Android port?

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Retroben

Retroben

Bruised-up Disgruntled Bear
Since the "SRB2 Ports List" topic has been placed into the archive subforum,I had to make this new thread.

When will we ever get the Android port of SRB2?
There already is one for ARM architecture on Ubuntu Linux,but still no suitable Android build.
I just recently googled and found a github page with mention of apk,but I suck at compiling stuff,so I can't get one made.

Is there someone knowledgable enough of github compiling that can compile the source into an apk?
Please help and bring SRB2 to Android devices.
 
Retroben said:
When will we ever get the Android port of SRB2?
Click to expand...
When someone makes it.

Porting something to another platform isn't quite as simple as dragging and dropping the source code into an Android packager, especially when that something is of SRB2's scope. The dev team themselves are much more concerned about developing game content and making the desktop versions work right than porting the game. That said, one of the primary benefits to the game being open source is that it's absolutely possible for anyone interested in such a port to fork the GitHub repository and do the coding work necessary to bring the game to another platform, like Android. If you really want a port that badly, might I suggest doing a bit of internet research and trying to get a port working yourself? (Learning to program isn't that hard - hell, I have a functional knowledge after nothing but a couple of high school Java classes and a lot of tinkering - and if something about the game's source code stumps you, we're glad to help you try to understand it.)

I think furyhunter may have done some preliminary work toward an Android port, but don't quote me on that; even if he did I'm pretty sure he's not actively working on it at this point.
 
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A port being started doesn't mean a port was finished. In fact, if you actually looked through the source files you linked, you'd see that half of the methods were blank placeholders. (In particular, I_BaseTiccmd and its counterpart return NULL instead off the actual blank ticcmd that the other working codebases do.) The code base there is nothing close to a playable state, and in fact most of the different ports seen throughout the code don't run properly.

Actually, just for the hell of it, here's the commit message for the last commit to the dev SVN that worked on that variation of the Android port:

qO0jLMx.png


Hey, it just barely got some sort of video output?

(Also, the old Wii ports were Callum, not Alam.)
 
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I may try to do an Android version. After all, it's just modding the movement to on-screen buttons, touchable menu options, reduce enviroment draw distance (like with objects, just made with the enviroment[which will make all hard if i start thinking now]), and I think that's it.
However, it may need high end devices, atleast more than version 4.0. Android is not as powerful as a desktop Os, but everything is possible.
I'll try doing something with it and test it on my phone, which has 4.1.2, so I expect it to work smoothly.
 
Sweet!

I have a FireTV and an x86 Acer Iconia A1-840HD tablet that both run quite well.
They are heavily tweaked on stock FW to run at their best and tablet tweaks for more battery life.

I can run Banjo-Tooie via Mupen64Plus AE 3.0 Alpha at mostly full speed on my x86 tablet with my "no frameskip" code enabled for access to a smooth 60fps.
I also have a keyboard to use for hardware control via OTG cable so I don't have to use touch controls if I don't want to.

I already had SRB2 running fairly well on FTV with PPSSPP for Android,but the stability is too buggy and there is no music support due to file count restrictions for PSP itself.
I even managed to get past the laggiest Deep Sea Zone (barely) somehow.

Coffee Stain Studios made Goat Simulator possible on Android,but with less content and altered visuals.
It even runs pretty smoothly on my FTV compared to other top-brand tablets and smartphones that lag.
They also added the "big boulder of death" to the map in the latest update.
Still missing the factory building though.

Edit:Android runs on top of Linux,which means it should be less difficult to port SRB2 from there than from Windows.
 
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I'm much more concerned with the no-longer-being-updated Mac port than a theoretical Android port. Whatever happened with the Mac port anyway? It stopped at 2.1.7/8 or so.
 
How well does "bootcamp" and Crossover work on Mac for running Windows programs?
Maybe one of them could run SRB2 decently enough to run the latest Windows version on your Mac.
 
Retroben said:
I already had SRB2 running fairly well on FTV with PPSSPP for Android,but the stability is too buggy and there is no music support due to file count restrictions for PSP itself.
I even managed to get past the laggiest Deep Sea Zone (barely) somehow.

Edit:Android runs on top of Linux,which means it should be less difficult to port SRB2 from there than from Windows.
Click to expand...

Sorry, had to resume :P

Well, the important stuff here is the adaption to video display, there will have to be a default resolution for Srb2, and it will really vary depending on the shit load of Android devices created today.
As for the sound... Well... I'll have to do magic ._. But as I said, everything is possible. It may take longer to develop sound, so I guess there will be a public work in progress... to no have people rage for a release of the full version...

As for the framerate, I will try removing the most I can to conserve framerate, while still making the map look good. That's easilly done on Doom Builder, so it will be a "piece of cake"! Haha, you get it? Piece-of-cake because it is easy hehe... Yeah... Someone kill me please...

Anyways, the compiling will have to be on Windows, as I don't even know how Linux, Mac or other Operative Systems work. I only had Windows to work with. So yeah.
 
You won't get very far on compiling in this case, VirtualBlitz546. You need a Linux box to download the Android source code and compile the android package. It's not worth it for a port that won't even run.
 
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VirtualBlitz546 said:
as I don't even know how Linux, Mac or other Operative Systems work
Click to expand...
good luck with porting to android of all things then

And you can't edit the game data, realize that. It's gotta be the same srb2.srb and zones.dat and everything across ports or else it's not really the game (and it's a load harder to update). If anything, you'd have to write in something to limit the drawing of surfaces automatically—a subsectors distance clipper like the sprite distance clipper—and deal with the HOM mess that comes out of that.

Compile ONLY OpenGL for sure.

In other news, I've been brainstorming some fragment shaders that would theoretically push OGL to parity with software. I have to learn C first (ha) but something like that'd be your best bet for Android.
 
Okay... I can still try... Right? How I even get Linux?

I have another OS installed on my laptop, I'll look what type of OS it is, I never knew how to use it so I don't know what it is.

EDIT: Okay I searched for it and it is developed on... Argentina? Anyways, it is based on Debian GNU/Linux. Does this helps on anything?
 
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This thread is a hilarious read.

Anyway, I don't see why SRB2 can't run on modern mobile devices. Some of the phones these days are shipped with two ARM cores, and the game itself has long since been ported to ARM.

That doesn't mean the controls won't suck, (So glad Bluetooth controllers exist.) or that the game won't chug at certain points. SRB2 pushes Doom farther than anyone at iD could've imagined doing 20 years ago. I'd personally be lost and overwhelmed trying to reinvent the wheel with display and sound. Callum must've went through hell with his initial SRB2Wii ports.
 
Can't you just force 640x480 as the resolution since phone/tablet screens are pretty small?
Or is there something really difficult like having to be loyal to the DPI of each phone/tablet?

I can accept having speed troubles with Deep Sea Zone and Egg Rock Zone since I even get minor lagspikes on a PC in the heaviest view.
You can already see SRB2 running considerably well on an old Android from the video,and this was as late as 2011,just think about how well devices from years later should be able to run it with their quadcore CPUs running around "1.7Ghz" or even higher and faster GPUs help too.
Also,the newer (than 2011) Android OS,Jellybean and Kitkat make things smoother.
 
Just thought of a bombshell!
Is there a way (like SRB2Wii),for you to use a VM Linux for running the ARM ubuntu port of SRB2 directly?

The main issue is that the more complex ways to boot Linux require a VNC server which has a really bad framerate lag,or a really difficult to set up Xserver which I could never figure out.

I miss being able to play SRB2 on PC. :(
Now I can't really do as much on the PC anymore,for personal restriction reasons.
 
We can't solve your problems if you're "grounded" from using the computer.

Since SDL2 officially supports mobile, an Android port is a lot more viable and simple than it was in the past. It just requires someone to do the work, because a fair amount of code can't be shared with the existing sdl2 interface code due to platform differences. It would also require someone to write a touch screen input layer on top. Not hard, but not trivial either.
 
Not grounded,just extremely limited game access to a certain time on Sunday through Thursdays when my dad is at work from 2:30PM to later than 11:00PM,and even then,I have to be vigilant by not being seen playing games when mum walks into the room.

I use "about:blank" on Chrome to fill the screen behind windowed games for instant hiding by one click to focus on Chrome browser.
Problem is,SRB2 is only fullscreen or glitched/forced/tiny windowed mode.
I wished SRB2 had a proper 640x480 draggable windowed mode like normal programs without the mouse locking into the window.
That would require an option to disable mousemove controls which are used by the menus and some game actions.

I didn't know Android supported SDL2,cool! That means the 60fps SRB2 build may be plausible.
Android doesn't automatically need onscreen touch controls,there's gamepads for Android too.
How about initial support for hardware controls like keyboards just to get the blue hedgehog rolling?
 
Sounds a lot simpler to save up and get your own PC, than waiting around for android ports. My mom also complained a lot about games weighing down the family PC, but that was from XP being improperly maintained, (All of my own PCs always ran fast, even right after playing a game; CCleaner for the win.) not having enough RAM for said games, and dad being a jolly pirate, yar har har. There be worms in ye thumb-drives. So of course the family PC always ran slower than it should have.

Any refurbished mid-end desktop computer can play most stuff you throw at it. Heck, even the cheap 32-bit machines laying around now will do. Laptops are a waste of time just for playing games. They get hot too easily if you're itching to crank up the settings, and you can't easily change the GPU if it decides to blow.
 
Such a shame for Windows XP's support being ended. :(
Computers nowadays only have the sucky broken Windows 8 when I need Windows 7.

I have so much rage about missing my last chance of getting a Win7 laptop because I barely lacked the money to sneak my way into buying it.
What really ruins it is that even if you replace Windows 8 with Windows 7,you will have so many issues with the unstable drivers and incompatibility glitches.
 
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