Games

818 Articles

Building An X86 Gaming PC Without Intel, NVIDIA Or AMD Parts

April 30, 2026 by 30 Comments

This is an interesting challenge from the “why not?” files — [GPUSpecs] over on YouTube built a gaming PC without using a single component from NVIDIA, Intel, or AMD. That immediately makes us think of the high-power ARM workstations or perhaps even perhaps the new “AI workstations” coming available with RISC V architecture, but the challenge here was specifically “gaming PC,” not workstation. A gaming PC, without a GPU by one of those three? To make it even more interesting, the x86 CPU isn’t Intel or AMD either.

If you’re of a certain vintage, you may remember Cyrix. Cyrix reverse-engineered the x86 ISA and made their own compatible chips in the 90s, before being bought out by National Semiconductor, and then VIA Technologies. VIA partnered with the Government of Shanghai to found Zhaoxin, and it is from Zhaoxin that the KaiXian KX 7000 CPU hails — an x86-64 device, that isn’t Intel or AMD. We’ve actually covered the company before. This particular chip benchmarks like an old i5, so not spectacular, but usable. 

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Wipeout Clone Runs Native On ESP32-S3

April 29, 2026 by 9 Comments

Psygnosis’s 1995 game Wipeout is remembered for two things: being one of the greatest games of all time, and taking advantage of the then-new PlayStation’s capacity for 3D graphics. The ESP32-S3 might not be your first choice to replace Sony’s iconic console, but [Michael Biggins] a.k.a. [PhonicUK] is working on doing just that, with his own clone of Wipeout on the Expressif MCU. 

It’s actually not that crazy when you think about it. The PlayStation had a 32-bit RISC processor, and the ESP32-S3 is a 32-bit RISC processor. The PlayStation’s was only good for about 30 Million Instructions Per Second (MIPS) but it had a graphics co-processor to help out with the polygons — the ESP32-S3 has two cores that can help each other, which combine to about 300 MIPS. In terms of RAM, the board in use has 8 MB of PSRAM, while the faster 512 kB on the chip is used, in effect, as video ram.

The demo is very impressive, especially considering he’s fit in three computer players. He’s also got it blasting out 60 frames per second, which is probably double what the original Wipeout ran on the PS1. Part of that is the two cores in action: he’s got them working together on the interlaced video output, one sending while the other finishes the second half of the frame. Each half of the video gets dedicated space in the internal memory. Using a 480×320 pixel display doesn’t hurt for speed, either. Sure, it’s paltry by modern standards, but the original Wipeout got by with even fewer pixels — and it didn’t run on a microcontroller. Granted it’s a beefy micro, but we really love how [Michael] is pushing its limits here.

Right now there’s just the Reddit thread and the demo video below. [Michael] is considering sharing the source code for his underlying 3D engine under an open license. We do hope he shares the code, as there are surely tricks in there some of us here could learn from. If it’s all old hat to you, perhaps you’d rather spend a weekend learning raytracing.

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Can You 3D Print A Pinball Machine That’s Fun To Play?

April 28, 2026 by 8 Comments

It seems fair to say that pinball machines are among the most universally loved gaming systems known today, yet the full-sized ones are both very expensive and very large, while even the good quality table-sized ones tend to be on the expensive side. That raises the question of whether a fully 3D printed pinball machine could at all be fun and not just feel like a cheapo toy? A recent video by [Steven] from [3D Printer Academy] on YouTube makes here a compelling argument that it might actually be worth something to consider.

In addition to being fully modular and customizable the most compelling element is probably that the design supports two- and four-player multiplayer. This sees the metal balls leaving at the rear and from there entering the playing field of another player’s machine, which can probably get pretty chaotic.

Unfortunately this is part of a Kickstarter campaign, so you’ll have to either shell out some cash to get access to the print files or DIY your own version. We’d also be remiss to not address the durability concerns of a 100% plastic pinball machine like this, plus the lack of serious heft to compensate for more enthusiastic playing styles.

If you are more into traditional DIY pinball machines, we have covered these as well, along with small screen-based machines, and their miniature brethren for when space is really at a premium.

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How Pizza Tycoon Simulates Traffic On A 25 MHz CPU

April 27, 2026 by 19 Comments

Although the game Pizza Tycoon – known as Pizza Connection in Europe – probably doesn’t ring a bell for many folk, this 1994 DOS title is special enough for [cowomaly] to write an open source engine to bring it into the modern age as Pizza Legacy. Along the way, some questions popped up, such as how to animate the little cars that you see driving around in the simulated city and how the heck this was done back in the day on a 25 MHz 386 CPU.

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Reviving Nintendo’s Early Arcade Game, Wild Gunman

April 24, 2026 by 13 Comments

There’s retrogaming, and then there’s retro gaming. This next project falls into the second category, as [Callan] of 74XX Arcade Repair digs into the original Wild Gunman, first released by Nintendo way, way back in 1974 — on 16 mm film. Yes, it was a film-based arcade machine, but how else were you going to get realistic graphics just two years after PONG?

The game had two 16 mm projectors, with four different sets of film reels available, each depicting five gunmen. Unfortunately for [Callan], the film is all he has, so he’s not so much repairing as re-creating the historic game. Luckily, he had the manuals, so at least he knew how it was supposed to come together.

One projector did most of the work, showing the gunmen and a hidden timing signal for the game to know when the user could shoot; the other only activated if the user pulled the trigger at the correct time. Interestingly the ‘gun’ has an IR illuminator that bounced infrared light off the screen to a detector in the cabinet — much like later TV remotes. That makes for a rather large circular hitbox around the enemy gunslinger, which is perhaps not a bad thing for a game likely to be found in a bar.

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How One Line Of TF2 Code Ruined This Simple Feature

April 18, 2026 by 11 Comments

Ever encountered a minor annoying bug in a video game? How about one dating back to 2018? Usually, you have no hope of fixing it, but this time is different. [Joey Cheerio] shows the first-time programmer approach to (with great difficulty) fixing a bouncy ball prop turning invisible when shot in Team Fortress 2.

It starts with a band-aid solution that hides the problem: just turn off jiggle physics! While that works, it also affects many other models in the game, and doesn’t tackle the root cause. Time to investigate. Because this ball often goes overlooked, [Joey Cheerio] didn’t even realize that it was supposed to have jiggle physics, accidentally removing it. Turns out, after scouring the internet for old footage, it’s supposed to jiggle after all.

Back to square one, [Joey Cheerio] infers that the jiggle bone accidentally removed was related to the problem, eventually figuring out that the specific type of jiggle bone used (is_boing) caused the issue. Time to dig in the code. Tracking down the problem is no small feat for someone who’s never programmed before, even with the help of LLMs, but eventually, at 4 in the morning, a breakthrough! The ball no longer turned invisible but retained the intended jiggle.

At the limits of his knowledge on the subject, [Joey Cheerio] posts his partial progress so far to GitHub, where [ficool2] tracks down the real problem and turns this second band-aid into a proper fix. [Joey Cheerio] finishes up by explaining the math of what exactly went wrong.

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Three-Monitor Ridge Racer Machine Emulated In MAME

April 18, 2026 by 12 Comments

When Ridge Racer hit the arcades in the early 1990s, it came in a few different versions. The last variant used three large CRTs to create a wraparound display for the player. Incredibly rare, it’s believed that only a single-digit number of machines remain in existence. [beaumotplage] has secured a remaining example, and been working to preserve this historical artifact.

The first mission when it comes to this machine was to dump the ROMs, which have thus far not been preserved in any major archive. With that done, [beaumotplage] worked to hack a version of MAME that could emulate the Three Monitor Version’s unique mode of operation. As it turns out, each screen is driven by its own arcade board, with the three boards linked via C139 serial links. To emulate this, the trick was simply to write some C139 linkup code and run three versions of MAME all at once, letting them communicate with each other as the original boards would have. It’s a little janky in operation right now, but it does work!

You can download the hacked version of MAME for three-monitor operation here, though note that this does not include the ROM dumps from the machine itself. We look forward to seeing if the hardware ends up getting a full restoration back to operational standard, too.

Overall, this work goes to show that arcade preservation and archival work sometimes requires getting deep into the nitty-gritty technical stuff.

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