Playable Tomb Raider runs on a humble 1-watt chip — $25 board with dual-core 400 MHz ESP32-P4 MCU scales OpenLara up to 1,024 x 600 playable pixels
- ID
- 23924
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 13 Sep 2026, 7:00 PM
- Fetched
- 13 Sep 2026, 7:15 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/programming/playable-tomb-raider-runs-on-a-humble-1-watt-chip-usd25-board-with-dual-core-400-mhz-esp32-p4-mcu-scales-openlara-up-to-1-024-x-600-playable-pixels
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 13 Sep 2026, 7:17 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
A $25 board built around the ESP32-P4 (dual-core 400 MHz MCU, 1 watt) runs OpenLara — an open-source Tomb Raider engine — at up to 1024x600 playable resolution. The demo showcases the ESP32-P4's multimedia capabilities far beyond typical microcontroller use cases.
Why it matters
If you build embedded or IoT devices, the ESP32-P4's ability to drive a 1024x600 game at 400 MHz suggests it can handle richer UI workloads (dashboards, kiosks, local displays) than prior ESP32 variants — worth evaluating before defaulting to a Raspberry Pi or full SoC for low-power display projects.
Discussion angle
Where the ESP32-P4 fits in the Malaysian maker and industrial IoT scene — could it replace more expensive display boards in local prototyping or low-cost product design?