Doom now runs on earbuds

The cult classic Doom is famous for running on just about anything. Over the years, fans have managed to get the 1993 shooter running on calculators, ATMs and even digital pregnancy tests – and now on earbuds. The project, called Doombuds, is based on the PineBuds Pro and was created by Australian web developer Arin Sarkisian.

The game runs entirely on the headphones’ own processor, enabled by the open firmware of the PineBuds Pro and a series of technical modifications. The built-in ARM Cortex M4F chip was overclocked from 100 to 300 MHz, power-saving features were disabled, and additional RAM was freed by turning off a co-processor. Doom itself was also heavily optimized – constant variables were moved to flash storage, internal caching was removed, and instead of the standard shareware file, a stripped-down “Squashware” WAD measuring just 1.7 MB is used.

Since the headphones lack a display, video output is handled via a serial UART connection. Individual frames are encoded as JPEGs and streamed to a browser as an MJPEG feed. At Doom’s classic resolution of 320 × 200 pixels, the system reaches around 18 frames per second. While up to 27 FPS would be theoretically possible, actual performance is limited by the CPU’s ability to handle real-time JPEG encoding.

Through the project’s website, users can join a queue and play Doom directly on the headphones, which are currently listed on the manufacturer’s site for $69.99. While the experiment offers no practical benefit, it is a clever addition to the long-running “Can it run Doom?” trend – demonstrating that the game can even run on devices without a screen.

An Xbox Wireless Controller featuring a Doom design is available on Amazon.