Mastodawn

Ronflaix 7h ago

@eniko So, fantasy consoles or graphical calculators?

Devlin

@Ronflaix @eniko make it 128k and I'd be curious!

Mecrisp 6h ago

@devlin @Ronflaix @eniko A long time ago, in an empire far away... Has this already been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger

.kkrieger - Wikipedia

Devlin

6h ago

@Mecrisp @Ronflaix @eniko but I want two cakes!

Zerodime 5h ago

@Ronflaix @eniko Or old computers like C64/Amiga etc.

Alex 3h ago

@zerodime @Ronflaix @eniko old? commodore's are still selling

Zerodime 3h ago

@adubya @Ronflaix @eniko Well old doesn't mean "not selling", just old ;) I could say retro but not sure it fits exactly

Clyde (GameTank Guy)46m ago

@Ronflaix @eniko or real consoles like the GameTank ;)

Brian Swetland 7h ago

@eniko It's clearly indicative of how I still haven't entirely adjusted to the scale of modern systems that 128MB does not sound "low" to me even though it's probably in the "good luck even booting" size for today's OSes.

I just checked and Animal Well is 33MB (windows exe), so even though things tend to be huge nowadays you can obviously still do a lot with well under 128MB... at least of binary image... unsure if Animal Well would actually *run* in 128MB...

Noisytoot 4h ago

@swetland @eniko It’s how much memory my server’s BMC has, and that runs GNU/Linux (and technically does have video output, although I’m not sure how to actually use it from the BMC)

Isaac Ji Kuo 7h ago

@eniko Well, it's a DRAM shortage, so the obvious target system would be something with only good old SRAM.

VIC-20 time! 3.5K of STATIC RAM available to BASIC!

@eniko like a GBA ?

@gkrnours exactly like a GBA

(tbh i just looked up the RAM in a PSP and doubled it lol)

gkrnours 6h ago

@eniko for a minute I had mixed my units and storage technologies (GBA can have 32MB of rom). Turn out the DS had only 4MB of ram and the 3DS 128MB + 6MB of vram.

but I have a soft spot for the GBA, the simplicity of a color 240x160 screen and 10 buttons

Jhooper 3h ago

@gkrnours @eniko and they still managed 3d graphics on the GBA. Someone even pitched Resident Evil 2 on it to Capcom with a playable demo.

aeva 7h ago

@eniko i like that threshold. 128 megs is positively roomy for us custom engine folks but haw good luck submitting anything made in unreal or electron or whatever

aeva 7h ago

@eniko each successive jam should lower the threshold a touch until we find the sweet spot :3

aeva 7h ago

@eniko "oom jam" has a nice ring to it

@aeva oh that's a way better name than what i came up with

Janek @ IndieDev.site 6h ago

@aeva @eniko I thought it was an edible jam at first and now I want to eat it

I wonder how out of memory tastes

higgins 6h ago

@hardpenguin13 @aeva @eniko I was about to tell you the taste but I forgot 😉

Terin Stock 5h ago

@hardpenguin13 In my mind it would taste like burnt toast.

EndlessMason 4h ago

@aeva @eniko
Swap meet?

@aeva @eniko I love the idea of progressively tightening the memory constraints... 128MB is a lot... the playstation 1 had like 2MB+1MB vram (if you include vram), the ps2 had like 32MB+4MB vram. The gameboy has 8KB+8KBvram, [up to 128KB with expansions on-cart (yay bank switching!)] which I think is the smallest I've done anything on.

@miss_rodent @aeva tbh i came up with 128mb by taking the PSP's amount and doubling it, it was not a very rigorous process >_>

but i figured it would exclude most "basically a modern OS but just doesn't get security updates anymore" type platforms

@eniko @aeva Tinycore (linux distro) runs on 46MB, and microcore on 24MB... though if you want to add a game to that and stay under 128 you're still not using unity or rpgmaker or whatevr the kids use these days.

@eniko @aeva whether either of those can be considered 'modern operating systems' is arguable.... they're in a nebulous space between embedded system and modernOS honestly.
and it still cuts out most of the standard game-making tools in use in the last decade or so either way.

@miss_rodent @aeva nebulous space sounds good to me

@eniko @aeva Nebulous spaces are a good setting for game jams tbh

Owl Eyes 5h ago

@miss_rodent @aeva @eniko yeah, and at what video resolution? Kids hate those low-res 320x240-ish games now

Nazo 7h ago

@aeva @eniko But you know, wouldn't it be amazing if someone used the room to make something really really big?

(Like whole huge world big, not just filling the RAM big.)

Most would just fill the RAM, but maybe, just maybe someone would do something amazing.

Makiki🐑

6h ago

@aeva @eniko How one would measure the RAM usage of a PC game? /gen

Asking because memory management is weird on modern OSes with all the shared libraries, caching, swap spaces and whatnot - like I tried running my game and htop reported 282 MB reserved but the total RAM used went up only by ~100 MB or so, which makes it hard to figure things out unless one is deliberately targetting a non-PC platform that fits the RAM cap (which is super cool but I am probably too skill issued for that)

@makiki @aeva the system must be using 128mb ram or less, not the game, which i feel makes things a lot clearer

Daniel Gibson 1h ago

@eniko @makiki @aeva
I think this implies using vintage hardware and software - modern operating systems won't work with 128MB of RAM, and even for a *process* that just uses the userspace parts of a graphics driver (libGL or whatever) it's probably not enough

Heals

@eniko my vote for 64kb - we used to be able to do it, now it's time to learn it again!

/cc @aeva

brib

@heals @eniko @aeva Maybe there should be game jams with different memory classes

One memory class to force you to write the game in hyperoptimised arcane C, one to force you to write a custom engine, and one open to lightweight existing game engines.

I'm kinda already looking forward to seeing what magic you can do with hyperoptomised arcane C

Magnus Ahltorp 6h ago

@brib Bah! C? You can’t optimise properly in C! How would you even optimise your inner loop?

brib

5h ago

@ahltorp AssemblerJam: Compilers are for wusses. Real programmers hand-code like the 1950s

Ratsnake Games 🔞7h ago

@eniko i mean... my computer from 2008 or so had 2 gigs of RAM already, so even whatever second-hand hardware you manage to scrounge up these days will be able to do far better than 128 MB

Ratsnake Games 🔞7h ago

@eniko there's already a ton of very retro game jams out there and i don't mind another one but let's not pretend running Electron is suddenly an unaffordable luxury

@ratsnakegames limitations are a fun challenge

Ratsnake Games 🔞7h ago

@eniko yeah, but this limitation just boils down to "you can't run tech stack X/Y/Z" and that doesn't feel very inspiring to me. Just kinda means people with some skillsets are in and people with others are out.

Just my two cents though.

@ratsnakegames tech stacks are memory hungry. the entire point is to do more with less. i'm also excluding all the semi-modern personal computing that's pretty much just a normal modern environment except with an old OS that no longer gets security updates

Tzimisce Flesh 6h ago

@ratsnakegames @eniko I mean, that is kinda the idea of game jams in general. They're a challenge in playing within limitations. A chance for those with niche skills to show them off and for those without to dabble in what they otherwise wouldn't.

ideaPDish 7h ago

@eniko
That takes me back... to the Apple II+

Dave Rahardja 7h ago

@ipd @eniko The Apple II series had a max of 64KB, 128KB if you got the expansion card.

brib

@eniko I really want this to happen now.

I wonder how Löve fares in whether it fits the memory limit. It's smaller than Unity and (probably) bigger than a custom engine.

I wonder if Godot fits too

@brib have i got some good news for you: https://git.gay/SuperIlu/lovedos

SuperIlu/lovedos

A framework for making 2D DOS games in Lua (forked)

git.gay

fabiosantoscode 4h ago

@brib the Godot game I'm working on runs on 108mb of RAM according to windows process manager. If you count GPU memory, it probably goes over.

But IIUC Godot can be recompiled, so as to remove features you don't need.

Robin Adams 6h ago

@eniko Or just 128 bytes of RAM like the Atari 2600.

Mmmmmmmmmm Jam

@eniko PFFT .. what about 'retrocomputing' instead and make a game with a system with 64K OR much less ? 😎

Webber-e-bop 6h ago

@eniko lever heard of the ESP32 or microcontrollers in general?

0x0961h 6h ago

@eniko I am still recovering from that 64kb FPS game, Eniko

WombatDhampir 3h ago

@0x0961h @eniko That guy is a danger to himself and the world. What a mad genius. I hope he open sources the tools he made, that would make give this game jam idea some legs.

0x0961h 1h ago

@VampirePenguin @eniko There are only few devlogs/postmortems that I enjoy rewatching and this project's PM is exactly that.

WombatDhampir 1h ago

@0x0961h @eniko Absolutely. When it popped up on my recommended, I was thinking it would be a space invader clone or something. When I saw the actual game my brain popped. For those who haven't seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qht68vFaa1M

How I made a shooter game in 64 KB

YouTube

David JONES 6h ago

@eniko I am installing FiwixOS (thanks to @nina_kali_nina ), and i note that "the minimum memory recommended is 128MiB". If, you know, one were looking for an OS to host a game.

Nina Kalinina 6h ago

@drj @eniko I gotta say, I have no issue with booting a standards install with just 8 megs, though