Pandora For Online Gaming

[W4RP1G]

Hey everyone, I've been watching the Pandora for a while and I'm pretty excited to see it almost done and ready to be released. With wireless online capabilities almost being a gaming standard these days, I'm curious to see how well the Pandora does in this area. It looks like the Pandora is relying on open source codes and emulators for games(and I'm sure some incredible homebrew will come). Would it be possible to get these online? I've played a few online emulators, GGPO and an N64 emu, but those were on Windows. And there's also Quake 3, which would be awesome online on a Pandora, especially if it can connect with the regular community(I know, it would suck to get owned by a m/kb, but I just don't see enough people online on the Pandora to keep a thriving community).

Personally, I'd love to have something I can play on the go, perhaps with a 4G network card when they come out. We all know the Pandora could change how everyone looks at handheld gaming just based on the hardware alone, but I'd love for it to be the first true portable AND online handheld gaming console. I have an iPhone, but I personally think it falls short in terms of gaming controls. And a unified gaming network would be really sweet, something like gamespy.

Also, I think a touch screen, online chess application would really shine on the Pandora. I would have no reservations about paying for quality, downloadable games from independent developers, especially if they have strong online capabilities.

I love portable gaming and I love online gaming. It'd be awesome to see the Pandora raise the bar in both areas.

 

[zhasha]

Hey everyone, I've been watching the Pandora for a while and I'm pretty excited to see it almost done and ready to be released. With wireless online capabilities almost being a gaming standard these days, I'm curious to see how well the Pandora does in this area. It looks like the Pandora is relying on open source codes and emulators for games(and I'm sure some incredible homebrew will come). Would it be possible to get these online? I've played a few online emulators, GGPO and an N64 emu, but those were on Windows. And there's also Quake 3, which would be awesome online on a Pandora, especially if it can connect with the regular community(I know, it would suck to get owned by a m/kb, but I just don't see enough people online on the Pandora to keep a thriving community).

The Quake III source was officially released by id and thus we have ioquake which can indeed play online. The different emus that go online usually use kaillera, but I don't know if the source is available for that. In any case, you can run binaries on the pandora provided they're ARM binaries.

Personally, I'd love to have something I can play on the go, perhaps with a 4G network card when they come out. We all know the Pandora could change how everyone looks at handheld gaming just based on the hardware alone, but I'd love for it to be the first true portable AND online handheld gaming console. I have an iPhone, but I personally think it falls short in terms of gaming controls. And a unified gaming network would be really sweet, something like gamespy.

Look into TINXL. Also, there will never exist a "gamespy" that actually works for all games.

Also, I think a touch screen, online chess application would really shine on the Pandora. I would have no reservations about paying for quality, downloadable games from independent developers, especially if they have strong online capabilities.

PyChess. I happen to know the developer and it'd be a perfect fit. Being written in python it should probably run right out of the box though

 

[gruso]

Welcome to the forums Warpig. Forgive my spelling.

The short answer is yes, it's feasible. And definitely something that will be worked towards. It will of course be up to each developer to include online functionality in their releases (it's pretty clear that you're aware of that anyway ). Have a look at TINXL and Pond. Both of these projects are pretty uh... "dormant" for now (watch as I avoid the word "abandoned"), but they give you an idea of the kind of thinking that's already gone into online gaming. Once 4,000 people have Pandoras, interesting stuff is going to happen.

 

[DaMummy]

whoah whoa wow, now wait a minute, would this whole tinxl and pond thing be able to provide multiplayer to stuff like snes emulators so you could play games that would usually require two controllers connected to snes over the internet, or did i "misunderestimate" something here and the most it could do would be to play normal online multiplayer games like say quake that were already designed to play online?

 

[Tom`]

whoah whoa wow, now wait a minute, would this whole tinxl and pond thing be able to provide multiplayer to stuff like snes emulators so you could play games that would usually require two controllers connected to snes over the internet, or did i "misunderestimate" something here and the most it could do would be to play normal online multiplayer games like say quake that were already designed to play online?

Any multiplayer functionality would be implemented by emulator developers - TINXL just provides a way for you to find other people online who have the same emulator/games and want to play.

 

[WizardStan]

whoah whoa wow, now wait a minute, would this whole tinxl and pond thing be able to provide multiplayer to stuff like snes emulators so you could play games that would usually require two controllers connected to snes over the internet, or did i "misunderestimate" something here and the most it could do would be to play normal online multiplayer games like say quake that were already designed to play online?

online multiplayer in emulators that expect instant feedback is not something that can just be easily hacked in. The emulator writer has to figure out how to communicate the I/O and timings between the two systems in a way that doesn't allow them to fall out of sync. It can be a very tricky thing, and no generic solution will work all the time. It'll be entirely up to the emulator writer on whether he wants to handle it or not.

 

[craigix]

As crazy as it still seems, Onlive (http://www.onlive.com/service.html) now claim their games will work on phones. So you could actually be playing the latest PC games on the Pandora if the plugin is made available for ARM.

Interesting because it is highly likely that the service will be blocked by Sony/Nintendo/Other console manufacturers. Not by us though, I might actually send onlive a Pandora with a crate of beer attached.

 

[Near_Kstor]

As crazy as it still seems, Onlive (http://www.onlive.com/service.html) now claim their games will work on phones. So you could actually be playing the latest PC games on the Pandora if the plugin is made available for ARM.

Interesting because it is highly likely that the service will be blocked by Sony/Nintendo/Other console manufacturers. Not by us though, I might actually send onlive a Pandora with a crate of beer attached.

Oh God, please do!
High-end games wherever you are (given you have speed enough on your net)

 

[Richo]

I've never tried online gaming over wifi. Does it cause any problems with latency on fast paced fps games etc?

 

[Near_Kstor]

Well, for pandora and other phones, the job might be even easier.

I mean, OnLive offers HD gaming over the net, and the Pandora & Co doesn't actually need more than 800x600 resolution. So... I think it should take less internet and hardware power.

 

[cobaltage]

I've never tried online gaming over wifi. Does it cause any problems with latency on fast paced fps games etc?

Can't speak about this in general, but, for example, Valve's Team Fortress 2 uses lag compensation, and so playing over wifi seems to work without noticeable problems.

 

[amf66]

I don't have a hardwired connection for my computer, so I use wifi to play online all the time. As far as I can tell, there aren't any performance issues as long as your connection is fast enough in the first place.

 

[Vlynndar]

As crazy as it still seems, Onlive (http://www.onlive.com/service.html) now claim their games will work on phones. So you could actually be playing the latest PC games on the Pandora if the plugin is made available for ARM.

Interesting because it is highly likely that the service will be blocked by Sony/Nintendo/Other console manufacturers. Not by us though, I might actually send onlive a Pandora with a crate of beer attached.

Okay, that really does look awesome/pretty neat. 'Pretty neat' if it will exist outside the US, 'awesome' if it will exist outside the US and on the Pandora.

Am I right if I think that that pretty much only needs a fast internet connection, instead of a fast internet connection and a fast PC? With the server doing all the thinking.

 

[juniorm33]

As crazy as it still seems, Onlive (http://www.onlive.com/service.html) now claim their games will work on phones. So you could actually be playing the latest PC games on the Pandora if the plugin is made available for ARM.

Interesting because it is highly likely that the service will be blocked by Sony/Nintendo/Other console manufacturers. Not by us though, I might actually send onlive a Pandora with a crate of beer attached.

Okay, that really does look awesome/pretty neat. 'Pretty neat' if it will exist outside the US, 'awesome' if it will exist outside the US and on the Pandora.

Am I right if I think that that pretty much only needs a fast internet connection, instead of a fast internet connection and a fast PC? With the server doing all the thinking.

Beta in US, afterwards should be rolled out to other places once its out of Beta. (timelines for other places I have no idea about)
And yes it depends more on net connection than power of PC. 1.5Mb for SD, 5Mb for HD resolution.
Very nice IF it works as advertised

 

[Game_over]

I've covered On live this past March, Was kind of impressed with what they can do. They've shown the interface and got to play Crysis on what looks like an old generation Macbook. GDC does not have the best wired or wireless connection as there was thousands of people connecting to it from the press room alone. Sounds like they got simulating, interpreting, and tunneling player input down pretty good. streaming video and client traffic is most likely the more demanding task, and I'm pretty comfortable with that.

 

[renwils]

Peer to peer networking has the potential to be plagued with packet loss. Hopefully for whatever nice real-time multiplayer games we end up with, there will be server software for something with a wired connection.

 

[Luminous]

Peer to peer networking has the potential to be plagued with packet loss. Hopefully for whatever nice real-time multiplayer games we end up with, there will be server software for something with a wired connection.

very poignant

 

[darien]

This is an excellent video regarding OnLive's cloud gaming. It's very impressive. Crysis running on a cellphone with minimal latency.

Browser:
http://redirectingat.com/?id=673X1259&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftv.seas.columbia.edu%2Fvideos%2F545%2F60%2F79%3Ffile%3D1%26autostart%3Dtrue

Direct link to vid:
http://video.seas.columbia.edu/StevePerlmanOnlive3.m4v

 

[juniorm33]

This is an excellent video regarding OnLive's cloud gaming. It's very impressive. Crysis running on a cellphone with minimal latency.

Browser:
http://redirectingat.com/?id=673X1259&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftv.seas.columbia.edu%2Fvideos%2F545%2F60%2F79%3Ffile%3D1%26autostart%3Dtrue

Direct link to vid:
http://video.seas.columbia.edu/StevePerlmanOnlive3.m4v

Thanks nice long interesting vid.

 

[mali]

It seems I mixed up On-Live and Streammygame regarding beta-testing in the other thread. On-Live is not the only promising platform to enable remote gaming.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51018-who-needs-windows-when-uve-got-wifi/