I've spent the last month adding features and improving performance in z486_MiSTer, mostly working through games from the first half of the 1990s. Looking a few years ahead brought me to another change I wanted to explore: the arrival of 3D graphics cards.

The first one that left a strong impression on me was the Voodoo. The game was Need for Speed II SE. Smooth textures, fog, and the speed of the whole thing made it feel like a new generation of PC gaming. Could I recreate that on an FPGA now that the z486 CPU exists?

The result of this detour is zSST, a SystemVerilog implementation of the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics, or SST-1. Combined with my z486 CPU and the surrounding PC hardware, it forms z486 XL: a DOS PC with Voodoo graphics running in the programmable logic of a Xilinx KV260 board. Tomb Raider now runs with its original 3dfx renderer.