quake2 slow on 760

[ronba]

I built the engine of quake2 with zgcc-3.3.1.img and the code sources quake2-r15 (for SDL version) on my Zaurus 760 (PdaXrom v1.0.5 ), the game goes but it is very very very slow, .... The code source can be not optimizes for a Xscale processor or ARM ,but pentium only ?
The video can be not optimized for driver SDL (ref_softsdl.so) ?
nobody already made ?

[padishah_emperor]

I thought it was slow, that was the problem with it, the Z can\'t do it.

http://killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=78
This is just Quake, and that\'s too slow.

[ronba]

Yes but the date to portage quake on zaurus is the 04/07/2002, probably the tests was  on the model zaurus 5000 , thus Xscale to 200 MHz, and not with Xscale to 400 MHz, but the result  is same , it is too slow, too bad because it is beautiful  quake2 on Z.

[ChanSecodina]

I imagine the biggest problem is the lack of FPU.  Is that port of of Quake 2 relying on software FPU emulation or did someone manage to recode it to used fixed point math only? The strongarm in the 5000/5500 didn\'t have an FPU. Does the XScale add an FPU?? I would think that would be one of the biggest problems with getting the game to play at a decent rate.  I\'d imagine that Quake 1 would be much less FPU dependent since the FPU of that era were much slower than the FPUs in x86 chips when Quake2 was released.  Correct me if I\'m wrong. It could still be too early for me to be thinking straight.

[javab0y]

No...its something other than the FPU issue.  Quake runs fine on a  PocketPC (Windows ported version).  So the processor can handle it.  It has to be something with the port itself.  The XScale should have no problem running Quake reasonably.

[treke]

The Wince port is something completly different. They dumped the floating point code and I believe wrote a new renderer. Quite different from just compiling quake2 against the the SDL back end

[padishah_emperor]

The Wince port is something completly different. They dumped the floating point code and I believe wrote a new renderer. Quite different from just compiling quake2 against the the SDL back end

That was my understanding too, shame it would be nice to see it run.

With the orginal Quake on Z:
http://handheldquake.sourceforge.net/
Refers to the fact the Z port was derived from the PocketPC port. I think the best bet would be to start from the PPC version of Quake2.

[Foxdie]

I wish someone would properly look into recoding quake / quake 2 to the XSCALE platform. I think it would rock on the C860 & SL-6000 as these platforms BADLY need a good first person shooter. I think so long as it can render at 10+ FPS it\'ll be worth it.

I still have a dream to see Half-Life ported to the Zaurus although that\'s probably of the pipe variety :roll:

[padishah_emperor]

mmh, don\'t hold your breath though (you may keel over and mash your newly restored 760).

There seems to be a vacuum of games for the Z, Interstellar Flames shows just how good the Z is, but when I posted about such things, I got the impression most folks seem to be content with simple \"Fisher Price\" type games like puzzles and flashy things.  ;-)

Although kpacman rocks, mmh, so does Doom, and Super Mario Kart via snes9x, I just want more.

[padishah_emperor]

While on the subject of Quake, the one listed on killefiz doesn\'t have a link to download from, anyone know of a feed where I can find it?

[javab0y]

The Wince port is something completly different. They dumped the floating point code and I believe wrote a new renderer. Quite different from just compiling quake2 against the the SDL back end

Yes, they likely used GAPI (HAL layer Graphics API).  The point was that it is doable...an FPU was not necessary.

Unfortunately, the closest thing we have on the Z to GAPI would be OpenGL.  Has anyone seen a real working version for the Z with the ATI hardware layer as part of the graphics engine?  I think this would be the only way to effectively get Quake to run fast on the Z.  Software rendering for OGL stinks and is slwo as molasses.