Gamescom, sensor upgrade and other nice news


So, is there no actual video footage of the LED wall?

@EvilDragon Are you still going to upload that video from the Gamescom?
There is actual footage and I will upload it.
Will edit the video tomorrow or Wednesday, we just shipped 60 orders and I'm totally worn out right now.
Need to take a nice relaxing bath now :)
 
Here is a quick review of the GPD Win, as I played a bit with it:

As expected, the keyboard is pretty bad. The layout can be confusing, the keys are to close to each other, and the key "click" like some old joystick button. The keys are a bit hard to press (maybe to mitigate the fact that they are tightly packed with mostly no gap between each).
This is a gaming console, not really a general purpose computer...

Game controls are pretty good. A few games were installed, and I mainly played Mirror Edge (with a long session of half an hour at least). The games is quite smooth, with 30fps (then after 10min or so lowering at 20fps because of the heat, but still playable with no issue). I had a good gaming experience with Mirror Edge all in all.
Minecraft was also present, and can work with an XBox controler. But, Minecraft detect the presence of an XBox controler at start. Once started, plugin in an XBox controler will do nothing. And that's one of the main issue. When the swtich is in "Mouse mode" (like it's suppose to be when you are using Windows), the XBox controler is not pluged in. It is when you switch to "XBox mode" (you hear the little "dingdang" windows does when an USB device is connected). So, to use the integrated controls with Minecraft, you have to launch Minecraft in the XBox mode, using the keyboard or the touchscreen... That's quite counter-intuitive. Once correctly launched, it was running well.

Another point, if your game is a keyboard only game (i.e. some indie title), well, because of the keyboard, and the fact the Dpad is NOT cursors keys (or WASD), you will need to use some software like "joy2key" to be abble to play.

A last point I notices, is about the shoulders buttons. The 4 shoulders are buttons. But an XBox360 controler as 2 shoulder buttons, and 2 analog shoulders. This is used for racing games or flight/combats sims for example. No ideas how it will work a racing game...

In conclusion, it can be nice to play some (not too demanding) AAA Title (but it can be frustarting sometimes), but it will not be a nice machine for hacking (even if Linux can be installed on).
 
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***Oh, one other question that has been on my mind. In regards to the nubs and the click-button function that they have, can someone who knows for certain (ED if you're available :)) confirm if the nub's click-button can be used when the nub is in any position (think: Ape Escape for PS1), or if the nub has to be dead center for it to be able to activate.***
It still works when they're being moved, but they can't be clicked in at the full distance.
 
GPD win sounds a bit lack luster. It looks good, but it sounds like my suspicions were, in fact, correct about it.
Shame always wanted a portable x86 system to play games like DK2 Warcraft 3, and my recent additions Stardew valley and factorio, playing minecraft is something the pyra should be able to do :p
 
Theoretically the Pyra can play Stardew Valley, if Mesa can be made to render OpenGL2 in software, or if glshim is updated to OpenGL2 support.
 
GPD win sounds a bit lack luster. It looks good, but it sounds like my suspicions were, in fact, correct about it.
Shame always wanted a portable x86 system to play games like DK2 Warcraft 3, and my recent additions Stardew valley and factorio, playing minecraft is something the pyra should be able to do :p

Is that confirmed? I've heard lots of speculation but I've yet to see Minecraft running on any pyra prototype or dev board. Am I wrong?
 
I'm not sure.
To be honest, it's slower than I expected (regarding the specs compared to the Pandora). I have the same remark for other games, like TORCS (look here : you'll see it's barelly faster than the last build on the Pandora). So, I don't think the perfs you see on the ODroid is to be compared to what we will get on the Pyra. I was just illustrating the fact that yes, it will work. But the perfs, we will have to wait the Pyra to be sure.

And the little test I have done with Ardentyst at the gamescom is promising... So wait and see.
 
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Is that confirmed? I've heard lots of speculation but I've yet to see Minecraft running on any pyra prototype or dev board. Am I wrong?
Considering we got it to run on the Pandora, logic dictates that it should be a bit easier to run on much improved hardware.

Then again it is Minecraft a game which I've seen get 10fps on a watercooled I7 rig. Nothing seems constant with that sodding game. :/

Not saying it's going to be a day one thing for the pyra. Its still going to require a bit of work by people more talented then me.
 
I may give Minecraft a go soon on the devboard, I need a working glshim setup and some other java requirements( LWJGL?), I may have to harass @ptitSeb for some details.
 
The benchmarks are quite high, so I wonder what could be holding back performance on the ODroid. Very interesting to see.
 
I may give Minecraft a go soon on the devboard, I need a working glshim setup and some other java requirements( LWJGL?), I may have to harass @ptitSeb for some details.
I'll try to make you a package with everything you need. For lwjgl, the version from debian should work as-is.

how much work would it be to get an open-source voxel game like Craft on there?
https://github.com/fogleman/craft
you can tweak a bunch of defines to get better framerates...
What's wrong with Minetest that already run on the Pandora and is very configurable? glshim desn't do shaders for now,..
 
@ptitSeb, nothing personal against minetest (good to know it exists!) -- i've just been working on a fork of fogleman's craft, and wanted to know if it would work on a pyra.
 
@ptitSeb, nothing personal against minetest (good to know it exists!) -- i've just been working on a fork of fogleman's craft, and wanted to know if it would work on a pyra.
Well, I haven't ported Craft, and because I have already tried a few clones, and this one needs shaders, so I haven't even looked at this one. I may take look one day.
 
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