of Randal Linden&#8217;s <em>Doom<\/em> loomed large.  Convincing Linden was easy, and Sorlie said even the folks at license holder Bethesda were more amused than anything.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You want to go back and develop for Super Nintendo?&#8221; they asked Sorlie. &#8220;Like, for real&#8230;?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The trick was actually pretty cool,&#8221; Linden said. &#8220;It&#8217;s right here.&#8221; He pointed to a chip on the prototype SNES cartridge, similar to the one Limited Run sent me to test out the game. &#8220;It&#8217;s a Raspberry Pi 2350.&#8221; Super FX chips are no longer in production for obvious reasons, but with a clever bit of programming, Linden was able to load software onto the Raspberry Pi that fools the SNES into thinking the game has one. &#8220;The Super Nintendo doesn&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s not talking to a Super FX,&#8221; he explained. When he programs for it, he writes code almost identical to what he&#8217;d write for an authentic Super FX chip. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had to go back and reverse-engineer my own code from 30 years ago,&#8221; Linden laughed. &#8220;It&#8217;s like, what was I doing here? And what was I doing there? Yeah, it was pretty tricky, some of the code. I was like, wow, I used to be very smart.&#8221;    The result of Linden&#8217;s work? It&#8217;s  <em>Doom<\/em>, running right on a Super Nintendo, but it&#8217;s smoother, packed with new content, and even includes rumble.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Raspberry #Saved #Super #Nintendos #Infamously #Inferior #Version #Doom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Just the anachronism of seeing Doom, one of the poster children for the moral panic around violent video games, on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52730,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52728\/revisions\/52730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}