Reality Check - Would you really pre-order on a KS?

[skeezix]

MonsterCamerotrons

Yes!

 

[monstercameron]

MonsterCamerotrons

Yes!

The best potential future, the brightest timeline according to  abed.

 

[darkborn]

The most important issue is compatibility between P1<>P2.
If P2 is not compatible with P1, it means death penalty for P1. And I do not think about generic emus.
Maybe something like switching modes (P1/P2), something like Xbox One or… C64/128 ;-)


"PANDRAGON" rulez for me. It containes everything that really metters here.

 

[xiongxioi]

The most important issue is compatibility between P1<>P2.


If P2 is not compatible with P1, it means death penalty for P1. And I do not think about generic emus.


Maybe something like switching modes (P1/P2), something like Xbox One or… C64/128 ;-)

Compatibility can be sacrificed if that means you can have much better performance and being less restrained by the hardware.

For example, the gcw zero is said to be compatible with dingoo apps, but this forced the gcw to use the dated piece of trash chip called jz4770 which is way worse than even the crappiest Chinese knock-off soc. 

Having it is good, but it's not essential. As long as P2 is on ARM, developers can salvage some things for their P2 port.

 

[darkborn]

I am not worried about developers but buyers.

 

[WizardStan]

The thing about ARM is that it's backwards compatible: anything that sticks to the standard ARM instructions can be made to run on newer hardware. The issues are extensions and software compatibility: does it use NEON or DSP, and do we have the libraries that it needs? Very few things take advantage of NEON, nothing is using the DSP, and libraries should be fairly trivial so long as we're still on Linux.

End result: so long as the P2 has an ARM processor and runs linux you can guarantee that almost every PND will be compatible.

 

[Exophase]

NEON isn't a problem, every ARM SoC worth using has NEON. The only exception in the last several years that I'm even aware of was nVidia's Tegra 2 which has a real bonehead move and quickly rectified with its successor.

I wouldn't be so sure that very few things use it either. Even putting aside things with explicit NEON assembly - which would include mupen64plus, PCSX-reARMed, DraStic, PPSSPP, probably some games (not really sure on this), notaz's SDL, and so on. Anything that's compiled with the right options could be using it. The usage could be very minimal, the compiler is bad at it - especially the older versions most people are using - but it just takes one instruction somewhere.

 

[sswam]

Isn't it lucky we have been collecting source code for all our PNDs on the repo, like a real distro,

so we can recompile/port them easily, hack them, and comply with copyleft demands! a ha hah ha ha ha :/

and yes I would hope the gcc does use some neon when I tell it -mfpu neon, it seems to run fast anyhow.

those "right options" for compiling (or near enough) can always be found in my helpful sig

 

[darkborn]

Yes, I heard about Tegra2 problems. And NEON specific instructions. It is no biggie, I pressume. Anyway, P2 should be advertised as "backward compatible" (as possible) because Osborne effect is inevitable.
One thing that could help stop it will be development of multiplayer wireless (or bt) games that could work flawlessly between Pandoras, regardless of version. And, of course, P1 discount price for every P2 order.