Frontend Idea and Questions

Would you like a 3D Front End for emulators?


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    17

TylerAW

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Aug 30, 2010
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I know people have had several idea on both boards for front ends that can run on the Pandora so here is another one:


The idea has been bouncing around in my head and so far I cannot find a reason for it not to work as long as I would have a dev or 2 on my side. I have an idea for a 3D front end, similar to hyper-spin but works differently. Imagine each console emulator having a 3D Box, cartridge, and their console loaded on the Pandora (I can model these if people show interest in the project). So you select you're console lets say the Atari 2600 than it loads you're library of any ROMs that you have in it's folder if it has the 3D file than it looks for the same name as the rom you selected and loads it on the screen, if you hit play you see a quick animation of it being inserted into the console and than it loads you're emulator with the game you selected (I'm assuming emulators have the ability to load a ROM or file when selected through some script without having to use their menus to select one).


If you have the game selected and wait long enough a screen shot or video will loads if you have one with the same name in this projects folder but here is where I ask my question. I have downloaded several sets of screenshots and cart scans and videos from different consoles from UG but most of the time the names of each screen or cart do not match a NO INTRO file naming format or any format really. Example: Awesome Golf: BOX: "AwesomeGolf_front.jpg" ROM: "Awesome Golf (1991).lyx", well they are close but the ROM has a space between Awesome and Golf and the box art does not.


My question is would a front end find all the files with a similar name or do they have to be the exact same with the exception of anything after a . ?


I would either have to model each cart individually which would be a pain or I could model one cart per console with the same mapping coordinates than the program finds the cart file and apply it to my model based on which rom is currently selected.


I have not checked the other sets I downloaded and compared them to my rom collections so I have no idea if it is just the Atari Lynx set or not but most likely a lot of them are not named the same thing which spells trouble and oh it is driving me insane. :blink:


SO what do you all think am I crazy and this is too much work or what? B)
 
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3D interfaces are a nice idea, but they almost never work out. You just waste too much screen space for it (especially on small screens like the one from the pandora) and you're slower to navigate them. That's why projects like the various 3D file system visualizations (for example http://www.determinate.net/webdata/seg/tdfsb.html) never see much use.


So, I'd say that no, I wouldn't like such a frontend.


> My question is would a front end find all the files with a similar name or do they have to be the exact same with the exception of anything after a . ?


Exact names, or you could get a screenshot of super mario bros 1 when you want to see screens of super mario bros 2 and so on. Or go by directory.


Oh, by the way, http://www.wikihow.com/Use-You%27re-and-Your :p
 
I have to go with "no" as well, mostly for the same reasons as Klaue. The 3D aspect doesn't bring any practical advantage. It only makes the ROM selection a bit more visually appealing (if done well), but when I want to play a game I want to get to playing as quickly as possible, not watch any fancy animations. Those kind of systems also tend to have worse ROM selectors (not as informative, waste space, effects vs. responsiveness). They look nice for a while but get real old real fast. In short, it's like taking three steps back in the main functionality to take one ahead in visual appeal.


EDIT: clarified
 
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Well I'm not giving up on this idea and I also do not think I explained this correctly it can be well organized and easy to use. The 3D part is simply an animation that happens when you hit play. My plan was you insert you're SD card with lets say all you're Genesis ROMs and screens, manuals etc.... it reads a file that you name INSERT.XXX (Can be MP3 or a video file) it plays it, my plan was to have it say SEGA GENESIS or whatever console you have loaded and than you pick you're rom like in any other front end. If I can just get some people to back me up here I would be happy to show a visual example of what I want this to look like.
 
3D interfaces are a nice idea, but they almost never work out. You just waste too much screen space for it (especially on small screens like the one from the pandora) and you're slower to navigate them. That's why projects like the various 3D file system visualizations (for example http://www.determinate.net/webdata/seg/tdfsb.html) never see much use.


So, I'd say that no, I wouldn't like such a frontend.


> My question is would a front end find all the files with a similar name or do they have to be the exact same with the exception of anything after a . ?


Exact names, or you could get a screenshot of super mario bros 1 when you want to see screens of super mario bros 2 and so on. Or go by directory.


Oh, by the way, http://www.wikihow.com/Use-You%27re-and-Your :p
Well can you have the front end only look for the name and ignore everything in ( ) and any thing written past a _?


Also I wrote my port pretty fast here.
 
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Needs at least OGL -> OGLES conversion.
OK this is starting to become a serious problem, can OGL programs be ported to OGLES? Is there a way to convert them? Every time we find an awesome program that is open source it needs OGL but we only have OGLES!
 
OK this is starting to become a serious problem, can OGL programs be ported to OGLES? Is there a way to convert them? Every time we find an awesome program that is open source it needs OGL but we only have OGLES!

Can it be done? Yes.


Can it be done easily? Depends.


Will it be done? If a dev feels it's worth the effort.


EDIT: Oh, and the reason to that most programs require OpenGL and don't have OpenGL ES is that OpenGL ES is mostly unavailable on desktop systems. And if you have OpenGL available, it doesn't really make sense to use the more stripped down and limited version of it.
 
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"Oh, and the reason to that most programs require OpenGL and don't have OpenGL ES is that OpenGL ES is mostly unavailable on desktop systems. And if you have OpenGL available, it doesn't really make sense to use the more stripped down and limited version of it."


Coul you enlighten me why the Pandora doesn't use OpenGL, is it purely a performance/power issue? or are there other complications (go easy on the tech speak please)
 
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"Oh, and the reason to that most programs require OpenGL and don't have OpenGL ES is that OpenGL ES is mostly unavailable on desktop systems. And if you have OpenGL available, it doesn't really make sense to use the more stripped down and limited version of it."


Coul you enlighten me why the Pandora doesn't use OpenGL, is it purely a performance/power issue? or are there other complications (go easy on the tech speak please)

Most likely a power issue. And maybe TI being cheap and not licensing that part of the GPU core.
 
TI being cheap with the licensing. The chip itself is fully capable of supporting the OGL2 spec, possibly even OGL3, they simply chose not to.
 
I think a better 3D front end would be something like WolfenQt. As far as I know Qt works on the Pandora and its supports GLES. Not really looked that much into it but I think it's a direction that could be looked in.
 
I think a better 3D front end would be something like WolfenQt. As far as I know Qt works on the Pandora and its supports GLES. Not really looked that much into it but I think it's a direction that could be looked in.
Seems to be just like the other 3D file systems (even when it's not only for files, I only did take a quick look), just with walls so that you're even slower navigating it :)


On the other hand, it reminds me of that old windows 95 screensaver (may be in other windows versions too, I diddn't use screensavers for years now) - nostalgia! (yes, I know, it's supposed to be Wolfenstein 3D, but I don't think it really looks like it)
 
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