Interstellar Flames progress

[Robotbeat]

Whatever, I don't really care. I just thought it would be nice for MIPS owners. I have both an iPAQ and a Cassiopeia. I am going to get an XScale device when they come out, too.

Another thing, whereas only 10% of PPC owners use MIPS, only about 20% of PPC users actually would consider buying a game like this, and one fourth of that 20% would be MIPS users, since MIPS devices are so game-oriented and marketed. Don't believe me? Just go look on Pocketgamer.org and look when they talk about a game that will be ARM-only (one that is actually worth looking at).

[Robotbeat]

Let's say that about 1/6 of your potential users are MIPS owners. You devote 10% of your time to develop MIPS capability (playability) to an acceptable level. You now have totally made up your time and more. Tell me. Was it worth it?

[Robotbeat]

You don't have to totally rewrite your game in order to add MIPS support. All you have to do is rewrite the 3d routines, which you already know what the basic concept is. Is that going to take you that long, compared to writing the entire game? It seems worth it to me. Also, you won't have your email spammed by MIPS users wanting support.

[randall]

Are you talking to yourself?

I can't tell Simon that bothering with Mips/SH3 support is worth it for this particular title. He already has a successful game, and the numbers are pretty consistent regardless of the genre. So his sales ratio of ARM/Mips is similar to ours and everyone else'.

Do I want a watered down version of Interstellar Flames just so it runs on my e-125? No. That would make about as much sense as id Software creating a 386 version of Quake/QuakeII during its heyday.

I do want the game, but it will wait until I get a PPC2K device. Then I can experience it in its full glory, where he spent the time fine-tuning and making it badass. Instead of wasting endless hours supporting ancient devices.

Yeah, he'll probably get a bajillion requests for "please support my device". But every game has to deal with that- you don't see most PPC developers rushing out to support those endless Palm requests.

Simon is somewhat of a superman anyway- Strategic Assault wasn't released too long ago. So maybe he'll be able to zap out a cool Mips version of Interstellar Flames without too much problem.

[T¹]

[simonjacobs]

[Robotbeat]

I don't think that the MIPS cpus are better, but they aren't that bad. The worst thing is that the MIPS compiler sucks and that, as I just learned from you, MIPS asm is really a pain.

I don't take offense to your remarks about the inferiority of the MIPS processor. It can be made to actually perform almost the same (per clock) as an ARM, if you program it right (basically, using all MIPS asm, which would take you a year or so). However, as you said, memory bandwidth is a very big issue for 3d programming.

Just understand that I totally agree with what you just posted, Randall.

[Paul]

[suchiaruzu]

[Robotbeat]

[Paul]

[Robotbeat]

[simonjacobs]

I've been messing around with computers and programming them for ages. I started on the Spectrum, moved on to the Amiga, then more recently Epoc/Windows/Pocket PC.

I always programmed games for fun, then got a job writing utilities for Epoc machines when I left university, now I'm doing Xen Games full time. Hopefully it will work out.

Simon.

[Paul]

groovy.

[Robotbeat]

"eeeexcellent" (look at your avatars, paul and simon, and say that out loud)