Linux Handheld console (GP32 & GP2X)

**WILL** · 07-12-2006, 01:27 PM

Silly question; Can games played on the GP2X support multiple files? I'd imagine so since I've seen several PC games like Doom and Quake in promotional screenshots. I'd love to release a GP2X edition of my game.

Becasue I'm lazy, whats the max. screen res. again?

**Legolas** · 07-12-2006, 03:34 PM

The screen is 320?ó240 3.5 inch, 260,000 colors TFT LCD. ( :arrow: wikipedia)

**WILL** · 07-12-2006, 04:31 PM

Ok did a little quick reading on that page. Thanks Legolas.

Well I don't think I'll have too many problems releasing a GP2X version of Garland's Quest once FPC makes it one of it's targeted platforms.

It's not all that physics intensive, just simple stuff using OpenGL. SDL will be supported, bonus. I'm still thinking about sound solution at the moment. I'm strongly considering Ogg under OpenGL, however I much prefer the power I get from MODs and MOD playback so I'd like to push that in the future.

[size=9px]Oh and just an fyi for those reading this thread, I AM continuing my multi-sound API capable, OpenMOD playback library. Thats right, it is NOT going to be tied directly to ANY sound API so it's completely portable to either OpenAL, DirectSound, etc... Which is great for porting to platforms like this.[/size]

Anyone know anything about how we'd hook the controls on this thing though? I guess SDL would figure this out for me? That actually would be great!

**WILL** · 07-12-2006, 04:47 PM

Oops, just found something interesting.

It uses OpenGL ES due to it's compactness. Not too sure what implications this would bring. Either way I'm not going to look much more into this until I have a completed game to port.

Just thought I'd see how things looked. So far... not too bad. Some minor challenges, but nothing that scares me too much. It'll be on my list of ideas in the future.

Till then I guess it'll have to wait until Mr. Legolas finishes his first FPC4NDS support.

**paul_nicholls** · 07-12-2006, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by Legolas

Originally Posted by paul_nicholls

Originally Posted by {MSX}

Hi, i just came along this site:

http://www.gbax.com/

It's about a new console, GP2X, that seems very interested.
It's the new version of the GP32, that i've never heard about.. Any of you own one of them?

What do you think about?
An open Linux console sounds greedy to me

I have only just purchased myself a GP2X (arrived Friday last week).
It is sweet!

I have been running a MAME emulator on it, and even a Commodore 64 emulator...very nifty!

At the moment I am programming on the GP2X using the bloodshed Dev C++ compiler...SOB! no Pascal yet

I can't wait till Freepascal can cross-compile to the ARM9...
I'll need to install a Linux distro to try it though.

cheers,
Paul.

Freepascal *can* crosscompile to ARM9

The arm-linux crosscompiler should work fine for GP2X.

Neat! I will have to try it :-)

cheers,
Paul

**czar** · 07-12-2006, 10:10 PM

Oh that sounds interesting

I will have to dust my gp2x off as soon as there is an example.

I would love to develop for the gp2x - once I have time again.

Fun little console

**Sly** · 10-12-2006, 10:25 PM

I thought FPC only supported ARM7 at the moment? Besides, the last few times I have tried to build a FPC cross-compiler for arm-linux it threw an internal compiler error building the runtime library (error 200203271 building gtkspinbutton.inc).

I'm still doing stuff (slowly) on the GP2X, though I am using gcc through Visual Studio 2005 Express.

A couple of people have started to write support for OpenGL-ES, but it is not standard or complete yet.

**WILL** · 10-12-2006, 11:49 PM

Hey Sly. As you can see Legolas has done a ton of work on the NDS (which now compiles fairly well!), but I think it's the ARM9 specific functionality that is currently missing. Though, Florian is curently adding further support for ARM (including the THUMB if I'm not mistaken?) which will help in these platforms.

Why not pitch in with the FPC troop and see if you can get something going in your prefered language?

You could be their GP2X guy. And I'm sure that Legolas will be there to help back you up on the ARM9.

Just an idea. There is growing FPC interest in the GP2X here so it could be a way to learn more about while pushing the features you'd want to work right at the development level of FPC.

**Stoney** · 02-01-2007, 10:38 PM

KidPaddle from the german GP2X forum managed to compile a little space sidescroller shooting game written with Pascal for GP2X. The game has some bugs by now, the gameplay is simple and graphics are minimalistic, but imho it's awesome that the first game has been ported to GP2X and it's running quite well!

Link to the thread: Click (well, it's completely in german)
Link to his game: http://www.seban.de/download/sfighter.zip (Size: ~ 2 MB)
He set a cross compiler environment in Windows XP with coLinux and FreePascal 2.0.4. Furthermore, he also support Paeryn's SDL, which is a slightly modified SDL library written in "C" providing hardware acceleration for GP2X.
KidPaddle will provide a coLinux ISO Image in the soon future with all configurations included so we could be able to write our own games with his help.