The Gaming/application Potential?


JakeK

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Hi,

Just looking at the specs I can't really tell the potential of the Pandora so I thought I'd ask the people out there that do know about it.

1) What will it be able to emulate/play at normal usage?
2) What will it be able to emulate/play when OC?
3) What is stopping it from being better? Limitations? (Such as 3D acceleration for the GP2X F200)
4) With the new hardware what applications can now be used that weren't doable with the GP2X F200?
5) With dedicated homebrew/game company people can we expect to see semi-decent 3D games? If so what could they look like?
6) Can I expect to play all older games at fullspeed (given that the emulaters are working at 100%)

I realise that it hasn't been released so no one has had hands on experience with emulating/designing games for it so all I am asking for is a general idea.

This is for me to gauge whether or not it is worth the price (none the less I still look forward to getting it).

Cheers

Jake
 
This is the previous gen chip (OMAP2 instead of OMAP3, PowerVR MBX not SGX),

Skip in about 16 seconds til the Futuremark benchmark starts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJGR_xRnzik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUOqR_2sACk

I think it will kick ass, no-one has anything close for the mobile market, at least not with proper gaming controls and a high-res screen.

Hey, is this footage from TIDC??? Cool glass shaders at work on an "OMAP3"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24TXpqa9jG0
 
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Another "powervr MBX" (previous gen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH0rNaoGx5o

Smooth, although I don't know what system it is on, the cars look good to me, it is hard to tell though.

I doubt we are going to get real concrete evidence until the devs are actually running progs on the devkits.

Judging by their impressions it should be quite powerful.
 
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The biggest limitation of the pandora is that it's not x86 PC compatable. (Not really possible on a handheld thoguh)
So there's a varying amount of work to port programs.
 
I read that it could play PS1 games, what's the mosty extreme game it could play like Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil. I'd assume those games are the high end of the PS1.
 
Any Playstation game should play fine regardless of graphical complexity as long as the emulator is capable, the pandora defintley is.

All this is of course theoretical for the time being. I'll be happy with 100% Super Nintendo!
 
So the Pandora has the hardware capability to play such games it just depends on how well the emulator is written? If the current PSX emulator for GP2X F200 is ported over what is the likelyhood of complex games being played? It will have to be improved. Oh man, the Pandora is looking even better by the minute.

What about N64 emulation?
 
I'm on the train to newcastle, almost home from the Texas trip!

When comparing gp2x to pandora you can consider the pandora will run the gp2x arm9 code at *least* 3.5x as fast without any optimisations at all. Then the optimisation fun starts, and the Pandora has a lot of very tasty custom hardware to play with there.
 
craigix said:
I'm on the train to newcastle, almost home from the Texas trip!

When comparing gp2x to pandora you can consider the pandora will run the gp2x arm9 code at *least* 3.5x as fast without any optimisations at all. Then the optimisation fun starts, and the Pandora has a lot of very tasty custom hardware to play with there.
Mmmm, Tasty DSP @ 430Mhz

Not to mention that the PowerVR is clearly capable of 10million Polys/Second, I just want to know what kind of processor overhead it accrues with that.

I seriously want near-perfect PSX emulation on half-clocks, just so you know how powerful it really is ;).
 
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JakeK said:
I'd like it too. But what about N64?
Well, that too I guess, I mean if we really have to have it ;). There isn't much to tell until the software is written and run on a real one, and that isn't just yet.
 
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:p
craigix said:
Pandora has a lot of very tasty custom hardware to play with there.
MMMmmm...tasty custom hardware...uhhhgggggggg!!! :p
 
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Will it be possible to run WINE or Cedega on the pandora and play low-system requirement games / applications on it? I'm thinking the 'RPG Maker' series, that zelda-remake thing, etc, will bring a lot of games to it.
 
WINE/Cedega aren't options, I'm afraid. They work by making the x86 compiled .dll files for windows usable in Linux, basically. Crucially, note the x86 bit. Running WINE on anything that isn't based on the same archetecture is consequently (mostly) impossible.

NB that if you were to find arm-compiled versions of those DLLs, you might be able to get it to work a bit, but even then, the chances of any given program not having any x86 code in it and only relying on the Windows API and .DLLs is very very slim. You'd still need the binary for the arm version of Windows (which doesn't exist).
 
QUOTE
Will it be possible to run WINE or Cedega on the pandora and play low-system requirement games / applications on it? I'm thinking the 'RPG Maker' series, that zelda-remake thing, etc, will bring a lot of games to it.
The answer is in what WINE stands for:
Wine Is Not an Emulator (Gotta love those recursive anachronisms ;) )

In other words, any programs you run in wine need to be compatible with the cpu architecture (ie, x86). All wine does is provide replacements for system calls and common dll files to make the program think it's running in windows. The general code in the program itself runs natively regardless of OS.
 
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