Quake Already Ported To Gp2x (YES! It's true!)

[Tobriand]

Well, if you don't include GPH's Gnuboy demonstration, Quake was probably the second thing that's been ported. Probably because no one had received there dev board by the time I got the port working.

no_skill: No, it's not a recompiled sdlquake. What fun would there be in using something like SDL?

Skeezix: Your right. My quake port talks to the display and other hardware directly and completely ignores linux (No sdl here) (and explains why it took so long, learning new hardware is fun).

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I know this is kinda demanding but, would you please write down the things you found out? No need that everybody has to find out on his own when we have our units.

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Or at least, those things you can get away wth without violating the NDA

 

[Squidge]

Everything I did is already fully explained in the "leaked" documentation, and mixed with a bit of standard Linux coding.

 

[codesmith]

Everything I did is already fully explained in the "leaked" documentation, and mixed with a bit of standard Linux coding.

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In other words, mmap() the MM2 register space into your process address space and go nuts on the hardware? But how do you tell the Linux device drivers that you're the one in charge now? (for interrupts, etc) or does that just not matter for the framebuffer?

 

[Squidge]

Everything I did is already fully explained in the "leaked" documentation, and mixed with a bit of standard Linux coding.

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In other words, mmap() the MM2 register space into your process address space and go nuts on the hardware? But how do you tell the Linux device drivers that you're the one in charge now? (for interrupts, etc) or does that just not matter for the framebuffer?

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That's pretty much it, yeah Linux won't screw around with your frame buffer unlessl you start asking it to. Obviously, it's a bad idea to try and mix SDL (or other relatively high-level graphics libraries) with low-level hardware hacking, but other than that you should be fine. You can even save a bit of memory and a lot of work by asking linux for the frame buffer it uses itself, and the physical (non-virtual) address for it, so you can shove it in the hardware registers

Needless to say, I'll be releasing the code to the routines I've created, and the code to Quake/???/etc, so others can hack around with them if they want.

 

[denwebbx85]

Its good controleable with gp32, so why shouldnt it with gp2x where we have 2(4 when also useing volume buttons) buttons more?

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I never got a GP32, but I came close. I'm glad I waited. My psp was probably a waste of money. $40 games <_< They must be crazy. I guess they are good for handheld games, but the psp screen hurts my eyes.

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I don't know why the PSP screen woulh hurt your eyes. It looks great, as long as images don't move fast, then you get that smearing. The contrast and black level are great though.

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It could be the smearing that bothered me. Probably was. I might need glasses, who knows.

 

[Jarska333]

Some people can stare at bad monitor for hours on, and not feel a thing, others get headache from 10 minutes of ultra-deluxe reference monitor.

 

[denwebbx85]

Some people can stare at bad monitor for hours on, and not feel a thing, others get headache from 10 minutes of ultra-deluxe reference monitor.

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I think I have more problem with the 3d games on the psp. I can play Lumines longer than i can Tony Hawks Underground 2. There is a downgrader now for PSP 2.0, so I'm going to go try it. :-D

 

[Digital Awakening]

The problems with screens are usually depending on how used you are to looking at screens. However, most people have no problems with LCD screens while CRT is worse.

 

[Tobriand]

Some people can stare at bad monitor for hours on, and not feel a thing, others get headache from 10 minutes of ultra-deluxe reference monitor.

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When I first started playing SNES emulation, on the Gp32, I could only last about 10 minutes before tears came to my eyes and they got very very tired - mostly, I think, due to an incredibly high frameskip, but I could be wrong. With use, my eyes seemed to grow accustomed to it, though.

Same was true when I first started using 3D glasses - couldn't last more than 10-15 mins sensibly to start with; now I could use them for as long as I want.

Weird, eh?

 

[slygamer]

That's pretty much it, yeah Linux won't screw around with your frame buffer unlessl you start asking it to. Obviously, it's a bad idea to try and mix SDL (or other relatively high-level graphics libraries) with low-level hardware hacking, but other than that you should be fine. You can even save a bit of memory and a lot of work by asking linux for the frame buffer it uses itself, and the physical (non-virtual) address for it, so you can shove it in the hardware registers

If I remember forum postings correctly, you can also boot straight from the SD card before Linux gets a chance to load, so your application has the whole machine to itself.

Needless to say, I'll be releasing the code to the routines I've created, and the code to Quake/???/etc, so others can hack around with them if they want.

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That would be a great help, especially to newbies to the GP scene like myself.

 

[denwebbx85]

Wow... The downgrader for the psp actully works :-D

I think Gp2x will be better for homebrew though.

 

[Cahaz]

If I remember forum postings correctly, you can also boot straight from the SD card before Linux gets a chance to load, so your application has the whole machine to itself.

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that's what i don't understand. If you're going to use one large SD card to store all your apps games and music, how will they know if you want to boot A game a start, or just listen to music? Maybe the system will use a soft reset, i dunno.

 

[Alpha2]

I think I have more problem with the 3d games on the psp. I can play Lumines longer than i can Tony Hawks Underground 2. There is a downgrader now for PSP 2.0, so I'm going to go try it. :-D

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THUG2 is just a hotbed of Motion sickness, nothing to do with the screen it's just unhealthy to play it, period.

 

[woogal]

If I remember forum postings correctly, you can also boot straight from the SD card before Linux gets a chance to load, so your application has the whole machine to itself.

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Thats what people like craig and squidge are trying to convince GPH to allow the gp2x to do, but I don't know if they've had any luck yet.

 

[Morwynd]

Won't it be possible to write a firmware that lets the user select between Linux and a bare bootstrap SD loader, with a simple menu or holding a button on boot or something?

 

[Vimacs]

Sure.
But i still belive that most aplication will do better running inside of linux and direckt hardware acces, this way they are able to use for example usb host, and mybe run off a usb hdd someady.

 

[icurafu]

Someone in the korean irc page assues me that it will only ever boot from NAND.

But I'm suer someone creative will find a way.

 

[Vimacs]

Anyone who says "never" is most likely wrong
You can at least also boot by rs232/uboot.
GPh also sayd we can replace the firmware, so someone could add a own multi bios, like spiv did at gp32.

 

[codesmith]

Anyone who says "never" is most likely wrong
You can at least also boot by rs232/uboot.
GPh also sayd we can replace the firmware, so someone could add a own multi bios, like spiv did at gp32.

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... and in any case, uboot is open source, so GPH must provide the source code to any gp2x owner who asks for it. That means that any mechanism to disable booting from SD would be very easy to defeat, and the resulting BIOS would not be some reverse-engineered hack. Since the software guys at GPH most probably realize this, I would be very surprised if they spent the time to implement anything like that.

 

[Nilsiboy]

halflife is useing a heavy modifyd quake 1 engine.
and its closed source!

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quake I ? my world is just breaking into 10000 pieces
I didnt mean a literal port of Half-Life, I just searched a way to express what i think the gpx2 might be capable of...you know, I'm 15, I just didnt grow up with Quake and stuff...