OpenMW on GCW-Zero?

[Kailani1154]

Sorry if this has been discussed already, but, inspired by the thread on a possible Android port of OpenMW, I was curious as to whether anyone knows at this time whether the engine will be playable on the GCW-Zero?

It's an open source handheld game console that runs on a version of Dingoo Linux/OpenDingux. I know OpenMW runs on Linux already, but I'm not sure if anyone's considered a port or whether or not the GCW-Zero even meets its system requirements. Regardless, I think playing TES III on a handheld like that would be absolutely amazing if it's at all possible, and it might also be a great way to attract attention for the project and draw in potential new players.

[Rumina]

I'm no dev, but honestly I dont see it happening. Looking at the specs on that thing, it would take an absurd level of optimization to get it running at anything playable. Even then it would require some additional modding to create a reasonable control scheme.

Im not saying its impossible... but someone would have to be really dedicated to it as a side project. I could be wrong though.

[SquireNed]

A one gigahertz single core processor scares me with respects to OpenMW; while you might be able to eke out some paltry performance, remember that OpenMW can lag pretty heavily even on a heavy-duty rig on the wrong settings, so you'd need to essentially run at minimum and be willing to accept a frame hit, unless you can severely throttle some game functions. I'm also not sure what version of OpenGL OpenMW uses, though I think there's a broad compatibility if you set it up right (my experience with OpenGL, however, is reading the back of a graphics card box and saying "the higher number is better, right?"). Compared to a typical Android device, the GCW is significantly less powerful, and supports OpenGL ES 2.0, while most modern Androids should be supporting 2.0 or 3.0, depending on how high-end they are. The GCW has hardware more similar to a low-end Android tablet (which, of course, is explained by the fact that it also serves a sort of utility role that is secondary to that fulfilled by a smartphone), which limits it from some of the more intensive applications, though its 320x240 internal resolution may (note the emphasis) actually allow it to perform better because of the lower requirements for the final render.

In addition, you would absolutely need an external control solution or a custom UI with some sort of hotbar/autotarget system.

[Greendogo]

After optimizations, yeah maybe. Remember, Vanilla Morrowind runs on 256Mb ram, 32mb to 256mb video ram and a 500Mhz processor.

OpenMW can run on OpenGL as well, plus the major performance optimization and the switch to Ogre 2.0 haven't been started yet.

Side note: if we can get it to run on the Raspberry Pi then we'll probably be able to get it to run on your thing.

[SwissCM]

The interface would have to be overhauled for a 320x240 screen too.

[SquireNed]

The interface would have to be overhauled for a 320x240 screen too.

Likely not too difficult except for the small font issue; you'd probably want to have it be more or less identical to the current one, with a single window showing at each time. Then you could simply swap between the windows.

[sandstranger]

6

[EnCarlson]

I'm not too optimistic about OpenMW running on the GCW. Unless the OpenMW team decides to really heavily optimize the engine, I can't see it running on this device. There's a very similar device that I have called the Pandora that porting OpenMW to was discussed, but the conclusion was that it wasn't powerful enough. Keep in mind that the processing power of the GCW's MIPS cpu per mhz is probably much less than that of a desktop x86 cpu, and thus it may not actually meet even the minimum processor requirements of vanilla Morrowind. Its gpu could also be potentially be a serious bottleneck (not sure about that, as its hard to find benchmarks of mobile gpu's). Also, sandstranger suggested NEON optimization, but that would not be possible. NEON is only available for ARM processors and the GCW has a MIPS processor. OpenMW could still be NEON optimized for the Pandora since it has an ARMv8 cpu, but NEON optimization looks pretty scary, just take a look at this: http://hilbert-space.de/?p=22. However, I still have some hope of it running on both devices, as there are some very talented and dedicated developers who work on them.

[sandstranger]

3