Linux Compatibility

[SavageMind]

I currently use a Pandora wich runs Angstrom Linux. Will this work on the the Pandora?

http://www.openpandora.org

Digial and Analogue controls, a full mini QWERTY keyboard, USB host, Wifi, Bluetooth, Dual SD slots. Looks similar to a Nintendo DS

The full specifications are as follows:
* ARM® Cortex-A8 600Mhz+ (overclockable up to 1Ghz) CPU running Linux
* 430-MHz TMS320C64x+ DSP Core
* PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
* 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
* Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
* Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
* Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
* 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
* Around 10+ Hours (often 14 hours) battery life

[sirherrbatka]

In future it would be possible but it would require huge amount of optimazation and massive changes in the gui so this perspective is so distant that almost unreal

PS
But the toy looks cool

[SavageMind]

What major changes to the GUI? This device is capable of doing anything a normal sized PC can. The only issue is Arm Architecture. It has a touch screen and the nubs act as a mouse. Did I mention that this is actually a community based system? I'm sure I can pull some people who would be interested in porting and possible build help.

[sirherrbatka]

The screen looks smallish, and all the resolution is quite small to. The gui would need a large portion of tweaking but the real problem is hardware.

Morrowind's References say's that It should run on 128 of ram but everybody can say that You would need 512 to run game smoothly. And openmw 1.0 would need even more!

Pandora could run openmw, there is no technical reason to say "no" since it's even more powerfull than xbox in few aspects (more RAM for example, but note that xbox had faster processor) but I have no idea how much work it would require.

[Star-Demon]

Man, How are you gonna pick up gold on a screen that small? :O

[Zini]

We had this topic before. The thread should be somewhere in the archive.

I will try to address the individual issues once more:

1. UI (not just GUI): Even if a mouse can be emulated, I would expect it to be kinda awkward to play MW this way. Also, the MW GUI is pretty cluttered. The Pandora seems to have enough resolution, but considering the screen size you would probably need a magnifying glass (or very good eyes) to use the GUI in unmodified form.

It may be possible to run OpenMW with the desktop GUI on a Pandora, but for an even semi-decent playing experience substantial adjustments would be required.

2. The ARM architecture: Actually no problem at all. We might need to look at endianess, depending on in which mode the ARM is running, but that is one day of work at most.

3. RAM: There is no way to get vanilla OpenMW to run with 128 MB RAM. Even 256 MB will barely be enough once everything is implemented.

4. Performance: Even if porting OpenMW to Pandora is successful at the current stage, you would only get a slide show.


If we forget about performance and a good playing experience for now and only try to get OpenMW to run on a Pandora (for sufficient small values of run), the biggest problem will be getting all the libraries build for the Pandora.

I don't expect a serious porting effort to succeed prior to OpenMW 1.0. To quote myself from a recent PM conversation: Generally where I call the shots the idea is to get it working now and making it fast later.
If there are some people, who want to try a Pandora port now, I have no problem with that. But any optimisation that interferes with the desktop development, must wait until OpenMW 1.0 is finished. For now the focus is definitely on the desktop/laptop platform.

[SavageMind]

Well there are some plus's. Pandora has a TV out port that currently is working well. The new Pandora's are being made with 512mb mem. I will be sending mine off for upgrade. So those aspects put aside I do understand the issues. i have sparked some interest in the Pandora community for your project. Maybe we can get something started here and each of the communities can help each other. thanks

[sirherrbatka]

Well, sorry. I'm realy sorry but that are just facts. It's not that pandora sux, it's just our engine being rather performance poor at the moment. I can suspect that it will get faster if it will be focuse on this area but for pandora it would need a lot of polishing.

And new GUI to.

[lgromanowski]

Hi,
I could test if OpenMW could run (and how fast it run) on ARM (on PandaBoard) but this will not be a top priority task (probably I will start doing something in that matter at the end of January).

[corristo]

Hehe after this post I started thinking about porting OpenMW to iPad. Though it never would be in appstore, so only developer or jailbroken devices...