Porting Irrlicht Games. Possible Right?

[Kordman916]

Hello Pandora community,

This is my first post on these forums so I'll try to be as non-noobish as possible.

Just had a quick question about porting games made with the Irrlicht engine and Visual C++ 2008 express edition.

I was hoping that someone here could tell me what precautions to take as I set up Irrlicht so that it could be used on the Pandora and if it's even possible to run programs compiled with Visual express on the Pandora at all.

From what I gathered Irrlicht supports OpenGL ES and from what I understand that's one of the bare minimums of getting any 3-D program to run on the Pandora at a decent speed.

So if there is anything(s) that I might need to download or setup please just let me know so I can try to begin development for the Pandora.

Edit: I completely forgot to ask about the ARM processor in Visual express and if it's supported. Could someone tell me this also.

Thanks in advance,
Kordman916

 

[zacaj]

You need to use special pandora tools for compilation, im not sure how irrlicht works right now

 

[Cloudef]

If you can get it to compile with GCC or MinGW compiler then you are one step closer. After that you need to use the Irrlicht OpenGL ES branch.
It should work on pandora after that, but needs to be compiled for ARM.

 

[EdCa22]

You should get in contact with hybrid_irr: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showuser=14903

I believe he is the one working on OpenGL ES2 and arm port of irrlicht.

 

[Kordman916]

@Zacaj

That was the most helpful post I've ever seen. I like the fact that you didn't post any links or even give a name to these so called "Special tools". Thank you because I understand exactly how to compile a pandora game thanks to your helpful post.

Seriously? Dude c'mon I know you can be more specific than "Special tools".

@EdCa22

From what I understand Irrlicht already supports OpenGL ES.

@Cloudef

So how would I compile it for an ARM processor on Windows then? I also have a partition of Ubuntu on my HDD so it's no big deal if I need a linux distro to compile it.

 

[bzar]

wiki link

The "Special tools" mentioned refers to the codesourcery cross-compilation toolchain. I remember reading that Irrlicht already supports OGLES as well.

EDIT: spelling

 

[Cloudef]

@Cloudef

So how would I compile it for an ARM processor on Windows then? I also have a partition of Ubuntu on my HDD so it's no big deal if I need a linux distro to compile it.

You'll need to set cross-compilation envirmoiment. The wiki link on the post above has some instructions how to set it up. It is not a piece of cake, so there is also option to compile your project in Pandora, if you can bare with bit slower compile times.

 

[torpor]

Yeah, you can develop OpenGL ES games on the Pandora itself if you take the 'bollocks to toolchains' approach ..

This project is a GL ES game that you can build on your Pandora in a few minutes:

http://w1xer.at/pandora/

 

[bzar]

BTW, has anyone tried to compile an Irrlicht app on a pandora? I've got a small Pong game I made to get to know the framework if someone wants to give it a try. Requires Irrlicht, OpenAL and ALUT. A cmake build config is included. Anyone interested?

 

[urjaman]

BTW, has anyone tried to compile an Irrlicht app on a pandora? I've got a small Pong game I made to get to know the framework if someone wants to give it a try. Requires Irrlicht, OpenAL and ALUT. A cmake build config is included. Anyone interested?

Maybe, but i know nothing about Irrlicht, so... If all I need is to install some packages from opkg and run cmake, then I should have no problems.

 

[bzar]

Old news item

It appears to be in a working condition. I didn't see the Irrlicht dev packages in ångström's package browser, so I'd guess it takes a little more than that. Well, you can be sure I'll try it when I get mine

 

[EdCa22]

@EdCa22

From what I understand Irrlicht already supports OpenGL ES

From what I understand Irrlicht supports Open GL ES 1.1, and though I don't know how mature the 2.0 port is hybrid_irr is working on it. Regardless, 1.1 will work on Pandora. And also, as I already stated, hybrid_irr is AFAIK responsible for the arm port, and so may be able to help you out.

 

[Kordman916]

Just so I don't have to create a new thread I'll just use this one to ask this question...

I've downloaded Code::Blocks on Ubuntu 9.04 and the files from this link (Files I downloaded.) and I wanted to know what do I need to do after getting these files to get my programs to compile for the Pandora using Code::Blocks.

So if anyone can tell me how to create a new compiler or if I'm able to use the built in ARM compiler so that I could compile programs for the Pandora I'd be eternally grateful.

Thanks in advance,
Kordman916

 

[Mithrildor]

Here is the discussion about it on the forums:

http://forum.openhandhelds.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=895

 

[Kordman916]

Even though some of the Linux-Lovers here might not like it I've decided to delete Ubuntu out of compatibility issues and I'm reinstalling Windows XP.

"Why do we care?" You might be asking yourself.

Well if I was to use Code::Blocks on Windows would I be able to compile my programs for the Pandora still?

As long as I have the compiler I don't see a reason I couldn't compile for the Pandora but I just felt like asking you guys to make sure.

 

[EdCa22]

Even though some of the Linux-Lovers here might not like it I've decided to delete Ubuntu out of compatibility issues and I'm reinstalling Windows XP.

"Why do we care?" You might be asking yourself.

Well if I was to use Code::Blocks on Windows would I be able to compile my programs for the Pandora still?

As long as I have the compiler I don't see a reason I couldn't compile for the Pandora but I just felt like asking you guys to make sure.

You probably can... it is possible to set up gcc as a cross compiler on windows... but it is a major pain. You have to install cygwin and probably build gnu binutils, glibc etc. However, you can try using the free codesourcery package, I think they have a free windows setup: http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm/portal/release1293 (non-GPL though I think) or use crosstool http://www.kegel.com/crosstool/ or crosstool-ng http://freshmeat.net/projects/crosstool-ng/ or find another way...

whatever you do you will still have to configure Code::Blocks to point at the correct compiler, linker etc, which will work fine as long as you have your toolchain set up already.