GP2X Porting Question

[icurafu]

Hello devs,

I remember someone saying when you play a movie on the GP2X, it will always be downsampled to QVGA automatically via hardware.

I was wondering if this is the same for painting to the buffer. For Games.

Say if we have a game, were performance is not really an issue (old). but it was building the buffer at 800x600.

Could we just be lazy and let it write at 800x600 and let it resize the image to QVGA? (With maybe even an image improvment over raw QVGA).

It would safe me a lot of time for some quick ports, rather then redoing the layout to fix in a smaller screen.

Thanks for any answers...

 

[theoddbot]

Yes, you could use the scaling hardware, but you're painting 6.25 times as many pixels than are on the screen.

 

[icurafu]

cool.

Lazy days ahead.

 

[Digital Awakening]

Thing is that how visible things get when you scale them down from 800x600. I bet small text won't be readable for example.

 

[carlgeorge]

Small text certainly won't be visible. On castaway the medium res is almost impossible to read and that is only 640 x 200 (i.e. only scaled in one direction with respect to the screen)

 

[slygamer]

cool.

Lazy days ahead.

​

Lazy efforts brings below-par results. Make the effort to properly utilize the 320x240 screen and you will be rewarded with a much better looking game.

 

[Digital Awakening]

A propper port is usually a lot better for playing on a handheld as well. Controlls and screen size are limited and thus various tweaks are needed although you should be able to use the original media scaled down in a propper 2D software like Photoshop etc.

 

[Cyclops]

A propper port is usually a lot better for playing on a handheld as well. Controlls and screen size are limited and thus various tweaks are needed although you should be able to use the original media scaled down in a propper 2D software like Photoshop etc.

​

No its not!

 

[icurafu]

Anyway, it's just an option for me.

I think for the right situation, this could be a time saver, or allow a port of a game that noone would have bothered with before.

 

[Digital Awakening]

A propper port is usually a lot better for playing on a handheld as well. Controlls and screen size are limited and thus various tweaks are needed although you should be able to use the original media scaled down in a propper 2D software like Photoshop etc.

​

No its not!

​

Are you saying that a quick port is better then propperly done port? Have you played any games ported from a console to PC where mouse support is poorly made?

 

[Cyclops]

Are you saying that a quick port is better then propperly done port? Have you played any games ported from a console to PC where mouse support is poorly made?

​

I took a program in 640x480 in allegro. Extracted the images from something like a wad. Resized the pictures in something like photoshop, using a common pallet, converted the images to C Data. Changed the logic in the program to deal with 320x240 instead of 640x480...and learned nothing useful (not SDL) I learned GP32 noncence. Changing the inputs and stuff was easy, but really shouldn't I just be adding a joystick extention to a program. I used a program with a GPL licence, could I feed back to the program with corrections and addtions? big fat NO!.


Think about these words "quick port is better then propperly done port" think about some of the features intoduced with the new cpu and those of the new OS and what is the best way.

 

[Digital Awakening]

What I mean is that a quick port does not make a good end product compared to a propperly done port. As a gamer I couldn't care less if you spent 2 evenings or 2 month on a project and what you learned in the proccess. If the game doesn't play as nicely as it could on a sertain device then it's not as good as one that is propperly made for that device.

Most 640x480 games would do quite well on a 320x240 screen but 800x600 and above will have more problems with stuff beeing hard to see. So a propper port would for example have sertain parts take upp less or more space on the screen compared to the original. For example a game could have a radar always visible in the original but the port doesn't, instead you get a fullscreen radar by pressing a button.

 

[icurafu]

A propper port is usually a lot better for playing on a handheld as well. Controlls and screen size are limited and thus various tweaks are needed although you should be able to use the original media scaled down in a propper 2D software like Photoshop etc.

​

No its not!

​

Are you saying that a quick port is better then propperly done port? Have you played any games ported from a console to PC where mouse support is poorly made?

​

Actually, I'm saying that a quick port is better then no port at all.

Like for instance, I saw this Unicorn game (pr was it that elf game) at libsdl.org. It was kinda lame but the gameplay was ok. It had large icons so it sill looked playable at QVGA.

I would not waste my time on it, but if it was a quick port, say 1 to 2 hours then why not.

If it was a real port, I would halve the demensions or all the tiles and sprites and then redo the paint method maybe change things around so it looks good, but that could take a day.

And if I port a game badly, and there is enough demand for it, then anyone is welcome to try and 1UP me.

 

[Cyclops]

What I mean is that a quick port does not make a good end product compared to a propperly done port. As a gamer I couldn't care less if you spent 2 evenings or 2 month on a project and what you learned in the proccess. If the game doesn't play as nicely as it could on a sertain device then it's not as good as one that is propperly made for that device.

Most 640x480 games would do quite well on a 320x240 screen but 800x600 and above will have more problems with stuff beeing hard to see. So a propper port would for example have sertain parts take upp less or more space on the screen compared to the original. For example a game could have a radar always visible in the original but the port doesn't, instead you get a fullscreen radar by pressing a button.

​

No that wasn't your point. You talked about photoshopping images. I disagreed and went into some depth of 'early' coding on a high level on a GP32. You should care about how easy it is to port, because the easier/more rewarding/familer enviroment it is the more ports you will get. I agree there are problems between hardware platforms, but for 99% of arcade game ports its a none issue, and in reality those are the games that suit a port best. And this should work both ways gp2X-->desktop and desktop--->gp2X hey with the advantage of this type of collabrative working its best to change as little as possible.

In reality having thought about this for some time, why shouldn't different resolution issues just be part of the main code, If not resized on the fly (the gp2x can do it). In reality if you are talking about taking advantage of the platform look at what the CPU can do and how it would be useful and even an advantage that the game area is bigger than screen(think zoom+/- and certain neogeo games)

 

[Digital Awakening]

Cyclops:
My point was my first line: "A propper port is usually a lot better for playing on a handheld as well". And that means that you need to do various things with the game to make sure the player can see everything propperly and also play the game propperly with the controlls. Not all graphics needs to be scaled down and you probably have to scale down different graphics differently and some needs to be redone to better use the screen.