Exult on Zaurus??!! [kinda ot]

[kyouki]

I was thinking of picking up a new PDA, and hearing that Exult has been ported to the Zaurus makes me curious and interested!

Has anyone tried the Zaurus port? How does it run?!

[artaxerxes]

I made the zaurus port with help from other members of the team.

screenshots are here:
http://exult.info/screenshots_zaurus.php

The port supports music, sounds fx, keyboard and keypad use.
Moving is done using the directional keypad and the tapping pen acts like a left mouse button (supports double-tap, draging etc).
I finished the game on the zaurus. Supports the intro and the end sequences.

Requires a CF card or a SD card (the most capacity the better: I have a 128 Mb and I'm _very_ comfortable). The system is defaulted to use the CF card .

Requires obvioulsy a copy of Ultima 7 (part I or II), which you will have to transfert to the zaurus. The best way to transfert is to ftp into it. (port 4242 IIRC).

I am working on putting support for the menu buttons, OGG music and moving around with the pen instead of the keypad.

Batteries last much longer if you don't use the sound I've noticed. Btw, since you can reconfigure the keymapping on Exult, full support for the cheater's page (F2).

Exult runs smoothly since scaling is not applicable (320x240 is the max resolution of this zaurus) and the game is defaulted to run at 320x200.

There is an occasional bug that I can't locate where the zaurus will not respond to the keypad and the pen. My gut feeling is that some application open a dialog box beneath and we loose the focus and since it is fullscreen we can't go back. It happens occasionally and was not a major deterent to play the game start to finish. Just save often.

Feel free to ask any other questions.
Artaxerxes

[kyouki]

Wow! :O

That sounds really amazing...

Having pretty much answered all my questions, I'm just curious how you feel about the actual Zaurus device. I know this is getting way off topic for this board, but what is your opinion of the Zaurus?

Thanks!

[artaxerxes]

it's my first and only PDA so it's hard to answer.

I've read pretty much everywhere that it is considered the best of the breed on the market.

Artaxerxes

[kyouki]

Everytime I look at your pics of U7.2, I am driven *this* much closer to ordering a Zaurus. Curse you!

Here's a question, if you don't mind. How easy/hard is it to get Linux apps to run on this thing?

And to keep it on topic, when you say the game runs very smooth, does it pretty much run full speed?

$344 is looking more and more worth it to be able to replace my aging PDA *and* play my favorite games of all time on the go.

[artaxerxes]

If you mean to install packaged apps, it's more than a piece of cake. D/l the package (.ipk) and tap on it. The auto installer loads and you are offered a choice on which media to install it on (main memory, CF card, SM/MMC card). Real easy.

If you are talking about recompiling apps to run on the zaurus and to create new packages, it's not too hard either.
There is an _excellent_ tutorial on what and how to install the cross-compiling tools there:
http://www.zauruszone.com/howtos/linux_ ... owto.shtml
To prepare packages, simply follow this:
http://www.zauruszone.com/howtos/ipkg_howto.shtml.

I did it and there was no major or minor pb at all.

Artaxerxes

[lazy8]

I've been playing U7 off and on on my Zfor a few months now, and I can not for the life of me figure out how to get sound fx to work. The music works great, but no lightning or rain or any sound fx. Am I missing something. I've installed the ipk and all

[Dominus]

on the download page is an sfx package as well. Did you install that?

[Hunter]

My exult on the zaurus runs really slow! In the first town, it seems okay at times... but when something else is on the screen (Like the flags waving in the wind) it slows down big time. This is frustrating me lots! Any help???

[artaxerxes]

lower the frame count. The option is found in gameplay panel.

For as a note, it does not run slow on my Zaurus. Do you have SL5000D or SL5500 ?

Artaxerxes