Pandora Pandora emulator or other solutions?

[scippie]

Hi there,


I have searched the forum and I haven't found anything about this. Sorry if that's not correct.


I am a hardcore C++ developer (on windows) and although I know my way a little around Linux (web servers), I have (almost) never developed on it. So while I am waiting for my pandora to arrive (which will probably take two months), I would like to start developing for it, hoping to be on the roll when I finally have it.


Now I would like to have a situation as close to the pandora as possible. First question: is there maybe an emulator for the pandora like you have for other handheld devices? I didn't find anything about it, so I think there probably isn't.


So, I believe that if I install an Ångström-Linux on my pc (in vmware for example), I can be quite sure that if I develop something there, it will compile on the pandora, but how do I make sure that everything will work properly? What if I use OpenGL ES? Can I emulate it as it would work on the pandora? What about processing speed? What about the rest? Are all libraries available? Stuff like that.


D.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Forget about emulation. With QEMU there is an emulator that can somewhat emulate ARM, but that's it. You don't have any comparison to the Pandora's power nor do you have any emulation of other parts of the hardware, if you want to mess around with OpenGL ES then it's alreadyworthless.


The cutting-edge Gallium drivers got OpenGL ES and IIRC AMD added OpenGL ES support to their drivers, too, so if you got an ATI or Intel card simply grab yourself a Linux distro of your choice (get something Debian-based to get an idea about the basic setup of the Pandora's system, probably Ubuntu fits quite well because it's easy to get Gallium drivers and other stuff for it) and start developing on it.


Coding on Unix systems is less of a hassle than on Windows, all libraries and headers are installed into the same path and you can directly link against Linux' .so libraries without additional files. If you need something it is very likely that you can get it and its development files via the package manager.


And if the stuff you are using on that Linux system is available on the Pandora as well it is very likely that it will run without any larger problems as far as it's not pushing the hardware too much.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Yo dwag, I heard you like emulators


So we put an emulator in your emulator so you can play Super Mario Bros. while you play Super Mario Bros

 

[scippie]

Forget about emulation. With QEMU there is an emulator that can somewhat emulate ARM, but that's it. You don't have any comparison to the Pandora's power nor do you have any emulation of other parts of the hardware, if you want to mess around with OpenGL ES then it's alreadyworthless.

That seems logical, emulating a 600Mhz device with hardware acceleration seems quite impossible in retrospect.

Coding on Unix systems is less of a hassle than on Windows, all libraries and headers are installed into the same path and you can directly link against Linux' .so libraries without additional files. If you need something it is very likely that you can get it and its development files via the package manager.
And if the stuff you are using on that Linux system is available on the Pandora as well it is very likely that it will run without any larger problems as far as it's not pushing the hardware too much.

Yeah, I have coded on linux in the past, but they were always very small projects, php plugins and things like that. I have very little knowledge about the libraries, but I presume I will find enough information about it on the wiki.


Thanks for the answer!

Yo dwag, I heard you like emulators


So we put an emulator in your emulator so you can play Super Mario Bros. while you play Super Mario Bros

Lol...

 

[trevj]

Forget about emulation. With QEMU there is an emulator that can somewhat emulate ARM...

For info, the Cortex-A8 port of RISC OS was initially developed under QEMU, and then verified on real hardware. (Development work is now being carried out on BeagleBoards, IGEPs and DevKit8000s and I don't think recent code has been tested under QEMU.)


Anyway, emulation seems a good place to start - previous comments regarding OpenGL ES, etc. acknowledged.

 

[jorlinn]

Forget about emulation. With QEMU there is an emulator that can somewhat emulate ARM...

For info, the Cortex-A8 port of RISC OS was initially developed under QEMU, and then verified on real hardware. (Development work is now being carried out on BeagleBoards, IGEPs and DevKit8000s and I don't think recent code has been tested under QEMU.)


Anyway, emulation seems a good place to start - previous comments regarding OpenGL ES, etc. acknowledged.

I'm an absolute noob when it comes to Qemu. I have tried emulating the Pandora, but couldn't even get the image to boot.


I'd love to have some quick pointers in the Wiki on how to emulate it.


Just simple projects would suffice for now. When it comes to controllers, I have a PS2-controller clone(no iControl pad, sorry OPT) that will come a long way to get a feeling for the controller on the Pandora.

 

[Shadowfox]

Forget about emulation. With QEMU there is an emulator that can somewhat emulate ARM, but that's it. You don't have any comparison to the Pandora's power nor do you have any emulation of other parts of the hardware, if you want to mess around with OpenGL ES then it's alreadyworthless.

That seems logical, emulating a 600Mhz device with hardware acceleration seems quite impossible in retrospect.

Coding on Unix systems is less of a hassle than on Windows, all libraries and headers are installed into the same path and you can directly link against Linux' .so libraries without additional files. If you need something it is very likely that you can get it and its development files via the package manager.
And if the stuff you are using on that Linux system is available on the Pandora as well it is very likely that it will run without any larger problems as far as it's not pushing the hardware too much.

Yeah, I have coded on linux in the past, but they were always very small projects, php plugins and things like that. I have very little knowledge about the libraries, but I presume I will find enough information about it on the wiki.


Thanks for the answer!

Yo dwag, I heard you like emulators


So we put an emulator in your emulator so you can play Super Mario Bros. while you play Super Mario Bros

Lol...

But who wouldn't want to compile SMS, PCE, NES advance (and roms) into PogoShell.gba and run it on your GBA4NDS emulator on NDS via Pandora? That way you can play Super Mario Brothers 3 via NES => GBA => NDS => Pandora!? :lol: Nothing like multi-layer emulation to prove perfected code.