This is breathtaking. I did something similar[1] porting a 3D dice roller I wrote to a $60 GBA clone, and I _thought_ that was hardcore already. This is next level.
Thanks for sharing both an amazing topic - engineering with significant constraints, a great medium - handheld game devices, as well as some wisdom - If you want to make actual progress, try to aim for "good enough".
What an excellent example of designing for the medium instead of trying to make the medium do something it's not good at! Your whole approach shows a real love, like a delicate respectfulness, that I think characterises early games and is less apparent as the systems get better (though I am sure it is still there).
I love this post because it goes well beyond "can I render 3d graphics on this device" and into "how can i play with the combo of art and rendering tech to get a nice looking scene on this device.
Given the 168MHz ARM, the real innovation here is the way stable dithering and a cell shading look was used to make the graphics good looking. Very well done!
But using 16-bit Z-buffer for 1-bit display seems to be an overkill. Sorting polygons works mostly fine if done right, especially if BSP tree is already used.
[1]: https://blog.myli.page/rolling-dice-on-a-60-handheld-08be278...
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3804
Surface-Stable Fractal Dithering
https://runevision.com/tech/dither3d/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPqGaIMVuLs
Very cool, thanks for sharing!
Add more lighting and shadows to the game before that dithering pass and then see how far you can push this, and write about it. Cheers! :)
https://lcd.ertdfgcvb.xyz
But using 16-bit Z-buffer for 1-bit display seems to be an overkill. Sorting polygons works mostly fine if done right, especially if BSP tree is already used.