Pandora Rpg Gaming Diablo 2 On Pandora.

[C B Felterbush]

If our machine runs at over 500mhz with 128mb ram and game requirements are like 233mhz with 64mb ram. That isn't so hard. I think emulating widows 98 would take more resources than a dry x86 and Wine. But if you have to install Linux on top the x86 emulation to run wine inside Linux it may take the same. I was talking about if possible trying to figure out how to run just our already installed Linux, using a processor mirror or switch and perhaps do with wine like wine does with other apps, make it think it is on an x86 like it makes other apps think their running native.

If there was a program that just ran as an emulated x86, could we run Wine on our machine in it's Linux just by relaying its startup and processing Through the x86 then back onto out Linux. So we are only running one program and one emulator would this work better, and is it possible? -CB

 

[Jaguarandine]

Here some other threads talking about porting QEMU.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=29402&hl=
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=28294&hl=

You might find some more if you do a search.

Btw, I doubt Diablo 2 would ever run using QEMU/Wine, on GP2X that is..maybe Pandora would work.

 

[C B Felterbush]

My hell, I think it is safe to say if I am typing this in the Pandora section under development, I am probably talking about the Pandora. But I don't know does this make since to anyone else? One would be retarded to suggest that Diablo 2 would ever run on the GP2X.

Common people this is a new era, a new console, lets get with the times.

This is the Pandora section, let us please continue. This is possible, it is going to happen, whos going to help me figure out how to make it?

 

[Jaguarandine]

Damn dude, I'm like the biggest supporter of a port of QEMU out there. That's why I posted up what I know :lol: If you're a developer, I'd get in contact with Emu&Co, who tried the idea out.

As for saying it can't be done, I meant the GP2X version. I guess I care most about that version were it to come out atm, but yeah you're right, it's off-topic. I really hope this can get off the ground, but it doesn't look good. Most discussion was over a year ago. We'll, I'll try and be optimistic.

 

[C B Felterbush]

I just am a positive thinker, and I usually accomplish what I set out to do. I just have to think that if they can run winxp on the psp via emulation without much degradation in quality we ought to be able to run this. Even if we have to run an emulator then linux inside that emulator, it is still doable.

 

[yaustar]

I just am a positive thinker, and I usually accomplish what I set out to do. I just have to think that if they can run winxp on the psp via emulation without much degradation in quality we ought to be able to run this. Even if we have to run an emulator then linux inside that emulator, it is still doable.

WTF? This never happened.

 

[DeadlyDad]

I just am a positive thinker, and I usually accomplish what I set out to do. I just have to think that if they can run winxp on the psp via emulation without much degradation in quality we ought to be able to run this. Even if we have to run an emulator then linux inside that emulator, it is still doable.

WTF? This never happened.


Well...kinda... What he is talking about is probably pspWxp, which, while not actually Windows XP, is still a damn cool idea. If fact, it would be dead simple to port the the Pandora, as it is just a bunch of web pages. Go ahead and download it and check it out in your browser.

 

[yaustar]

If that is what he/she is talking about then it has no bearing on this thread as it cannot run any windows programs at all.

 

[C B Felterbush]

actually Vaustar is right, I was thinking of windows 95. Which isn't the same obviously. But even so if the PSP can run windows 95 I think we can as well, or Linux and wine.

 

[rokdcasbah]

c'mon, does no one understand that 100mhz on an intel chip does not equal 100mhz on an arm chip? there's a big difference, and for what you're talking about (running windows stuff) let's just say things aren't in the arm chip's favor.

that's not even taking into account that you first have to emulate an x86 system. so like jd said, you can't just run wine, you need qemu, which is probably running a little mini linux system for you, just what you need to launch a process. or you use dosbox or something similar and run windows on that. but something tells me directx isn't going to behave nicely inside of an emulator.

the short version is: don't expect to be running directx games in any sort of quality on pandora. you heard it here first, folks.

there's no way to make an app "think" it's on a certain platform. in fact, this is not the goal at all, since computer code doesn't think. it just gets executed, either by a chip (natively) or a program that behaves like that chip (emulated). it's not just compatibility hacking, the code for one platform is unintelligible garbage to another. you actually have to have a program that acts in most if not all ways like that other chip did. in this case you'd be trying to emulate the whole x86 platform on a chip best suited for a PDA or console. then running an operating system on there, which is not known for being slim & trim. then you run your game on THAT.

maaaaybe, with an awesomely customized build of qemu, and an awesomely customized build of wine, and a custom linux kernel + the rest, you could theoretically get something going, but it'd still be a huge mess.

i'm really hoping for decent dosbox performance though. lots of good games for dos, and eliminating the windows requirement means that much less overhead.

 

[Gaeryc]

I just am a positive thinker, and I usually accomplish what I set out to do. I just have to think that if they can run winxp on the psp via emulation without much degradation in quality we ought to be able to run this. Even if we have to run an emulator then linux inside that emulator, it is still doable.

WTF? This never happened.


Well...kinda... What he is talking about is probably pspWxp, which, while not actually Windows XP, is still a damn cool idea. If fact, it would be dead simple to port the the Pandora, as it is just a bunch of web pages. Go ahead and download it and check it out in your browser.

When I first heard that guy talking in the video I instantly thought that he is finnish, and by checking his videos I confirmed that. I apologise for all us finnish people who can't speak or write english properly.

 

[sephiroth111]

doesn't diablo2 REQUIRE win9x and DX7 (or equivalent) anyway? that means you have to have the emulation overhead, the OS overhead, the native linux OS overhead, the guest win9x overhead, then the game overhead. It'd just be easier to program a diablo2 clone or a diablo2 emulator, and much more "cost" efficient as it were.

open source virtualization (i.e. hardware emulation done in software) is NOWHERE as sophisticated as say VMware first, and second, not even VMware can support directX, so if a program that's EXTREMELY reliable, expensive and professional as vmware, cant support the calls, then how the hell will Qemu do the same.

second, we do not have an x86 processor. so 600mhz and 128mb ram will give us balls if we want to emulate an operating system. actually, we'd have more of a chance of putting windows CE on it to be honest (someone somehow managed to load windows CE on the GP32).

 

[Blah]

Well I for one think it might just work. With Qemu User Mode Emulation you aren't emulating a PC running linux, you're running the program on your system's linux, except that the X86 code is being emulated. The directx is handled by WINE so all you need is X support, which Qemu has.

The hardware graphics accelerator in the Pandora could help, if it is (or can be made via a compatibility layer) compatible with GL. There are 3 graphics modes in Diablo 2, software rendering (here directdraw translated to X by WINE), Direct3D (here translated to GL by WINE) and 3Dfx Glide (which can be translated to GL with a wrapper dll). The Glide + GL wrapper method provides the best looking graphics, and quite possibly the fastest, depending on the wrapper and settings.

QEMU + WINE is a proven stable combination that has worked well on many platforms, most notably PPC Macs.

I think we will see some cool things on the Pandora. If it does in fact get released, that's the part I'm skeptical about.

I'm sorry rockdacasbah and whiskthecat, but you guys are wrong.

By the way, sephiroth111, VMware has nothing even close to as sophisticated as Qemu's User Mode Emulation.

 

[sephiroth111]

Well I for one think it might just work. With Qemu User Mode Emulation you aren't emulating a PC running linux, you're running the program on your system's linux, except that the X86 code is being emulated. The directx is handled by WINE so all you need is X support, which Qemu has.


That mode I didn't know about.

The hardware graphics accelerator in the Pandora could help, if it is (or can be made via a compatibility layer) compatible with GL. There are 3 graphics modes in Diablo 2, software rendering (here directdraw translated to X by WINE), Direct3D (here translated to GL by WINE) and 3Dfx Glide (which can be translated to GL with a wrapper dll). The Glide + GL wrapper method provides the best looking graphics, and quite possibly the fastest, depending on the wrapper and settings.


Well, i'm not sure what the differences are in OGL2 and OGL2es, later on i'll look at the differences but i'm on my way out right now

By the way, sephiroth111, VMware has nothing even close to as sophisticated as Qemu's User Mode Emulation.

That i didn't know about, last version I saw was hosted on GNU savanna and i think it was ~0.5 or so a couple years back.

 

[crasherball]

so whats the conclusion?
*diggingup*

possible yes/no?
there doesnt seem to be a real end in that thread

 

[mindlord]

The very short answer is no.
The short short answer is don't count on it.
The long answer is, if there was a perfect kernel with a perfect intel chip emulator with capable of running windows native code at an acceptable speed on an ARM processor. Diablo 2 would still run like a one legged dog.
The crux of the problem is that even though Wine runs on your PC or Laptop it won't run on the Pandora because Wine relies on being able to take advantage of the x86 CPU in your PC to execute many of the instructions without any need for dynamic recompilation, emulated code, or other nasty bits that slow common emulators like your PS1 emulator down. Wine simply isn't emulating anything it just provides a way for the Windows based code to use the facilities in Linux to display the program onscreen and provide a layer for interacting with the running program in a useful manner. This is completely different than how a PSX or SNES emulator works.
If Diablo II were a dos based game, this would be a different dicussion. But because it requires Windows to run you're not just talking about running the game, but you have to run all of Windows fiddly bits in the background as well. But even then you'd need a Dynamic Recompiling core for that DOS emulator for it to work with any amount of speed. Unfortunately, no DOS emulator with Dynarec exists at the moment (Though I understand that one is in the works).
As it stands right this very moment. The best you can expect as far as DOS or Windows games on the Pandora is going to be any game up to any including games that would run on a 386 at about 66mhz. And that certainly isn't fast enough to run Windows 95 and a demanding game on top of it. If we had a Dynarec those numbers could improve slightly, but not by a margin good enough to play DirectX games in windows.
If a game is post 1989 or so you're pretty out of luck unless the source is available or someone writes an interpreter.
The only real hope of playing Diablo 2 would be if some very clever programmer wrote an interpreter for the data files.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Heck, I'd be extremely impressed if even Warcraft 2 ran smoothly (I'm hoping )

Diablo 2 seems really far-fetched, and I doubt it'll ever be on Pandora, unless someone makes a clone.
If you really wanted to play it, you could set-up a virtual desktop thing

 

[Snu]

The very short answer is no.
The short short answer is don't count on it.
The long answer is, if there was a perfect kernel with a perfect intel chip emulator with capable of running windows native code at an acceptable speed on an ARM processor. Diablo 2 would still run like a one legged dog.
The crux of the problem is that even though Wine runs on your PC or Laptop it won't run on the Pandora because Wine relies on being able to take advantage of the x86 CPU in your PC to execute many of the instructions without any need for dynamic recompilation, emulated code, or other nasty bits that slow common emulators like your PS1 emulator down. Wine simply isn't emulating anything it just provides a way for the Windows based code to use the facilities in Linux to display the program onscreen and provide a layer for interacting with the running program in a useful manner. This is completely different than how a PSX or SNES emulator works.
If Diablo II were a dos based game, this would be a different dicussion. But because it requires Windows to run you're not just talking about running the game, but you have to run all of Windows fiddly bits in the background as well. But even then you'd need a Dynamic Recompiling core for that DOS emulator for it to work with any amount of speed. Unfortunately, no DOS emulator with Dynarec exists at the moment (Though I understand that one is in the works).
As it stands right this very moment. The best you can expect as far as DOS or Windows games on the Pandora is going to be any game up to any including games that would run on a 386 at about 66mhz. And that certainly isn't fast enough to run Windows 95 and a demanding game on top of it. If we had a Dynarec those numbers could improve slightly, but not by a margin good enough to play DirectX games in windows.
If a game is post 1989 or so you're pretty out of luck unless the source is available or someone writes an interpreter.
The only real hope of playing Diablo 2 would be if some very clever programmer wrote an interpreter for the data files.

geez, took long enough for someone to shoot this thread down, thanks mindlord.
only question i have is: 66mhz? they made 386's that fast? i thought they were like 33mhz max, and they have been saying x86 emulation on pandora will be mid-386 speeds...

 

[plopperz]

Well, can SheepShaver emulate a G3 processor?
If so it might be possible to load up macOS 8.1 to get faster speeds.

I have no idea if it would run better on mac, or even if SheepShaver will be ported. I just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[quasist]

Diablo 2 seems really far-fetched, and I doubt it'll ever be on Pandora, unless someone makes a clone.

Making Diablo 2 clone when Diablo III had been announced?

PSX has some neat looking action-RPGs like Gauntlet Legends and DarkStone (3d diablo clone)