Hi,

I know that this was mentioned early last year (http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/18897#238574) but I really think its something that should be investigated.

The Pandora is a handheld gaming device, made by a number of members of the GP2X community. Since that last thread was posted, a lot more information has come to light regarding the hardware in this machine. It has a Cortex A8 ARM CPU, which is capable of running at up to 900MHz, 256MB of RAM, a PowerVR SGX 530 graphics chip (so far shown capable of running Quake 3 at an average of 30fps with very little optimisation done so far) its default operating system is a customised version of the Angstrom Linux distribution.

Hopefully, there is very little x86 specific code in Vendetta (I assume so considering there appears to be a PowerPC port for Mac OS X), it would be a very simple matter of porting the game to ARM, and as for graphics, the nanogl wrapper can be used to use OpenGL on the Pandora, or, if it is feasible, a port could be rewritten for OpenGL ES 2.0 instead.

The Pandora could be a great opportunity to pull in many new players, and thus more revenue for Guild Software. The hardware is capable, all we need is a port.

Would Guild Software be interested in porting Vendetta Online to the Pandora?

Thanks,
jscinoz

Well, heres what the code to VO looks like according to a1k0n http://a1k0n.net/code/vosource.c.txt and it compiles on just about anything with a CPU, including iPod Nano. :D

Joking aside, yes, VO was designed to be portable from day 1, unlike a lot of programs that see ports to other systems after they are made for a target system. I guess due to this, an initial port would not be that time consuming, but bug squashing, optimising and maintaining for the port would be.

Yes it would be cool to have VO in my pocket. Yes, it may bring a little more attention to the game, but although the Pandora community is quite large, will it bring enough attention and paying customers to make a port worthwhile? I guess this is something only time can tell, and I hope the answer to this is also yes.

I'm going to start a thread on the Pandora forums to try and gather interest, although in the past when people have asked if they'd be willing to pay for quality commercial games, the majority have said yes.

I'll post a link to the thread in this thread when its up

Here is the thread on the Pandora forums:

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=47215&st=

Hopefully if enough people show interest in this, the developers might find it worthwhile to port.

There's been some initial response on that thread I linked, it would appear mostly positive :)

One question that I've had on my mind recently however, I know that it says on the FAQ that Guild isn't interested in releasing the source to the game, mainly because they wish to sell the engine in the future, but I ask; has dual licensing been considered? ID Software did quite well with dual licensing their IDTech3 (and apparently IDTech4 later this year), under the GPL, but also a commercial license for other companies who wanted to use the engine, but didn't want to abide by the GPL. Would something like this perhaps be valid for Vendetta?

I only ask because it is certain that developers in the Pandora community would be capable of porting the game themselves, but also, the reaction from the wider FOSS community, of a Free game engine of such quality, could well attract many more players, and developers.

Obviously, this is just my opinion, I could be entirely incorrect, but I do hope that some consideration is given.

Thanks,
jscinoz