[Request] Hedgewars!
 

I would really like to ask some kind soul to port Hedgewars to Maemo (N900). Considering, that is the absolute pinnacle of worms clones -in fact, Hedgwars are better than even the most glorious worms releases like Worms Armageddon or Worms World Party - and that it works using QT4, I'm really surprised, that we don't have working port, for all those years.

If someone doesn't know - Hedgewars is much more than worms clone. It's the one and only continuously maintained FOSS game of this spirit which is very active in multiplayer, got many interesting and fresh game play modes (almost to the point of becoming platform for creating other games - including things like racing [!], galaga-like [!!!], and many others), and works on other portable devices (Androids, iPods, you name it) for ages.

Sure, we have Wormux (working without any FPS problems), but it's unmaintained, unfinished, bugged and development ceased completely (including that it's home page doesn't exist anymore). Hedgewars, OTOH, have very active community of players, developers, and supporters:
http://www.hedgewars.org

Now, there was some very early attempt at porting:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=962940&postcount=4

...but it hit performance problems. Hoever, it seems that compilation options might have been totally unoptimized, not to mention that it was eons ago, using much older version.

Any skilled (in compiling) gamer up to the task? I would look at Aapo Rantalainen, but he is quite busy, lately, and anyway, he ported so many things, that I don't have guts to ask him for another one...

Cheers,
/Estel

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Hedgewars can be installed under Debian (shameless plug :D). I've not tried it but it's likely to have the same performance issues.

I would assume the performance problems are due to lack of hardware acceleration rather than compilation options. It probably needs to be ported to GLES, or if it's using OpenGL 1.x you could try running it under glshim instead of porting it.

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Hedgewars is pushing a GMA 950 (with an N270@1024x600 or a T5600@1280x800) to its limits. Not sure how the N900's PowerVR compares to that, especially since it's also OpenGL vs GLES, but I can hardly imagine it to be much faster.

That being said, iirc the last attempt of porting Hedgewars to the N900 was before there were serious attempts on getting hardfp support in Fremantle. So a hardfp port should increase performance significantly (still not sure if it would be enough).

btw:
I don't understand why Hedgewars relies on GPU acceleration at all. It doesn't look like it needs to.

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

I actually looked at hedgewars source, just to see how easily it would port (to SFOS actually, but no matter...:D)

The darn thing is just crazy, parts of it are written in c, other parts in pascal and some bits in lua!
I do not understand how it hangs together :eek:

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Pascal!? Somebody actually uses that?

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Use the Force, check the Source, Luke!

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

I think you missed the Haskell stuff. :p

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Well it did come to my mind that the whole shebang has been written as an excercise in how to interface modules using different programming languages/techniques/paradigms.

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

It was an expression of bewilderment, not a real question. As in, on seeing someone wearing a coat in a 30°C heat, "what, you are wearing a coat"?

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

I do never play games on my N900 but that game got deleted on wikipedia :confused:

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

Which Wikipedia are you referring to?
Hedgewars is in the english Wikipedia [1] and it's in the german Wikipedia [2] (which is notorious for deleting articles due to "lack of relevance").
Judging from your profile you might have expected a netherlands article [3]. But if it was deleted, shouldn't there be some notice that this article was deleted instead of simply stating it doesn't exist?


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgewars
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgewars
[3] http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgewars

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

I think he may be referring to fact, that Hedgewars english wiki article had been repeatedly deleted by so-called "deletionists" faction amongst wikipedia admins. It's nice to see it back, I wasn't aware of it's return. On a off-topic note, I really hope that wikipedia will delete the deletionists, one day.

As for hedgewars, I had no idea that the code is such a mess :| and I'm as much surprised by the need of GPU acceleration. No idea how they got it running fluently on low-end androids, but I guess that the porting request is moot, anyway, given the things that get discovered in the sources ;)

/Estel

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

No idea how much a benchmark between arm and x86 tells, but apparently a Snapdragon 800 (Lumia 930) blows an Atom N270 (2nd gen netbooks) out of the water. [1]
Assuming that a Snapdragon 400 (Moto G) would yield half the computing power of an 800 (which might be completely off) it would still be in front of an N270 by a fair marging assuming the task can be parallelized well.
And as far as I understand a Snapdragon 400 is what Android people call low-end these days.

Also as far as I understand the transition from OpenGL to GLES doesn't have much impact on performance. So in the end I'm not really surprised that Hedgewars runs on almost any current Android phone.
And it is a great game ... as long as you don't take a look under the hood. ;)


[1] http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Qualcomm-Sna...ntel-Atom-N270

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

[OT]
You're absolutely right. That is why, everytime some family member asks me to help find "good bang for your buck" netbook (or even worse, tablet - which they need to buy a bluetooth keyboard anyway, as touch screen is crap for typing, even double so for capacitives), I point them to a good ultraportable laptop, instead. It's amazing what you can buy for mere cents, nowadays - probably, because people switch to tablets in a sheep instinct.

Few days ago, I purchased - for my mother - a 1,5 kg -weighting 13'' Toshiba Portege R700 with 3GHz, 3MB L2 cache, two core 64-bit processor (non-undervolted intel core 2 duo), 4GB RAM, Ironlake Intel GMA HD graphic card (powered by fully FOSS'ed drivers), matte screen, and as a nice bonus. HSPA integrated (removable) modem and docking station port - all for ~250 bucks, in near-mint condition. Heck, it even STILL have integrated DVD-RW/RAM write *inside* unit!

Of course, built-in windoze system got immediately thrown out of the window (pun intended), and the unit (almost) literally flies under amd64 Debian with LXDE. Now, it blowed, blows, and will blow - for foreseeable future - any netbook, not even speaking about crappy android tablets. At 6 hours of (average-to-light) use on battery, I call it instant win, and apart from a dream of new-generation mobile phone/computer combo with hardware keyboard (up to 4'') run under real GNU/Linux, I suddenly stopped carrying about all those failed FOSS tablet projects, like Vivaldi. Why anyone need netbook/tablet, when you can buy something equally as portable, but better in every damn aspect - then run your favorite Linux distro and mainstream kernel, without begging manufacturer for support, as it'd the case in "new generation" embedded devices?
[/OT]

Re: [Request] Hedgewars!
 

I actually find my netbook (2008 Asus EEE 901 8.9") quite useful. I use it mostly in meetings when most of my colleagues show up with iPads or pen and paper. Unless somebody else prepared for it I'm usually the only one who can feed the projector.
I also have a 12" and a 14" laptop but I find these to big for the scenario.
If the Vivaldi or some comparable device had made it I most likely would have aquired one just as a toy and maybe I would have found an actual use for it.

The 901 was also the last device I bought for myself with Windows, and I only did that because I really wanted to have the device and I knew somebody who wanted to have the XP license.
Since then I fought hard with the Dell support to get a laptop without Windows and bought another netbook (now my HTPC) and a Thinkpad from two shops that sell machines without Windows.

But for family and friends who look for a laptop (nobody ever wanted me to find a tablet) I still buy devices with Windows (mostly refurbished Dell E series since they tend to have the best value for money) because if something is wrong with Windows they blame MS and ask some other guy for support (they know I haven't touched Windows in years) but if there is a problem with Linux they blame me and ask me for support.