Inside Nanolathe

A new foundation. A familiar battlefield.

Explore Nanolathe’s clean-room engine and experimental GPU renderer.

The foundation

Rebuild with understanding.

Nanolathe is an independent, open-source 2.5D RTS engine in Go. Its current focus is a clean-room reimplementation of Total Annihilation. Its goal is to preserve the original game’s behavior while making the implementation understandable and giving presentation room to evolve.

Committed game frame

ClassicSoftware renderer

ModernGPU rendererExperimental

Shared frame. Two rendering paths.

In development

The GPU renderer.

The experimental GPU path replays an ordered draw list through Ebitengine. The classic software renderer remains the default while the GPU implementation is developed and visually reviewed.

The design keeps rendering separate from authoritative simulation. Future enhanced presentation builds on this shared foundation.

Read the renderer design

Current prototype

Try the modern path.

From an engine checkout with a working game-data installation:

go run ./cmd/nanolathe --root "/path/to/TotalAnnihilation" --renderer=modern

Experimental. Appearance and performance are still being evaluated.

Project scope

Single-player first.

Skirmish and campaign play are the implementation focus. Networking and multiplayer are outside the current scope. In-battle save restoration remains unfinished.

Check the current status