New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

In fact that's not a port, but just packaging. I only modified the desktop file to run it fullscreen. Looks like Civilization 3 and runs rather good on the device (though not perfect).

Screenshot:
http://www.bundyo.org/maemo/freeciv/freeciv.png

The deb file is 25MB, so i won't post it on my hosting, if someone wants to mirror it - be welcome and let me know to put it here (since this is probably going to expire at some time):
http://maemobox.org/bundyo/freeciv_2.1.3-2_armel.deb

EDIT: Just tested - works much better with external server.

EDIT: New version is up - 2.1.3-2

Changes since 2.1.3-1:
* Map and minimap scroll on left click (stylus click).
* On long click and hold - show advanced menu.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Good work .. The best games porter :) We are waiting for Diablo 2 :)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Ha-ha, very funny :)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Did you know there is a project on this already: https://garage.maemo.org/projects/freeciv . No releases, but it seems at least some of the UI is hildonized and development is ongoing. Maybe you should join forces, if you intend to continue with Freeciv?

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

This is not the standard GTK port, so no hildonizing is needed. Just SDL. In fact i didn't touch anything as i said - just packaging. I'm not intending to work on any hildonization. :)

Also i've already seen another port of FreeCiv, which was also GTK+. I don't know if it is the same since i found it rather by mistake on a ftp somewhere. I don't like the GTK+ client anyway :)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

What about age of empires the first one? Its just a bunch of sprites, in fact i think warzone is more graphically demanding. Man i can think of a whole list i WANT YOU TO PORT! Good work man, keep it up. Dont stop. How bout whiplash from interplay? If you dont have a certain game i can up it for your testing porting purposes...

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

JFX, you have to realize that the reason a game like FreeCiv can be made available for the Internet Tablets is because its source code is available in order to compile executables that work on ARM processors. That's not the case with Age of Empires or Diablo 2 - those are closed source games that have only been made available in already-compiled form for x86 processors by their publishers and cannot be ported to the ITs.

In some cases, the open source community will write an open reimplementation of a game's engine to bring it to new platforms - Jagged Alliance 2 is an example - but that's not a quick "port", but usually represents a multi-year reverse engineering and implementation effort by a dedicated team of enthusiasts.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Well we can always hope for a port of Duke Nukem 3D then. The orginal source can be found here:
ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/source/duke3dsource.zip
And the source for the version working on Palm is here:
http://www.metaviewsoft.de/en/Softwa...duke3d_src.zip
It's screaming for some maemo porter to "Come get some!". :)

Now back on topic....Bundyo, thanks for the port. I'll try it out later today. This is truly great stuff! Thanks!!! :cool:

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Right about closed-source, wrong about x86-only.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Why write all these ports for the N8X0 which, at best, will give you a half-arsed gaming experience?

Just wait two months and write ports for a true gaming system, the Pandora. You know, a system that actually has controls to play the games?

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

I for instance won't buy Pandora... I don't need a gaming system.

An example - why do people buy office/home computers with intel graphics cards (which are neither graphics neither cards:) that don't run the newest games but still can play on them something casual to lose some time.

Civilization is perfect for on the go.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

SHO: Thanks for the info, actually I didn't know that, or come to grips with it at least, is probably why I keep suggesting in every thread "why don't you do this game do this game, and this game, why arent there more games etc.." But yea thanks, the number is growing though thanks to you port-educated people.

EDIT: I won't buy a Pandora either, just checked it out, it is impressive but not that impressive. Really interesting overall design though.. N64 emulation imagine that on the tablet.

(( talk about out of context anyone know what i need to setup a wifi AP in my house? I have a 15dbi omni antenna so far))

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

civilization <3

installed this apart from some things works well
1) map cannot be scrolled with stylus. in fact I wasn't able to scroll the map with anything
2) program crashed a couple of times within 30 min gameplay..

great port but a proper freeciv version compiled for os2008 would rok :)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Yeah, i'm aware of these, one down, new version in the first post.

btw, i played for half an hour and didn't have any problems... I didn't have anything else running though.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Why play games like Civilization which, at best, will give you a half-posteriored gaming experience?

Seriously, I think something like this should run well on the N8x0; the controls issue isn't one for a mouse-driven game like this.
Arcade games are much more demanding of controls, and you can well make that case for them, but discrete time and space strategy games, however boring and ******ed they may be, don't need a fancy-pants gaming box.

And then there's people with funding too limited to buy a second device just to boost gaming. I'll kill a few minutes with whatever games are available on the device I'm carrying around anyway, but they're just too small a part of my life to justify that kind of money.

Finally, it's not clear to me that porting games to the N8x0 is exclusive of porting them for Pandora. If they're not binary compatible, it should at least be simple to port things that have been gotten onto an N810 onto Pandora. Stuff like eliminating mouse dependence will already be done, so the effort's not wasted on the games that do fit readily.

Oh, and one question about Pandora: You know if it will have speakers? I didn't see anything about them on that wiki page...

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

It will have speakers, IIRC.

I'll be picking one up. It will be running linux, so it should be more like a full-fledged linux computer than a game system. Although, it will, IMO, certainly trounce all comers as a portable gaming device.

New article: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7004794073.html

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Please someone to upload the package somewhere again because the mediafire's link (in the first post) doesn't work. I really want to test this wonderful game on my IT. Thanks in advance

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Just tested it and it works yet. However you need to have javascript enabled in your browser, and i doubt that it will work in opera for 2007. So use MicroB or wget to get it (to use wget first open the link on pc and when it is ready for download, copy the resulting link in the wget commandline).

Or someone can mirror the file for you. ;)

However I don't recommend os2007 for this game, since it is not very fast on 400MHz already.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

I prolly won't get a pandora. I like the n800 form factor better and I have a bluetooth keyboard for when I need it. The controls do look nice though, who knows, when the community builds up aroud it I may switch but I'm pretty heavily invested in the n800 currently. Also portable gaming is great but its not my primary use. I love having the web, remote desktop etc. Those will prolly come in time with pandora though. Pandora doesn't have a webcam =) I hope nokia uses the same graphics chip in their next tablet though so we can get some openGL hotness.

Bundyo is this running the 2.1.4 release? I haven't downloaded it yet. If you need a mirror I can provide!

Also might I suggest including the statege tileset. Its only a 490kb tarball, and looks good on small screens because it conveys info efficiently, here is a screencap (of just the tileset, not running on OS2008:

http://milkstreetmedia.com/images/stratege.jpg

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Yes, looks good, will try after i get my linux box going (too much holidays are getting on my nerves).

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

"No servers are currently available with the requested data on them. Please retry your request in a moment."
Please upload the package somewhere again :(

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

it can be uploaded at tabletdownloads.com if you want to.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Yes, I want to download from there, tnx!

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Hi, I couldn't download from the link in the first page (file not on the server) and I can't find it in www.tabletdownloads.com either. Where should I look?

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Likewise; anyone have a copy?

I *love* Civ, especially Civ3, and I'm willing to mirror / give Bundyo a FTP account if he'd like.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

This is really, really great! I love it, thank you. ^_^

You can't switch away without closing the app, unfortunately, but I imagine that's just one of the consequences of just packaging it and so can't be helped. Still, I love it. :)


*edit* If you want to have the full screen available -- and why not? -- edit /home/user/.civclientrc and replace:
gui_sdl_screen_width=640
with:
gui_sdl_screen_width=800

-- it was line 39 for me. :)

I forgot how neat Freeciv was; the number of leaders per civ is awesome, as are all the civil war settings.

*edit 2*
I was able to get it to show up in the window manager, although not with a title, by editing /usr/share/applications/freeciv.desktop and adding/editing the following lines:
Icon=freeciv-client
X-Window-Icon=freeciv-client
X-Osso-Type=application/x-executable
StartupWMClass=SDL_App

Not sure if any save the last are needed.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

So, just out of curiosity, has anyone compiled a newer version? (We are a few point releases behind here).
Someone really needs to get a mirror of FreeCiv SDL up on Maemo Extras, because it runs GREAT on these tablets -- particularly the SDL version, for which I have a new appreciation. The most difficult thing is finding it every time :P

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

I have uploaded freeciv 2.1.5 to diablo extras-devel. It is currently compiling but hopefully it appears at repo within one hour.

I would appreciate if someone could test it before I promote it to extras.

There is also newer version of freeciv (2.1.6). I could probably make another build later, but this version happened to be in debian ;)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Loaded it, made about 10 moves, locked up tighter than a drum, required battery removal.
/edit - not only locked up - made my n810 unbootable from internal 2gb memory.
/edit2 - removed external card, got it to boot, removed FreeCiv2, seems back to normal

That was certainly unexpected :(. Removing of battery probably corrupted filesystem. Is there anybody else who wants to try? :)

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Heh, my tablet is currently on the verge of being nuked thanks to the latest SSU. (I need to reflash anyway since xulrunner's uninstall script is broken in some kind of incredibly embarassing way that makes it unremovable).


Edit:
Not enough space on internal memory. I'll try it after reflashing, while I'm still in "the files are gone!" mode.

Is this the GTK or SDL version you have up? I found the SDL one to perform way better on the tablets, although it may have been just subtle differences between peoples' builds.

Thanks for this, mikkov.

it is sdl client. You should be able to install data files to internal mmc if you first uninstall the previous veraion.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

I compiled without any patch, not need nothing to play at maemo... left and middle mouse buttons can be handled by menus. ;)

Freeciv 2.1.6 SDL client .... :D
http://maemo.vivaphp.net/pool/freeciv_2.1.6_armel.deb

deb http://maemo.vivaphp.net diablo misc

:rolleyes:

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Now I got to testing autobuilder built freeciv myself and it doesn't work at all for me... Locally built version worked fine, but CFLAGS were different with autobuilder.

So new version is coming up

edit: civ worked after removing .civclientrc and .civserver_history. New version is coming up anyway
edit: actually it didn't work. It gets stuck very easily as reported.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Hang in there - I appreciate your efforts, I'm a CIVII addict.

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

2.1.6 is in extras-devel. So far works for me

edit: I am working to get map scrolling and some other improvements

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

extras-devel version has now scrolling, 800x480 default resolution and proper taskbar item. Any comments?

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Great - seems to work now for me!

Re: New Port: FreeCiv SDL
 

Because one has cheap, flawless 2D and 3D support using open source drivers from a corporation commited to open source hardware (Intel, yup). Graphics cards are also used for more than merely games like Doom 7. Quartz Compositor, Compiz, and Aero -- for example.