[HN Gopher] Game Made for VR on a $1 Processor?
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       Game Made for VR on a $1 Processor?
        
       Author : RicoElectrico
       Score  : 83 points
       Date   : 2023-02-24 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | haburka wrote:
       | Absolutely insane level of integrations and reverse engineering
       | across a vast, unruly tech stack. Additionally with a hard
       | deadline, I can only imagine the difficulty of delivering this,
       | especially without too many bugs.
        
         | cnlohr wrote:
         | The surprising part is, thinking back to it, I don't know if
         | any bugs surfaced. Nothing really glitched out. As long as the
         | internet was up, everything just ... worked. And it's not like
         | I tried extra hard to make it that way. I guess I just threaded
         | the needle luckily.
        
       | hungryforcodes wrote:
       | So what is the processor?
        
         | snvzz wrote:
         | Tensilica Xtensa.
        
         | dvh wrote:
         | ESP-32 S2
        
       | charcircuit wrote:
       | Cool, but the game running on the $1 processor isn't a "game made
       | for VR." I clicked to see what kind of compromises would be
       | necessary to render 2 eyes at a high frequency, but it turns out
       | it wasn't a VR game at all.
        
         | NathanWilliams wrote:
         | "Cool, but"
         | 
         | Wow, did you actually watch the video, and understand what was
         | accomplished?
         | 
         | The technical expertise shown in this project is extremely
         | impressive, and you are getting hung up on the title not living
         | up to your interpretation of it.
        
         | jermaustin1 wrote:
         | I'd say the game made for the swadge (or whatever he kept
         | saying), was extended into VR. I wouldn't consider the title
         | misleading, just not as clearly communicated as it could have
         | been.
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | There was interop with VRChat, but I wouldn't say that VRChat
           | was running on the swadge. And VRChat itself is both a
           | desktop game and a VR game. I can understand your point, but
           | it is easy for one to assume that the video will include a VR
           | game on a $1 processor.
        
       | depingus wrote:
       | This was incredible feat of engineering hacks. And it all came
       | together beautifully. Great post!
        
       | stavros wrote:
       | "A processor designed to operate little more than a light bulb."
       | 
       | Come on, the ESP32 has a 240 MHz CPU, 320 KB of RAM, and WiFi!
       | It's more powerful than my first computer, and that did a lot
       | more than a light bulb!
       | 
       | Kids these days...
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | Agreed. The ESP32 can run Windows 3.0, aside many other
         | interesting things.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDV8q9bwW7c
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz9D9lpATwg
         | 
         | CNLohr is a genius, but that line is quite a stretch.
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | In CPU terms at least, 33x more powerful than my once-beloved
         | Amiga 500, which was my first 'real' computer after 8-bits.
         | Only slightly slower than my first PC in the late 90s, which
         | ran at 266mhz.
         | 
         | Looks like the ESP32 costs PS5, lol.
        
         | dragontamer wrote:
         | ATMega328p (Aka: Arduino Uno) is 24MHz, 2kB of SRAM, and 32kB
         | of Flash (ROM / program space).
         | 
         | Arduino Uno is more powerful than the NASA Apollo Guidance
         | Computer that guided the space program to land on the moon (43
         | kHz). With an addon SPI-SRAM chip, you could have more SRAM
         | than the guidance computer too.
        
         | RajT88 wrote:
         | This is more powerful than my third computer...
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | My first computer was a person!
        
       | 1-6 wrote:
       | This is a perfect example of do less with less.
        
       | brink wrote:
       | We're still romanticizing "the connections" made from people
       | jumping up and down in front of a camera and a screen?
        
         | RadixDLT wrote:
         | its called exercise
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Elidrake42 wrote:
         | I have a number of long lasting relationships that began/spent
         | years in front of a camera. You should consider that what
         | you're bringing to the table in these interactions might be
         | limiting the scope of what you can get out of it.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | young-cache wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
           | RadixDLT wrote:
           | lol
        
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       (page generated 2023-02-24 23:02 UTC)