[Announce] Homeworld (updated 2012/12/03) - Page 3 - maemo.org

agr0 | # 21 | 2012-06-27, 04:38 | Report

Music/sounds doesnt work for me; i have lags, every ~500ms. My N900 is overclocked to 850MHz.

Estel | # 22 | 2012-06-27, 05:10 | Report

Can't confirm, music and sound works here fine.

stickymick | # 23 | 2012-06-27, 09:11 | Report

Just an idea.
Anyone thought of converting the .bik and intro videos from the game CD to use as N900 boot vids?
I particularly like the Relic 'mine' intro. Just change the "Relic - Entertainment" text on the plate to read "N900 - Maemo 5".

The Following User Says Thank You to stickymick For This Useful Post:
gidzzz

gidzzz | # 24 | 2012-06-28, 07:22 | Report

Originally Posted by Estel View Post

What do you think, is there any place for optimizations?

The game has a built-in equalizer, I wonder how many people would notice if it disappeared. I did a profiling run and it used about 7% CPU.
Sound mixing had about 14%, so disabling sound completely could bring even better results, but Homeworld without sound is not Homeworld.
OpenGL ES support is implemented with a wrapper. I think properly porting the engine could shave off about 6% from CPU and maybe have some benefits for GPU.

Only those things have caught my eye so far. The source code has over 250 000 lines of code, so there's still a plenty of places to search.

Originally Posted by Estel View Post

Also, not related to optimizations, but related to gaining FPS - would it be possible to run at (You can laugh at me) 400x240 resolution, stretched to full screen? Of course, visual quality would drop, but we would still keep native pixel ratio (1 pixel become 4 pixels).

From my experiences with desktops, it often helps a lot - on my notebook, after some tweaking, I was able to comfortably play Witcher 2 with moderate graphic settings, thanks to running it @ 840x525 resolution (half of my 1680x1050 screen, stretched). It gave me stable 20-25 fps with moderate-to-high details, and, surprisingly, quite pleasant visual experience (much better than higher, but non native 1024x768) - while at 1:1 native resolution, it was ~3fps at lowest settings.

Scratch the above, if it's impossible to run HomeworldSDL in such low resolution - it just was my first though, when I encountered more serious stuttering during really massive battle in skirmish with CPU.

640x480 is about the lowest resolution to have the interface usable, but I didn't notice any improvements over 800x480. Changing the resolution would mainly offload the GPU, but I'm afraid that's not the bottleneck. I set all effects as low as possible, modified the ship drawing code to use OpenGL ES without the wrapper and draw the ships untextured. Even though the game looked almost like Elite, stuttering was still present.

Originally Posted by stickymick View Post

Just an idea.
Anyone thought of converting the .bik and intro videos from the game CD to use as N900 boot vids?
I particularly like the Relic 'mine' intro. Just change the "Relic - Entertainment" text on the plate to read "N900 - Maemo 5".

It would certainly make reboots something worth waiting for.

OP now links to an updated version, which makes it possible to play with an external mouse. I also tried to restore Alt, but it doesn't seem to work, at least through Synergy. Can someone with a real keyboard confirm?

The Following User Says Thank You to gidzzz For This Useful Post:
Estel

Estel | # 25 | 2012-06-28, 22:56 | Report

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

The game has a built-in equalizer, I wonder how many people would notice if it disappeared. I did a profiling run and it used about 7% CPU.

7% is quite huge amount, kill it

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

Sound mixing had about 14%, so disabling sound completely could bring even better results, but Homeworld without sound is not Homeworld.

I agree.

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

OpenGL ES support is implemented with a wrapper. I think properly porting the engine could shave off about 6% from CPU and maybe have some benefits for GPU.

Sounds good, but how much work would it require?

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

GPU, but I'm afraid that's not the bottleneck. I set all effects as low as possible, modified the ship drawing code to use OpenGL ES without the wrapper and draw the ships untextured. Even though the game looked almost like Elite, stuttering was still present.

Hah, Elite look is something worth in itself

Seriously though, so what is bootleneck? CPU? And what about this 40% used by kernel, that you've noticed before?

Some small suggestion - I've noticed, that large mine-fields hurt performance a lot, even though, that they're draw as simple dots, for any other situation other than very-close-look. It would suggest CPU, yep?

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

OP now links to an updated version, which makes it possible to play with an external mouse.

Thanks a lot, but why no repositories? You think it's too early, or You don't feel like playing with uploading to repositories, due to some complications? If it's the latter, I can assist (i.e. upload, and give You maintainer rights).

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

I also tried to restore Alt, but it doesn't seem to work, at least through Synergy. Can someone with a real keyboard confirm?

Yes Sir! Sir! Yes Sir! Affirmative! (generic RTS pun intended

)

I'll report back in few minutes.

/Estel

Last edited by Estel; 2012-07-06 at 20:55.

Estel | # 26 | 2012-06-28, 23:15 | Report

Alt on real keyboards works perfectly fine

Thanks for considering and applying my suggestion.

Hoever, it seems that You've forget to restore middle mouse button as focus (now, assigned to "f" only). this one doesn't work. Of course, rest of mouse works great now, and it's absolutely great to switch freely between keyboard/mouse and touchscreen/built-in keyboard.

/Estel

skagek | # 27 | 2012-07-06, 16:51 | Report

Originally Posted by agr0 View Post

Music/sounds doesnt work for me; i have lags, every ~500ms. My N900 is overclocked to 850MHz.

I have sound issues as wel very stuttery for the rest the game works quite well

keep up the good work

M

judibet | # 28 | 2012-07-10, 17:48 | Report

Homeworld on N900, oh my god

!

The Following User Says Thank You to judibet For This Useful Post:
Estel

dgls82 | # 29 | 2012-07-15, 15:41 | Report

I follow the instruction but when I run the game I have this error:

~ $ cd /home/user/MyDocs/Homeworld/
~/MyDocs/Homeworld $ ./homeworld
memClearSetting=0x3c6ef361, memFreeSetting=0x3717bd79
42 files found in Update.big
14139 files found in Homeworld.big
Homeworld CRCs:
HomeworldSDL.big TOC = 0x0
Update.big TOC = 0x291050b6
Homeworld.big TOC = 0x6d4f7636
(not used) = 0x0

(null) (0): Fatal error - fileSizeGet: can't find file '/home/user/MyDocs/Homeworld//SoundFX/speechsentence_comp.lut'.
Segmentation fault
~/MyDocs/Homeworld $

What can I do?

Thank you in advance

PS: I installed Homeworld on my PC (win7 64bit) from the original CD and I patched it to v.1.05. I transfer files in PCSuite mode

Last edited by dgls82; 2012-07-15 at 15:45.

jessi3k3 | # 30 | 2012-07-17, 22:18 | Report

Originally Posted by gidzzz View Post

OpenGL ES support is implemented with a wrapper. I think properly porting the engine could shave off about 6% from CPU and maybe have some benefits for GPU.

Just curious, what wrapper did you use? Is it a self-coded wrapper?