Original id Software dev shares what it was like porting Doom to the Atari Jaguar

OG id Software dev Sandy Petersen shares a rare glimpse at what it was like making Doom on Atari's ill-fated Jaguar console.

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Back in 1994, Atari released the world's first 64-bit video games console. It was called the Jaguar, and it would end up being the last home system that Atari ever produced. Before its demise, though, the jungle-cat console ushered in some pretty potent game experiences for the age. One of these games was a fully-fledged port of id's Doom, which was the hottest PC game at the time.

The Atari Jaguar port of Doom is regarded as one of the best console adaptations of the classic FPS, and a lot of that comes down to the work that level designer Sandy Petersen did in this particular port. In a recent post on Twitter, Petersen chronicles the experience in a rare look at past of obscure and offshoot video game consoles. In the thread, Petersen notes that it was John Carmack's decision that id would make Doom for the Jaguar--according to Petersen, Carmack was utterly infatuated with Atari's new 64-bit system on an architectural and systems level. The idea of making millions of dollars in sales never really fazed Carmack, and his interest was mainly with the technology itself.

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Petersen also acknowledges the Jaguar's shortcomings insofar as system memory--the console may have been a powerhouse in terms of processing power, with two onboard 32-bit chips.

"However mighty the processor, the Jaguar's memory capacity was teensy-tiny, so I had to greatly shrink every single map in memory size. I did this by eliminating the majority of the textures (they're real memory hogs)," Petersen said.

"Below you can see the difference: On the left is the Jaguar version. On the right is the computer version. You can see that that "raised pod" texture got used a LOT. I think also it used less memory because it was only about half the size of the wall texture used in the computer game.

"So I had to go through all the levels, making them look a little worse, so they'd work on the Jaguar. You can imagine how great that was for my morale."

The studio pulled it off: Petersen's work alongside the rest of the team at id has now led to one of the best console adaptations of the core Doom experience on PC--a feat that gamers still recognize to this day.