Oh wow, you guys have got to check out this fascinating deep-dive into whether a Neo Geo port of *Doom* is actually possible — and the verdict from Modern Vintage Gamer (as reported by Ars Technica's Kyle Orland on June 2nd) might be more damning than most people realize. At first glance it seems obvious: both the Amiga and Neo Geo pack Motorola 68000 CPUs, right? Shouldn't Doom work anywhere with that chip? But here's where things get really interesting — the real problem is architectural design rather than raw processing power. The whole thing points out a detail most folks miss about how sprite-based graphics worked in practice: despite having decent pixel-pushing capability for its time and an eye-watering launch price, the Neo Geo was designed specifically and exclusively to handle 2D sprites stored on cartridges rather than more flexible memory-backed rendering — which means even though Doom has famously ported itself to everything from printers and earbuds straight through Windows' notepad.exe, it might genuinely have trouble squeezing into a cartridge version of this legendary arcade console.
The architecture reveals the fundamental limitation: the CPU writes tile numbers, positions, and "shrink values" for scaling right into VRAM while letting the video processor pull corresponding sprites from character ROM to display — but that character ROM isn't even addressable by the 68000's bus! This means they can't sample textures or read specific sprite pixels during post-processing like other systems do. More crucially still, without frame buffers or Amiga-style bitplanes, there is simply no direct way for software to draw free-form pixel results onto any portion of the screen — even if Doom could run its raycaster entirely in pure software mode on Neo Geo hardware it would have nowhere meaningful to output those calculated walls and floors.
So while Wolfenstein 3D works reasonably well thanks to simple geometry, MVG built a working demo demonstrating exactly why more advanced features break down: their unoptimized eight frames-per-second version renders flat-floored rooms where every wall is basically just an elongated four-pixel-wide sprite scaled up by the Neo Geo's hardware. That means Doom elements like raised platforms and staircases with textured walls, elevators, ceilings — all those beloved architectural details from id Software's masterpiece — would quickly overwhelm what even a chunky raycasted view can handle. MVG thinks Super FX2-style extra silicon bolted directly into the cartridge is probably our best hope for real Doom on this system (kind of like SNES ports that added chip magic), though he was careful to note "I don't want to say it's impossible because as soon as you say something's impossible, the gauntlet has been thrown down." Really fascinating stuff — I love how these kind-of retro technical posts reveal surprising depth about hardware design choices we barely notice anymore.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/06/why-a-neo-geo-port-of-doom-is-functionally-impossible/
Also see: Modern Vintage Gamer's Neo Geo Doom analysis video
The architecture reveals the fundamental limitation: the CPU writes tile numbers, positions, and "shrink values" for scaling right into VRAM while letting the video processor pull corresponding sprites from character ROM to display — but that character ROM isn't even addressable by the 68000's bus! This means they can't sample textures or read specific sprite pixels during post-processing like other systems do. More crucially still, without frame buffers or Amiga-style bitplanes, there is simply no direct way for software to draw free-form pixel results onto any portion of the screen — even if Doom could run its raycaster entirely in pure software mode on Neo Geo hardware it would have nowhere meaningful to output those calculated walls and floors.
So while Wolfenstein 3D works reasonably well thanks to simple geometry, MVG built a working demo demonstrating exactly why more advanced features break down: their unoptimized eight frames-per-second version renders flat-floored rooms where every wall is basically just an elongated four-pixel-wide sprite scaled up by the Neo Geo's hardware. That means Doom elements like raised platforms and staircases with textured walls, elevators, ceilings — all those beloved architectural details from id Software's masterpiece — would quickly overwhelm what even a chunky raycasted view can handle. MVG thinks Super FX2-style extra silicon bolted directly into the cartridge is probably our best hope for real Doom on this system (kind of like SNES ports that added chip magic), though he was careful to note "I don't want to say it's impossible because as soon as you say something's impossible, the gauntlet has been thrown down." Really fascinating stuff — I love how these kind-of retro technical posts reveal surprising depth about hardware design choices we barely notice anymore.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/06/why-a-neo-geo-port-of-doom-is-functionally-impossible/
Also see: Modern Vintage Gamer's Neo Geo Doom analysis video