Pandora Not Powerful Enough?

[Nintendo]

Im too lazy to explain, why don't you just google duke nukem forever, or why not make it easier for yourself -because you're obviously lazier than me- and just type DNF, it's even shorter :lol:

I already know damn well that Duke Nukem Forever is considered as an internet laughing stock, as it's now a virtual vapourware product/game...
But WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND is that if you think that Pandora is vapourware when you know damn well it isn't...

And if it were the case that you were just being sarcastic about it all, then why?...because imo, it's inappropriate to be sarcastic about a product that is obviously not vapourware.

 

[Kangal]

The Pandora was designed by us, the people of this board because we were frustrated by what was on the market.

Thank you to everyone thats replied. I didnt want to offend anybody, like I said Pandora is pretty impressive. What I wanted to say was the Pandora is the most powerful handheld if it is a handheld. And if it is a handheld, it would be expected that a library of games that function on the Pandora is made and extended. However, I did not see the community focusing on this direction. [Zeq2lite looks awesome!!!] I saw the community more focused on developing emulators for the device so we can have an untapped niche of games to enjoy.

I was also thinking that 'graphic intense' games appeal to more people than the classic games. I say this because I have an iPhone 3G and have been bored too many with games that I can finish in a day. So I long for a PSP type game (there's a reason I dont have a PSP).

The max. Polygons Per Sec Rate (under game conditions) as you all know determines the graphic power of the device; aka an indicator of its limits. I never said its the most important feature of a handheld. But it is important on the emulation side of things or hi-graphic games.

What I was saying about it competing against the PSP is that people will buy a phone, buy a laptop, buy a multimedia device (PSP/iTouch/mp3). I think we are in the phase where we want to merge most of our tools/stuff into one unit. Hence, universal remotes, swiss army knives, Mitac Mio A702 etc. And Pandora is just another solution to this crisis. Only that its amped with more power to get as much jobs done as possible. I don't think many people that know about Pandora but have a PSP is going to buy a Pandora if it fails to stimulate them with a new feature.

What I forgot was Pandora was made for the Pandora community. But with a different approach I thought it could have become a public sensation.
Think about it, you have the newest tech, crammed into a small device... I think that would appeal to many people since humans are a **** species where we are focused on the getting the best.
However, I constantly cant help but think that some people will read the specs, and have a really high expectations of Pandora. Then they get their handhelds and try to download some hi-graphic games. When they see the shortage of supported games they will turn to emulators like everyone else. When they learn that it cannot emulate PSP games (although knowing Pandora to be several times more powerful), they will be severly disappointed.
Disappointed in a "when you hear alot of hype for a movie and go see it but find it was pretty bad movie" (ahem twilight ahem) kinda way.

Instead the Pandora project is still incomplete and now the tech inside isn't cutting edge anymore, Corporate companies have caught up.
If PSP2 comes gun-blazing with the hardware its rumoured to have, Pandora is just going to look less impressive thus less desired.

But what I was trying to add to my post was that making the OS and emulators is the difficult part. And if the Pandora Team actually made a PSP-emulator for an ARM-architecture (with other emulators) and optimized the OS and made a pleasing UI that could've take 2 years. And when they were done, new and improved technology will become available. So the Pandora team would finish the project by having something that REALLY stands out of all other devices.
On top of this new functions may be available and these new ideas may be added to the system while still in development.
For eg, if accelerometre was never in the original design but was added during development phase when choosing candidate hardware.

In this process, when Pandora is released it is well equipped to keep you entertained and has cutting-edge technology which would appeal to many more people.

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to be clear and not to keep repeating myself. If there's spelling errors thats not my fault its my new expensive acer laptop with 8+ hours of usage time (no bull) with cheap keyboard and buttons.

 

[ldesnogu]

Two years ago it wasn't available to consumers. There is no point arguing over performance on paper. Cortex A8 SoCs up to 1GHz is what is mainstream in 2010, so Pandora will still be up to par(if it comes out soon).

Strange thing to read from someone who claims:

I'm a big ARM fan and I'm fairly informed what's out there or going to be released, soon.

Look for OMAP4 and Tegra2, both of which will be out this year. Note these are obviously too late for Pandora, but I'm ready to bet A9-based SoC's will be mainstream long before 2010 is over

Errm, the WIZ and Dingoo can do this, and the Pandora is about 10x faster...

10x, really? Or do you restrict that to the GPU? Because the A8 certainly isn't 10x faster than an arm9 @ 533 MHz or a MIPS @ 360 MHz, even if overclock it to 900 MHz.

EDIT: ha I missed ED answer about that, sorry

Yes, the Pandora will not be powerful enough to EMULATE PS2 or XBox Games - but such a CPU doesn't exist yet.

It exists but you'd need a backpack for the battery :lol:

While the current OMAP is no technical wonder, the only major devices I know that use the same one is the N900 (which is out since two months) and the new iPhone (which is out since three months).
To out-of-date or not powerful?

The iPhone is more powerful, both from the CPU and GPU points of view (though I'm not sure what frequency the Samsung A8 runs at).

Anyway the point is not really what is out now, but rather what will soon be out (I'm only speaking from the performance point of view in the handheld space).

Try to find a more powerful gaming handheld at the moment...

Again the Pandora is unique and I've little doubt it'll be a very nice machine!

Something bothers me in this discussion: there is too much fanboy'ism and also too much anti-Pandora talk. As always the truth probably lies in the middle

 

[mali]

Look for OMAP4 and Tegra2, both of which will be out this year. Note these are obviously too late for Pandora, but I'm ready to bet A9-based SoC's will be mainstream long before 2010 is over

Hehe, those OMAP3,iMX515 devices were announced for summer 2009, so let's see who's right end of 2010

 

[shunun]

Im too lazy to explain, why don't you just google duke nukem forever, or why not make it easier for yourself -because you're obviously lazier than me- and just type DNF, it's even shorter :lol:

I already know damn well that Duke Nukem Forever is considered as an internet laughing stock, as it's now a virtual vapourware product/game...
But WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND is that if you think that Pandora is vapourware when you know damn well it isn't...

And if it were the case that you were just being sarcastic about it all, then why?...because imo, it's inappropriate to be sarcastic about a product that is obviously not vapourware.

Ease up it was only a joke. When did you last see daylight? Or come out from under your bridge haha

 

[Kangal]

I didn't realise my comment would generate such debate. I still think the pandora is great, just nowhere near as amazing as it first was when I read about it 2 years ago. This is given that there are newer technologies now available, and yes, hopefully they will be in the 'pandora 2' if there is one, fingers crossed hey?

I'm sure it will emulate GBA fullspeed, but that was kind of sarcasm. I dont wan't a pandora JUST to emulate GBA! And to the people saying that emulation is "just a bonus" of the pandora, I'm not sure I agree.. Afterall, why would most of the talk be about emulation? Let's just be on neutral terms here, but I think the pandoras best asset is it's emulation/open source gaming capability. It's clearly designed for it afterall.

And personally I agree with evildragon. The more realistic games are, does not always make them better, some classic examples are pokemon games, or as ED mentioned 2D zelda games, like link's awakening. Anyone buying a pandora because they think it will emulate ps2 or xbox games is fooling themselves! It's not even what the pandora is about. To be honest, I don't even care about psp emulation. The games aren't great, and as someone already said, psp games are just like psx games, only psx has far better titles anyway.

Pandora = Duke nukem forever
[/quote]

@shunun

Just want to say I totally agree with everything you said and think you understand what I was trying to say.
On another note: games are all about preference. Some enjoy classics, others enjoy new-release. Just wanted to say wouldn't be great if Pandora could do both?
I was just saying Pandora could have been designed as a Personal Computer that's primary job is to play new-releases, classic games are the bonus.
Doesn't that sound more appealing to everyone?

 

[MWeston]

My only addition to this topic is that I want to share my experiences with these injected molded case samples. Pickle made a very stable version of Quake2 with dual nub support and it is the first time I have truly enjoyed playing a 3D shooter on a handheld. I played all the way though Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and that was a bit awkward with the four buttons to look around. Having the second nub act like a mouse is just so fantastic. Being able to move that cross hair anywhere I want at any speed I want when being attacked from everywhere was wonderful. That's what Pandora is all about and not necessarily trying to show off the fastest clock speed although unofficially, it's doing quite well there too.

 

[kuru]

Pointless topic. Pandora emulates enough stuff and is powerful enough for awesome-looking native games, but someone has to create them. What most ppl require for that is their own Pandoras to start with. After shipping you will see countless projects pop up, I'm almost sure.

And "Pandora = DNR": Sorry, where's the joke please? Some ppl try to justify talking bollocks by calling it humor.

 

[Nintendo]

Firstly, you need a shit load of money to make/develop a game (with at least 10 hours of solid gameplay) that has fresh graphics, awsome sound, complex 3D environments, and story-line to boot.

And secondly, Pandora is not for commercial successful use, thus not for the masses.

It's meant for open-source, so the likes of Nintendo, EA, Microsoft won't even go near it.

So, basically if you want an awesome game made with Pandora's power, then you're going to need a shit load of money/backing...and I know it's possible with a handful of brilliant minds/devs, even though I can only think of 1 awesome game that had quality written all over it (imho) via only 5 years of work and 1 man (Robert Pelloni).

Nothing is impossible, but what you commercial 3d game loving people want from Pandora 1 is highly improbable to ever happen.

 

[Awakening]

My only addition to this topic is that I want to share my experiences with these injected molded case samples. Pickle made a very stable version of Quake2 with dual nub support and it is the first time I have truly enjoyed playing a 3D shooter on a handheld. I played all the way though Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and that was a bit awkward with the four buttons to look around. Having the second nub act like a mouse is just so fantastic. Being able to move that cross hair anywhere I want at any speed I want when being attacked from everywhere was wonderful. That's what Pandora is all about and not necessarily trying to show off the fastest clock speed although unofficially, it's doing quite well there too.

I'm sure a lot of people would love a video of that

 

[JayFoxRox]

Polygons per Second is only used for 3D graphics, it doesn't say anything about the CPU or 2D graphics power.

Sorry, but this is wrong. If you use the CPU to draw things it might be right, PPS doesn't say anything about 2D performance then, but if you render using the SGX (using OGLES2) it doesn't matter if it is 2D or 3D as all transformations happen in the vertexshader. You only save some time because you don't have to pass matrices and you don't have to project your polys.
But 2D or 3D - there is no difference with OGLES2.

 

[shunun]

My only addition to this topic is that I want to share my experiences with these injected molded case samples. Pickle made a very stable version of Quake2 with dual nub support and it is the first time I have truly enjoyed playing a 3D shooter on a handheld. I played all the way though Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and that was a bit awkward with the four buttons to look around. Having the second nub act like a mouse is just so fantastic. Being able to move that cross hair anywhere I want at any speed I want when being attacked from everywhere was wonderful. That's what Pandora is all about and not necessarily trying to show off the fastest clock speed although unofficially, it's doing quite well there too.

Somebody should upload a video of the psp emulation That would certainly be interesting/ keep people happy.

 

[mali]

My only addition to this topic is that I want to share my experiences with these injected molded case samples. Pickle made a very stable version of Quake2 with dual nub support and it is the first time I have truly enjoyed playing a 3D shooter on a handheld. I played all the way though Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and that was a bit awkward with the four buttons to look around. Having the second nub act like a mouse is just so fantastic. Being able to move that cross hair anywhere I want at any speed I want when being attacked from everywhere was wonderful. That's what Pandora is all about and not necessarily trying to show off the fastest clock speed although unofficially, it's doing quite well there too.

Wonderful!

 

[twent4]

Pandora = Duke nukem forever

K, here's what i see as the problem with statements like that: when the Pandora was designed ~2 years ago, as said, it was meant to replace an older handheld. A handheld used primarily for emulation of old-school gaming. Comparing the pandora to things like DNF makes absolutely no sense, because DNF was delayed due to LOOKING LIKE SHIT when run on powerful current gen PCs... old school gaming does not get "more modern". Genesis and SNES games don't become harder to emulate in 2010 as opposed to 2008.

Conversely, it's not like if the pandora came out in 2009, a year later it would magically gain the ability to emulate PS2 games! Apples and oranges, dammit.

 

[shunun]

And "Pandora = DNR": Sorry, where's the joke please? Some ppl try to justify talking bollocks by calling it humor.

Obviously everyone has different homour, besides, pandora and DNF do have similarities.. They have both taken a long time, DNF is not vapourware, and nor is the pandora. So where's your rebut now?? next time just shut up.

 

[EvilDragon]

The max. Polygons Per Sec Rate (under game conditions) as you all know determines the graphic power of the device; aka an indicator of its limits. I never said its the most important feature of a handheld. But it is important on the emulation side of things or hi-graphic games.

Nope, it is not. The Polygons Per Sec is only important for 3D games. So emulation of any system up until the PSX/N64 which didn't use any 3D CPU, the Polygons per Sec are pointless.
It's the 2D accelerators that are more important in this case

Instead the Pandora project is still incomplete and now the tech inside isn't cutting edge anymore, Corporate companies have caught up.

Well, that was something I personally did expect, since every corporate company does have more ressources for doing such things so they don't need as much time as we do.

If PSP2 comes gun-blazing with the hardware its rumoured to have, Pandora is just going to look less impressive thus less desired.

For commercial gaming, yes. But even the PSP would be inferior, as there are some good commercial games - and we will most probably never have big ones on the Pandora. Check out Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core, for example. It's an impressive game and runs perfect on the PSP.
It will take a long time until such impressive games will reach the Pandora, if ever.

But you will never be able to run a normal Linux Desktop on the PSP (well, you could, if somebody would port one... but does that make sense?)

And I'm pretty sure the PSP2 will be closed again, which leads to a new round of struggling hackers vs. struggling Sony

One good thing about games is that the Pandora runs a standard Linux system. Pickle did port tons of games and emulators already.
Most simply run by recompiling. No need to optimize or hack controls in
So you can enjoy games like FreeCNC, Battle for Wesnoth, FreeCiv, Quake 3, etc.
And that is something you can't do on a PSP

But what I was trying to add to my post was that making the OS and emulators is the difficult part. And if the Pandora Team actually made a PSP-emulator for an ARM-architecture (with other emulators) and optimized the OS and made a pleasing UI that could've take 2 years. And when they were done, new and improved technology will become available. So the Pandora team would finish the project by having something that REALLY stands out of all other devices.
On top of this new functions may be available and these new ideas may be added to the system while still in development.
For eg, if accelerometre was never in the original design but was added during development phase when choosing candidate hardware.

Well, the "Pandora Team" isn't doing any emulators (okay, some devs which help with OS/Kernel development like notaz did do emulators, too, but that's not the main work to do on the current system we have).
The Team is developing the core OS and the system itself. Most apps will come from the community, I'm pretty sure about that.

Look for OMAP4 and Tegra2, both of which will be out this year. Note these are obviously too late for Pandora, but I'm ready to bet A9-based SoC's will be mainstream long before 2010 is over

Well, the same SoCs running with higher clockrate is nothing special, it will obviously happen sometime. But this doesn't need a completely new design, you could simply make a new batch with those new SoCs if they are pin-compatible.

Regarding those A9-based ones... I doubt they will become mainstream in 2010.
The Cortex A8 has been released approx. 1,5 - 2 years ago. How long did it take for the first mainstream devices to appear?

When a new SoC is out, devs can start to develop a new device around it. And we now all do know how long that can take....

Yes, the Pandora will not be powerful enough to EMULATE PS2 or XBox Games - but such a CPU doesn't exist yet.

It exists but you'd need a backpack for the battery :lol:

Aaaah Yes, I meant CPUs for HANDHELDS, of course

While the current OMAP is no technical wonder, the only major devices I know that use the same one is the N900 (which is out since two months) and the new iPhone (which is out since three months).
To out-of-date or not powerful?

The iPhone is more powerful, both from the CPU and GPU points of view (though I'm not sure what frequency the Samsung A8 runs at).
[/quote]

Are you sure about that?
I checked the technical data of the new iPhone, it can do 667MHz, has 32kB L1 Cache and NO L2 Cache (compared to the OMAP 3530 which has 112 KB (DSP) and 32 KB (ARM Cortex-A8) L1 Cache and 256 KB (ARM Cortex-A8) and 96 KB (DSP) L2 Cache).
I couldn't find out if the iPhone 3 GS has a DSP, but the Pandora does have one.
The GPU used in the iPhone is the PowerVR MBX-Lite which is a bit slower than the MBX. The Pandora uses the PowerVR SGX which is superior (and even fully backwards compatible to the POWERVR MBX).

So I wonder why the iPhone should be more powerful...?

Try to find a more powerful gaming handheld at the moment...

Again the Pandora is unique and I've little doubt it'll be a very nice machine!

Something bothers me in this discussion: there is too much fanboy'ism and also too much anti-Pandora talk. As always the truth probably lies in the middle

Hm, I didn't find that much fanboy'ism in this thread
I just stated what a Pandora is useful for, that big impressive commercial games are better on the PSP than on the Pandora... but claiming the iPhone is more powerful when both the CPU and GPU of the Pandora seem to be superior (unless I missed something or did something wrong here!) is wrong and should be corrected

 

[kuru]

DNF is not vaporware?

 

[shunun]

Pandora = Duke nukem forever

K, here's what i see as the problem with statements like that: when the Pandora was designed ~2 years ago, as said, it was meant to replace an older handheld. A handheld used primarily for emulation of old-school gaming. Comparing the pandora to things like DNF makes absolutely no sense, because DNF was delayed due to LOOKING LIKE SHIT when run on powerful current gen PCs... old school gaming does not get "more modern". Genesis and SNES games don't become harder to emulate in 2010 as opposed to 2008.

Conversely, it's not like if the pandora came out in 2009, a year later it would magically gain the ability to emulate PS2 games! Apples and oranges, dammit.

Okay, what the hell are you talking about? Do i have to raise my voice here. IT WAS ONLY A JOKE!. I noticed you've taken no sight to what else I said in the original post. Honestly, don't take everything to litterally, we're all friends here? at least i though so :blink:

 

[EvilDragon]

Polygons per Second is only used for 3D graphics, it doesn't say anything about the CPU or 2D graphics power.

Sorry, but this is wrong. If you use the CPU to draw things it might be right, PPS doesn't say anything about 2D performance then, but if you render using the SGX (using OGLES2) it doesn't matter if it is 2D or 3D as all transformations happen in the vertexshader. You only save some time because you don't have to pass matrices and you don't have to project your polys.
But 2D or 3D - there is no difference with OGLES2.

Well, can't say I'm THAT deep into the materia... but are you sure?
I mean, PPS just tells you how many Polygons you can do per second, which are needed for 3D models.
When using OGLES2 for 2D output, you don't need that many polygons and they shouldn't affect the speed on any handheld, should they?

I mean, if you draw 2D stuff using OGLES2, how many polygons do you need? 2?

 

[WizardStan]

If PSP2 comes gun-blazing with the hardware its rumoured to have, Pandora is just going to look less impressive thus less desired.

Except the PSP2 will not have a keyboard. I will not be able to write a program for the PSP2 and just run it. I will not be able to VNC into my home machine over the internet with a PSP2. I will not be able to hack up a copy of Quake3 the way I want it to be and play it on a PSP2. All these things and more I can do with the Pandora right out of the box.

But what I was trying to add to my post was that making the OS and emulators is the difficult part. And if the Pandora Team actually made a PSP-emulator for an ARM-architecture (with other emulators) and optimized the OS and made a pleasing UI that could've take 2 years. And when they were done, new and improved technology will become available. So the Pandora team would finish the project by having something that REALLY stands out of all other devices.
On top of this new functions may be available and these new ideas may be added to the system while still in development.
For eg, if accelerometre was never in the original design but was added during development phase when choosing candidate hardware.

In this process, when Pandora is released it is well equipped to keep you entertained and has cutting-edge technology which would appeal to many more people.

Except then they'll have created the software, start creating the hardware, and it STILL takes two years to get everything together, so everything is out of date anyway. Also the people making the hardware aren't making the emulators. You and I and everyone else make the software that we want as we want it.

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to be clear and not to keep repeating myself. If there's spelling errors thats not my fault its my new expensive acer laptop with 8+ hours of usage time (no bull) with cheap keyboard and buttons.

The problem is that you said it wasn't powerful enough, tried to present some arguments, but never actually said what it wasn't powerful enough for. Not powerful enough to emulate DC or PSP? Maybe, maybe not: both those emulators are currently being worked on and show promise; may not reach full speed, but does it matter? Is that what power is? Not powerful enough for Xbox or PS2? Duh, neither is the PSP or the iPhone, and I doubt the PSP2 will be as well. It's powerful enough to surf the net and play 720p video, powerful enough to play PSX and an MP3 in the background (with power to spare). It's powerful enough to run Quake3 and theoretically Doom3 (if we can get the source and optimize the graphics for the screen size). So what is it not powerful enough for? What is it that you want it to do that needs more power than what it has?