Of all the "Impossible ports", this is without a doubt the number #1. How he archieve this without FPU and an eighth of the PS1 RAM is mind-boggling

@asmodin88

2 жыл бұрын

Let's not forget no 3d hardware capabilities, so it's all software rendering on a 16mHz(?) CPU? Insane.

@MostlyPennyCat

2 жыл бұрын

Didn't it have the NEON SIMD extensions? That's had float math support.

@MostlyPennyCat

2 жыл бұрын

At a guess it's probably lookup tables or something. Or maybe they could do something with fast multiply? You could sacrifice portability with some assembler, but it seems this openlara is an implementation for many platforms, so I don't know if that could work.

@clementpoon120

2 жыл бұрын

gba is literally just an arm snes, it's really impressive considering that star fox needed a seperate chip to render in like 10 fps or something on snes

@MostlyPennyCat

2 жыл бұрын

Small amounts of ram yes, but you can put lots of look up data on the ROM. Dunno how fast the ROM is though, probably pretty fast.

This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Full resolution 3D, 3D modeled characters, good textures, a solid frame rate, AND good sound design. This doesn’t just push the limits of the GBA, it downright breaks them.

This port is code optimization at its finest. Im so happy the art of optimizing for weak hardware is still a thing, it seems nobody cares about it in times of limitless RAM and crazy efficient GPUs.

@spakeschannel

2 жыл бұрын

Man, we need such things making a comeback in form of integrated pieces into game engines... Maybe then it will be more widely adopted.

@velvetbutterfly

2 жыл бұрын

In a way game devs care, being forced to come up with optimizations and work arounds lead to more creativity. But without needing to, they don't bother because they're overworked as is and if everything just works anyway why stress. However, this is why many people are deemed Nintendo Loyalists, because their systems do need optimization still and have some pretty amazing games as a result, and not simply porting the PC version on low settings. The story about what became XenoBlade (at least the one I heard) is arguably one of my favourite examples despite being over 10 years old

@repeekyraidcero

2 жыл бұрын

That's why I Adoooore Nintendo: They. FORCe optimization. :D I love em so much or it.

@AnttiBrax

2 жыл бұрын

It's a bit of a shame that going this deep takes so much effort that it can't be used in commercial games.

@liamconverse8950

2 жыл бұрын

The Game Boy Advance was essentially used as just a SNES emulator. If only developers were down to write games in assembly it could have been so much more 🤷‍♂️

Ubisoft: So what sort of experience do you have in game development? XProger: I optimised Tomb Raider so much it runs on a Game Boy Advance. Ubisoft: GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

@gtasomogyi

2 жыл бұрын

"I'm sorry, Mr. XProger, you are overqualified, for all of our jobs..."

@ncshuriken

2 жыл бұрын

LOL. "I'll make sure you NEVER work in the games industry, you HEAR me boy!?! ( for embarrassing my entire company like this)"

@marcosschumacher315

11 ай бұрын

😂😂😂😂

@bobkerr2755

10 ай бұрын

I hope the ubisoft exec was wearing an eye patch and spoke with a thick texas accent before firing several shots towards mr xproger

@skycloud4802

6 ай бұрын

Do you have two to five years experience? No? We don't care if you programmed Tomb Raider to run on the GBA. Next!

If a studio ported it back in the day it would have been a strong seller. I remember being impressed that they managed to cram Wing Commander Prophecy (sans video) into a GBA cart that was not only playable but pretty fun too.

@nickm5419

2 жыл бұрын

there was a Wing Commander game on GBA? there should have been one on Original Xbox

@rustymixer2886

2 жыл бұрын

The legend lon 🙌

@user-zo9dc1lu3q

2 жыл бұрын

I presume you are talking about Raylight and their software based 3D engine called Blue-Roses 😉 ⚃⬜⚀ Yes, the company have developed some of the most impressive 3D games ever made for the console. Unfortunatly some of them (like Street Racing Syndicate) are really too ambitious for the console 😅

@julianx2rl

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, but the same thing can be said about a lot of games, I'm pretty sure the original Crash Bandicoot would work on GBA if the characters were turned into sprites. The GBA's low-res screen combined with the static camera angle would've made it hard to notice.

@LonSeidman

2 жыл бұрын

@@nickm5419 There was ! It was pretty good too all things considered - solid space combat.

Doom on GBA was already impressive, but Tomb Raider on GBA is just mind blowing.

@yetanotheruser1989

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed, and this actually looks more faithful to it's respective game. Gonna have to download this and give it a go!

@Samuelisakson

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah but doom hurts to look at on gba

@SONGOKU02

2 жыл бұрын

But not really impressive. Why it should be. Doom runs on everything. XD Even on older snes and megadrive consoles that are less powerfull than the gba. (Even with the fx chip on snes.)

@SONGOKU02

2 жыл бұрын

@I dont read notfications I have thousands Hmm. And Driv3r? Not the best game in general. But it looked awesome on the gba.

@yetanotheruser1989

2 жыл бұрын

@@SONGOKU02 The GBA is a more playable and better looking port than the SNES port

This is absolutely insane. Great breakdown.

@mrb152

2 жыл бұрын

[insert wumao screeching]

@myaccount6587

2 жыл бұрын

Oh shit it's the man!

@xanderman0218

2 жыл бұрын

CCP has entered that chat

@Jackklassen

2 жыл бұрын

Don’t forget Lao ganma

@kalebwhite9212

2 жыл бұрын

Love your videos Laowhy86!

That's old fashioned game development where they do everything they can to save every ounce of performance. Developers of bloated web browsers need to pay attention to projects like this!

@existenceisrelative

2 жыл бұрын

Your sleeping farts smell of bitters

@CardfightVanja

2 жыл бұрын

Projects like this give me hope

@curtmack

2 жыл бұрын

There are a lot of reasons web browsers aren't written like this. The main reasons are: 1. Modern web browsers are much more complicated than almost any video game. That's not because of lazy or careless developers; the technical standard for HTML is 1324 pages long, and that's not even the tiniest sliver of what a web browser has to support. 2. It's not feasible to "port" continuously updated software like a web browser. Instead, the vast majority of the code is written for all platforms, and a very thin compatibility layer is maintained for each individual platform. Fine-tuning code for particular hardware is rarely a consideration. 3. Web browsers are attractive targets for bad actors looking to find malware targets: they're ubiquitous, are always used with an Internet connection, and will automatically run any code they download. Because of this, they have to be extremely robust. Corner-cutting that might be appropriate for a video game is unacceptable in a web browser. But, most imporantly: 4. For everything they do, modern web browsers are _extremely_ fast - until they're forced to load twenty different tracking scripts and fifty different ad scripts, because the modern web is a garbage heap of bloat and bad practices!

@existenceisrelative

2 жыл бұрын

@@curtmack Your awake farts smell of wafers and tea.

@quinnmarchese6313

2 жыл бұрын

I've always seen this idea in gaming, limitation breeds excellence. Zelda Wind Waker has a cell shaded art style. it wasn't necessarily something the game cube needed as the cube was pretty powerful, but the cel shading allowed Nintendo to come up with excellent light models, color briliance, and small graphical details like dripping water and swaying grass. that game upscales brilliantly, even without the enhancements made to the HD version. The same could be said of developers who do stuff like this, brilliantly excising what isn't necessary to make a working full PS1 game on a gameboy.

Soon the conversation will switch from "can it run Doom" to "can it run Tomb Raider"

@belstar1128

2 жыл бұрын

"can it run cyberpunk77"

@RashFaustinho

2 жыл бұрын

Some already do "can it run GTA 3". Or at least they used to before Take Two started being a prick

@ImDelphox

8 күн бұрын

can it run crysis

Those Ram allocation tricks make me smile. Modern developers have no idea how crucial those techniques used to be for performance optimisation. Carefully laying out your data structures to tighten loops and avoid cache misses were a huge part of early game development.

@rustymixer2886

2 жыл бұрын

Give me bottlenecks and limitations, and I'll give you miracles and results "

@TheExileFox

2 жыл бұрын

Imagine tossing that into Chromium and it's siblings (Google Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera, Electron, etc) Images how much performance there is to be gained...

@Jackpkmn

2 жыл бұрын

Restrictions can be the pressure needed to turn the raw creative output into gems.

@user-fs9mv8px1y

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheExileFox why bother with optimization when everyone has 8 core cpu's and 32gb of ram? I think it's down to the web being very bloated so browsers have to be bloated to support all the features, not to mention the extra features browsers tack on

This is absolutely unbelievable! I remember telling my mom almost 20 years ago that the 3D Tomb Raiders aren't in the GBA and all of them (I mean 1 to Chronicles) are on our PS1 only (she really loves the Tomb Raider games even to this day). If I still had my GBA, I'd surprise her with this!

@miaruuu8375

2 жыл бұрын

That's so cool. I wish more of my family were acquainted with video games.

@deezy81

2 жыл бұрын

Has she ever beaten any Tomb Raider games?

@merlefi6162

2 жыл бұрын

@@deezy81She doesn't really play the game by herself, rather, we usually play as a team. We take turns playing the games often, especially when I was younger. She'd usually help figure out the puzzles (I remember one time that I didn't know that I could use the rope as a tight rope in Chronicles... we had no internet back then to refer to for guides heheh...). I wouldn't be able to figure it out myself back then if she didn't try to keep jumping / walking on the rope! I'd be the one making the difficult jumps and dodging traps. She usually leaves the boss fights to me though, and she usually figures out what part to try to shoot if I'm stuck 😊 Nowadays, we don't get to play as much as we used to since I work most of the time now and our PS1 no longer works. She likes Revelations and Chronicles a lot, and really likes the Old Mill part of Chronicles.

@deezy81

2 жыл бұрын

@@merlefi6162 Awesome, glad you have those moments with her.

@Rascarrr

2 жыл бұрын

What you can do is download a playstation emulator for her phone (assuming she has a smart phone) and then she can play the game there. All you would have to do is get some sort of controller because a touch screen really doesnt cut it for gaming.

As someone who programs 3D on the GBA, this is beyond amazing. :)

@Corruptinator

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed this is amazing. Who knows, maybe there is something in the OpenLara GBA source code you might find inspiration on what to do next.

@james2175

2 жыл бұрын

I am looking forward to your video on this game and your comments.

@3DSage

2 жыл бұрын

@@james2175 That's a good idea, I would love to talk about this.

@BenJahMin.Houghton

Жыл бұрын

Carmageddon 1 running on GBA would blow me away 😇👌

@captainfach

Жыл бұрын

I have a small question for you. How hard is it to make a gba game? I'm going to guess there's not a GBStudio equivalent

Those side comparisons made the PS1 version look like a HD game but it's impressive that this even exists.

@joederbo6151

2 жыл бұрын

That's because it was at the time.

@NaoPb

2 жыл бұрын

@@joederbo6151 Though was the PC version better than the PS1 version at the time? I can't remember.

@joederbo6151

2 жыл бұрын

@@NaoPb Oh no, I just meant that at the time, this was the most powerful 3D rendering console in its day. PC has almost always been superior, except for a short time when the OG Xbox was released. But The PS1 was considered state of the art in 1994 and was considered HD back then. The same way 720p was still considered HD a few years ago. The standards just get higher with each innovation.

@joederbo6151

2 жыл бұрын

@@SpookySkellyGurl Where to start. The camera used may be HD, but the media captured isn't. It may be upscaled, but I'm unsure as it wasn't mentioned by the uploader, but that's something different in of itself. In 1994 the PS1 would have been considered HD as it was the most advanced, and only true 3D rendering console. Colour was only really a thing for a few years prior to its release, so this was a big step up. Of course by today's standards it isn't HD now, but remember that 720p was still considered HD a few years back.

@dftfire

2 жыл бұрын

For PS1, Tomb Raider looked fine for the time... but compare the first game with Last Revelation or Chronicles and it's amazing how-much more they could squeeze out. The Crash Bandicoot series probably have the best graphics overall though, as they literally use a scripted approach where they only draw the polygons needed based on where you currently are. But later 3D titles on the PS1 like Spyro, Bugs Bunny & Taz: Timebusters, Muppets Mad Monster Mansion and Jinx (Europe only) all looked really-good as they used the "Spyro approach" of removing textures off distant polygons and using gradient-shading instead to keep the framerate up, rather-than using "fog", as games like Gex and Croc 2 were still doing

Coding in assembly is a lost art. This guy's awesome.

@joey199412

2 жыл бұрын

It's actually undergoing a renaissance of sort lately. I notice more and more young people getting into low level programming. I guess things like retrogaming and speedrunning which is popular with young people make them more interested in understanding and writing assembler code.

@johnnyfulton4755

2 жыл бұрын

@@joey199412 From my experience, people in professional developer roles are influenced away from low-level due to time/demand requirements and a culture of 'using the same tools that we pay for as everyone else'. The more home/hobby development you see grow with young people, the more you'll see people trend towards it, especially when so many first pieces of advice are 'build an NES emulator'.

@ZygalStudios

2 жыл бұрын

It depends on where you develop software. In the embedded realm it's still alive and well and I still use it very frequently. I'd much rather program everything in assembly than anything else.

@GreenAppelPie

2 жыл бұрын

Coding is assembly isn’t that bad at all, it these crazy optimizations that some people come up with that it truly genius.

@LocrianDorian

2 жыл бұрын

@@ZygalStudios What's the benefit of using assembly, if a higher level language is a viable option, other than bragging rights? Assembly has an inherent disadvantage in readability. It takes a lot longer to comprehend something written in assembly than a higher level programming language like C++. I'm thankful that I don't have to use assembly on modern hardware and even more so that I don't have to read it.

Devs don't get nearly enough credit. This is proof that ALL the older consoles are capable of greatness in the right hands.

@RaniaIsAwesome

5 ай бұрын

dunno about that mate. The GBA was 32-bit and a LOT more powerful than the SNES or megadrive/genesis. GBA had basic 3d and many games look amazing on it and blow people away. I don't see how this is proof or even evidence that all the older consoles are capable of much more than we have already seen. Hate to naysay a feel-good type of remark but I don't see it.

@Freshbrood

5 ай бұрын

@@RaniaIsAwesome What code do you write? Oh- none? Go figure you can't see it.

Wow, if the GBA had optimized 3D engines like this early on in it's lifespan games from popular 3D franchises like Tony Hawk, Crazy Taxi, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, etc, could have been truly amazing for their time. They could have either been quality ports or better yet new games that could stay true to the original games. Heh, the N-gage advertisements would have been like: "Yeah, well we can do 3D... as well... and almost as good too... for a significantly higher price. You also have to remove the battery every time you want to change the ga- aw hell, we're screwed!".

@j377yb33n

2 жыл бұрын

check out the gba port for asterix and obelix xxl, i think that's what you're imagining.

@carnede

2 жыл бұрын

I recommend checking the gba Tony Hawk ports, they actually play and look very well! also the Jet Set Radio port

@fredg8328

2 жыл бұрын

There were many 3D games on the GBA. Most of the time they were ugly and sluggish. you can find several videos on YT that cover some of them if you want to hurt your eyes. kzread.info/dash/bejne/jIKptZNtoKy1qpM.html kzread.info/dash/bejne/i2qF1tGTk7zOmZc.html kzread.info/dash/bejne/qZNhw8urldm1p9I.html

@Cooe.

10 ай бұрын

The N-Gage would have still kicked the shit out of it in terms of 3D performance... Tomb Raider on N-Gage looks and runs SIGNIFICANTLY better than this port.

The things people have been able to do with 3d on the gba are pretty incredible and they never fail to impress me.

this is already pretty impressive on its own but i'm not even kidding my jaw dropped when i heard that all of the game's sfx and music were somehow squeezed in there as well. i think this would've made Numbers back when the gba was new

@gamerguy425

2 жыл бұрын

they got better sound effects on a GBA cart than the bloody Saturn port has on CD!

@KopperNeoman

2 жыл бұрын

@William On a machine that does audio and graphics IN SOFTWARE.

@FeelingShred

2 жыл бұрын

Speaking of sound compression methods, I think it was today that someone uploaded footage of a Symbian SDK (development kit) inside a Virtual Machine playing some music in AMR format... the entire 3 minute song accounted for 140KB or something crazy... and it sounds decent too, it has that cozy AM Radio feel to it

This shows that doing amazing things in even the most "technical" fields such as as coding is much as an art as it is science and the art/creativity part really shines when limitations are imposed! That's why I am not a huge fan of modern applications built on frameworks on top of frameworks consuming system resources to accomplish simple tasks. I mean I understand why it's that way these days but I feel it chips away at the "art" part of coding.

@l3p3

2 жыл бұрын

And wastes ressources. If software was built by people who know their shit, people would not need to buy new devices every 2 years...

@MikeyJ1572

2 жыл бұрын

beautifully put

@xxxhero7275

2 жыл бұрын

@@l3p3 that’s not a waste of resources they’re literally making it with expensive components that break easily so that you’ll have to buy more of the expensive components.

@l3p3

2 жыл бұрын

@@xxxhero7275 I do not get your point. Mine was that we would not need to toss away working devices just because mainstream software rejects its support for it.

@xxxhero7275

2 жыл бұрын

@@l3p3 I was referring to the fact that you said that it’s wasting resources.Its not a waste for them to use cheap resources(or expensive resources) that break easily so you’d have to buy more parts from them,It makes extra money.it isn’t a problem I have since I know how to fix most technology(screens not included) but most people can’t and don’t have the time or effort to learn how.

I'm just dying to see more people tap into the potential of the GBA, technical feats such as this get me so giddy

OpenLara is becoming the new "Doom" of ports, a lot of systems now is running Tomb Raider and counting!

@DougSalad

2 жыл бұрын

That and Super Mario 64 De-comp. It's running on DOS!

@IanNewYashaTheFinalAct

2 жыл бұрын

OpenLara on my pregnancy test ➕👈👀

@ddniUK

2 жыл бұрын

Any Doom wads/maps running on the tomb raider engine?

@BlueSatoshi

2 жыл бұрын

But can it run Crysis?

@yetanotheruser1989

2 жыл бұрын

@@BlueSatoshi The way the homebrew community is at the moment it wouldn't surprise me to eventually see games like Far Cry and Crysis running on PS1 and N64

'Impossible' ports are fascinating as hell. I've been interested in them ever since I read about the canceled Resident Evil game for the Gameboy Colour in an old gaming magazine.

@rustymixer2886

2 жыл бұрын

Resident evil 2, 3d on gba proto exists and virtua fighter 2012

@ThoughTMusic

2 жыл бұрын

Omg same! I wanted that damn game so badly and was obsessed with reading up about it as a kid.

@kurosan9712

2 жыл бұрын

Wasnt there an alpha rom leak for that one somewhere?

@DeathBringer769

2 жыл бұрын

@@kurosan9712 Yep, I've played it.

@skycloud4802

2 жыл бұрын

@@DeathBringer769 what's it like?

I don't understand half of the things MVG says, but I could still listen to his explanations for hours

I was really curious how you could even play this game with so few buttons. The mapping is pretty clever: A action, B jump, R walk, L+A draw, L+B roll, L+R look. I really want to play this. I need a GBA.

@differplay5718

2 жыл бұрын

I just asked about pistols. Thank you for info.

@skycloud4802

2 жыл бұрын

So what button would be to shoot once pistols are drawn?

@TheAkashicTraveller

2 жыл бұрын

@@skycloud4802 A

@Lucky1Yena

Жыл бұрын

Oh THATS how they got around the lower number of buttons!

That's just incredible. I can't imagine how I would have react to this if that actually came out back in the day. Seeing DOOM on GBA was already impressive, but damn Tomb Raider is another level.

@FDestroy3r

2 жыл бұрын

@slam slam Portable version of full Tomb Raider experience would have pleased an immense amount of people back in the day. Of course it's less powerfull if it's portable

@corentinguillo5577

2 жыл бұрын

Tomb Raider 1-5 on NDS would have been possible back then and such a bliss!

@zimtak6418

2 жыл бұрын

@slam slam LOL, but this clearly plays pretty well. I'm not just guessing, I *KNOW* this would have sold *VERY* well back in the day.

@Sae-ez3dx

2 жыл бұрын

Doom isn't a big deal on GBA because GBA is much faster to render BSP's than Primitives,. But on a printer, Idk

I remember the time before GBA was launched and the marketing said "32 bit console" and all the kids thought It will be a PS1 on the go. In retrospective... It was indeed a PS1 on the go. Thanks for your videos.

@Humaricslastcall

2 жыл бұрын

Well, it's a PS1 on the go with SNES sensibilities.

@bangerbangerbro

2 жыл бұрын

In retrospective, it definitely wasn't a PS1 on the go. A couple of PS1 games on a GBA doesn't make it like a PS.

@unisonproto

2 жыл бұрын

The PSP is almost a PS2 on the go

@abxygaming9460

2 жыл бұрын

@@unisonproto kinda only some of psp games look as good as a PS2 game like daxter

@DeathBringer769

2 жыл бұрын

I was around back then, got a GBA and later a GBA SP at launch. I remember kids more thinking the GBA would be like a SNES on the go, with a bit of extra oomph, and later the PSP would be the actual PS1 on the go. Also, I remember my friend, when the Nintendo DS came out, making fun of it and saying he would wait for the more "mature" PSP to come out later. Funny how console wars always become a thing with kids. But yea, I always viewed the GBA as more of a SNES on the go, and then later the DS as an N64 on the go, with the benefit of coming out later and having newer technological tricks to utilize despite being handheld.

The Dreamcast port by HiStat which released on December 30th is on fire! It even allows mods to work on Dreamcast so we can use this engine to make all new games hopefully such as Duke Nukem Time To kill and Resident Evil or even Uncharted demakes. Interestingly enough HiStat's port of OpenLaura is using the PSX assets, so it is running incredibly well on the console in 480p over VGA. Anyways, it is an incredible time for homebrew in general like this getting ported to literally ever capable system under the sun. I hope for the project to get back ported to Saturn as well when Tomb Raider 2 and 3 are fully working in the engine. Would be cool to see them on it. Hell now the Dreamcast only lacks TR2 and TR3 out of the early games. 😎

@IRMacGuyver

2 жыл бұрын

The video said it was using the PC assets

@BFKAnthony817

2 жыл бұрын

@@IRMacGuyver What are you talking about? The Dreamcast port uses PSX disc, I am not talking about this GBA port which uses PC assets.

@retroboy-fh1ji

2 жыл бұрын

Tomb raider open lara project on dreamcast runs at 480p 60 fps which is incredible

@IRMacGuyver

2 жыл бұрын

@@BFKAnthony817 I assumed you were talking about the same basic thing as this one just the dreamcast version

@BFKAnthony817

2 жыл бұрын

@@IRMacGuyver Well I am, the Dreamcast version of OpenLaura was made by HiStat but he chose to use the PSX version for assets. But today megavolt85, the person who "ported" the Atomiswave games to Dreamcast compiled the latest version HiStat made the other day, but he is making it use the PC assets now and it is looking much better and running great too. So hopefully in the next few days we get a better version to play with full CDDA and PC assets with working FMV and no more glitched textures on Laura. This will also mean that there is not a limit on mods that can be made with it. Previously you had to convert PC mods to PSX format to run in this version, and it was limited to 14 levels or rooms as they call it. Now we can go up to 20 levels or rooms. So a lot more can be done with it thankfully.

there have actually been many 3-d games on the gba but the fact that a game with this many polygons all with textures that wasnt even built with the gba in mind can have a stable framerate is pretty insane.

We should probably talk more about the RAM miracle here, because yes CPU cycles are veery important but that determines how fast the game runs. RAM on the other hand, determines if the game runs at all. You see the problem here, GBA has 32K + 256K total RAM. The original tomb raider on DOS has to use DOS4GW, which means it already had to break the 1MB memory limitation of DOS.

@sl9sl9

2 жыл бұрын

Doom on the PC needed 4MB of RAM I seem to recall, yet it still got ported to the GBA and even the lowly SNES (128K + 64K RAM) which really was a miracle. But Tomb Raider is a later, more technically impressive game due to the fully 3D engine. This version is amazing and the best looking/playing (& sounding?) 3D game on the GBA. These older consoles had one thing a PC did not: access to fast "read-only RAM" (AKA ROM) meaning the cartridge itself. This is how they could do so much with so little RAM. Also DOS had an artificial limit of 640KB not 1MB, hence all the extenders you mentioned. We can thank Bill Gates for this, since "640K should be enough for anyone"...

@matsv201

2 жыл бұрын

My guess is they just stream the textures from the cartage, the bandwidth is sufficient and there is really no conversion needed. The cartage is also true random access.

@matsv201

2 жыл бұрын

@@sl9sl9 I think you can run it on 3 MB of ram, but almost nobody had that. The issue is that if you load high, you pretty much lose 640kB of ram, and if you have drivers loaded high (that was pretty common at this point), you lose even more

@AdrienTD

2 жыл бұрын

Also dos4gw lets you use 32 bit instructions and a flat memory model where you don't need to worry about segment registers.

@TimurGagiev

2 жыл бұрын

GBA CPU can directly read from ROM, moreover, it gives an advantage like zero-time levels loading!

I need more of these *"Impossible Ports"* videos in my life.. Thank You MVG..

@jeffstacy6636

2 жыл бұрын

Next it will be GTAV on GBA lol

@kenrickeason

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeffstacy6636 My God! If that was possible that would be one of the most unbelievable things that ever came out of KZread.. The internet in general..

@hideofreakingkojima5457

2 жыл бұрын

@@kenrickeason That would be some Guinness Book of World Records level shit

Honestly amazing. It makes me wish that Resident Evil 2 tech demo on GBA was green lit to see how that could have ended up. At this rate, I almost think that the original RE2 could be done on GBA properly just after seeing this.

@EQOAnostalgia

2 жыл бұрын

My thoughts precisely!

@ncshuriken

2 жыл бұрын

If a game thats 100% 3D (Tomb Raider) can run on the GBA, then a game thats only 40% 3D (entire PS1 era RE series, except for "Gun Survivor" that is!) should be no problem at all.

Super amazing. Also reminded me about the long forgotten "kkrieger demo" that is only 96kbyte small. Stuff like this should be pushed forward from the gaming industry itself!

@Val-sp2sz

11 ай бұрын

i remember downloading that in like 2006 and it blew my mind! so much demoscene stuff was incredible. thanks for jogging my memory with that name

This port is even more impressive than VD.Dev’s efforts with their games, and their games are really impressive.

@mitsuvolts03

2 жыл бұрын

Hey there!

@ZX3000GT1

2 жыл бұрын

@@mitsuvolts03 Hi. Fancy meeting you here of all places.

@KittyMeow1984

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed. Either Driv3r or Asterix & Obelix XXL were their most technically impressive games on the GBA, and they used pre-rendered 2D assets for their characters, vehicles and items, while still also running at an average 15 fps. This Tomb Raider port sports both a fully polygonal Lara and evemies (with, I'm assuming, the same polycount as their PS1 version counterparts). It's mindblowing that this can even run at a semi-decent framerate.

@Don_Ramiro

2 жыл бұрын

@@KittyMeow1984 Their port of V-rally 3, it´s amazing too. And unlike Driv3r GBA, it has actually good car physics and nice gameplay

Totally amazing what can be done with open source code. This is one of several examples.

@Nassyy

2 жыл бұрын

@medgidia05 Hello!

I've been following Open Lara for a long time, and it is amazing. They deserve all the support they can get. It's amazing work.

Thank you for the technical breakdown on how this was done. This is incredible.

Wow, I can’t believe the developer pulled this off. I am just thinking how awesome this would’ve been back when the GBA first came out. I mean I can’t believe it now so back then it would’ve blown my mind even more than now 😦

@Ben-rz9cf

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed, if we had just known it was capable of that back then

Speaking of interesting "impossible" GBA ports, have you ever played the GBA version of Wing Commander Prophecy? That's a game that definitely shouldn't exist.

@Snowpiercer2

2 жыл бұрын

Nor does the Asterix & Obelix XXL

@rustymixer2886

2 жыл бұрын

Or virtua fighter 2012

@GanerioAditya

2 жыл бұрын

@@rustymixer2886 what ?

@rustymixer2886

2 жыл бұрын

@@GanerioAditya a guy started working on full 3d virtua fighter on gba in 2012, look like this and you can control camera, have 360 matrix affect after hit etc

@TheBlargMarg

2 жыл бұрын

@@Snowpiercer2 that game is spectacular looking. Unbelievable game running on a GBA.

I would been obsessed with this as a kid. I remember being so impress by fmvs with 3d graphics let alone full games in 3d.

Thank you for the video, I really like those kind of videos where you explore how people optimize resources in order to "make the impossible possible" :) Your explanations are very clear, thanks again!

Just imagine this releasing on the GBA back in the day.

@julianx2rl

2 жыл бұрын

Asterix and Obelix runs smoother, has wider areas and no one gave a shit. So no, I don't think being impressive alone would've been enough because let's be real, as impressive as this is, does it look prettier than Minish Cap? Or play smoother than Mario?

@GreenAppelPie

2 жыл бұрын

I never bought a GBA back in the day decayed it was so limited compared to a PC; this coulda changed my mind.

@DrNuyenVanFaulk

2 жыл бұрын

@@julianx2rl Yah, but, in fairness… A&O used sprite-based characters, there’s some weird texture warping, and, on a non-technical level, A&O ain’t going to draw numbers like Tomb Raider. On a positive note, O&A has so much colour and a much busier environment - it is really impressive.

@The8bitbeard

2 жыл бұрын

It probably would have completely changed the expectations people had for GBA game fidelity.

@antariantariantari

2 жыл бұрын

@@julianx2rl You have no idea what you're talking about because you're too young. I remember when those games were released and media were hyping up GBA vs Nokia N-gage showdown when it comes to their respective ports of Tomb Raider. It was huge. It was "big" game for the N-gage, pretty much system seller level and one of a few reason why some people chose it over Nintendo console. Simply because Nintendo made a mistake making 2D game on a new engine other than plain simple port of the game like on N-gage. We thought it was due to it being impossible to make on GBA which couldn't handle 3D that well. It turns out it was possible all along. Especially with huge studio involved. 1 guy proved that it's possible. Some official GBA games have worse performance than this demo lol.

This looks like it would exceed what V&D were able to wring out of the system. That's some god tier optimization.

@Einar730

2 жыл бұрын

No

@AW-cv8nf

2 жыл бұрын

@@Einar730 yes

@FFFan3445

2 жыл бұрын

I don't know what V&D is supposed to stand for. I assume a studio, but I'm really not sure.

@ZanaGBYT

2 жыл бұрын

@@FFFan3445 IIRC, it's the studio that did Asterix and Obelix XXL, Driver 3 for GBA, and Ironfall Invasion. They also worked to some capacity for Ubisoft at some point IIRC

@LakoIsFun

2 жыл бұрын

VDDev was a really good balance between performance and graphics. You should see Raylight's GBA games and tech demos though. They really pushed the 3D on the system. Smashing Drive is a really good example. Here's a side by side I found of the GBA and GameCube versions of Smashing Drive. - kzread.info/dash/bejne/qoWktrGgdZq3dKg.html

This is both absolutely incredible and highly fascinating. I could never imagine a title like that running on a GBA

Love your channel man.. Its very help and insightful for game development!

That first tune that plays there is burned into my memory. I always want to fire up Tomb Raider 1 when I hear that. This is absolutely amazing to see this running on a GBA, and so obscenely well too, fantastic job by the developers.

@Trancedd

2 жыл бұрын

It reminds me of south park where they try communicating with the internet digitally again.

It's crazy how much more the homebrew scene is getting out of the GBA vs the actual game studios of the time. If this was demod back in 2001, I would have thought it was fake. GBADoom is another example, it's an actual port of prBoom to the GBA that runs *faster* than the official retail Doom release, and has full feature parity because it's the real Doom engine.

@rumotu

2 жыл бұрын

Imagine all the money they could've get if it was released back in 2001. Like everyone would've talk about that one console game you can play on your gba.

@Yawnscast

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaele1654 Metal Gear Solid GBA is what I'm waiting for.

@robertt9342

2 жыл бұрын

The studios might have plenty of money, but money can’t buy time, and the money would be limited in a game for this platform.

@nugget6635

2 жыл бұрын

This is actually excessive work for a game studio. This is years of development. Most studios that made games for the GBA had 13 months to complete their games with an average number of 6 developers per game. So yeah you are asking too much.

@nugget6635

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaele1654 Man sorry to disappoint you but... The GBA's 32-bit ARM CPU is actually way way more powerful than the SNES's 8-bit CPU (yes the SNES didn't have an actual 16-bit CPU only a 16-bit graphics chip). The problem however is that the GBA had only CPU and everything was made through software. While the SNES had dedicated graphics and sound chips. However the GBA's low resolution screen is actually something that made this port easier.. Because SNES games were 240i while the GBA had a 160p screen.

Wow, this is bloody impressive. Thank you so much for this awesome video! ❤️ Just tested this ROM on flash cartridge on my own. I'm stunned! This looks really amazing. Massive props to the creator of this masterpiece!

Videos like these are so great because it lets me experience amazing things I would otherwise never know of. Perfect level of detail.

Fantastic piece of code optimisation, I can’t believe that it would be possible to have that engine running on such an old piece of hardware. Fantastic video! Fingers crossed for the Amiga port

@matix4809

2 жыл бұрын

I'm still wating for Atari 2600 port

Its mindblowing how back then the smallest changes in hardware would often result in way more perfomance while today its the opposite more power results in minor perfomance steps.

@tacosmexicanstyle7846

2 жыл бұрын

It’s because developers use such high level methods of creating games these days. Now instead of optimising the code they just throw more resources at it for a marginal performance boost. Back in the day, programmers couldn’t just throw more power at the game so they wrote their entire game in assembly language (literally telling the CPU exactly what to do) as this would result in a smaller, faster game than if they wrote it in a higher level language and let a compiler manage it for them. The level of optimisation that devs did on old hardware was extreme; every line of code matters with hardware as limiting as this. Games aren’t made that way anymore, and they aren’t created to run as efficiently as it would take decades to create games to the scale that we expect. The type of optimisation that this dev is doing requires understanding the hardware, the coding of the engine itself. This stuff is only taught in classrooms as a fun example of what coding used to be

@josephmorales652

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I’d say a select few game companies care about this. I interviewed with Insomniac games last summer and it was the hardest interview of my life. They wanted a strong understanding of c++ and memory management. They also tested my knowledge of physics and linear algebra. Although Unreal is super awesome for developers trying to get something out there, there are still developers wanting to stretch the limits of their hardware.

@Ehal256

2 жыл бұрын

@@tacosmexicanstyle7846 They definitely optimize the crap out of modern game engines but only in key areas. Like you said, the games themselves are so huge nowadays you can't optimize everything to the same extent. It's like complaining that people built a skyscraper out of something other than perfectly laid matchsticks because you saw someone build a house that way over the course of 10+ years.

@ninja_raven256

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ehal256 the thing is that a lot of modern games run terribly even on decent computers, and often take up a lot more space than you'd probably expect. Although you can probably attribute that to studios wanting to make their game look good instead of properly optimizing code and assets. Although in more extreme cases even simpler games can have terrible optimization due to taking a lot of shortcuts.

@tacosmexicanstyle7846

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ehal256 yeah that’s true, I was being hyperbolic sorry lol I guess devs these days are going to focus their efforts on higher level optimisations like hiding objects / unloading parts of the game where they can get away with it. Or reducing level of detail for far away objects. Whereas what old school devs would do is literally write the assembly code themselves because they couldn’t trust the compiler to do a good enough job

Thank you for showing that off! Amazing!

Thanks for the great and informative video! I can’t believe they fit the full resolution textures and sound in there and still have it running as well as it does now. Truly an impressive piece of engineering!

This is just incredibly impressive. I can't really comprehend how it's possible that it runs that well and looks that good.

This is actually mind blowing

@X22GJP

2 жыл бұрын

Not really though is it? Looks like a GBA game, so is a compromised port running as well as it can with current optimisations. Hardly an impossible port given that it was ported.

@sayeghjoe

2 жыл бұрын

No it doesn’t have the frame rate of the PS1 version, but that’s not the point. Tomb Raider wasn’t ever designed to run on the GBA architecture. As a technical achievement, this is nothing short of phenomenal.

@ZygalStudios

2 жыл бұрын

@@X22GJP I'm pretty sure "Impossible" Port is just a hyperbole... It's a technically respectable port though. It's always a treat seeing someone come up with clever design when presented with a constrained environment. Is this mind blowing? Maybe to some people, but I certainly think it's worth discussing and appreciating.

optimization has been lost now days. Game companies no longer make games compatible with lower end hardware. It's just lazy coding for the latest hardware and if you have anything less than good luck. Halo infinite being the most recent game I played on a budget build that ran at 15 fps. smh. Please someone hire this guy and learn from him. I love your impossible port series, it's just so fascinating to see how genius these people are to be able to pull this off. Plus you always provide such a clear explanation and details into how they achieved it.

That is so freaking amazing. Thanks for covering this!

I love that your videos come out early and I can procrastinate a few more minutes at work

@mrfxully

2 жыл бұрын

:D

The title music brings me right back, great memories.

such an amazing port: can‘t believe it! All the best! ☺️✨

This is actually insane. Thanks for documenting this.

This is also a great demonstration of the power of precomputed LUTs for making old hardware do more than people think is possible. Many really old CPUs don't have support for floating point or division, but with a carefully crafted LUT stored on the cart you can still make them do vectors and such. I have a little program I did for the Vectrex which uses a LUT to describe a circle (all you have to do is accept that a circle is subdivided into 256 degrees :p)

@Silvergun_Raven

2 жыл бұрын

I have no idea what you just typed, but I fully agree with.

@satyricon86

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed

this makes me wonder that of all consoles we've had, we probably haven't truly seen the technical limits of any of those ....... It never crossed my mind this was achievable on a GBA.

@frost8077

2 жыл бұрын

I assumed this to be the case when I looked at early PS2 games compared to late PS2 games. If hardware production ever came to a stop in any console generation, software developers would continue finding tricks to push forward better game development. There is a channel called Coding Secrets that has some cool videos on how some Sega Genesis effects were achieved in games. If the 3DS can run Metal Gear Solid 3, it can probably be pushed much further.

@DragoonMS

2 жыл бұрын

@@frost8077 Wasn't the 3DS version of MGS3 an early 3DS release?

@frost8077

2 жыл бұрын

@@DragoonMS Two years after the 3DS release, so somewhat early.

@DuhNoU

2 жыл бұрын

now we have to wait for someone to port mgs5 to 3ds

@tony_0088

2 жыл бұрын

@@frost8077 I'll check the channel you mentioned, thanks.

I love these kinds of video, this is stuff that I would never thought it could be possible

when i first saw this, my mind exploded, i honestly cannot believe that it not only runs, but runs so damn well...the only complaint is that the controls are inverted.

Awesome video, and the port looks amazing. Unless I'm mistaken, at 07:35, Painter's algorithm isn't a culling method (used to remove polygons from the render pipeline) but rather an alternative to depth testing using a z-buffer. The painter's algorithm is literally drawing the screen as a painter would a canvas, start with the background objects and then draw closer objects over the top. This requires an extra sorting step (costs CPU time) but avoids saving extra per-pixel data (saves memory).

@tanmaypanadi1414

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you. 👍

I wonder, since Super Mario 64 got 100% decompiled over a year ago, would it be possible to port that game to the GBA as well or would you need a copious amount of fog?

@dftfire

2 жыл бұрын

The Gouraud shading SM64 uses will certainly help, as it's less-stressful on the CPU than having to scale, rotate and draw textures. But with some of the bigger, open stages you would either need fog, or add some walls to areas to reduce what can be seen (as was done in some of the large maps in the DOOM2 port). Tomb Raider is also built on a grid, where many walls are at right-angles, so that also helps reduce polygon count. As SM64 is more rounded, that could again be an issue. I'd say overall you've more-chance of seeing SM64 be ported, with tweaks, than something like Banjo-Tooie or Conker's Bad Fur Day.

@poble

2 жыл бұрын

@@kurisuj1421 I’m sure bits have nothing to do with this, sm64 has been ported to many 32 bit systems (dreamcast, ps2, xbox, gamecube/wii, dsi, etc.) that said, I don’t think the gba is even remotely capable of running sm64

@bangerbangerbro

2 жыл бұрын

I always used to day dream about this. It is probably possible if Tomb Raider is but it would be equally impressive and difficult.

This is pretty impressive dude! Thanks for sharing 😎👍✨

Your editing skills and the quality in your videos is very impressive, greetings.

Completely forgot about this port happening. Give this man a job at a major studio. Imagine what he could do with current generation if allowed to go to the metal.

@The8bitbeard

2 жыл бұрын

@@GPOLICE It's an unfortunate fact that good games aren't necessarily marketable, and marketable games aren't necessarily good. Thankfully at least, there are some developers out there who desire to make good games, but it's certainly not the focus of the big studios.

@KopperNeoman

2 жыл бұрын

@GPOLICE He would also have a good chance of being told to give Lara "realistic attire and proportions". Let him have his passion projects.

This would have been insane as a launch title for the GBA in 2001.

@ABVW92

2 жыл бұрын

Ngl, if this had been a GBA launch title, it very well may have pushed development on the GBA even further than we got.

@Oni64

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABVW92 For reals. If nintendo would of had the 32MB carts early on, It would have brought some games close to n-gage or early ps1 quality. This is the proof

@ABVW92

2 жыл бұрын

@@Oni64 with the right Devs ofcourse... As they'd still need to get around some pretty hefty hardware limitations, on the console side.

@SuperMisteryMan01

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABVW92 it would’ve pushed the boundaries of portable gaming and I’m sure even programming in some way before this present era of technology we live in

@akpokemon

2 жыл бұрын

lmfao Uhh......yes? hahahahahaha

Jaw dropping!! Great video!!

Great video as always. Truly is incredible what people can accomplish

This is the sole work of one guy? I can't begin to comprehend how insane this is

To think Velez and Dubail earned a rep for pushing the GBA's limits with their 3D engine. This guy on the other hand is an absolute madlad.

Fantastic video as always.

That's insane man I couldn't believe it when I saw it but now I'm looking forward to the full version!

I had original Tomb Raider for PC back in 96 so I'm very curious to learn about this. You're the best at these man

@poeskey

2 жыл бұрын

same. I remember playing it around early 2000s along with the 3d frogger game.

@mathprodigy

2 жыл бұрын

@@poeskey haha boi that's a classic right there

This is really cool. But if he intends to make Tomb Raider to run on "all the systems", then I, as an N64 fan certainly hope I'll finally be able to play Tomb Raider on my favorite system.

@VarietyGamerChannel

2 жыл бұрын

N64 would have no problem running the game.

@Oni64

2 жыл бұрын

Tomb Raider was planned for the N64, but ultimately playstation got all the Tomb Raider games.

@ssaunders1122

2 жыл бұрын

The N64 ran resident evil 2. I'm sure this could be done.

@jakobholgersson4400

2 жыл бұрын

@@VarietyGamerChannel Agreed. Maybe it could even get some nice extra visual effects. I remember that Jet Force Gemini had cast shadows from the protagonists.

@FolkerHQ

2 жыл бұрын

would be nice to see. I guess, it is not as easy to port as some might think. Many big textures and also some geometry. Golden Eye like performance and Resident Evil like FMV. But it is a lot of work to recreate the new needed textures. Also the N64 has the limit in texture size per texture. So maybe that is the biggest problem. It could easily endup in a very blurry mess.

truly, the most amazing part is how you were able to show the GBA screen so clearly.

@normanclatcher

2 жыл бұрын

Backlight modification.

Very thanks bro, big like from ITALY 🤜🤛👍

I have fond memories playing Tomb Raider on my Saturn. One of my all time top 10. GBA version looks and sound wonderful and I’d definitely support the developers and definitely purchase a physical copy if ever released. Great info

@luziferius3687

2 жыл бұрын

This is non-commercial, third-party work of fans of the game. This can never be sold, unless they get a license to re-distribute the game and do an official GBA release. I doubt that happens. But you can support the developers by donating. If you want to play it on an actual GBA, you’d have to produce your own cartrige. (Or buy a bootleg someone does from etsy or whereever, if those become available. But these won’t support the devs, as 100% of the revenue goes to the cartrige manufacturer, who very likely won’t give any revenue away)

when I first saw this (i first saw the pic) I thought this was on DS, but running on the GBA thats nuts that it looks that good and running that well

This is fascinating and truly remarkable work.

Well done! Very impressive 👏 👏👏

This is wildly impressive. The developer could just hand a prospective employer a copy of this and they should just hire him immediately.

This reminds me of the RE2 and Quake demos for GBA.

I don’t understand any of the technical details but I love listening and this is truly impressive!

Definitely interesting, I hope you'll cover this again in the future when more progress has been made.

This port is absolutely insane. Once they get a full version up and running, I'm definitely gonna wanna play it.

Never liked this game as a kid, but now ive been screaming "this is F*CKING cool" for 12:40 in my mind Still have that disc so lets go

@H53.

2 жыл бұрын

As you grow up, your taste in games changes.

@pacman_pol_pl_polska

2 жыл бұрын

@@H53. First Tomb Raiders are poop. Graphics are awful, everything is covered in one texture. Controls are pure AIDS. Platforming is a slow proces of making tiny steps, backstepping and then jumping. Fighting with anything is also braindead bad. But it's still worth playing once

Amazing! Thank you for video

They got so focused on whether they could, they never stopped to ask whether they should.

MVG in 2030: Witcher 3 on the calculator is incredible

@3dmarth

2 жыл бұрын

Xbox 360 port when? :) Actually, the thing I really want to see is Witcher 3 on GameCube. I know it'd have to be rebuilt from the ground up, but it would amazing to see either: A. An open-world game that's actually tailored to the GameCube, and looks/runs better than GUN or Spider-Man. B. How high the graphical fidelity could be if it used smaller environments (I mean, you could port Geralt's model from W2 straight into the Star Fox Adventures engine with little performance penalty- W3 might be pushing it, though).

This is incredibly impressive! I remember how blown away I was back in 2004 to see a game like Tomb Raider being able to run on portable hardware on the N-Gage. Would never have thought the GBA with it's 3 year older tech could pull off a version that looks even better. Now it makes me wonder whether the GBA would also be able to pull off a competent port of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater which was the other flags ship launch game on the N-Gage? Really excited to see how far they be able to push this port of Tomb Raider tho. Just imagine how big this could have been if it had officially released back in the GBA's haydays.

Hyper stamp of approval! I had every single issue of Hyper magazine and also had letters published with them. I was obsessed at the time lol

I'm glad you understand this, MVG. I was struggling!

I remember playing this the day it came out on the original PlayStation and it changed gaming forever. Seeing this run on the GBA gives me a similar vibe to how it was playing the game all those years ago.

@deezy81

2 жыл бұрын

Tomb Raider and IV:Last Revelation will always be my favorite Tomb Raiders. I remember climbing all the way up to the top of the high platforms and looking down in amazement at everything beneath me and thinking that it was the coolest thing ever

Brilliant! IF there was a Kickstarter for a real cart of this, I'd be backing it faster than that. Thanks for another great video

The title of this video stopped my scrolling immediately. Truly fascinating work here

I love stuff like this. omg your analogue pocket glass is chipped...