Exult on the Nokia 770

[OutOfBound]

Hi there,

I've been wondering if anyone has been having a look at the Nokia 770 (www.nokia770.com) and porting Exult to it?

Greets,

OutOfBound

[Dominus]

Might be doable, similar to the Zaurus. But no one has taken a look yet, I guess

[DarkAvatar]

better yet why not the Sidekick 2 they are almost a like.....

[OutOfBound]

Hi again,

I actually got a scratchbox set up for the Nokia 770 and exult compiled finde for i386 architekture. I'm now trying to crosscompile it for the ARM. If I figure this out, I'll have you updated.

Greets,

OutOfBound

[artaxerxes]

Hey OutOfBound,

would you mind telling me what processor is running in the Nokia 770? You already specified the arch (arm) but I'm more interested in the actual proc specs.

thx
Artaxerxes

[OutOfBound]

Hi,

it's an 220-MHz, ARM9-based Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 1710
running a Linux based OS.
(Source: nokia770.com/nokia-770-specs/)

There's a DevKit and a lot of Info about it on maemo.org.

I set up a scratchbox on my Gentoo Box and got it to compile using
the HowTos. (as i386).

I'm compiling using the ARM- Chain right now, and keep you up to date with it.

(Sorry if I'm wrong with some phrases, this is my first time Crosscompiling.)

Greets,

OutOfBound

[OutOfBound]

And hi again,

well, I got it to compile through after doing some adjustments and I'm now trying to build the .deb so I can install it on my Nokia. There's some problems with the package- building process... but those I can fix. I'll install it after that. I'll be off to the weekend after that, so I probably won't post my results until Monday.

Didn't make any changes to the source itsself.

Greets,

OutOfBound

[artaxerxes]

excellent! I am glad to see another port of Exult on embedded system!

I am currently installing Gentoo on one of my machine, since it would seem to be easier to do cross-development on it than on Mandrake.

Artaxerxes

[Dominus]

OutofBond, if you get it to play, we really would like to see some photgraphs

[DarkAvatar]

lol this is making me wanna go out and get a Nokia 770 now...

[OutOfBound]

Hello again, well, here are my first results:

After patching around a bit manually (The Nokia installs Software to /var/lib/install instead of /) and manually extracting the .deb File again, changing some Filenames and permissions I got Exult to run.

The first Problem is that you can't enter a name for your Avatar with BG,
because you can't activate the Virtual Keyboard (I guess that can be fixed).
Also the buttons don't work the way they should (Which is ok and only a matter of adapting the key mapping).

The Intro ran through quite fine, but the game itsself has a bit of performance problems.

As the Nokia uses a Stylus pen you don't have an option for Right- Clicking... but it has (a pretty sucky) Cursor- Set which can be used. There's still some tweaking to be done there, too.

I only ran around in Trinsic for a bit and noticed a couple of Graphical glitches, and apart from the small screen which makes it hard to click the right items (perhaps displaying less tiles would help here) and the problems above the thing runs like a charm.

I'll do some pictures tomorrow and upload them to my blog as well as some short instructions on how I did things, and then post the URL here.

For me, this basically runs down to this:
a) Get current sources
b) Do some generic fixes (The Debian package- buildung for example)
c) Create a Nokia Patch to adapt the Keyboard mappings
d) Change the size of the tiles somehow (Display larger but less) to adapt
to the small screen of the Nokia.
e) Figure out some more usability stuff.
f) Start doing my own games using the Exult- Engine.


All, of course, if things are welcome

Greets,

OutOfBound

[OutOfBound]

Just some more quick notes:

- Trying to compile the CVS right now.
- Fixing the .deb package so it'll install on the 770 without hassle
- I'll upload the .deb to my blog once it works

Greets,

OutOfBound

[OutOfBound]

And there you go
(Just a quick note, but has 2 pictures. )

http://www.tom-geiger.de/archives/50-Lo ... l#extended

[Wizardry Dragon]

Random thought: Should maybe kick up the contrast in the picture, unless the washed out look is a product of the screen angle and/or the photograph.

---------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[Arnim Sauerbier]

I compiled exult 1.2 from debian sid, for nokia 770 / mistral.

After some work the binary gives me

~/.exult/blackgate $ ./exult

./exult: relocation error: ./exult: symbol powf, version GLIBCXX_3.4 not defined in file
libstdc++.so.6 with link time reference


on 770 its /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.3 is 756660 bytes
scratchbox /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.3 is 3723916 bytes

I do note that my scratchbox is gregale, and newer than the target device so this may be the issue. But libstdc++ version is same.

Do you have any notes on building exult? Or diffs? I have a possible work around for some of the UI problems.

[Arnim Sauerbier]

Well i fixed the lib problems by copying the scratchbox over

I don't see what your issues with tilesizes are - they are exactly the same as the standard PC version (320x200, doubled or unscaled)

Problem i am seeing is with transparent regions around cursor and edges of sprites. Possibly related to alignment issues on ARM cpu. Will have to look into the zaurus port or possibly the gp2x for solutions.

Speed problems? I also see none, compared to PC version.

Cheers!
http://www.pupnik.de/Exult_Ultima_VII_Nokia_770.jpg

[drcode]

That's awesome. Must be quite a cell phone! (Yes, I know it's really a Linux computer.)

[Arnim Sauerbier]

OK found the graphics glitch problem. Game is running pretty solid now, though i can't pick up some items like gold/torch in sack from stables, gold in ruined house in Trinsic...

[SB-X]

Even though the original image link was dead, I was able to find the picture on my hard drive for anyone who still wants to see the game in action on the Nokia 770.
http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 702rq0.jpg

[Arnim Sauerbier]

Heh nice screenshot.

I fixed the mouse/cursor and pickup problem. Implmenting mp3 dsp accelerated music playback now. Will upload a testing binary as soon as savegame naming is implemented. Updates here: http://pupnik.de/exult770.html

It would also be nice to have on-screen icons for things like world map, keyring, spellbook.

[Arnim Sauerbier]

Woot! Got dsp-accelerated mp3 music playing, game using fullscreen 800x480 with scale2x

The game requires gstreamer-tools (apt-get or use package manager).

Still need to implement text-input somehow.

Also onscreen icons for map, spellbook, combat etc would be useful.

But it's really* fun! I'm going to be playtesting more than coding for the next couple of days

binary and mp3 music here: http://pupnik.de/exult770.html

Outofbound, have you made any changes that we could merge? Could i perhaps look at your debian packaging of it? Packaging is a PITA for me...

Cheers!
Arnim

[drcode]

Are you still unable to pick up items?

[Arnim Sauerbier]

I reverted back to the original mouse handling code, so yes i'm able to pick up items again.

SO, Movement is done with cursor pad only for now, but i'm getting used to it.

[artaxerxes]

that's how it works with the Zaurus too. You can also alter the default_keys files so that you can use the other buttons for combat/break-combat ('c') and target ('t'), which are the 2 most useful commands. The rest is gravy, like "esc", and inventory ('i').

Artaxerxes

[SB-X]

I totally forgot about the target key. I knew I was forgetting one of them when listing the important keys. Won't he need a spellbook button too?

[Arnim Sauerbier]

Well i have a 0.03 release now, which fixes some library incompatibilities, cleans up the directory structure and now auto-names savefiles.

The number of available buttons is limited to 3, since i want to keep the directional pad for movement, and the four front facing buttons for enter, esc, minimize and 'home'. The shortcuts i chose were combat, eat, and map. Since users can map these at will in the section of config, i won't worry about it any more.

I haven't yet found a way to integrate native Nokia onscreen virtual keyboard input method with SDL.

Top todos now are
- Make dsp-accelerated mp3 playback more robust
- Virtual keyboard input for avatar naming
- Single-tap movement that doesn't break object pickup :/
- Onscreen icons for command shortcuts(?)
- Packaging

[Arnim Sauerbier]

Here is a video showing how fast it can run at 800x480 with scale2x, on the Nokia 770.

http://pupnik.de/Exult_N770_800x480_Optimized_XviD.avi

Notice how fast it runs! Also how convenient it is to have single-tap move-to.

Unfortunately, the hack breaks object-pick-up right now.

Cheers!

[wintermute_turing_ai]

I noticed that the specs on the 770 are not *too* much different from the PSP. However, I suspect that 32Mb of system memory may not be enough. I think I'm going to go ahead with attempting to port to PSP this summer. It might not make a very good platform for it (poor controls), but it's always a fun project to port stuff.

[SB-X]

With several ports to handheld computers already function or planned, perhaps it would be a good idea to work on some kind of standard input extension for these devices without a keyboard or mouse.

It would help everyone if you could reduce Exult's memory usage.

[Arnim Sauerbier]

One thing to add would be arrow key (button) stepping through dialogue options.

Hilight the first choice, move selection left or right with arrow keys. Enter to select.