The classic game of 1993, Doom, has become not only an icon of the gaming world, but also an object of interest for enthusiasts who try to run it on various devices that are not designed for this purpose. Thus, the retro shooter has been successfully launched on washing machines, ATMs, calculators, power banks, and headsets. It seemed that everything possible had already been checked. But the limit has not yet been reached—there are still many places that Doom has not visited. A team of engineers from Norway and ESA has raised the bar to a new level—literally. They managed to port Doom to the OP-SAT orbital satellite orbiting the Earth.
The story of this incredible experiment was told by software engineer Ólafur Waage. He was initially working on transferring the game code from C to C++ when his colleague Georges Labrèche approached him with an unusual question: could Doom be run on a satellite? Although Waage was not an avid gamer, this question sparked his interest in whether it was even possible. Without hesitation, the engineer agreed.
Laboratory in orbit
The OP-SAT satellite is a compact platform the size of a suitcase designed for scientific experiments. Its hardware, in particular the dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor, is radically different from conventional gaming devices. Launching a game in space required not only technical ingenuity, but also strict adherence to safety protocols.
The first step was to launch Doom in graphics-free mode to prove that the onboard system was capable of performing more complex calculations. This part turned out to be relatively simple. The real challenge was configuring the graphics output and integrating images of Earth into the gameplay.
Technological challenges and creative solutions
The most complex task was creating screenshots that would confirm the success of the experiment. Engineers replaced the game’s background image with real photographs of Earth taken by a satellite. However, Doom’s 256-color palette did not blend well with the high-quality space images.
To solve this problem, the team used a machine learning algorithm that optimized the color gamma. Due to technical limitations of the satellite camera, it was only possible to obtain perfect screenshots from time to time, but several successful shots became proof of this incredible event.
This experiment proved that even serious space technology can become a platform for creative initiatives. The launch of Doom on a satellite became another bright page in the history of porting the legendary game to the most unexpected devices.
Earlier, we reported on how a planet similar to Earth was discovered in the game No Man’s Sky.
According to techspot.com
