PocketPC Processor Census

[Gregory Torres]

[sponge]

[Digby]

I'm not going to mess around with anything that isn't ARM-based. It's not worth the trouble. The MIPS and SH-3 devices are dead platforms and the numbers will only decrease over time as their users upgrade to the newer ARM devices. Developing for those devices would be like a console developer targeting the Dreamcast for an upcoming game. Not a wise move.

[sponge]

[Jadam]

[sponge]

[Jadam]

[sponge]

[Digby]

I'm just saying what I would do. If you want your game to run on a MIPS/SH-3 device, go ahead and port yourself silly. I suppose a lot of it depends on the requirements of your game. If you're going to be making use of every CPU cycle in order to get real-time 3D graphics on the screen, along with multichannel audio mixing, you are going to need access to whatever device you are planning to target to do performance optimization and work out hardware quirks. Otherwise you're going to be in the Developer Forum asking questions like "Why does the performance suck on <insert oddball device here>?" and "Who knows what GAPI returns for GXIsDisplayDMABuffer on this device?"

There are roughly 30 million more PS2s in the marketplace than Dreamcasts. The number of PS2s will continue to increase. The number of Dreamcasts will not (and will even decrease as they stop working). The analogy with non-ARM Pocket PCs is similar. MIPS and SH3 devices are already dead platforms. There will only be ARM-based Pocket PCs from now on, and these new devices will have better screens and better graphics capabilites. Therefore, I'm saying *for me*, it's a no-brainer. I'm going with ARM-only. You do what you like.

[sponge]

I'm just saying if it's a quick little port to MIPS, go for it, but for something that's full of ASM and hacks and the such, don't bother as MIPS is dead.

[pixelator]