Pandora What Can We Look Forward To On The Pandora

[christo930]

There are certain things the Pandora brings to the table, like a built in keyboard, faster processor, better controllers (presumably.. I haven't touched them, so I can't say) and longer battery life (at the expense of expense). The higher resolution is a plus, but with drawbacks.

I've been thinking about if I want to try and splurge for a Pandora and I was wondering, software wise, what it brings to the table. This is what I came up with.
PSX Emulation - from the discussions on this site, it seems that this is highly likely.
Better PC emulation, maybe up to a low end 386 (keen at last)
Better SNES emulation. Most snes games play at acceptable speeds already, but we would get the chip games as well

Better gba emulation, although I am very pleasantly surprised at the level of emulation capable with the gp2x, plus there is possibly some more speed and compatability being worked on now according to the web page hosting the project

Better Amiga Emulation
more mame games
Web surfing - experience remains to be seen
More ports of 3d pc games
Possibly will make an excelent ebook reader
Possibly will make an excelent pda
3d home brew software
Dreamcast emulation, N64, Sega Saturn, jaguar, psp, NDS PS2, xbox, xbox360, ps3 (may as well include them all) all seem highly unlikely to achieve any level of playable speeds and high compatibility. It might be possible for an n64 emu that plays a hand full of games, but overall, unlikely.
Philips cdi is also highly unlikely
3do may turn out to be possible.

So what besides the above can one expect to get when the machine is released (not at release time, in general)? Will the older systems be worse because they use the lower resolutions? I noticed when emulating systems with lower resolutions, the game will either be too small, or look stretched. I realize that everything at this point is speculation and it may do better or worse than expected and developers may wow us with things we never thought of, but what seems likely?

Are there any projects being openly worked on right now, like a homebrewn app? Is there any companies looking to port major games to the system? Is that even feasible? Does the original developer expect a certain amount of sales before they will allow a port to be made? Is it unfeasible due to licensing costs?

In short, I would like to know what could reasonably be expected from this little gem given the development resources available for it.

Chris

 

[barzoule]

it seems pretty early to speculate. i hope and wish there will a be couple of good homebrew games. the presence of wifi could mean some rad multiplayer action!
However, looking at the capabilities of the machine (more powerful than the PSP!), it looks like any game wanting to push the machine to its limit will need a terrible amount of assets, and of a high complexity.
Making a 32x32 tile isn't much trouble, but modeling an environment and making color, bump, gloss maps for it is much more work.

The most impressive stuff i expect will come from the demoscene. I suspect we'll see a handful of good demos.

as usual, i hope some commercial companies will try to make something. i know some purists don't want anything commercial and want to keep the open plateform open and free (like in beer), but commercial gmae would attract possible buyers and bigger userbase would attract more game makers etc etc. at the end there would be better visibility, more users, some good games and apps available, and everyone wins ^^

 

[javaJake]

This has been discussed before. The basic answer is: no one knows what software will be available besides the basic "necessities" (web, mail, and IM) and a nice collection of emulators.

 

[anexanhume]

There is a list of planned apps in this forum, and a stickied list of emulators under development in the main pandora section. As for n64, I wouldn't be so pessimistic, especially since the omap can be overclocked to 900 MHZ stable.

 

[RomanH]

well, there is at least one homebrew game in development. Pixitu (graphics) and I (code) are working on a puzzle/casual game currently called "BallGame HD". The game includes an in-built level editor, so you will be able to create your own level sets directly on the Pandy. (assuming I will figure out how to adress the stylus in SDL...)

still a lot of work left, but it's comming along rather nicely.

some teaser screenshots from the Windows version:

 

[ljones]

In reference to better amiga emulation I can think of one place the pandora won't be able to do on that count, or not so easily. From memory the amiga's hires screens (OCS) were 640x512. The pandora's screen is 800x480. So it won't fit 100%.

ljones

 

[plopperz]

well, there is at least one homebrew game in development. Pixitu (graphics) and I (code) are working on a puzzle/casual game currently called "BallGame HD". The game includes an in-built level editor, so you will be able to create your own level sets directly on the Pandy. (assuming I will figure out how to adress the stylus in SDL...)

still a lot of work left, but it's comming along rather nicely.

some teaser screenshots from the Windows version:



Looking good!
Any chance on it being released on the 2X while we wait?

 

[trooper]

In reference to better amiga emulation I can think of one place the pandora won't be able to do on that count, or not so easily. From memory the amiga's hires screens (OCS) were 640x512. The pandora's screen is 800x480. So it won't fit 100%.

ljones

Most of the Amiga screen modes ending in 256 or 512 were PAL screen modes, There shouldn`t really be anything stopping people using NTSC screen modes instead,

LowRes
320×200 NTSC
320×400 NTSC Interlaced
320×256 PAL

HiRes
640×200 NTSC
640×400 NTSC Interlaced
640×256 PAL

Apart from a few games that will only work in HiRes PAL modes. But as you can see, It still allows for quite a few supported screen modes at 1:1.

EDIT: Dont forget that there is a Multiscan mode thats has a resolution of 640×480, Which is probably an ideal mode for workbench and other productivity applications.

Trooper