Can Irrlicht Work on the Ipod..?

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:00 am

I have been looking into the development of irrlicht on portable devices and I have found out some interesting links.

http://ipodlinux.org/Modifying_Podzilla
The above link, gives a tutorial on how to make modules for Podzilla OS which may be able to support some form of irrlicht

The Below is another link that may help.
http://microwindows.censoft.com/Nano-XTutorial.html

I think... It may be possible .

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:07 am

It's certainly possible, so if you're interested in porting and maintaining it on any embedded device, go right ahead.

JP · Post by JP » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:08 am

I guess it would only be the software driver it would support right? So the quality would be pretty terrible?

Raedwulf · Post by **Raedwulf** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:13 am

Burning Video's software renderer is pretty good, but fps is pretty bad

.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:37 pm

I guess you could create a new deivce which is capable of handling the ttk stuff. Shouldn't be too much work (if someone donates an IPod I could go for it

)
However, getting good framerates from 75MHz processor would be quite some work. I never used the burningsvideo too much, but it's said to give good framerate on low quality settings (which still looks far better than the old software driver).
Maybe one could make a nice 3d gui for IPods using Irrlicht

Would be cool to see some more results on embedded devices.

SwitchCase · Post by **SwitchCase** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:55 pm

You'd have to strip alot of stuff from irrlicht to make it work and change a hell lot of things. I really don't think the Ipods hardware is sufficent to run an app using Irrlicht.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:07 pm

Don't know if it has an FPU, but you should get at least some FPS without any optimizations other than the compiler offers automatically.

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 10:03 am

I have been looking into the issue and sacraficing large amounts of quality is not all that true, when you look towards the 4G and 5G Ipods. I am in a couple weeks going to get the full source for Podzilla after exams etc, sit down make a small project and then working on porting it. Having had a look at the source in previous times it is based on C not C++, so in terms of that I am not 100% sure. I have played doom and Run a Video on a Ipod Colour or Photo and It has almost no frame latency IMO.

RockBox is another possible option to consider, or even a application that can be picked up by the bootloader that allows irrlicht projects.. It is definatley an area worth looking into.

If you ever download RockBox or Podzilla you will be able to see the 3d demos of the cube etc and it has a ok level of quality.

I have installed 3 OS on my mini and it takes up less than 100mb and in consideration to the issue of space the new space issue, a 30gb Ipod will take it and its not like we are going to make it for any Device less than, that of the Photo or nano.

I would consider RockBox as it seems now to have a lot more devices it is avaliable on some other forms of MP4 and Mp3 players and seems to have a easier development environemnt.

DOOM ON THE NANO:
<img src="http://blog.emaart.net/images/ipod_nano.jpg">

ROCKBOX ON VIDEO:
<img src="http://tinypic.com/qskwm9.jpg">

PODZILLA ON PHOTO I THINK:
<img src="http://www.ipod-club.com/img/zstored/Im ... ux-001.jpg">

PODZILLAS VARIOUS FUNCTONS:
<img src="http://tfmc.blogs.com/ipod_nano_blog/nano_video.jpg">

RockBox Compadible Devices:
http://build.rockbox.org/

JP · Post by JP » Wed Nov 07, 2007 10:09 am

Well if the iPod has a 75MHz processor then you wouldn't expect any problems running Doom on it as Doom ran on 486 PCs which were 33-50MHz. Most irrlicht apps require a little more processing power

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:27 am

Sure, though the compression 1. Would be much greater to work on the files, and 2. To make a Ipod Application FPS would be slower due to the size of the device, though in file size it is not of huge concern.

We should implement a Text to Speech Thing for the Irrklang engine.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 8:57 am

What?
Anyway, RockBox seems to have some more drawing primitives, maybe even an optimized clipping algorithm. So you could even make a RockBox-Irrlicht driver (not just a device). Still, you shouldn't expect a smoothly running 3d app on most of those devices (since many other devices will likely have even slower processors).

Raedwulf · Post by **Raedwulf** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:04 am

What is the resolution of an IPod?

Edit: 320x240

Hmmmm just maybe its possible? It really depends actually-> has anyone managed a 3d app in ipod.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:18 am

The rockbox apps feature a rotating cube build on their triangle drawing methods. No gouraud shading or textures, though, just flat colors.
However, my tests with the DBOX2 were made on a 80 MHz PPC, which seems to be similar hardware. I got only about 1 FPS with some textured, animated cubes and burningsvideo in high quality.

Raedwulf · Post by **Raedwulf** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:01 am

1fps is pretty bad

.

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:00 am

I think you may be able to improve it.. Have a look at the source code present in doom. I know it is different etc. But maybe with the refinement of some textures and dulling the rendering on irrlichts engine.. Cutting out some functions it might just work.