Where To Start

[Geuben]

Hi guys. First things first, really looking forward to the pandora.

ive had a gp2x for about an year now, and have done 'some' programming for it using fenix. I used to use DIV games studio back in the old days so am not too shabby at programming in fenix. I havent uploaded any games to the archive tho, manily because i get bored with the project and never finish them: I have an advance wars clone for which ive done most of the hard programming, just bored of drawing sprites.

Ive also done some C programming at uni, so kinda know my way around that.

so, to the point of this thread. How can i start learning to program for the upcomming pandora? I looked into the devkit for the gp2x but never really tried it (managed to get a pic on the screen ). I had a quick look on wiki at openGL, but im planning to make an isometric game like commandos so not sure if openGL is the best way to go about it.

so, any info/help u guys can give would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Geuben

 

[yaustar]

Learn SDL on PC is your best bet. After which, porting to the Pandora should be straight forward.

http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php

 

[ldesnogu]

What I would do if I were to start learning for Pandora programming:

- install Linux on my PC
- install PowerVR OpenGL ES 2.0 Linux SDK
- read OpenGL ES tutorials
- read SDL tutorials.

I think doing that under Windows would just be a waste of time

 

[PokeParadox]

As mentioned above, although:
QUOTE
I think doing that under Windows would just be a waste of time


is not strictly true. Install the devkits on the OS you are most comfortable with. As long as you don't use any windows specific code, the code should compile transparently regardless of platform. This is the entire point of using libraries such as, SDL and OGLES2.

 

[ldesnogu]

is not strictly true. Install the devkits on the OS you are most comfortable with. As long as you don't use any windows specific code, the code should compile transparently regardless of platform. This is the entire point of using libraries such as, SDL and OGLES2.

I agree, as long as one uses Linux like tools, which means no Visual Studio.
And I bet the OGL ES SDK of PowerVR for Win relies on MS tools...

The rationale behind my "no VS" is that getting used to makefiles, gcc options is key to easy dev for any Linux based system.

But I am certainly biased, having only programmed on UNIX systems for almost 20 years

 

[Geuben]

Thanks for the help guys, I took a look at the SDL tutorials last night; they seem ok, should be able to get my head around it fairly quickly.

As for the OS, im using XP mainly because I don't want to have to install linux, and learn to use that before I can start progamming. Im using DevC to code in and using the standard SDL librarys that the tutorials told me to use. Does that mean recompliling for the pandora/gp2x will be easy enough? I'll not be using openGL yet tho.

 

[yaustar]

It should be straight forward, I think you can even have Dev Cpp build the GP2X/Pandora executable for you. Personally I have been using Code::Blocks and have it setup so I can switch between Windows and GP2X builds easily.

 

[PokeParadox]

Yes Yaustar has a nice devkit package for GP2X that makes it all very easy to get going. (codeblocks RC5)

 

[Geuben]

So, ive been having a go at the SDL tutorials you suggested, and i thought i was getting somewhere, hashing together some of the bits to make the basics of a simple game...but im starting to get really stuck, mainly because ive never used C++ before, im not use to object oreintated programming. Does anyone know of any tutorials strickly for C? i know a lot of the stuff is similar, but its the differences that are killing me.

Thanks

Geuben

 

[Sphinxter]

So, ive been having a go at the SDL tutorials you suggested, and i thought i was getting somewhere, hashing together some of the bits to make the basics of a simple game...but im starting to get really stuck, mainly because ive never used C++ before, im not use to object oreintated programming. Does anyone know of any tutorials strickly for C? i know a lot of the stuff is similar, but its the differences that are killing me.

Thanks

Geuben

Glad to see some still respect the ancient weapons. Don't see this one on the server anymore, still had a copy in my tmp http://fullsack.com/gp2x/resource/demo-0.1.zip may help.