Someone built Doom inside an SQL database

A developer just proved your database can render 35 frames per second of classic 3D graphics.

Developer Lukas Vogel built SQLDoom, a project that runs the classic game Doom entirely inside a database. A small Python script handles player input and updates the screen, but CedarDB does the heavy lifting. Across 89 queries and 1,300 lines of SQL code, the database churns out full-color 640×480 frames in real time, according to Ars Technica.

Why it matters: "Rendering Doom in a database is obviously a bad idea," Vogel wrote. But pushing software meant for store orders and user records to compute 3D game logic shows just how fast modern database engines can run.

How it works: Vogel turned Doom's level maps into relational tables filled with lines and coordinates. To draw walls in the right order, the database runs a simple ORDER BY sorting query for every frame. It is a huge step up from his last attempt, which only managed grayscale ASCII graphics.

Next time your search query takes three seconds, remember that a database somewhere is rendering 3D monsters in real time.