Playable Tomb Raider runs on a humble 1-watt chip
Microcontrollers remain admirably efficient but have gained significant processing muscle.
A retro video gaming devotee has showcased Lara Croft adventuring in and among ancient tombs on a humble ESP32-P4 microcontroller. This highly affordable device (available as a sub-$25 dev board) packs a pair of 32-bit 400 MHz RISC cores and delivers a slick, playable 1,024 x 600 pixel experience for TheAlexKid777, yet consumes roughly 1 watt at peak. It is good to see someone having video-gaming fun with cheap, power-sipping new tech in 2026.
When it launched in the mid-90s, Tomb Raider quickly became a classic by successfully capturing the add-a-third-dimension-to-all-games-and-IPs trend while delivering an eminently enjoyable adventure game. Not all games were better because they were in 3D rather than 2D. Far from it. Now the compute power required to run a title like OpenLara doesn’t require an expensive and power-hungry game console - a cheap dev board that typically consumes milliwatts is capable enough today.
But the high-efficiency low-wattage gaming feat described above is just half the story. The other phenomenon demonstrated here is the beefing up of commonly available microcontrollers. Developers no longer need to be extremely resource thrifty when coding for these humble devices. They now pack plenty of horsepower to spare.
In the case of Espressif’s ESP32-P4, there is “a dual-core RISC-V CPU featuring AI instruction extensions, an advanced memory subsystem, and integrated high-speed peripherals,” the maker highlights. There’s also up to 64MB PSRAM, 768KB SRAM, an FPU, DSP, ISP, 55 programmable GPIOs, and more. It sounds almost like an original Tomb Raider era dream.
In TheAlexKid777’s demo, this hardware is attached to the back of what looks like a 7- or 8-inch LCD. It runs OpenLara at 320 x 240 pixels, which is PPA hardware scaled to 1,024 x 600 pixels. The game also features stereo audio pumped through the dev board’s ES8311 codec, and it's controlled via a connected USB keyboard.
We’ve previously reported on various ESP32 family microcontrollers being used to: power a retro Mac emulator, host a tiny ad-blocking dongle, and even run a 28.9 million parameter LLM. Some of these projects use far cheaper ESP32 microcontrollers, too, starting at $5.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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Findecanor Hardware has come a long way.Reply
Tomb Raider is from 1996 and ran on an intel 486.
In 1996, a 400 MHz RISC chip was considered a workstation-class CPU. -
TerryLaze Reply
Tomb raider was a PS1 game and ran on a 33Mhz 32bit risc CPU, now you need 400Mhz because of emulation.Findecanor said:Hardware has come a long way.
Tomb Raider is from 1996 and ran on an intel 486.
In 1996, a 400 MHz RISC chip was considered a workstation-class CPU.
Also total power draw of the PS1 was 6-12W including the cd rom spinning. -
salgado18 Reply
There's no emulation if you run the PC version, so 66 MHz would be all it takes (probably).TerryLaze said:Tomb raider was a PS1 game and ran on a 33Mhz 32bit risc CPU, now you need 400Mhz because of emulation.
Also total power draw of the PS1 was 6-12W including the cd rom spinning.
That said, pair it with a cell phone battery and a case, and you have an old school gaming device that lasts days with one charge. -
usertests Reply
It's running a port of OpenLara, so not emulation.TerryLaze said:Tomb raider was a PS1 game and ran on a 33Mhz 32bit risc CPU, now you need 400Mhz because of emulation.
Also total power draw of the PS1 was 6-12W including the cd rom spinning.
It's using software rendering. The 1996 game required a graphics card. So I think that is making a difference. The ESP32-P4 has some kind of 2D graphics accelerator, as well as JPEG/H.264 support, but gaming is obviously an afterthought for it and most microcontrollers.
The 2D accelerator is used for a simple upscale from the 320x240 resolution it's being rendered at to 1024x600 for the panel being used.
It may not need the full 400 MHz clock speed. It's capped at 30 FPS. -
rluker5 So has this processor surpassed the 22nm, 12 year old Bay trail in perf/watt yet?Reply
qA_stIUkzzAView: https://youtu.be/qA_stIUkzzA -
usertests Reply
Lack of a 3D GPU should make that impossible from a gaming standpoint.rluker5 said:So has this processor surpassed the 22nm, 12 year old Bay trail in perf/watt yet?
It may be using an older node too. I couldn't find the node for ESP32-P4.
As is typical, the power consumption of the Intel chip is probably more than stated. 2.2W SDP is for fanless, it's probably closer to 4-6W if given more thermal headroom. Which is a good thing, really. Didn't watch the video yet.
I hope we see more interesting stuff in the low-end. Wildcat Lake is a good start, but I want to see the AMD response now (e.g. Zen 6 Bumblebee or whatever). -
Mindstab Thrull Something I don't get:Reply
It runs OpenLara at 320 x 240 pixels, which is PPA hardware scaled to 1,024 x 600 pixels.
The math feels weird to me. 1024÷320 is 3.2 whereas 600÷240 is 2.5. Scaling by 2.5 would be 800x600 and by 3.2 would be 1024x768. How do they scale it to make it look "sensible"? 800x600 feels more logical to me with black bars along the edges. Either that or the image is stretched in one direction or another.
Am I missing something?
Mindstab Thrull -
Findecanor ReplyTerryLaze said:Tomb raider was a PS1 game and ran on a 33Mhz 32bit risc CPU
It had been developed for MS-DOS, Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn simultaneously.usertests said:The 1996 game required a graphics card.
The original MS-DOS version used a software renderer -- doing it all on the CPU. Playstation and Saturn had crude texture mapping hardware.
There have been newer editions for PC and those have had higher system requirements.