Doom Battle Royale Mod With 64 Players Hurts Plenty

October 4, 2018 by Drew Littrell 14 Comments

Sixty-four players are dropped into a map, but there can be only one that emerges victorious…heard that before, right? Thanks to PC Game modder [Bambamalicious] there is yet another entrant into the rapidly growing videogame genre. The difference this time, however, is that their 64 player DooM Royale (with cheese) mod is ready to show all those other also-ran games how the granddaddy of FPS games does it.

According to the announcement post the mod is “…a 64 player Battle Royale using Doom 2 as the IWAD, and the Zandronum engine as it’s base. The speed of gameplay will be unchanged from normal Doom, and when you die, that’s not the end for you!”. There is a respawn system, but each player is given a limited number of lives. To ensure no server feels like a ghost town [Bambamalicious] included bots that will spawn in matches with low participation. Each game inevitably results in a “last man standing” face off that has the victor coming away with the coveted “Royale with cheese”. Other than the aforementioned changes, this is still the seminal classic Doom (1993).

Do note that in order to play the mod, the Zandronum engine is a required in order to take part in the fun. The engine is the backbone that allows for leaderboards as well as hopping between custom servers. Zandronum additionally supports many other multiplayer match types for instance: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Possession, and Skulltag. Up to 64 players are supported in those match types as well.

From the looks of the DooM Royale (with cheese) map, there should be frequent enemy player encounters and no respite for those seeking to just “hide in a bathtub”. The multiple levels should supply plenty of opportunity to take advantage by attacking from above. Test footage of the mod in action can be seen in the video below.

For more on the DOS game that just won’t die, check out Doom running on an ATM.

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Modder Puts Computer Inside A Power Supply

November 24, 2017 by Anool Mahidharia 15 Comments

When building a custom computer rig, most people put the SMPS power supply inside the computer case. [James] a.k.a [Aibohphobia] a.k.a [fearofpalindromes] turned it inside out, and built the STX160.0 – a full-fledged gaming computer stuffed inside a ATX power supply enclosure. While Small Form Factor (SFF) computers are nothing new, his build packs a powerful punch in a small enclosure and is a great example of computer modding, hacker ingenuity and engineering. The finished computer uses a Mini-ITX form factor motherboard with Intel i5 6500T quad-core 2.2GHz processor, EVGA GTX 1060 SC graphics card, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 250GB SSD, WiFi card and two USB ports — all powered from a 160 W AC-DC converter. Its external dimensions are the same as an ATX-EPS power supply at 150 L x 86 H x 230 D mm. The STX160.0 is mains utility powered and not from an external brick, which [James] feels would have been cheating.

For those who would like a quick, TL;DR pictorial review, head over to his photo album on Imgur first, to feast on pictures of the completed computer and its innards. But the Devil is in the details, so check out the forum thread for a ton of interesting build information, component sources, tricks and trivia. For example, to connect the graphics card to the motherboard, he used a “M.2 to powered PCIe x4 adapter” coupled with a flexible cable extender from a quaint company called Adex Electronics who still prefer to do business the old-fashioned way and whose website might remind you of the days when Netscape Navigator was the dominant browser.

As a benchmark, [James] posts that “with the cover panel on, at full load (Prime95 Blend @ 2 threads and FurMark 1080p 4x AA) the CPU is around 65°C with the CPU fan going at 1700RPM, and the GPU is at 64°C at 48% fan speed.” Fairly impressive for what could be passed off at first glance as a power supply.

The two really interesting take away’s for us in this project are his meticulous research to find specific parts that met his requirements from among the vast number of available choices. The second is his extremely detailed notes on designing the custom enclosure for this project and make it DFM (design for manufacturing) friendly so it could be mass-produced – just take a look at his “Table of Contents” for a taste of the amount of ground he is covering. If you are interested in custom builds and computer modding, there is a huge amount of useful information embedded in there for you.

Thanks to [Arsenio Dev‏] who posted a link to this hilarious thread on Reddit discussing the STX160.0. Check out a full teardown and review of the STX160.0 by [Not for Concentrate] in the video after the break.

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Control The Real World With An Arduino-Enabled Minecraft Mod

June 4, 2016 by Dan Maloney 8 Comments

Minecraft modding has become almost as popular as the block-based game itself, with tons of editors and tools available to create new kinds of blocks, mobs, and weapons. And now, with this mod framework that can talk to an Arduino, modders can build blocks that break out of the Minecraft world to control the real world.

While turning on a light from Minecraft is not exactly new, the way that MCreator for Arduino goes about it is pretty neat. MCreator is a no-code framework for building Minecraft mods, which allows modders to build new game capabilities with a drag and drop interface. The MCreator Arduino toolkit allows modders to build custom Minecraft blocks that can respond to in-game events and communicate with an Arduino over USB. Whatever an Arduino can do – light an LED, sense a button press – can be brought into the game. It’s all open-source and free for non-commercial use, which is perfect for the upcoming STEM-based summer camp season. We can think of some great projects that would really jazz up young hackers when presented through a Minecraft interface.

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Hackaday Links: April 19, 2015

April 19, 2015 by Mike Szczys 48 Comments

Bang & Olufsen have made some pretty amazing equipment for a long, long time. That last part can become a problem. [Oliver] found the electrolytic caps on his Beomaster 2400 were causing problems. He completely recapped the unit, all the electrolytics anyway, and the pictures of the process are nothing short of eye-candy.

The closure of the Bacman forums marks the end of an era. For years this has been among the top (okay, it’s definitely been the top one but we don’t want to start a flamewar) sites for handheld and console modding. Here’s just one random example of the many projects we covered from that community (note that main link is now sadly 404). The closure message cites the near-absolute death of modding. We haven’t thought about it much, but these mods were futuristic. Then smartphones.

Fans of How It’s Made and 3D printing will want to tune in on April 30th at 9pm EST. The show does a fantastic job of showing off the amazing story behind how all the stuff in our lives comes to be visited LulzBot in Loveland, Colorado for a segment on the manufacturing process of a 3D printer.

We’re not sure why we didn’t lead with this: All celebrate, for humanity is saved! The secret behind getting something out of nothing has been discovered. This reactionless generator has been tested at efficiencies as high as 250%. We’re working on a way to bottle all that extra juice and sell it at outrageous prices.

The thing about free energy is that you become dependent on it. What if the laws of physics return from vacation and the thing stops working? Then you have a robot apocalypse with all kinds of hidden messages and puzzles in it.

Dual-channel, Variable Voltage Test Box Is A Busy Console Modder’s Dream

August 7, 2012 by Mike Nathan 9 Comments

multi-voltage-test-box

It seems like [Chris Downing] is always up to something new. If he’s not keeping busy by creating slick portable iterations of previous-gen gaming consoles, he is dreaming up ways to make his modding life a bit easier.

Recently while working on a Nintendo controller designed to control three different consoles, [Downing] found his desk buried in a pile of power supply and A/V cabling. Annoyed with his growing rat’s nest, he decided to build a universal power supply that would allow him to quickly switch between consoles with little effort.

He dug up an old PC power supply, and fed it into a LED control box built for cars. [Downing] then mounted an array of nine rocker switches on the box, adding A/V inputs and outputs along the way. A set of voltage regulators hidden inside allow [Downing] to dial in whatever custom voltages he might need at the moment.

The test box should come in pretty handy as [Downing] pursues even more modding projects in the months to come. In the meantime, be sure to check out the video below where he covers the finer points of the device’s design.

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