0 Ad

[Jourdy288]

OK, I heard about the game 0 A.D, and it sounds pretty great!

- High quality RTS gameplay
- Open-source
- Cross-compatible
- High-Grade Graphics

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/0adpreview1.ogv

Look at the entry on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._(game)
Here is their website:
http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/

Now, we need an ambassador.
Who will go to their website and beg for mercy help get their support for the Pandora? Perhaps we can bundle it with new Pandoras!

 

[keek]

My impression is that they went open source because they don't have the time to finish the game by themselves. See: http://os.wildfiregames.com/#os-release

 

[WizardStan]

One of the requirements to build is NASM. I am not hopeful that it will be so easy to port to the Pandora (or any non-x86 processor). Doable, but not easy.

 

[Jourdy288]

My impression is that they went open source because they don't have the time to finish the game by themselves. See: http://os.wildfiregames.com/#os-release

Oh really? Wow. More companies should do that...

 

[Vorporeal]

Well, if someone *coughpicklecoughcough* has time to rewrite the engine to be GLES compatible (dunno how difficult that would be - haven't thoroughly looked at the source yet) and set it up to use the analogs for mouse-emulation, we could see how slowly it'll run on the Pandora.

 

[Jourdy288]

Hmm, how do we summon this mysterious 'Pickle'? Perhaps some Cheetos laid out in a row during a moonless winter night's blizzard?

EDIT: BTW, what's GLES?

 

[lulzfish]

Hmm, how do we summon this mysterious 'Pickle'? Perhaps some Cheetos laid out in a row during a moonless winter night's blizzard?

EDIT: BTW, what's GLES?

OpenGL ES is the special "mobile" version of OpenGL. It cuts out a lot of the unnecessary crap from OpenGL like the Begin/End structure and quadrilateral faces.

The Pandora only seems to have an OpenGL ES driver, whereas most desktop OpenGL applications use some OpenGL-specific stuff that needs to be re-arranged into ES-friendly code.

And I've found that the best way to summon Pickle is with a virgin sacrifice. Not it.

 

[Enverex]

Hmm, how do we summon this mysterious 'Pickle'? Perhaps some Cheetos laid out in a row during a moonless winter night's blizzard?

EDIT: BTW, what's GLES?

OpenGL ES is the special "mobile" version of OpenGL. It cuts out a lot of the unnecessary crap from OpenGL like the Begin/End structure and quadrilateral faces.

The Pandora only seems to have an OpenGL ES driver, whereas most desktop OpenGL applications use some OpenGL-specific stuff that needs to be re-arranged into ES-friendly code.

And I've found that the best way to summon Pickle is with a virgin sacrifice. Not it.

Just so I'm clear on this, the Pandora hardware IS OpenGL2, but the driver simply isn't? Doesn't that mean technically someone/people could write a driver (in the same sense as the current open Linux drivers) that has full OpenGL support rather than this cut down version? Also why have they only released an "ES" driver and not a normal one? Feels like they are shooting themselves (and us) in the foot.

 

[dflemstr]

The way the 0AD explain their situation makes them look so pitiful. Can't we all publish their site on Digg with the title "Awesome new RTS game for Linux now open source" or something?

If we can get more developers in general interested in this thing, more ports can happen.

EDIT: Guys, let's all Digg this: http://digg.com/software/0_A_D_Open_Source_Release

(And no, it wasn't me who added the entry on Digg)

 

[wermy]

And I've found that the best way to summon Pickle is with a virgin sacrifice. Not it.

Just so I'm clear on this, the Pandora hardware IS OpenGL2, but the driver simply isn't? Doesn't that mean technically someone/people could write a driver (in the same sense as the current open Linux drivers) that has full OpenGL support rather than this cut down version? Also why have they only released an "ES" driver and not a normal one? Feels like they are shooting themselves (and us) in the foot.

It is the hardware that is the limiting factor -- not the driver. So unfortunately, the Pandora is OpenGL ES 2.0-only.

ps. lol@ the virgin sacrifice "not it."

 

[dflemstr]

And I've found that the best way to summon Pickle is with a virgin sacrifice. Not it.

Just so I'm clear on this, the Pandora hardware IS OpenGL2, but the driver simply isn't? Doesn't that mean technically someone/people could write a driver (in the same sense as the current open Linux drivers) that has full OpenGL support rather than this cut down version? Also why have they only released an "ES" driver and not a normal one? Feels like they are shooting themselves (and us) in the foot.

It is the hardware that is the limiting factor -- not the driver. So unfortunately, the Pandora is OpenGL ES 2.0-only.

ps. lol@ the virgin sacrifice "not it."

No!
It's the driver that is the limiting factor, not the hardware!
The hardware can easily support OpenGL 2.0 or even OpenGL 3.0 (but don't quote me on 3.0 compatibility). It's the current closed source driver that only has support for ES.

Also, didn't someone start on an open source driver, or at least the reverse engineering of the SGX? Anyways, it is very possible to get an open source driver with OpenGL 2.0 support, and it will happen, sooner or later.

 

[wermy]

No!
It's the driver that is the limiting factor, not the hardware!
The hardware can easily support OpenGL 2.0 or even OpenGL 3.0 (but don't quote me on 3.0 compatibility). It's the current closed source driver that only has support for ES.

Also, didn't someone start on an open source driver, or at least the reverse engineering of the SGX? Anyways, it is very possible to get an open source driver with OpenGL 2.0 support, and it will happen, sooner or later.

You're right! Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR#Series5_.28SGX.29 Well that's awesome, I didn't know that. Now we just need someone to write a driver for it... :unsure:

edit: looks like there are a lot of products out there using this chip, even a bunch from Intel... I wonder if there's an open source driver from any of them?

 

[Enverex]

No!
It's the driver that is the limiting factor, not the hardware!
The hardware can easily support OpenGL 2.0 or even OpenGL 3.0 (but don't quote me on 3.0 compatibility). It's the current closed source driver that only has support for ES.

Also, didn't someone start on an open source driver, or at least the reverse engineering of the SGX? Anyways, it is very possible to get an open source driver with OpenGL 2.0 support, and it will happen, sooner or later.

You're right! Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR#Series5_.28SGX.29 Well that's awesome, I didn't know that. Now we just need someone to write a driver for it... :unsure:

edit: looks like there are a lot of products out there using this chip, even a bunch from Intel... I wonder if there's an open source driver from any of them?

That page makes me sad when you can see all the other hardware that outpaces it though (the new iPhone for instance apparently, using the 535 rather than the 530 the Pandora uses).

 

[Jourdy288]

I'm Diggin' it.

 

[Jourdy288]

The way the 0AD explain their situation makes them look so pitiful. Can't we all publish their site on Digg with the title "Awesome new RTS game for Linux now open source" or something?

If we can get more developers in general interested in this thing, more ports can happen.

EDIT: Guys, let's all Digg this: http://digg.com/software/0_A_D_Open_Source_Release

(And no, it wasn't me who added the entry on Digg)

Dugg.

 

[danielliu88888]

That page makes me sad when you can see all the other hardware that outpaces it though (the new iPhone for instance apparently, using the 535 rather than the 530 the Pandora uses).

but it makes me happy when i remember that the iphone's controls are shit, it has an overhead OS, isn't open source, and is made by apple.

 

[Jourdy288]

That page makes me sad when you can see all the other hardware that outpaces it though (the new iPhone for instance apparently, using the 535 rather than the 530 the Pandora uses).

but it makes me happy when i remember that the iphone's controls are ...., it has an overhead OS, isn't open source, and is made by apple.

Did you hear what they did to Palm people? Palm Pre cannot access the iTunes music store... it could before, but now, you can't... Ouch.

 

[danielliu88888]

That page makes me sad when you can see all the other hardware that outpaces it though (the new iPhone for instance apparently, using the 535 rather than the 530 the Pandora uses).

but it makes me happy when i remember that the iphone's controls are ...., it has an overhead OS, isn't open source, and is made by apple.

Did you hear what they did to Palm people? Palm Pre cannot access the iTunes music store... it could before, but now, you can't... Ouch.

you're going way off topic... in your own thread.

anyways, even if the iphone has a SGX535, it couldn't make good use of it and handle something like this.

 

[sold]

I don't know if it would be possible, but on the 0 A.D page, they mention a couple of other rts projects that are apparently at a playable and stable stage in development.

Spring and Glest

Both of these look pretty cool, and both have source code available. There are several different games available for the spring rts engine, and there are mod packs for glest.

So what do you guys think? Has anyone played any of these,and could the Pandora handle them?

 

[Adventus]

Also, didn't someone start on an open source driver, or at least the reverse engineering of the SGX? Anyways, it is very possible to get an open source driver with OpenGL 2.0 support, and it will happen, sooner or later.

maciek_urbanski was reverse engineering the SGX, but i highly doubt we'll get an OpenGL 2.0 driver. Maybe a low level API, but not a driver. Even if maciek does manage to fully document the SGX, writing a decently performing compliant OpenGL 2.0 driver is a huge amount of work, and your unlikely to find any opensource code that helps much.

NanoGL and my own GL-WES-v2 will most likely live on.