My Dreamcast Port, Where Next?

[Trip]

It's most likely to be Vanishing Point then.

That would make me very happy too

I hope it's a racing game because there aren't that many to choose from in the world of open source. The only other way we would get to play one would be through emulation and I would much rather have a decent port.

EDIT: Nice review of that one here!

 

[Svartalf]

But Sega is the producer and distribuitor of MSR, so does that mean that the game will not be MSR?

Very probably. And, on retrospect, it was probably grasping a bit to think it was MSR to begin with.

In the Spanish forums, as is habitual, they don't believe someone is porting a Dreamcast game. They say that, as is a DC game, the licence belongs to SEGA and without money, a lot money, is impossible to port it...

If it was cuestioned by some troll, ok, but there were forums administrators cuestioning it :blink:

They're wrong when it comes to rights here. Publisher has rights to the title- unless there's another sort of deal with the studio where they retain rights over anything that's not shipped by the publisher. SEGA has rights over what goes on the DC, so with the DC version, SEGA shares rights control over the DC version with the publisher.

That's it. If any of the rights deals lapse (which happens all the time (Powerslave might live again as a result of thigns like that...)) then the studio has full rights from start to finish.

 

[Trip]

They're wrong when it comes to rights here. Publisher has rights to the title- unless there's another sort of deal with the studio where they retain rights over anything that's not shipped by the publisher. SEGA has rights over what goes on the DC, so with the DC version, SEGA shares rights control over the DC version with the publisher.

That's it. If any of the rights deals lapse (which happens all the time (Powerslave might live again as a result of thigns like that...)) then the studio has full rights from start to finish.

Don't most deals with the big companies last about 5 years, as that's considered to be the minimal life of a console?
I've heared of that before but I can't remember where from :huh:

 

[CandidStan]

Hi

As I've mentioned before I've been working on porting an old Dreamcast game to the Pandora.
What I have now is a working playable version of the game using OpenGL ES 1.1 for graphics, OpenAL for audio & SDL for reading the controls & basic housekeeping. At the moment I'm using the ImgTech OpenGL ES 1.1 emulator tools in XP to run the ES version.
The problem is that I don't really know where to go next. I could keep plugging away at it in its current state and make it more refined. I'd rather get it to a closer state that will work on Pandora, I haven't seen any example code for Pandora anywhere for me to base my make files etc on and I don't know what state development is on it, for example is it possible to build and run OpenGL ES programs for it?
I was thinking of signing up on Craig's thread for development Pandoras but I don't know if its ready for me to port my game over to it yet.
I might be better off waiting till the platform becomes more mature, I'm not sure. I don't the state of things at the moment.
I'm sure some of you are going to say 'why don't you port it to OpenGL ES 2.0' There are 3 reasons why I haven't done this: 1) The game doesn't need anything that ES 1.1 doesn't have. 2) My MacBook's graphics chip isn't good enougth to run the SDK. 3) From what I've read the OMAP & SGX supports ES 1.1 as well as 2.0 so there doesn't seem much point at the moment (maybe a future enhancement!)

Cheers,
TheGoodDoktor

Are you going to sell this game? or is it freeware?

 

[Svartalf]

most[/b] deals with the big companies last about 5 years, as that's considered to be the minimal life of a console?
I've heared of that before but I can't remember where from :huh:

It varies. With many cases, it's 5. In others I've heard as much as 15 and as little as 3 (Licensing back to Interplay the rights to Fallout. If they do something with it, it's 10-ish for a MMOG... If they don't begin within 3 (which they have, luckily for them...) they lose all rights and no easy way to get 'em back...).

 

[craigix]

Stuff I worked on it was usually 3-5, it's interesting that a lot of games have probably defaulted back to the dev teams and could be released as freeware now - only most of those original teams are long gone or not even aware of the fact they own the rights now.

Only two well known things I worked on were ports of Revolt and Raiden - alas not original material so can't release, however the Raiden port was rebranded and re-released without the licence sometime later with new graphics.

I really hope that this DC port can be brought over to show off the Pandora hardware, I wonder if it will run at 800*480

 

[RajTakhar]

Did the TheGoodDoktor actually define what the game was?

Or is it all conjecture at this point?

Someone please confirm title :rolleyes:

 

[MDave]

From the hints and bits of info we know, it all points towards Vanishing Point. Not confirmed however, but its either that or another DC title that escapes my mind at the moment.

 

[Prometheus]

If memory serves, the other speculated one was Fur Fighters.

Either way, I'm very interested to see what it turns out to be.

 

[TheGoodDoktor]

Update: I've now got it compiling and linking for the Pandora using the TI OMAP libs & Code Sourcery.
All I need now is a Pandora to test it on - oh bugger! I guess I could get a BeagleBoard and try it on that.
An open source release seems to be a bit of a legal minefield so I might try a closed source release initially.
I believe there is to be some kind of Pandora file system library, I wouldn't mind getting some details on that if anyone knows any.

 

[dentrado]

You could ask someone with a devboard to test it for you..

 

[Trip]

You could ask someone with a devboard to test it for you..

..and to take a video of it running too

Congrats on getting it working Doktor.
I wouldn't worry too much about it being open source if I was you. I think it's impressive enough that you are able to get it ported and running in the first place. People shouldn't expect the source code to be available for something like this anyway IMO with it coming from a professional company.

 

[craigix]

Update: I've now got it compiling and linking for the Pandora using the TI OMAP libs & Code Sourcery.
All I need now is a Pandora to test it on - oh bugger! I guess I could get a BeagleBoard and try it on that.
An open source release seems to be a bit of a legal minefield so I might try a closed source release initially.
I believe there is to be some kind of Pandora file system library, I wouldn't mind getting some details on that if anyone knows any.

There are several people here with Pandora boards who can test it for you, Ed is your best bet.

 

[TheGoodDoktor]

I'm 98% sure the exe I built won't work. It needs a heavy debug session.
Getting file loading working is going to be a pain because of the case sensitive file system in Linux - I'm sure no one has ever uttered the lines "I'm so glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system"! I might use zlib instead.
I've also had to strip out the OpenAL code so I'm not sure how well that will work, I could always try this out on one of the other versions I guess.
Absolutely no idea about performance either.

 

[Sphinxter]

I have been very glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system on many occasions.

 

[Svartalf]

I'm sure no one has ever uttered the lines "I'm so glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system"!

Heh... The case insensitive one brings all sorts of issues with itself. It's only when you've done off things and expect it to work all the time that it ends up being a pain.

As for OpenAL, I hope you simply ifdefed that out... It's about to grace Pandora because I need it for my stuff.

 

[sindbad]

I have been very glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system on many occasions.
Seconded.
I get very annoyed that OS X's HFS(+) is only half-way case sensitive and I won't even start with how much pain I've had from windows file systems.

 

[darkblu]

I have been very glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system on many occasions.
Seconded.
I get very annoyed that OS X's HFS(+) is only half-way case sensitive and I won't even start with how much pain I've had from windows file systems.

thirded.
and seconded.

 

[TheGoodDoktor]

I have been very glad UNIX has a case sensitive file system on many occasions.
Seconded.
I get very annoyed that OS X's HFS(+) is only half-way case sensitive and I won't even start with how much pain I've had from windows file systems.

thirded.
and seconded.

Reasons?

 

[darkblu]

Reasons?

multiple.

* i do not lose my files intentional capitalizations when i pass them through various utilities (i.e. iCapitalizeMyFilesOnPurpose.bin does not end up as ICAPITALIZEMYFILESONPURPOSE.BIN after a few iterations)
* people are more mindful when they refer to files. how do i know one person's reference to ThatFileThere.txt is the same as another's ThAtFiLeThErE.TxT - they don't strike my quick visual scan as the same file.
* i (and people, in general) can be bothered to write only so long meaningful filenames - having the system distinguish upper from lower case increases my options to write something meaningful in only N letters.
* the psychological barrier of recognizing filename captialization that people often refer to is more of a myth than an actual obstacle - i have seen people going from 'ugh' to being totally comfortable with different capitalization within the span of a days. so nothing that much unhuman there.