maemo.org - Talk - Would you like to see Morrowind on the N900? (possible limitations?)

This is a similar thread to my earlier Snake thread over here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32907

No doubt about that Morrowind was special when it launched. It's still considered as one of the best RPG:s, if not the best. As time has passed by, Morrowinds technical features are no longer impressive... on a supercomputer.

Anyway, Morrowind is a really nice game, and in case you've somehow missed it, you might want to check it out (search engines might be your best friends here, and remember that you have more than one friend; in case you didn't understand the metaphor, I obviously meant that there are other search engines besides Google), since you looked into this thread.

There will mainly be 2 different barriers for porting it over to the N900: technical limitations and legacy issues. I am no expert of any of these, so it'll be up to you how you solve this, if you do consider this project.

Let's begin with the perhaps least important issue, which I don't have much to say about, since as I said earlier, I'm no expert in this area (or in anything else for that matter). Sure the legacy issues seem to be a big question mark, but how did the SNES emulator survive? We all know how protective Ninty is, so that couldn't be legal, but yet it hasn't been stopped. If you consider this project, then you'll have to be aware of the trouble you might get into. I don't know much more about that, so that's all I've to say about it.

The second limitation would be the technical one. This will be a small consideration of the technical possibilities of the N900 and how much is really needed. Keep in mind of that I'm not familiar with the Maemo OS, so I can't tell much about the difference in efficiency and software dependent performance. I assume of that this will be done as a proper port, and not as an emulator, with decreases the overall performace by about 12 times.

For those who doesn't know, Morrowind is a huge open-ended game, just like the Maemo OS itself. The open nature leads to higher required amount of application memory, while the lack of superb graphics doesn't add much pressure for the GPU. However, the graphics will most likely be needed to be further downgraded for the N900, which can't boast with its 14 MPolys/s GPU speed (the PSP has about 30 for instance).

But I don't think this will be much of an issue. One that have played Morrowind doesn't most likely care so much about graphics anyway, especially considering the game type and what else it offers. But, as I said earlier, except a rather small graphical sacrifice for the N900 port, unfortunately it can't be avoided. And it will look much worse than Bounce Evolution if you want a fair comparison. This can be easily explained, considering the amount of items that have to be loaded at the same time.

As for the remaining N900 hardware (where the GPU is the biggest drawback), I'd say some more sacrifices must be done for the ARM Cortex, but the total amount of application memory (RAM + virtual) should be enough for this purpose.

The CPU won't only limit the number of polygons on the screen, but also the loading times, and we all know that an open-world game isn't in its finest version when it's affected by a huge amount of lag. But keep in mind that a gimped Morrowind is still a great game, sacrifices have to be done, else it won't be availible at all! And the N900 port will definitely still be playable...

Another thing that's worth mentioning is that Morrowind was fully playable on the original Xbox from 2001. Obviously the Xbox version was somewhat inferior to the one on a high-end PC, but still, it does say a lot about the game's requirements for an acceptable level of performance. In case anyone doesn't know, the most important specs of the Xbox 1 (which was in my opinion the best console by far for its time) can be found below.

CPU: Custom 733 MHz Intel Pentium III "Coppermine-based" processor
GPU: 233 MHz nVidia NV2A
RAM: 64 MB of DDR SDRAM @ 200 MHz

Keep in mind that this game was optimized for these specs, while the port obviously won't be. N900 does at least easily eclipse the Xbox at the memory part.

Maybe Morrowind on the N900 will be possible after all, but it will require a bunch of time and work, so I wouldn't expect it in the nearest future. This thread should be seen as an idea among many others, nothing else than that.

When, if at all, this come true, it'll definitely become one of the N900's selling points among gamers, which should be one of N900's target audiences. Morrowind is one of the best RPG:s ever made, if not the best, and that's not an opinion, it's a fact!

In the matter of speaking, after doing this tough work (if someone will do it, that is), an addition of the Game of the Year content (the two expansion packs) as well as the official plug-ins should be taken as granted, right? It won't differ in difficulty compared to the rest of the game, and it's always nice to have more content (quality content, that is)!

How to run Morrowind on Linux:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Linux

How about you? What do you think?