Porting Half Life To Pandora

[Gerix]

You guys are such downers. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying you're downers.

 

[arrrgh]

I understand the difficulty, but if i could get enough people interested in this it might gain some relevance. also, would a port to Linux then Pandora be easier? (setting aside the closed source nature of GoldSrc)

It's possible, you just have to willing to sleep with Gabe Newell. Remember to film it for blackmail purposes.

 

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

A Pandora-specific port is never going to happen, but what are the chances of a generic ARM-Linux port of the steam platform?

 

[Patrick R Ludvigsen]

A Pandora-specific port is never going to happen, but what are the chances of a generic ARM-Linux port of the steam platform?

Almost nothing, unless there's lots of money involved, like, say, Mac

 

[grasshoppir]

morons, get back to solving the nds screen estate problem

 

[amf66]

I emailed them a year ago and no one ever responded. Not even a no! I guess they get a ton of emails, but still...

 

[bce23w]

Getting a bit sick of people asking whether things are possible, then complaining when told they aren't. Can the Read This First post get any more prominent?

 

[SomeGuy99]

A Pandora-specific port is never going to happen, but what are the chances of a generic ARM-Linux port of the steam platform?

Almost nothing, unless there's lots of money involved, like, say, Mac

You're missing the point. When you blackmail Gabe, don't ask him for money. Also, if he offers you money afterwards, don't accept it (you may encounter legal problems).

 

[second exodous]

A Pandora-specific port is never going to happen, but what are the chances of a generic ARM-Linux port of the steam platform?

Steam is coming to Linux x86 but the user base is huge, larger than Mac probably but at least as large. If Linux ARM devices were unified like x86 then it might happen but I don't think Linux ARM will ever be as unified. You'll never be able to take an .iso that will work on every Linux ARM device like you can with x86 because the ARM chips themselves vary widely.

It might happen, heck, ARM might take over the home computer industry, x86 might go the way of the dodo, but I just wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[Drack]

I understand the difficulty, but if i could get enough people interested in this it might gain some relevance. also, would a port to Linux then Pandora be easier? (setting aside the closed source nature of GoldSrc)

It's not a matter of trying hard enough. Without Valve's blessing in the form of a port or released source code, running Half-Life on the Pandora is impossible. And even if it were possible, distributing the reverse-engineered engine would be illegal.

 

[moomaster0707]

I know ill probably be shot for this, but is it possible to boot half-life through dos box? it seems like that would not cause any legal issues. Because I think i remember a friend of mine launching it on some sort of MS-Dos computer he had. If not, could someone give me a quick reason why. I know its probably damn near impossible, if not impossible, But i thought id try and see.

 

[Prometheus]

A quick reason why, you say? I can give you a couple.

1: Half-Life was a Microsoft Windows 95/98 game, not Microsoft DOS.

2: Since it was released in 1998, Half-Life required at least a 133MHz Pentium processor, or equivalent. Anecdotally, the most I've gotten running in DOSBox on the Pandora is Jazz Jackrabbit (a game released when 386 and 486 machines were the norm, I gather), and even that requires overclocking, and still occasionally has some slowdown in places.

 

[Grench]

Installing Half Life directly on a Pandora isn't going to happen.

Your only hope to play it from the Pandora would be to off-load the game execution to a host PC with Windows or Wine running on it. Half Life and all of it's additional parts and Half Life 2 and it's parts all run nicely for me on Wine under Ubuntu AMD64.

So, to get it to the Pandora, we will need something like this:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54612-html5-remote-desktop-playable/

That thread has lots of good information with very intelligent people talking about real issues. HL being a twitch game - playability under a remote client take over scenario is going to be very iffy and lag will be an issue. But - unlike installing an X86 game on an ARM CPU, this VNC/etc... style host/client scenario has a chance in hell of working.

 

[femngi]

I think this entire thread can boil down to:

• Is Half Live technically possible on the pandora? Yes.
• Is Valve ever going to enable it to happen? No.
• Is it going to happen? No.

 

[fearofshorts]

Installing Half Life directly on a Pandora isn't going to happen.

Your only hope to play it from the Pandora would be to off-load the game execution to a host PC with Windows or Wine running on it. Half Life and all of it's additional parts and Half Life 2 and it's parts all run nicely for me on Wine under Ubuntu AMD64.

So, to get it to the Pandora, we will need something like this:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54612-html5-remote-desktop-playable/

That thread has lots of good information with very intelligent people talking about real issues. HL being a twitch game - playability under a remote client take over scenario is going to be very iffy and lag will be an issue. But - unlike installing an X86 game on an ARM CPU, this VNC/etc... style host/client scenario has a chance in hell of working.

Remote playing... this is part of my dream.
And to the problem of lag I say: 802.11n router and USB adapter. As soon as I get my Pandora (and can afford it D I'm getting that setup.

 

[bzar]

802.11n doesn't help lag as much as bandwidth compared to 802.11g. Data throughput is noticeably larger, but ping times should be about the same. (AFAIK)