maemo.org - Talk - Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

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- - Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ? (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=100494)

homejogger

2018-10-03 08:43

Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

4 Attachment(s)

Thanks for all your replys in this thread.

I was curious if the Openpandora games could run on N900 just because I think they share a similiar hardware spec.(for showcase purpose only:()
However, I know too little about those devices.
I didn't realize how difficult it could be to port an application among different OS(since I couldn't even read any programming codes)

Big thanks to Halftux, endsormeans and sulu
Thanks for pointing out those existing N900 ports like 'scummvm', 'GemRB','Baldur's Gate' etc. I should certainly give a look.:D

I now believed it would be much easier to just get an Openpandora to run those games for sure. Besides, I think most of those games are playable on Android devices as well. (There are apps like Exagear strategies(which could complie x86 instruction set to ARM code in real-time that would run old windows x86 games on ARM based devices with a higher efficiency than DosBox(I tried Heroes of Might and Magic III, Redalert2 successfully running on my kindle fire HDX.). Diablo II could get playable fps on most of the Android devices under $50 nowadays(which would still be cheaper than getting an Openpandora):p

It is very true for the challenge roadmap that provided by Halftux. Maybe I should sit down and read some basic linux knowledge before starting another day dream.:D
Attachment 40171
With Regards.

-------------------------------------
As many people pointed out, the original Open Pandora shared similar hardware&system with our N900.

N900 omap3430 Cortex-a8 500Mhz 256mb RAM sgx530 GPU(Maemo-Debian based)
Open Pandora omap3530 Cortex-a8 600Mhz 256mb sgx530 GPU(Ubuntu)

I just saw Homeworld, Diablo II, Half-Life 1 running on Open Pandora(local apps not streaming) on youtube(pretty old videos actually, my ignorance). Truely amazing. Is there any possibility our N900 could have the same ? How much is the difficulty if someone port it to Maemo5 ?

Request for help as a total Newbie here. Glad to hear from you guys.

Open Pandora

Homeworld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCl0rtFyt1I

Diablo II（a bit like Exagear Strategies on Android)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jn1G4-Q8Io

Half-Life 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uXB0wB2R2E&t=480s

endsormeans

2018-11-02 14:18

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

I don't think you are going to get diablo2 running on the n900.

I need a bit to think....

Halftux

2018-11-02 17:11

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by endsormeans (Post 1549964)

I don't think you are going to get diablo2 running on the n900.

You need, like with the pandora, a N900 rebirth version with 1GHz. Just buy a pandora I think it is also easier to control and makes more fun, everything else is just wasted time or money if time=money.

endsormeans

2018-11-02 17:21

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

hahahahahaha
you made me laugh Halftux...
"You need, like with the pandora, a N900 rebirth version with 1GHz"
THAT is as couched and tongue in cheek as it can get...

yeah ...just get the pandora ...homejogger.

There is an antiquated ..yet fun alternative that will work...not diablo 2 ...but fun enough...
who did them now...?
the ports for Baldur's Gate ...and all the others ..using that engine...
it escapes me ...it has been a while since I used them..

sulu	2018-11-02 18:40

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by endsormeans (Post 1549967)

"You need, like with the pandora, a N900 rebirth version with 1GHz"

Afaik, some N900 are/were actually able to reach that via overclocking.
Also afaik, not all Pandora software requires a 1GHz Pandora.

The Pandora's PND packages are basically compressed images of file systems with their own software environments.
The easiest way of trying if they work on the N900 would be to unpack a PND, store the data in some N900-compatible format (optified debs?).

The Pandora and the N900 should be very similar, performance-wise, however I see two drawbacks for the N900:
1. The Pandora's ecosystem has moved on, while the N900's hasn't. Pandoras are running state-of-the-art modern linux distributions while Maemo is mostly still stuck in 2008. Therefore it might actually be easier to try to port very old PNDs.
2. The N900 lacks proper gaming controls. I don't know if the N900's keyboard is able to rival the Pandora's, but the lack of a d-pad and nubs means that some Pandora software will be awkward, if not impossible to control.

All that being said, I believe it might be an interesting experiment to try to port PNDs to the N900 and I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find some old threads talking about exactly that, but I agree with the others, that for the actual sake of running PNDs beyond proof of concept, you should get a Pandora.

With the Pyra (hopefully) close to release, used Pandoras might become pretty affordable in the foreseeable future. Currently the price for used 1GHz Pandoras in good condition seems to be around 200 Euros.

Halftux

2018-11-02 18:51

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by endsormeans (Post 1549967)

THAT is as couched and tongue in cheek as it can get...

Sometimes the pure truth could be hard for somebody. It is sometimes like jumping into cold water. Don't want to put a ice bucket over homejogger.
But your sentence is nice, still learning english from you.
---

Since 2006 mobile linux smartphones is my hobby and I saw everytime people porting doom or quake. But I think it is more a challenge to get it running. A proof of concept.

I don't like playing it on such devices when I could play it on a real machine.
Sometimes also a port is not complete in the regards of usage.
What I really played on different linux mobiles were games for scummvm during travel or when staying at a hotel. For a short travel maybe sudoku.
Long phrase short meaning. When you start porting such games you need to see it as a challenge you will spend more time in porting than in playing it later.
I guess nobody who ported such games will read this or does not have the time for helping.

To start such a challenge means a lot of reading and learning and asking the right people for specific problems. So start with smaller steps like hello world writing and compiling to get a feeling for system and device. When you are a giant in programming you could also make bigger steps:D.

This would be the road map for the challenge:

understand system and device
understand the source code
make your changes
compile it
be happy

There could be an easier way if the pandora binaries are compatible. But I guess they are not.

endsormeans

2018-11-02 19:08

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Yeah sulu and half are dead on the money....

I REMEMBER!

Scummvm
excellent engines...
excellent games...
a bit old...but so what.
classic baby...

yeah ...too bad the n900 didn't come with a d pad ...
like the n800 and n810
:D

Still...it is manageable on the n900...isn't it?
(never bothered to try the scummvm games on the n900....always was happy enough on the n8x0's)

endsormeans

2018-11-02 19:17

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

OOOOOH!
and GemRB
Loved that engine...
http://www.gemrb.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start

That was the one I was thinking of...with the infinity engine...

so yeah...there is plenty to get involved in without wanting something downright a pain to even try to get running....

Halftux

2018-11-02 19:22

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by endsormeans (Post 1549971)

Still...it is manageable on the n900...isn't it?
(never bothered to try the scummvm games on the n900....always was happy enough on the n8x0's)

Last version 2.0 is not in the repos but it is working.
I second that.

endsormeans

2018-11-02 19:23

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

GemRB team is still doing a great deal ...Baldurs Gate 2 ...Icewind Dale 2 ....etc...

endsormeans

2018-11-02 19:27

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

well ...there we go...

and the GemRB team hasn't stopped ...so I would imagine interested parties looky looing through their forum and wikis will find a great deal of fun...
years of fun from both GemRB and Scummvm ...

I know I was playing their games on my n8x0's up until last year...
then got a bit busy ...but I will go back to 'em for sure...
great portable fun when bored.

not to mention Heroes of Might and Magic...
that will keep people busy for eons....
great fun.

Halftux

2018-11-02 19:39

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

gemrb is in the repos and it could be updated.

Hmm made this new feature stopping the porting?

Quote:

experimental OpenGL and OpenGL ES renderers

This sounds a nice new feature:

Quote:

10 player party support (see the 10pp mod for the script part)

I think it is worth to update the gemrb package.
--

Heros of Might and Magic, oh yeah, I installed it once on N900 but never played. But for sure it is a great classic game.

Oh my "I believe to" we are totally offtopic :o
edit:Possibly not because games could also run on the pandora:)

sulu	2018-11-02 20:09

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halftux (Post 1549970)

Since 2006 mobile linux smartphones is my hobby and I saw everytime people porting doom or quake. But I think it is more a challenge to get it running. A proof of concept.

I don't like playing it on such devices when I could play it on a real machine.

This pretty much nails the whole situation.
The process of getting it running is much more rewarding than the final state of actually running it.

This thread just inspired me to try Flare [1] on my N900 (OC'ed to 900MHz) under Easy Debian. Flare might not be a full Diablo2 replacement, but I guess it deserves an honorable mention.

If I turn all the performance settings down, then performance-wise it seems to be borderline playable, which is great. It mainly runs fluently, but every now and then there's a small pause of maybe half a second. However, I only tried the very first screens of the game, where not more is happening than a few little goblins hopping around.
I have no idea what later happens in caves crawling with antlions hurling fireballs and frost flashes, and I'm not at all eager to find out, because the controls are a nightmare. Efficiently navigating with the N900's cursor keys (qwerty keypad) is impossible, which makes maneuvering via mouse/touchscreen almost mandatory. Customizing controls is possible but a little cryptic in Flare, and you absolutely need to have Esc mapped to your keyboard, otherwise you won't be able to gracefully close the game from fullscreen.

I also remember having played boswars years ago on my N900, which was fast enough, but even there the controls were awkward.

[1] https://packages.debian.org/jessie/flare

endsormeans

2018-11-03 03:33

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

Ach ...
I think we are subtly off topic ...
Question was answered and instead of a pat "no you can't or at least you can't without a ton of work and even then it may still not work" ..end of topic...
alternatives that can function being offered ...in it's place ...is honest and understandably still at least at the margins of topic.

endsormeans

2018-11-03 03:36

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

And technically ...we are still on topic.
GemRB infinity engine is flexible for creating in...
So no one is stopped from making a n900 poor man's Diablo 2 clone.
Bit of creative juggling ...and time.

endsormeans

2018-11-03 03:42

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

and yes...
the 10 player party support would be worth it for updating he package...
we could have some epic game parties ...

AapoRantalainen

2018-11-03 12:05

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

About Homeworld: Actually it was not hard to get it running, because Maemo5 can run Pandora's binaries (at least the old ones).
Intro: https://youtu.be/GuxVeW1beKo
Training: https://youtu.be/5CRD3pT99zg

1)
On Maemo:

Code:

#create directory for game and it's settings

ssh user@maemo

mkdir /home/user/homeworld

mkdir /home/user/homeworld/data

mkdir /home/user/.homeworld





#install needed GL-to-GLES-wrapper

sudo gainroot

apt-get install libglshim

More info about glshim: https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=90922

2) Download Pandora-version from https://repo.openpandora.org/?page=d...d-r907&dp=true

You get file: homeworld.pnd

You can check with file-command, what pnd is (file homeworld.pnd)

Quote:

homeworld.pnd: ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'CDROM'

Create empty directory for mountpoint and mount it (mounting needs root permission)

Code:

mkdir mp

sudo mount homeworld.pnd mp



#You need the binary itself

scp mp/homeworld user@maemo:homeworld/homeworld



#Copy config file and modify it

cp mp/Homeworld.cfg .

The very beginning is the path for data, it should be:

Quote:

HomeworldDataPath /home/user/homeworld/data/

And upload it to the device:

Code:

scp Homeworld.cfg user@maemo:/home/user/.homeworld/Homeworld.cfg

Then you can unmount mountpoint

Code:

sudo umount mp

3)
As written in 'Pandora-store', you need these datafiles from Official game:

Code:

scp devstats.dat Homeworld.big HW_Music.wxd HW_Comp.vce Update.big user@maemo:homeworld/data

4)
I suggest starting game over ssh, because then you can quit it.

Code:

ssh user@maemo

cd homeworld

./homeworld

ISSUES:
-As seen in the Training video: Game needs right-mouse-button.
-If you force quit the game (pretty much all the times), it left file ~/.homeworld/AutoLock.txt, which needs to manually deleted
-(Not seen on the videos), starting the Training or New Game loads almost 20 seconds.
-Device's screen will dim, if you are just watching the screen.

I'm waiting somebody will test this with external mouse, and reports is game playable at all :D

AapoRantalainen

2018-12-05 21:11

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

1 Attachment(s)

About Diablo2: (spoiler, not enough processing power)
This is the starting point: https://repo.openpandora.org/?page=d...ackage.diablo2
It is statically recompiled Windows executable, that was recompiled to ARM and bundled with ARM version of wine.

1) Rip game data from original game
2) Max overclock your N900 [https://wiki.maemo.org/Overclocking]

Code:

sudo gainroot

kernel-config limits 250 1150

exit

3) Install newer libc. In this case we need 2.9 or bigger. I tested with 2.10 because is more tested [https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=89467]

4) Download and extract diablo2_r4.pnd
Copy run.sh, libd2game_sa_arm.exe.so, liblauncher_arm.exe.so and wine to /home/user/diablo2

Copy game data somewhere to the device (about 1.5GB), where ever you have space. You might then need symlinks

Code:

cd /home/user/diablo2

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2char.mpq     d2char.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2data.mpq     d2data.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2exp.mpq      d2exp.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2music.mpq    d2music.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2sfx.mpq      d2sfx.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2speech.mpq   d2speech.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/D2xMusic.mpq   d2xmusic.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/d2xtalk.mpq    d2xtalk.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/D2XVIDEO.MPQ   d2xvideo.mpq

ln -s /home/user/MyDocs/diablo2/Patch_D2.mpq   patch_d2.mpq

5) Tune wine

Code:

cd /home/user/diablo2

mkdir -p winedata/dosdevices/

cd winedata/dosdevices/

ln -s ../drive_c c:

ln -s / z:

6) Tune wine more

Code:

sudo gainroot

mkdir /home/notaz

chown -R user:users /home/notaz

exit



mkdir -p /home/notaz/stuff/wine_arm/

ln -s /home/user/diablo2/wine /home/notaz/stuff/wine_arm/inst

7) Check run.sh has correct path and run it

Code:

cd /home/user/diablo2

./run.sh

You should see wine config (look attachment).

Press 'Start the game'

There is some graphics blinking split of seconds and then just black.

Here is some log...

Quote:

hInstance 41010000
storm: ctors done
sub_6FC03B70 4 D=S
sub_6FC03B70 4 D=A
d2fog: ctors done
bnclient: ctors done
d2launch: ctors done
d2game: ctors done
d2client: ctors done
f_StackWalkThread 0
Resizing X display to 640x480@8
hack: rejecting DDSCAPS_FLIP.
hack: rejecting DDSCAPS_FLIP.
ALSA lib pcm_pulse.c:864:(_snd_pcm_pulse_open) Unknown field handle_underrun
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
Resizing X display to 800x600@8
hack: rejecting DDSCAPS_FLIP.
hack: rejecting DDSCAPS_FLIP.
Resizing X display to 640x480@16
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured

endsormeans

2018-12-05 21:35

Re: Could Open Pandora games run on N900 ?

So very very sad.
sounds like a job for Nuh-nuh-NUH-nunuh!
Leste on the nexus 5 :D
(lets hope)

Hmm..
I take it there aren't any resolutions lighter than 640x480 as options for the n900 to try and cope?
actually I imagine you tried options that were as light as possible an impact on the rendering of the game...so my previous is a silly question..

weren't there open source diablo 1 or 2 clones?
perhaps they may work.

I remember playing one...
just had to look it up again...
Erebus
It may have possibility.
they made a version for the Symbian phones ...sooooo...maybe?
http://erebusrpg.sourceforge.net/

I imagine Freeablo is going to be a little too much for the n900...

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