Using Rust to Build a $1 Handheld Gaming Console
7 hours ago
- #RISC-V
- #Low-Cost Hardware
- #Embedded Rust
- The CH32V003 is a $0.09 RISC-V 32-bit microcontroller with 2KiB RAM and 16KiB flash.
- Inspired to build a handheld gaming console using Rust, leveraging the ch32-hal project for embedded support.
- Developed a game engine first on a desktop with minifb, then ported rendering to the chip.
- Used the ssd1306 crate directly for display, avoiding embedded_graphics due to RAM constraints, and utilized the display's persistence as a framebuffer.
- Optimized rendering by using a 128-byte buffer and implementing bounding-box culling for 8-pixel strips.
- Fixed performance issues by switching from floating-point to fixed-point math using the fixed crate, boosting FPS from 1 to 30+.
- Encoded the game map as an array of u64 values for efficient tile storage and fast physics checks.
- Achieved ~25 FPS on the final hardware, making the game playable on a very low-cost chip.
- Demonstrates Rust's suitability for embedded systems, offering safety and performance even on constrained devices.