What would the world and his dog think if P2 used an x86 SOC? (but not mini SD) ;)
- Thread starter Mr_Loon
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monstercameron
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ok, you know that was a pretty dumb post. Says alot about you.
EssoAir
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How serious we talking here
monstercameron
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oh look dumber has joined in
Linux-SWAT
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I doubt x86 SoC supports Mini-SD. Can a dev confirm that ?
That is quite enough from you in 10 minutes, young man. You'll get to sit in the corner now until we have a talk with your parents.
God Ginrai
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Serious enough that I think that if Grench feels that strongly about Steam, that it is an option he should be considering. Do I believe Valve will bite? I think it's highly unlikely. (hence why I said that I wasn't saying Valve would agree) But the point is that Steam is his major draw to x86, and there are other options he can explore related to that other than changing the SoC to x86. Fact of the matter is, no matter how unlikely the scenario, it's never going to hurt to try. Worst case is, they say no and you don't get Steam. Best case is that you get a large company effectively supporting your handheld along with the press and games to go with it. (I'm not suggesting that Steam games would work just because Steam was ported. It would be like Steam for Linux, platform would come first, and then people could release ARM versions of their games on that platform)
-God Ginrai
The idea of voting for or against x86, whilst democratic and nice, is completely moot until there is actual SoCs with proper specs to evaluate. Give a general appraisal of processor architechture - Works. Vote for or against a choice of SoCs that does not exist and has not been evaluated - Works not. Will work when there is information.
Mr_Loon
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Interesting stuff, was hoping for a bit more input from the Dev's, many thanks to Notaz & WB and others for considered responses.
Let's try and keep the debate relating to the hardware merits of ARM vs x86 to other threads please.
All considered comment from non Devs relating to the software side of things is of course welcome here
From my perspective as a user it would make good marketing sense to use x86 (if performance / cost / availability etc. were identical to Arm) I'd love to see Steam running on P2 under x86 Linux / Windows. I quite enjoy tinkering with settings to get the most out of a device. My suspicion is that sales of a handheld x86 gaming mini laptop would be fairly decent to say the least.
However
I suspect that maximising profits is not really what the P2 project will be all about. The most valuable thing about the Pandora IMHO is this community, it never ceases to amaze me how much time people put in to bringing out quality software / firmware / repo / C4A improvements for Pandora.
It's a hugely important loss if people won't be able to release a PND that would be capable of being run on both a P1 & a P2. The P2 project should be about building this community, not fragmenting it.
So on balance if all other things were equal I'd say stick with ARM.
Though my business brain says start with ARM and design the hardware with an aim to bring out an x86 option in a couple of years if Bay Trail / Intel come good. Then I'd definitely buy 2 P2's
@ Notaz : What would you do with all that free time if you retired? You'd just be sitting round drinking beer & playing games like the rest of us One thing you could do is sit back with the feeling of a job well done.
Let's try and keep the debate relating to the hardware merits of ARM vs x86 to other threads please.
All considered comment from non Devs relating to the software side of things is of course welcome here
From my perspective as a user it would make good marketing sense to use x86 (if performance / cost / availability etc. were identical to Arm) I'd love to see Steam running on P2 under x86 Linux / Windows. I quite enjoy tinkering with settings to get the most out of a device. My suspicion is that sales of a handheld x86 gaming mini laptop would be fairly decent to say the least.
However
I suspect that maximising profits is not really what the P2 project will be all about. The most valuable thing about the Pandora IMHO is this community, it never ceases to amaze me how much time people put in to bringing out quality software / firmware / repo / C4A improvements for Pandora.
It's a hugely important loss if people won't be able to release a PND that would be capable of being run on both a P1 & a P2. The P2 project should be about building this community, not fragmenting it.
So on balance if all other things were equal I'd say stick with ARM.
Though my business brain says start with ARM and design the hardware with an aim to bring out an x86 option in a couple of years if Bay Trail / Intel come good. Then I'd definitely buy 2 P2's
@ Notaz : What would you do with all that free time if you retired? You'd just be sitting round drinking beer & playing games like the rest of us
One thing you could do is sit back with the feeling of a job well done.
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EssoAir
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Id jump on an X86 P2 in a heartbeat, but if it were ARM im actually not sure if I would buy it. not sure if it would be worth it
Grench
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I would say that has less chance of happening than an X86 Pandora successor.
Besides, Steam is a way to draw the masses. My main desire is actually to be able to play the native client-server Linux X86 Neverwinter Nights 1 on a handheld device - dual nubs and a keyboard would work great with it.
The main argument I'm seeing in favor of ARM is that it could do exactly what we're already doing. To me, the Z3770 SoC could, potentially, open up the doors to everything we -are not- already able to do without sacrificing existing capabilities.
Someone will create an x86 handheld computer based on the Z3770 or one of the other Z3000 series SoCs - and it will likely be as bad as the OQO, have only Windows drivers and no gaming controls. Using the Pandora's principles (Linux, gamer oriented controls) would be so much better.
And, and that would mean that quite a lot of driver work and optimizations need to be done.
Who is going to do those?
Grench
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Since they're going to use the same SoC for tablets and convertibles, Intel will?
b_o_b
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Seems like a no-brainer.
Here's the catch.
We'd loose every Android app that uses compiled code, every existing pnd and anything that uses NEON.
We'd very likely loose battery life and efficiency too.
There's also the risk that it would be unable to run continuously at full clock due to overheating
Linux-SWAT
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Mini-SD doesn't heat, that's what we need.
Well, that's something we don't know yet.We'd very likely loose battery life and efficiency too.
There's also the risk that it would be unable to run continuously at full clock due to overheating
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Linux-SWAT
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