Questions about Pyra


DrHAX said:
 is everything the netbook craze promised yet fell flat on its face with..
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You know I still love and use my eeepc 701, the very first netbook.  The following ones got too big and too expensive. I just wish my hd was more than 4gb so I oculd install a more modern linux. (I don't like arch, which I could install)
 
Askarus said:
FaeMinx said:
I wouldn't call the Pyra 'a gaming console'.

Unless you are fine calling your computer 'a gaming machine'.
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I love you for this :)

Pyra is NOT  a gaming console but a mini computer with good gaming controls.

D-Pad on thumb, modifiers on Shoulder buttons are great for Desktop usage.
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Slogan: "A desktop for your pocket that also plays games." 
 
I understand that the PYRA is not mainly a gaming console.

But I would like to know what the PYRA will do gaming wise that the Pandora can not?
 
thewitcherman3 said:
I understand that the PYRA is not mainly a gaming console.

But I would like to know what the PYRA will do gaming wise that the Pandora can not?
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Just something to think about the Pandora hardware wise is equivalent to the first Motorola Droid. The Pyra is considerable more powerful with a dual-core A15 processor and will have at least eight times the system memory of the original Pandora.  However that said, it's been amazing what has been made to work on the Pandora thanks to skilled community members. For example many of the quake III era games like Return of Castle Wolfenstien, Jedi Knight II and III. The actual desktop version of Minecraft comes to mind as something that amazingly works, but a tad slow.


Emulator wise on the Pandora, while n64 works alright, some games are a tad slow. Also Dreamcast is on the cusp of being playable. These will run pretty much full speed. Some say Gamecube may be in reach, but there are many hindrances there. PSP emulation is playable on mostly with 2D games, that will improve as well on the Pyra and suspect that will open up the heavier 3D games.


Something I've been playing with on the Devboard is using Exagear Desktop (commercial x86 emulation solution that basically gives you an x86 Linux environment on an ARM based machine), This has allowed me to run the Linux version of steam, play games like Diablo 2 at full speed using wine. What I've played with so far was without 3D acceleration working, and when that does work, I suspect this may open the doorway on many PC games from the late 90's and early 00's that were way out of reach on the Pandora. In that steam video, steam's in home streaming is working, but slow. I'm not 100% sure that working 3D acceleration will fix that entirely, but if it does then that could open just about any PC game to be playable at least through streaming...


Of course if you push emulation to the side, there is a vast selection of open source games out there that are a tad too demanding for the Pandora and of course better hardware fixes that.
 
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A bit off-topic;

Though I have bought exagear, I never used it as I was saving it for the Pyra. But would it play stuff like Spotify for instance on te Pandora without too much effort when it's packaged correctly?
 
I noticed that they have a couple of discounted versions available.  I know the Pandora/Pyra community isn't as large as the Raspberry Pi community, but it would be cool if they did something like that for us, especially after the Pyra is released.
 
Eight Bit said:
A bit off-topic;

Though I have bought exagear, I never used it as I was saving it for the Pyra. But would it play stuff like Spotify for instance on te Pandora without too much effort when it's packaged correctly?
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It's possible, Exagear provides an x86 Linux environment and you can just install the Linux spotify client if need be as if it was a regular x86 desktop. Installing is easy, if it works well that is another story.
 
TrashyMG said:
Eight Bit said:
A bit off-topic;

Though I have bought exagear, I never used it as I was saving it for the Pyra. But would it play stuff like Spotify for instance on te Pandora without too much effort when it's packaged correctly?
Click to expand...
It's possible, Exagear provides an x86 Linux environment and you can just install the Linux spotify client if need be as if it was a regular x86 desktop. Installing is easy, if it works well that is another story.
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That sounds good, I recently bought that indie Hits Humble to have the Linux versions with an eye to hopefully running them on the Pyra down the line. I had forgotten that they would be the x86 versions of the games though, maybe through Exagear they might turn out to be playable on the Pyra! :)
 
Careful though, aside from the performance issue, the problems with running x86 desktop games on the Pandora/Pyra is that they might not be playable on a smaller screen, even if the screen has a high enough resolution, some texts might be unreadable, some buttons too small, etc.
 
ElPoco said:
Careful though, aside from the performance issue, the problems with running x86 desktop games on the Pandora/Pyra is that they might not be playable on a smaller screen, even if the screen has a high enough resolution, some texts might be unreadable, some buttons too small, etc.
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That is the case with anything, not just emulation. A native game would still have these issues if someone doesn't modify it. I don't believe this will really be that much of a problem as most games from the late 90's and early 00's target low resolutions. 
 

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