M-Ht + Ginge = Albion And Warcraft On Pandora

[WizardStan]

Notaz is a genius, just thought I'd let people know
Step 1) get Ginge
Step 2) get the Wiz versions of Albion and Warcraft
Step 3) Install the Dos versions of Albion and Warcraft as directed in the downloads: ie, install them, copy the contents of the zip files into the directories, copy those directories somewhere onto your SD card
Step 4) Download the Pandora updates for Albion and Warcraft
Step 5) Extract the updates, overwriting files where necessary. The gpe files specifically needed to change.
Step 6) Run Ginge and load the gpe files.
I'll keep on top of the configs if Notaz is successful in getting the touchscreen working fully. In the meantime, the default config moves the mouse cursor around with the D pad.
In Albion, pressing the L button (sometimes R and L at the same time for some reason) switches between mouse mode and cursor mode, allowing you to walk around with just the keys. B is left click, X is right click, Y is Y (as in 'Y'es), A will stretch the screen to normal (which was too wide for the GP2X and therefore doesn't display properly) or fit to window. Start pauses and Select displays the map.
In Warcraft, Y is left mouse button, X is right mouse button, A is M (for move), B is A (for attack).
The config files (Albion.cfg and Warcraft.cfg) can be edited yourself to get the key combos you prefer. It's too bad it can't directly map the keyboard. Maybe M-HT will one day grace us with actual Pandora versions which support full key mappings and touchscreen support. In the meantime, Notaz is awesome.
The X-Com ports should work in a similar fashion, just as soon as I fix the gpe files.

 

[DaveC]

Notaz is a genius, just thought I'd let people know

I think we all know that already

Cool to see you got that stuff to run.

 

[skeezix]

Is WC actually playable in this state?

Aside..

I was thinking that wasn't Albion source out, and wasn't someone working on a port? pickle? Occurs to me maybe he (or whomever it was) had the static dumped from M-ht, so could do it native. *shrug* Either way, we have many awesome folks in our community.. *high 5s all!*

Wargus can fill in for WC2 and is already on Pandora, but yeah, a static recompile way beats that

jeff

 

[senquack]

Don't forget about his static recompilation of X-COM!

BTW, the Wiz ports of all of these games are not really ideal because they don't allow you to tap on the screen without it registering a mouse click. I made sure to have this be the case on the GP2X but I did it using a custom extension to SDL that the Wiz ports are not currently using. I will fix this for the Wiz versions soon. It is especially troublesome for X-COM.

 

[WizardStan]

Is WC actually playable in this state?

Touchscreen support would be better, but otherwise it's not bad.

Don't forget about his static recompilation of X-COM!

I didn't! I just haven't gotten to them on account I don't know where my X-COM disks are so I can't install to test.
You know what would be great though? If they could also be recompiled for the Pandora.
I ran both Albion and Warcraft in Dosbox: at 500 Mhz both are extremely painfully slow. At 800Mhz, Warcraft becomes playable, but Albion didn't improve enough to be worthwhile. The recompiles running through Ginge however are perfect, even at 500Mhz
Proper touch screen and/or nub-as-mouse support (if that's even possible) and direct keyboard mapping (or at least add a few more buttons) and it can't possibly get any better.

 

[slaanesh]

Why not just ask MH-T to recompile these for native Pandora? Should be extra-super mind blowing.

 

[M-HT]

Why not just ask MH-T to recompile these for native Pandora? Should be extra-super mind blowing.

You don't need to ask me to recompile these games for Pandora, because I've been planning to do that since I decided to buy one.
But until I have my Pandora, it's still in the planning stage.

 

[PokeParadox]

Why not just ask MH-T to recompile these for native Pandora? Should be extra-super mind blowing.

You don't need to ask me to recompile these games for Pandora, because I've been planning to do that since I decided to buy one.
But until I have my Pandora, it's still in the planning stage.

Damn... why did you not step forward when I was looking for a dev to receive the spare Pandora I ended up with... :S
Someone get this chap a Pandoraaaaa!

 

[Pickle]

Yeah i havnt done anything with these as I knew M-HT planned to and I didnt want to steal his thunder ;-)

@senor quack if you want to look at my wiz versions just give the word.

 

[Spirit]

Those are some really amazing assembly hacks I guess? Or were the whole games rewritten? Is there a chance for x86 Linux Albion?

 

[WizardStan]

Yeah i havnt done anything with these as I knew M-HT planned to and I didnt want to steal his thunder ;-)

Sorry, I couldn't wait. Albion is too much awesome

Those are some really amazing assembly hacks I guess? Or were the whole games rewritten? Is there a chance for x86 Linux Albion?

M-HT was able to take the x86 Dos machine code, put it through some awesome tool he wrote, work some extra special magic, and produce ARM Linux based machine code. It's kinda what Dosbox does (and other emulators), except in a more permanent and efficient way.

 

[Pickle]

Yeah i havnt done anything with these as I knew M-HT planned to and I didnt want to steal his thunder ;-)

Sorry, I couldn't wait. Albion is too much awesome

Those are some really amazing assembly hacks I guess? Or were the whole games rewritten? Is there a chance for x86 Linux Albion?

M-HT was able to take the x86 Dos machine code, put it through some awesome tool he wrote, work some extra special magic, and produce ARM Linux based machine code. It's kinda what Dosbox does (and other emulators), except in a more permanent and efficient way.

Just add it replaces low level dos hardware with SDL. And there could be linux x86 versions if M-HT decided to release them, they were mainly used for debug. I recall I think one reason they were not was because they ran too fast and they could also be run in dosbox.

 

[Khan]

Why not just ask MH-T to recompile these for native Pandora? Should be extra-super mind blowing.

You don't need to ask me to recompile these games for Pandora, because I've been planning to do that since I decided to buy one.
But until I have my Pandora, it's still in the planning stage.

Interesting...

BTW, I remember your contribution to Dosbox dynarec in GP2X (improvements that eventually were added to Pandora´s Dosbox by Pickle). Do you have new tricks under your sleeve?

Pickle, what about Xbak (Betrayal at Krondor engine)? Did it surpass alpha status?

 

[Pickle]

Why not just ask MH-T to recompile these for native Pandora? Should be extra-super mind blowing.

You don't need to ask me to recompile these games for Pandora, because I've been planning to do that since I decided to buy one.
But until I have my Pandora, it's still in the planning stage.

Interesting...

BTW, I remember your contribution to Dosbox dynarec in GP2X (improvements that eventually were added to Pandora´s Dosbox by Pickle). Do you have new tricks under your sleeve?

Pickle, what about Xbak (Betrayal at Krondor engine)? Did it surpass alpha status?

Not related to the dynarec, but i took a look at the opengl code and all they have a quad to draw the frame buffer as a texture to the screen. I can for sure convert this to opengles.
It might give a little boost.

Yeah i still watch that project, its moves very slowly. I did compile a version for the pandora for the heck of it, but its still in an alpha stage.

 

[Khan]

Not related to the dynarec, but i took a look at the opengl code and all they have a quad to draw the frame buffer as a texture to the screen. I can for sure convert this to opengles.
It might give a little boost.

Yeah i still watch that project, its moves very slowly. I did compile a version for the pandora for the heck of it, but its still in an alpha stage.

Great!

So, being hardware-accelerated, could it fix the touchscreen issue? (Wasn´t related to an upscale problem?) or is it a SDL issue?

Fortunately, given its turn-based nature, running Betrayal at Krondor through Dosbox it´s not a big deal (it actually plays nicely at 800 Mhz with details set to low...at least during the first minutes)

Thanks4All

 

[Pickle]

So, being hardware-accelerated, could it fix the touchscreen issue? (Wasn´t related to an upscale problem?) or is it a SDL issue?

No has nothing to do with the touchscreen.

 

[M-HT]

Those are some really amazing assembly hacks I guess? Or were the whole games rewritten? Is there a chance for x86 Linux Albion?

M-HT was able to take the x86 Dos machine code, put it through some awesome tool he wrote, work some extra special magic, and produce ARM Linux based machine code. It's kinda what Dosbox does (and other emulators), except in a more permanent and efficient way.

Just add it replaces low level dos hardware with SDL. And there could be linux x86 versions if M-HT decided to release them, they were mainly used for debug. I recall I think one reason they were not was because they ran too fast and they could also be run in dosbox.

There's no problem with x86 Linux version of Albion or Warcraft - the problem is with X-COM, because it's not synchronized to timer or vsync so it runs as fast as the CPU allows it, which on today's computers is too fast.
But I won't release x86 Linux version of Albion and the other games, because they are playable in dosbox on X86.

BTW, I remember your contribution to Dosbox dynarec in GP2X (improvements that eventually were added to Pandora´s Dosbox by Pickle). Do you have new tricks under your sleeve?

When I get my Pandora, I'll be looking into ways of speeding up dosbox.

 

[Khan]

When I get my Pandora, I'll be looking into ways of speeding up dosbox.

And then, sir, you will become a god among men

Get this man a Pandora ASAP!

 

[Dead1nside]

Glad to hear your intentions M-HT. If there are any dev Pandora's left you should certainly get one in my opinion. I've been saving Albion to play on my Pandora.

 

[b._.o._.b]

When I get my Pandora, I'll be looking into ways of speeding up dosbox.

And then, sir, you will become a god among men

Get this man a Pandora ASAP!

My Pandora has a hardware failure, so need to be sent to ED for repair. I wouldn't mind that MH-T received the repaired (or new) device by switching places in queue with me if MH-T is also a first batch pre-orderer. I assume he also ordered from ED, based on where he is living.