jPCT goes Android

EgonOlsen · July 16, 2009, 08:09:05 AM

I tried to find out if the HTC Magic has a GPU...i failed. Any information about this is highly appreciated.

Edit: It seems to have one...unless the "a" in MSM7201a means that it has been scraped from the MSM7201...However, still no info on the Samsung...

Edit2: Samsung seems to use the MSM7200a, i.e. HTC Magic-1...whatever that means...

zammbi · July 16, 2009, 08:55:58 AM

Get something out then people can test

A lot of optimisations built in that you take for granted in Java isn't in android, so you might find something to speed some areas up.

raft · July 16, 2009, 09:00:28 AM

my two cents still goes to trying to run emulator on top of host vm's open gl..
i'm kind of stubborn i guess

EgonOlsen · July 16, 2009, 10:44:58 AM

Quote from: zammbi on July 16, 2009, 08:55:58 AM
Get something out then people can test
A lot of optimisations built in that you take for granted in Java isn't in android, so you might find something to speed some areas up.

Actually, jPCT already does most things in the way that google considers to be best practice for Android.

zammbi · July 18, 2009, 07:29:13 PM

Well there was that Quake 1 game that seem to run fine and that was before android was released. So I have confidence in your abilities

Also, not that I like the idea, but you could use C for the collisions: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/06/android-goes-beyond-java-gains-native-cc-dev-kit.ars

EgonOlsen · July 18, 2009, 11:20:06 PM

Yeah, i thought about it...but no. It's heavily intermixed with the rest of the engine, so it would be hard to separate it and rewrite it in C. Plus i don't think that this is the right way. It's just a poor man's excuse for delivering a shitty VM. I'll try to get my hands on a phone sooner or later and see how the real thing performs. If it's ok, i'll continue and release the port. If it's not, i won't...it would be pointless then anyway.

EgonOlsen · July 19, 2009, 11:29:28 PM

I've ordered a Samsung Galaxy I7500 now...we'll see how it performs.

JavaMan · July 20, 2009, 05:55:08 AM

Cool! Hope it is faster.

zammbi · July 20, 2009, 07:41:25 AM

Quotethe Galaxy will come with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connectivity, 3.2 inch HVGA AMOLED Touch Screen display, 8GB Internal memory and 5 Megapixel camera with Autofocus

Seems very nice. Hope it all goes well.

EgonOlsen · July 20, 2009, 10:59:12 AM

Quote from: zammbi on July 20, 2009, 07:41:25 AM
Quotethe Galaxy will come with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connectivity, 3.2 inch HVGA AMOLED Touch Screen display, 8GB Internal memory and 5 Megapixel camera with Autofocus
Seems very nice. Hope it all goes well.

I hope that too. If not, i have an expensive, 24 month lasting contract for a phone that i actually don't really need...

JavaMan · July 20, 2009, 02:34:50 PM

I thought about getting one, but wow after checking the price. Yikes! They are expensive; too expensive for a freshman college dude like me.

EgonOlsen · July 27, 2009, 10:03:10 PM

The phone has finally arrived...it's a nice piece of hardware and all...it just can't do hardware 3D...

At least i don't know how. Even the simplest example uses software rendering when run on the phone. Searching for information about hardware 3d on Android is like looking for information about sexual intercourse in a monastery. Most people that claim that it is supported never actually tried it. There are some games that use it, but they seem to rely on their own libs. At least they don't run on the VM but use it as a vehicle to start their own, native stuff.
Even the NDK (the native SDK) doesn't seem to support hardware 3d yet (according to the sparse information that is available on the net).

zammbi · July 28, 2009, 12:04:16 PM

That's a bugger seems only G1 is supporting hardware 3D. Maybe some info here can help you : http://www.anddev.org/viewforum.php?f=2 they seem to have some 3D tutorials, though I haven't looked into it.

EgonOlsen · July 28, 2009, 12:18:55 PM

I somehow doubt even that. There's no question that the hardware can do it on all Android phones, but the software seems to lack behind. I've found some information from Google, that Android 1.0 can't do it but i've never found anything about 1.1 or 1.5. Some people are asking about it, but all the answers fit into one of these categories:

Yes, because it can do OpenGL ES (which it can, just in software...)
Yes, because there was a Quake1...3 demo once (only on video and with poor framerate...could have been software mode too)
Yes, because the hardware can do it
Yes, because there's a thread about that game XXX on forum YYY (which usually does some kind of raytracing, flat shading etc...all on the CPU, not using the GPU)

Which all basically mean: "I've no idea, but i'm sure it can!"

In other words: I haven't found any good source of information yet. Priority of 3D support seems to be somewhere under the carpet for Google. Otherwise, they could make a simple statement like: Yes or no, and which preconditions have to be met for yes (if any). There is no such thing. At least i haven't found it.

EgonOlsen · July 31, 2009, 09:58:59 PM

A short summary for those who aren't following the thread on JGO (http://www.javagaming.org/index.php/topic,20910.0.html): The Samsung can do hardware 3D (Omnigsoft's games make use of it as well as the Neocore demo and they both run just fine on the device), but somehow it doesn't work when using the Dalvik VM (which is what we are talking about here). The HTC Hero uses the exact same chipset and seems to be able to do hardware 3D within the VM. I don't get it...