I hate to say this but I want to run Android in Pyra

[asimov-solensan]

I just wanted to share some thoughts.

I got Pyra to replace Pandora as a overall computer, but focused on emulation. Pyra is very good as a linux minicomputer, but the emulation front is in a very bad shape and without any hope to improve. That said, a million thanks to all the devs that spent their time porting things to Pyra.

I deeply dislike android and wanted Pyra precisely because it is focused on supporting linux.

And the user ToastBucket made a comment in this thread that got me thinking https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/th...are-work-and-maybe-our-next-soc.99712/page-10. As he says there are already many emulators for android that make pretty good use of the hardware. Well he is talking about a future SOC, but I guess it applies for the omap5.

My conclusion is that right now Pyra could greatly benefit having the option to run Android, as a dual boot or as that version of gingerbread we had in Pandora. In my case Pyra would replace the GPD win if there was more polished emulators.

I wish I had the knowledge to port Android to Pyra. I guess this is just a call to ED to get someone to do it, even if it is the old version made for omap5 would be enough for gaming.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

I was originally going to say "boo!", but more options for Pyra might not be so bad. Except...

Perhaps that it might fragment an already tiny niche of users and potential devs.

 

[levi]

Why do you say emulation has no hope to improve? The environment has changed since the Pandora but I still have hopes for this as an emulation target and just a general linux computer.

 

[netcat]

running android on pyra is a good idea not for emulators but for apps

 

[PowerGod]

On the Pandora the emulators started to improve only after 2/4 years after I got mine (and I was late to the party)... at the beginning the few "usable" (still buggy and slow) were absolutely not optimized for the device, they had strange interfaces or control systems that were expecting a normal extended keyboard...

Then better interfaces were added, drivers were optimized, the control system was for the most part standardized or anyway adapted to the device... and in the end appeared even emulators that were thought impossible to use on the Pandora.

It could have been able to do a lot more, but what was achieved is still incredible, and made the device what it wanted to be in the first place.

 

[matzesu]

I wouldnd say, whit Android and its "One Size Fits All" Emulators it would be better, .., its the same as whit Windows Emulators: You have Android Devices from a few mhz up to quad or oktacore, so these dont have to get optimiced so could run on Pyra quite bad..

Yes the Emulators on Pyra arend perfekt yet, but they might get improved over time, and i showed in my Videos how good they allready run..

The Pyra is now in its 1 1/2 Year, the 8 - 32 bit range runs quite well, Playstation needs quite some improvement, but its playable on a lot of titles, it GUI is quite cool, Dreamcast works also impressive, but some titles ditnt work, and its lacks a proper GUI
The DS Emulator was a quite early build, so not that impressive, and N64 is too slow, even whit OpenGL..
Sega Saturn is also too slow sadly..

So its allready usalble, but its needs still quite some work..

 

[ptitSeb]

What emulators running on android you would want on the Pyra?

 

[matzesu]

There is a lack of Amiga and Game Gear, and Atari Lynx, but i think Amiga would be better whit Native Keyboard Support so nothing you want from Android..

 

[ptitSeb]

there is amiga on Android? a good emulator? I don't think so.
GameGear should work with EmuPlus series
Lynx is missing, fine.But it's probably not the reason to ask for Android.

I'm curious @asimov-solensan what emulators you would want on Android...

 

[matzesu]

i dont know if there is an Amiga Emulator, im thinking whe should stick whit Emulator Ports for DebianHF,
GameGear ditnt work on my MD.Emu on Pyra, at least it ditnt reconice the .gg Roms, allthough it should work as this was allready possible on Pandora to run Megadrive/Mastersystem/Gamegear Roms..

 

[spud42]

what makes you think Android will have better hardware drivers? better graphics drivers? Better perfomance than Linux? i seriously doubt that a running Android will give you what you ask for.

 

[TrashyMG]

Believe Ti had a base Android image for the OMAP5 UEVM devboard, but it's ancient and likely won't adapt well to the Pyra hardware without a ton of work. Also not sure any of this material exists as it seems Ti cleaned house on a ton of things related to the OMAP series on their webpage.

 

[Farox]

About an Amiga emulator on Pyra....in my test with Amiberry (using a resolution of Amiga screen of 640*400...the minimum at current sources...) it is reaally slow....visuals are almost fine...but audio is orribly slow. I saw that uae4arm from TomB on Pandora used a lower resolution to emulate...and speed and audio was ok ...but on Pandora he used SDL1 with OmapDSS that helps a lot...i think.

On Pyra is available the DSS or something similar to help speed-up things using SDL2? or maybe we could wait that Amiberry coders enable OpenGL that in current sources are not enabled?

I'm not the best guy on porting an emulator...so if someone want to take a look i'm fine.

I have yet to test FS-Uae that is available from Debian repo for Armhf... @matzesu maybe you could test it and made a video about it ? I don't have enough free time to do it.

 

[asimov-solensan]

Thanks for participating in the discussion the forum quite silent lately.

What emulators running on android you would want on the Pyra?

Well most obvious ones are PPSSPP and drastic/dsmume, absolutely not working in Pyra.
Reicast or other dreamcast emulator. The version in Pyra has low compatibility (I mean games not working that appear on the official list as running perfectly). Also very glitchy with shadows and HUD in games.
PSX, the best option is duckstation, and it shows bad performance, I remember a couple of games crashing at boot and lack of any graphical enhancement. I would like to try the android version or pcsxrearmed if there is version.
GBA. The best option in pyra is seems to be gba.emu and the sound has hiccups (otherwise this emulator is quite good). I expect a ton of alternatives for android.
Neo geo. Neogeo.emu works very well in Pyra, I don't know which options are on android.
CPS1/2/3. Again no alternative in Pyra, I haven't search either the android alternatives.

But above all I would expect to have retroarch with hardware support and access to most of libretro cores, which gives a lot of options.

And I know you ported a lot of that stuff. Don't be offended, if you decide you don't want to work on them anymore I'm still grateful for your effort.

what makes you think Android will have better hardware drivers? better graphics drivers? Better perfomance than Linux? i seriously doubt that a running Android will give you what you ask for.

That's why I was talking about the (outdated) Android version that TI made for OMPA5. At least it should fully support the hardware. But as TrashyMG mentioned not even that version would be easy to port.

I agree with you that android performance will always be worse. But do you think that the hardware is well supported in our actual linux image? Is it be worse in an official TI android image?

 

[levi]

I forget which open source emulator I used to use to play CPS1/2 games on my softmodded XBOX, perhaps it was FBA. I think we had that on Pandora, but I've no idea if it's still maintained at source, perhaps it's in retroarch these days.
\
For me, I enjoyed more on my Pandora the old computer emulators particularly the ST and the C64 which were new to me, and in terms of consoles the Intellivision.

 

[PowerGod]

I forget which open source emulator I used to use to play CPS1/2 games on my softmodded XBOX, perhaps it was FBA. I think we had that on Pandora, but I've no idea if it's still maintained at source, perhaps it's in retroarch these days.
\
For me, I enjoyed more on my Pandora the old computer emulators particularly the ST and the C64 which were new to me, and in terms of consoles the Intellivision.

FBA for the Pandora was modified, it uses an unique interface and if I remember well even something about the rendering was changed.
Even if it's not anymore maintained it's still able to do its job, like most of the emulators in the repo.
In the worst case a game could have issue with a specific emulator, but it's difficult to not find another alternative in the repo.

I think that the only "issue" of the Pandora is that is not so powerful, and some emulators/games just needs an extra push... the Pyra could solve that.

 

[ptitSeb]

Thanks for participating in the discussion the forum quite silent lately.


Well most obvious ones are PPSSPP and drastic/dsmume, absolutely not working in Pyra.

Ah yes, PPSSPP might need a new build. I might give it a try at some point...

Reicast or other dreamcast emulator. The version in Pyra has low compatibility (I mean games not working that appear on the official list as running perfectly). Also very glitchy with shadows and HUD in games.

Yeah, I will try Flycast later on the pyra, see if it's better. The glitchy shadow ight be hardware rendering related tho...

PSX, the best option is duckstation, and it shows bad performance, I remember a couple of games crashing at boot and lack of any graphical enhancement. I would like to try the android version or pcsxrearmed if there is version.

I think you'll have the exact same speed on Android on the same hardware (or maybe slower). Duckstation needs GLES3/OpenGL3 for hardware rendering, wich is not available on the Pyra.

GBA. The best option in pyra is seems to be gba.emu and the sound has hiccups (otherwise this emulator is quite good). I expect a ton of alternatives for android.

Mmm, the EmuPlus serie works quite well if I remember correctly. Not sure there are a lot of different engine for GBA, I would expect the "alternatives" to be the same engine with different gui

Neo geo. Neogeo.emu works very well in Pyra, I don't know which options are on android.

Yeah, the EMuPlus serie have a solid NeoGeo offering, working fine on the Pyra

CPS1/2/3. Again no alternative in Pyra, I haven't search either the android alternatives.

But above all I would expect to have retroarch with hardware support and access to most of libretro cores, which gives a lot of options.

And I know you ported a lot of that stuff. Don't be offended, if you decide you don't want to work on them anymore I'm still grateful for your effort.


That's why I was talking about the (outdated) Android version that TI made for OMPA5. At least it should fully support the hardware. But as TrashyMG mentioned not even that version would be easy to port.

I agree with you that android performance will always be worse. But do you think that the hardware is well supported in our actual linux image? Is it be worse in an official TI android image?

CPS1/2/3 probably needs a port of some FBA related project yes.

Also, I don't like retroarch, so don't count on me for a port.

(TBH, I see not advantage to be running Android on the Pyra. There is cheap Android retro-gaming oriented console for that, wich are just working, with a low-res non-wide screen ideal for this. I would prefer the few people that would be able to work on android to work on linux and improve compatibility instead of creating fragmentation on a super-niche device. But this is opens source community, so people are free to work on wtf they want )

 

[matzesu]

I ditnt got the Neo Geo Emulator to work on Pandora, maybe because i ditnt put the Bios File on the Rom Folder, but on Pyra its works quite nice, and these Games are also quite Colorfull so perfekt for Garden Playing..

Games that run on Reicast are running quite good, but it needs a GUI to change the VMU Memory Cards

I ditnt got issues whit the GBA Emulator yet, expect the well known Audio Issue when i play whitouth Bluetooth Headphones..

 

[asimov-solensan]

I think you'll have the exact same speed on Android on the same hardware (or maybe slower). Duckstation needs GLES3/OpenGL3 for hardware rendering, wich is not available on the Pyra.

But there are alternatives in android like pcsx rearmed core for retroarch. That should have options like the double resolution render working.

I would prefer the few people that would be able to work on android to work on linux and improve compatibility instead of creating fragmentation on a super-niche device. But this is opens source community, so people are free to work on wtf they want )

Me too, but I don't see this happening anytime soon. I saw android at least as a solution to (I agree, unoptimized) software that is unavailable or in a very bad shape in Pyra.

I ditnt got the Neo Geo Emulator to work on Pandora, maybe because i ditnt put the Bios File on the Rom Folder, but on Pyra its works quite nice, and these Games are also quite Colorfull so perfekt for Garden Playing..

Yes, I don't remember which files I have got, bios files go into the roms folder and the emulator itself tells you in the error message the exact name they must have.

 

[netcat]

so android should just run on a vm - no porting except maybe the virtualization software - so i'm kindof in favour of that. but i agree that we shouid focus on improving the pyra stock os, not android, not bsd. i hate android actually.

how's the virtualization support on OMAP5?