DeleD Community Edition

[Twixn]

Hey all,

I have some info on a 'conversion' i am doing of
my game engine ReHashed to a handheld game console
called the GP2x.

The GP2x is pretty much a programmer's PSP, although it
has no 3d hardware so any 3d has to be done in software,
which is not easy for its 200mhz CPU which has no FPU
(meaning, no floats or doubles).

Its rather simple at the moment, and its not an FPS.
All it is is a sphere wandering around a level.

The list of features include:

- Full fixed point 3d renderer (PseudoGL)
- DMF (DeleD Map File) level loading and polygon sorting (no zbuffer).
- Full MD2 Model loading (no animation used though).
- Full Fixed point collision.
- BMP loading, and procedural texture generation.

Anyway, here are some juicy screenshots, to give you a feel
to what the game will be like. Take no notice of the sphere, its
supposed to simply be over complicated to stress the rasterizer.





I dont know if any of you actually have a GP2x, if so tell me and i
will post a link to the download.

Anyway, tell me what you think. Its very much a WIP, and im enjoying
working on an embedded system such as this.

At some point i'll take a picture of it running on my TV.

-Twixn-
_________________
Failure is not an option!....It comes bundled with the software.

[Daaark]

You are one of the probably 5 people that bought one of those. I have never heard of it until now. It is not sold on store shelves or advertised anywhere here.

[Twixn]

Heh, yeah its not that well known....but it's still outsold the Gizmondo
IIRC And i find it quite fun to program for, i like the low level stuff
and ARM9 is much nicer than x86.

It is pretty good for software 3d, someone managed to port quake1
so it can do it nicely. There is even another CPU on there that
i haven't used, but it it is a real bitch to get going.

You'd be surprised, for one how much software is available for it
(100s of homebrew games and ports, and emulators
for over 40 systems), and secondly im very happy with the reception
my little project got on the official forums

And also, later i'll see if GPH are interested in publishing it.

Hmm, i dont think i will be get lightmaps going, with the
type of stuff i plan to do in the future (primarily many NPCs on the screen
at once) it would probably slow things down too much.

Those boxes are part of the level, and yeah the ball is being moved
around by the player. I think i may add free floating boxed later,
probably in areas with not many NPCs.

-Twixn-
_________________
Failure is not an option!....It comes bundled with the software.

[Daaark]

I looked at the software. It is all stuff I already own. I prefer my nice smooth N64 port of Quake to anything else.

The XBOX360 is also releasing a kit that people can make games with soon. There was a lot of talk about it on GD.net in recent days. I would love to have my dream game running like that, but I'd have to learn C# and spend close to a 1000$ just to try it out.

Gizmondo?
_________________

[Twixn]

Yeah, i plan to keep an eye on the 360 indie dev kit thing, sounds interesting.
I heard that you have to distribute the source to your game aswel, but i dont
know how true that is (especially with the $1000 price tag).

heh, yeah the gizmondo...flopped harder than the UMD. Was supposed to be
some kind of PSP killer from out of nowhere, didn't quite work out that way.

-Twixn-
_________________
Failure is not an option!....It comes bundled with the software.

[Daaark]

[Twixn]

Heh, well taking away the price of the unit itself, thats still quite
abit. Enough to make me think twice about the rumour of having to
distribute source.

Although i admit, not as much as buying a pro dev kit.

-Twixn-
_________________
Failure is not an option!....It comes bundled with the software.

[Jeroen]

I think (and hope) prices will lower and indy gamedev will become more popular. If even Microsoft is getting into it, it must be an attractive market.

[Daaark]

I do not know many details, just speculation here
You have to distro your source because it uses JIT compilation. The games are compatible with both XBOX and PC, so the end user gets it in source form and compiles their copy to run on their platform of choice. Just obfuscate it.
_________________

[Twixn]

[Daaark]

The pro devs aren't going to use the thing to begin with. That's not the point of the thing. It's meant stritcly for fun I guess. I think they even removed access to the optical drive too. All my info is just heresay.

No reason for hobbyists to hide their code. I don't this is about GPL like distribution, it's just something to have fun with.

I'm sorry for hijacking your thread.
_________________

[KudosCry]

@Vampyre_Dark: What you said is not true. Of course you can compile your source to get it running on Windows. Have you ever programmed useing C#? Of course you're compiling your source! Not to machine language but to MSIL which is then compiled to machine code on the target plattform. Your MSIl code will nevertheless be held in a .exe file so no "you must give your source away".
But to prevent pseudo programmers to release every piece of shit for the 360 you won't be able to compile your games for the 360.
The XNA Game Studio Express will allow you to code your game on Windows XP. To test it there, to distribute it (also commercially) there. If your game is good enough then of course you can give it to a publisher who will then get your game compiled on XNA for XBL Arcade.

P.S.: And ýou won't need to distribute your source to test your game on XBox360. You'll just need to connect your 360 with your PC, open up VisualC# 2005 Express and hit "Run on my 360" (or something like that).

[Paul-Jan]

I only heared about the GP2x recently, and it's really cool to see what one can do with one of those little machines right here on our forums!

Programming one of these might not be commercially viable, but it sure looks like a lot of fun, and having a bit of ARM experience, and handheld experience in general, will definitely help if you were ever to apply for a job in that field! Sweet stuff...

[Twixn]