The Nintendo 64 presented all sorts of challenges to developers. We still remember the true miracle of fitting Resident Evil 2 into a cartridge, navigating special hardware features and very severe storage limits. However, that hasn't stopped or intimidated programmer James Lambert, who is working on a demake of Portal compatible with Nintendo's console. His demos run on original hardware, with physics and portals included...
Have you not played Portal yet? If so, you're missing out. Valve has given it away multiple times, it frequently appears with significant discounts, and its requirements are so low that it could run on a gas pump. And the story doesn't end there: Portal was also chosen by many modders to expand its story and combine other assets. Now we've reached the territory of demakes, but we're not talking about 2D graphics or a low-poly Unreal/Unity recreation. What we have here is a demake of Portal... for the Nintendo 64.
Portal Demake for Nintendo 64: "The cake is not a lie"
James Lambert began working on this project at the beginning of March, but he was already known for his demos of real-time shadows and toon shading on the console. After reproducing the basic graphics, he focused on the physics engine, the portal mechanics, and his latest release is the portal gun. The most impressive thing is that all of this runs on real hardware, but those interested can download the latest demo on GitHub in z64 format.
James takes advantage of the video to explain some of the present limitations. The first is that portals appear immediately, without the classic opening animation we remember from the original game (something similar happens with the lack of animations on the gun). The second is that audio is conspicuously absent, but that's planned for future updates. The priority was to render portals, with the recursion effect. The maximum for the engine is 15 layers. If it tries to go further, the game collapses completely.
James also mentions his use of culling to avoid rendering objects and textures that the player doesn't see, improving his framerate in the process and saving cycles. Honestly, I can't wait to see more, and I'm crossing my fingers hoping for one thing: That Valve doesn't get nervous about this project.
James Lambert on YouTube: Click here Source: Hackaday
