App Request - Duke Nukem: Alien Armageddon (Duke Nukem 3D mod) (Branch? Custom compile? of EDuke32 PND)

[DrasticNerd]

I'm interested in playing Duke Nukem: Alien Armageddon on my Pandora. Since this is a mod for Duke Nukem 3D, this may be as simple as dumping the files into the EDuke32 data folder. I haven't tried that however because I want to keep my EDuke data clean so that I can still play the original/"vanilla" Duke Nukem 3D.

However if there was a separate PND made for this mod and if this PND were to use a different appdata folder then it would be possible to play both DN3D and DNAA on the same Pandora while keeping saves + game data separate.

Is there a kind programmer out there who would be interested in creating a custom PND of EDuke32 for Alien Armageddon? (I can't even compile, let alone port! )

 

[Wally]

Why not learn to compile / port stuff? It's a bunch of fun when you get the hang of it.

Also you could just rename the appdata folder and move between then when you want a different version?

Alternatively extract the pnd, change teh attributes required in the pxml, (Appdata directory, pnd name etc) squash the pnd again. Profit.

 

[ElPoco]

Or you could have a simple script that does the renaming of the appdata folder and launching of the PND

 

[DrasticNerd]

Why not learn to compile / port stuff? It's a bunch of fun when you get the hang of it.

Actually I have tried several times. I know this may sound pathetic but I just can't get my head around it. It is puzzling because have learnt a few different programming languages over the years (to varying degrees of proficiency) but they all have one thing in common. They are all script based languages. Learning object oriented languages gives me headaches (literally) to the point that I end up giving up!

Or you could have a simple script that does the renaming of the appdata folder and launching of the PND

Thanks for the suggestion. I would prefer to have a separate PND to launch a total conversion mod rather than running a script each time I want to swap over.

Alternatively extract the pnd, change teh attributes required in the pxml, (Appdata directory, pnd name etc) squash the pnd again. Profit.

Its app data directory is defined in its PXML? If that's the case then even I will be able to create a separate PND for this! Thanks for the tip @Wally I will check it out and upload it later after I get it working.

 

[DrasticNerd]

I'm stumped. I extracted the eduke32 pnd from the repo and changed all references I could find in PXML and other files. I rezipped the edited files with 7z to create a new PND but the new PND doesn't appear in my Pandora menu. I located the PND manually on the card (using Thunor) but it appears as having an archive icon and - more importantly - will not run as an executable.

 

[M-HT]

You can't use 7z to create a PND. You can read about PNDs on the wiki. For example here and here.

 

[ingoreis]

For Windows we have the PNDTools here:

Release - PNDTools

So some people suggested it should be easier to browse and create PNDs as there currently is no way to properly create them on Windows (without fighting with cmd.exe) and you can only use 7-zip to view, but not edit, them (though there is nothing wrong with). Because of that I present PNDTools...

pyra-handheld.com

I used them for all my PNDs on the Repo and its a wonderfull Software with a nice and easy Gui.
Thanks for the Creator of this Software

 

[DrasticNerd]

For Windows we have the PNDTools here:

Release - PNDTools

So some people suggested it should be easier to browse and create PNDs as there currently is no way to properly create them on Windows (without fighting with cmd.exe) and you can only use 7-zip to view, but not edit, them (though there is nothing wrong with). Because of that I present PNDTools...

pyra-handheld.com

I used them for all my PNDs on the Repo and its a wonderfull Software with a nice and easy Gui.
Thanks for the Creator of this Software

Thanks @ingoreis but the download and its mirror are both dead

 

[M-HT]

Thanks @ingoreis but the download and its mirror are both dead

You can download it using archive.org - this should be version 0.73. Or you can download the newer beta version here.

 

[DrasticNerd]

You can download it using archive.org

lol. IDK why it didn't occur to me to try the wayback machine for the download!

Thanks M-HT.

 

[Farox]

I'm interested in playing Duke Nukem: Alien Armageddon on my Pandora. Since this is a mod for Duke Nukem 3D, this may be as simple as dumping the files into the EDuke32 data folder. I haven't tried that however because I want to keep my EDuke data clean so that I can still play the original/"vanilla" Duke Nukem 3D.

However if there was a separate PND made for this mod and if this PND were to use a different appdata folder then it would be possible to play both DN3D and DNAA on the same Pandora while keeping saves + game data separate.

Is there a kind programmer out there who would be interested in creating a custom PND of EDuke32 for Alien Armageddon? (I can't even compile, let alone port! )

Hello
After some time spent on compiling a newer version of eduke32 (they switched to an alternative malloc that i wasn't able to compile on Pandora and Pyra ), i was instead able to compile a relative recent version (v9607 around Sept 2021) without this malloc replacement ...and here it is a new build of the eduke32.
I spent some more free time to test with Alien Armageddon release (v443) and it work almost good ....speed is ok but it only work using a 800*480 screen at only 8bit...(it say that 32 bit screen mode isn't available on my machine)...naturally it use gl4es.

As requested i done a separated PND (using a separated directory for this Alien Armageddon release)....to test you need to
-Run the PND and it create the dir (duke3d_alienarmageddon) inside pandora/appdata/
-Now copy DUKE.RTS and DUKE3D.GRP from your release of Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition (or any other supported version...but i have this edition)
-Now copy the whole content of the Alien Armageddon zip file inside this same directory BUT don't replace the file "settings.cfg" as this file is adapted for Pandora (if you accidentally overwrite it no problem ...delete "settings.cfg and "eduke32.cfg" from the appdata/duke3d_alienarmageddon folder and the pnd will copy both when you run again).

At start the eduke32 is set to run with the graphical GTK front end...(i forgot to disable it at compile time...compiling again is so time consuming....maybe on the next release).

Please Note....on a CC Pandora you NEED a swap file (the game is memory hungry)...512MB is ok


Please test and report....and enjoy

 

[TeDaDeS]

...After some time spent on compiling a newer version of eduke32 (they switched to an alternative malloc that i wasn't able to compile on Pandora and Pyra ),...

Out of interest: what was so special about malloc that it wouldn't compile?

 

[Farox]

Out of interest: what was so special about malloc that it wouldn't compile?

It give me an error compiling...but sorry i didn't remember right now...

 

[Farox]

what was so special about malloc that it wouldn't compile?

Here it is the git source of it
mimalloc

 

[TeDaDeS]

Here it is the git source of it
mimalloc

"mimalloc is a drop-in replacement for malloc and can be used in other programs without code changes"
I assume this means you could just replace this malloc with the old one and it should still link without issues.

 

[levi]

Yes, provided you check you're #including stdlib.h near the top too. Functionally they're claimed to be identical although mimalloc focusses on speed, while malloc is just the way gnu libc does it.

 

[Farox]

Someone tested the pnd ? if its ok i'll push it to repo.

 

[Farox]

No reply, so i decided to upload to the pandora repo.
look here to download http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=duke3d_alienarmageddon