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Pocket Quake

Or, you could try Quake III, which is pretty new. Only 5fps at the moment, but they are starting to add support for GFX chips, that ought to bring it up to spec.

Not a fan of FPS on the mobile to be honest, mouse beats joypad, and joypad beats phone keypad. Gimmie Tetris on the gameboy emulator, or perhaps Age Of Empires for most of my mobile gaming.

Dude, it's time to update the mascot. How about a new Treo 650 running Tcl/Tk, or if you really want to stick with Texas, a new Dell Axim X50? I'd recommend the 520 MHz ASUS MyPal A730 (apparently comes with "engineering calculator) running Tcl/Tk, for optimum number crunching and programing ability, but the Treo is doestic, which I imagine is important to Thomas Jefferson High. I think everyone in your metro area needs a break from Texas.

In my experience with mobile 3D gaming so far (Visor, iPaq, Samsung 8100), the only thing that has been truly enjoyable was Dan East's wonderful port of Quake to the Pocket PC. I've been playing it since Beta 0.062 in 2001 and it has really evolved into a very playable game on the iPaq. With a PCMCIA wifi card I was able to walk around a large LAN party fragging to my hearts content. It was especially fun sitting next to my opponents and seeing the look on their faces when they saw that I was playing on a handheld. Hats off to Dan East, you rock.

With Stinger (smart) phones around the corner, and ATI with its latest mobile graphics chips, I expect we might see Quake on a cell phone. I think I saw a demo video from last years E3 of Quake on a 2" LCD for a cell phone, but I remember seeing the Pocket PC interface before the game launched so I'm not sure if the game has been ported.

Dan, if your out there how about some insight?

I also tried a 1945, which has a 266 ARM cpu and couldn't stand it. It couldn't even play an MP3 without skipping if you tap the start menu

I find this very hard to swallow. Even the Casio EM-500 and E-125 had no trouble playing MP3s while multitasking on their lousy 150MHz MIPS CPUs in my experience (as for the MIPS being lousy, some Casio fans will assert that it was mostly poor support for it that resulted in poor results, but the effect was the same). And the Samsung 266MHz ARM in the 1945 comes out ahead of the early 400MHz X-Scale CPUs in some benchmarks.

The PPC gaming community was disappointed to find the original 400MHz Intels failing even to outperform the 206MHz Samsung ARM for many purposes.

It is of course possible that your reflection on your experience with the Samsung ARM is accurate, but I certainly do not understand it to be representative. Multitasked MP3 playback has been a staple of all these PPCs for a long while now, and the Samsung 266MHz in particular is hardly a slouch.

The early (i.e., non-PXA255) XScale CPUs in even their 400MHz varieties, in their showdown with existing Samsung ARM chips at half their clock rate were, if anything, a perfect example of the megahertz myth being just that.

So far many of the comments seem to be along the lines of, "SQL Server for a PDA?! WHY?!" Well, why not? Think about where PDA's could be headed. Why not have the PDA be the server for your Personal Area Network?

PDA's these days are getting more and more powerful. They're already as powerful as what was on the desktop less than a decade ago, and they're catching up fast. It's not unreal that in 5 years we'll have PDA's capable of running Half Life 2 and Doom 3. I mean, today's PDA's can already run Quake 1 and 2.

So back to SQL Server. Why is it bad that they are developing a version of SQL Server running for this kind of platform? It seems the perfect starting point for some really powerful mobile apps.

How is this different from several people playing multiplayer Pocket Quake over WiFi, simulating in parallel a virtual 3D environment on their Pocket PCs?

Pocket Quake is almost 3 years old.

Dan East

There are certain aspects of Palm OS software that could definitely use some work... I've never seen a decent photo editor for the Palm OS...

The Palm OS is also lacking in several neat features. PocketPC *dominates* on the multimedia front... and last I checked, the only 2 (3?) Palm OS SSH clients didn't support Hi-res, so they were a bitch to read... I would love something as good as sshCE on a Palm.

And PocketPC games can't be beat ;-)

Oh! And don't forget ports of FTPD, Perl, Apache, XFree86, emacs and Vim ;) (among others)

response from handango

There's 3 aspects to this though. You can already get Doom for the Nokia 7650, and Quake for the iPaq. So 3D gaming for portables is already here. I've also heard a lot of games developers saying that they are looking at bluetooth to do multiplayer games on mobiles.

As far as wireless broadband goes, (and this is probably massive flamebait), but it does amuse me how far behind the US is compared to the rest of the world on this. Already in the UK, GPRS is enabling up to 33,6k (or even maybe 56k, I'm not totally sure) for mobile phones. Which may not sound a lot, but in my experience 56k is plenty enough bandwidth for web browsing. And on the form factor of a mobile phone it's probably enough for streaming video.

The only technology that is currently not available is the AI Avatar. To be honest I agree with the rest of the posts on here, after initial amusement that would just get plan irritating.

I personally think that the best mobile technology to come out recently (after bluetooth) is the video phones that have just come on sale. Right now though it seems that no single device has the 3d gaming ability, bluetooth, videophone, PDA abilities. Lots of devices have some of these (plus some other useless crap) but nothing seems to completely fit the bill. Which is pretty cool because manufacturers are trying out lots of new ideas. I think in twelve months we are going to have an absolutely rocking mobile platform as the gimmicks fall by the wayside and the good ideas converge into the mainstream. Well, in the UK anyway. :)

I'm not sure if someone has already ported Quake to ARM processors (I'd be very surprised if they haven't)

Pocketquake has been available since the Casio EM-300 and original IPAQ. Playing it on the IPAQ was pointless, as the IPAQ could only register one keypress at a time, making play impossible, but the EM-300s had a real thumbpad and could register multiple keypresses, making play actually fun and almost smooth.

There are ARM, MIPS and SH3 binaries available, but it was never really playable on the HPs, as far as I know.

I happened across this about an hour before reading the slashdot story... http://quake.pocketmatrix.com/download.php - see down the bottom of the page for a download link. No idea if it works though!

Shortly after ALICE was ported to the palm and the pocket PC systems, respectively. :)

It probably wouldn't run Quake 3 well... my Dell Axim has a 300 MHz XScale (comparable about to a 206 MHz StrongARM, maybe slighly slower) and it runs Quake I at only 7.2 fps. That's a far cry from a playable Quake III... the same guy ported Quake II, but that's far from playable.

It's actually kinda funny... those old games kick ass on my old Casio E125! I've got everything from Wolf, Doom, Quake I(1 AND 2! woohoo!) and even Age of Empires :D

The only one that I don't have (and I hope somebody from Blizzard reads this!!!!) is StarCraft..

Actually I'd say that Age of Empires is the best so far. Few sacrifices made - even the music is decent.

SimCity!!

Doom is nice, but on my phone I can play not only Doom, but also Quake I, Quake II, Sim City 2000 and FIFA 2002. Major upcoming games include Need for Speed and Age of Empires.

I can also browse the Internet (full, not just clipping), read/write emails, and do other fun stuff like play MP3's and movies.

I can even make phone calls, too, but they're not quite as fun. ;-)

Avert your eyes, but this phone is actually based on an MS operating system (sorry), the Pocket PC OS. The phone in question is the xda, and it's simply awesome.

Doom is nice, but on my phone I can play not only Doom, but also Quake I, Quake II, Sim City 2000 and FIFA 2002. Major upcoming games include Need for Speed and Age of Empires.

I can also browse the Internet (full, not just clipping), read/write emails, and do other fun stuff like play MP3's and movies.

I can even make phone calls, too, but they're not quite as fun. ;-)

Avert your eyes, but this phone is actually based on an MS operating system (sorry), the Pocket PC OS. The phone in question is the xda, and it's simply awesome.

Even wearables are struggling to get 640x480, which is the smallest screen I would use for anything 3D.

On the upside, Nokia has a very good history of being innovative in the mobile market, more power to them. If they can get a usuable 3D device to market, I'd buy it.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy playing Doom on a Nokia 9210

I enjoyed Quake on my iPaq too =)

You could have a StrongArm 333 Mhz chip! For just $19,995 you and a loved one can fly to the north pole and run your PDA at blazingly fast speeds! Play solitaire like you've never experienced before. (or, if you have TWO iPaqs, PocketQuake)

This is already possible with iPAQ but the battery won't last long I guess...
In fact, there're already people that put a DVD in the iPAQ RAM with 20MB, see: http://pocketmatrix.com/howto/newdvd/

Do you *really* think you would be able to "frag your friends at home" in Quake with the controlls on the GBA? ;)

Speaking of a Quake-port, I don't think the GBA have the guts to run it... I have an iPaq with a 206MHz Strongarm cpu and 32mb ram, and the latest version of PocketQuake runs at 9-10fps tops. If my memory isn't terribly wrong, the GameBoy Advance have a far less powerfull cpu and have less than the minimum 8mb ram the Quake-engine needs to even run. :)

Actually it is running on my iPaq now, in addition to the emulator. As stated I'm achieving an estimated 3 fps @ 206mhz , which will increase with strategic fixed-point conversions, and reduction in rendering quality (such as reducing the number of particles that can be used in effects).

The control scheme will of course be the same as what I used for Pocket Quake and Pocket Wolf3D. The stylus is used onscreen for mlook and weapon selection. The directional pad of the device controls movement and strafe. This is the typical configuration used by FPS players with their mouse / keyboard. Devices that use the D-Pad as the fire button (iPaq, many Pocket PC 2002 devices) give their owners an extra advantage, because they can fire without taking their hands off of the critical controls.

Admittedly, Quake 2 is a bit much for the hardware of the current generation of Pocket PCs . However, devices better suited for this type of software are just around the corner. Perhaps the availability of classic, mainstream, groundbreaking games such as Quake and Quake II for the Pocket PC platform will encourage OEMs to produce more capable hardware. All I ask is for a math coprocessor! :)

The timing of the source release just prior to Christmas is preventing me from working on this as much as I normally would, so keep on eye on the Pocket Matrix site for notification of the release, which should be before the end of the year.

Dan East
dex-plor.com

You can get the shareware pak file from the Pocket Quake website:
quake.pocketmatrix.com

Several custom levels have also been created specifically for Pocket Quake which substantially increases the FPS. These are all Deathmatch maps, designed for multiplayer over the network, or with bots. Pocket Quake, which this port is based on, does have full TCP/IP (actually it's just IP) network support, but I don't know if that made it into this linux port.

Dan East

Good to see my port of Quake (Pocket Quake) made it to Linux! I wonder if the onscreen MLOOK controls were preserved? That is what really makes it playable, especially on hardware like the iPaq with the hardware button limitation. Did you also preserve my zlib gzip pak file compression? Very useful on these devices with limited storage capacity.

I didn't see a link for the pak file, but you can get it from the url below my sig. The Pocket Quake forum contains over 10k of posts discussing Pocket Quake, including custom maps designed to increase the FPS on hardware without native floating point capability.

Dan East

pocketquake@pocketmatrix.com
quake.pocketmatrix.com

Good to see my port of Quake (Pocket Quake) made it to Linux! I wonder if the onscreen MLOOK controls were preserved? That is what really makes it playable, especially on hardware like the iPaq with the hardware button limitation. Did you also preserve my zlib gzip pak file compression? Very useful on these devices with limited storage capacity.

I didn't see a link for the pak file, but you can get it from the url below my sig. The Pocket Quake forum contains over 10k of posts discussing Pocket Quake, including custom maps designed to increase the FPS on hardware without native floating point capability.

Dan East

pocketquake@pocketmatrix.com
quake.pocketmatrix.com

Why not have the best of both worlds?

Or if you're a Palm owning Gameboy fan then try Liberty or PalmBoy (free).

There is also a GBA emulator for the PocketPC apparantly. Although I've not tested it and there was a rumour of one of the GBA emulators being a hoax.

Biggest problems are that:

• Battery life in a pocketpc is low enough as it is without having a game hammer it even more
• You can't press two buttons at the same time with an iPAQ, possibly others too

--

And Windows for Pocket PC defintely gives ground to Palm's OS in a few usability areas.

But Compaq really put some work into the Ipaq, even making up for some of Microsoft's omissions.

An example? The 'Q' button on the Ipaq. Push it, and up pops a menu with all of your running tasks, which you can switch to, or quit out of. This is both an extremely easy way to navigate the OS, and a way around one of the biggest problems with WinCE(or whatever they are calling it now): Microsoft assumes you never need to quit a program, so after you open a few, other PocketPCs run out of memory and slow to a crawl.

The main reason I bought the Ipaq over a palm, though, was the memory, not the color screen and fancy-pants multimedia capabilities, or the ability to play Quake (which it does fine, contrary to speculation here. To me, 64 megs is just enough to store large amounts of writing, my daily downloads of a dozen newspapers, magazines and news sites, my email and contacts, and a few ebooks.

And, of course, the numbers don't lie, and Compaq, with their greater committment to innovation, and basically superior product, is going to eat Palm's lunch.

And Windows for Pocket PC defintely gives ground to Palm's OS in a few usability areas.

But Compaq really put some work into the Ipaq, even making up for some of Microsoft's omissions.

An example? The 'Q' button on the Ipaq. Push it, and up pops a menu with all of your running tasks, which you can switch to, or quit out of. This is both an extremely easy way to navigate the OS, and a way around one of the biggest problems with WinCE(or whatever they are calling it now): Microsoft assumes you never need to quit a program, so after you open a few, other PocketPCs run out of memory and slow to a crawl.

The main reason I bought the Ipaq over a palm, though, was the memory, not the color screen and fancy-pants multimedia capabilities, or the ability to play Quake (which it does fine, contrary to speculation here. To me, 64 megs is just enough to store large amounts of writing, my daily downloads of a dozen newspapers, magazines and news sites, my email and contacts, and a few ebooks.

And, of course, the numbers don't lie, and Compaq, with their greater committment to innovation, and basically superior product, is going to eat Palm's lunch.

PocketNES is the first game to do a good job with on screen controls. Jimmy's J-Five does an even better job, since you can use the stylus for movement, speed, and weapon selection, and the buttons for firing.

PocketQuake is being worked on so it supports the stylus for movement (mlook). The new version with this might be available on Monday, or later this week. Once mlook is implemented, you'd have most Quake movement functionality implemented (just combine it with clever use of the existing buttons). Also, you should be able to use the upcoming iPAQ ThinkOutside and GoType keyboards for the iPAQ (neither is currently available for the iPAQ, but iPAQ compatible versions of each are expected soon).

(Per the developer, Dan East) Monday's release will first address running it from a storage card (right now you can only do that with a patch), and allowing for task switching (right now it doesn't play nice with the CPU and doesn't allow switching to other apps). It might have the mlook feature available by then.

And once it has more speed improvements, it'll be very playable. And then think about enabling the multi-player features with the upcoming 400 Mhz iPAQ (maybe by September). A quick IR game of PocketQuake sound quite possible (not to mention using Wireless Ethernet or Ricochet Wireless 128 Kbps).

And when Palm comes out with their StrongArm Palms, it might be possible to do a port to the platform. But that might take one or two years...