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Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 04 Dec 2006, 13:14
by C01eMaN
hey guys ive recently got myself a cheap second hand xbox... i decided to softmod it so i could play homebrew on it...
i got to "the usual places..." and i discovered that there was a lot of games that had been ported from pc to the xbox...
which brings me to my question...

is there any chance u will port this to xbox?

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 04 Dec 2006, 17:23
by DevUrandom
If the XBox supports OpenGL, there is a SDL and OpenAL port for it and so on, then there is a chance that one day someone comes to port it. But there stays the problem with the controler. You'd have to limit the control currently possible with mouse and keyboard a lot... Don't think that this is worth it. So I don't think there will ever be something which limits Warzone in one or the other way. (eg input) If the XBox supports mouse+keyboard, then this won't be an issue of course.
But generally I'd say that the chances for such a port are low. And we would only be able to support a specific console for some time (versions), as the power of PCs increases, while that of a specific console stays the same. (So we wouldn't be able to add new things like effects, advanced AI, etc. if we would decide to continue support for a console for too long.)

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 05 Dec 2006, 22:34
by kage
it seems doubtful that xbox has anything but some modified directx support, but i can't be sure. in any case though, opengl, openal, and sdl aren't limiting factors: if you are interested enough to want to develop *native* xbox port for wz 2100, there's nothing stopping you from putting back in support for directx, etc.

as i recall, though, xbox does have usb support, in which case, i think the easiest thing would be to run linux on the xbox (check out xbox-linux.org -- mouse and keyboard support would not be an issue, however they haven't implemented hardware-accelerated opengl as of yet (only software mode, thus far).

i agree with dev, though: the controller would be a very big problem for making a port -- if you *can* use a usb mouse and keyboard in native xbox games to full effect, this poses no issue, but if not, and you do manage to implement a controller scheme that works out pretty well, if you play a multiplayer game against someone using a mouse and keyboard while you're using the xbox controller, you will get slaughtered, regardless of the skill involved (just like that short period when halo for the pc could play in the same multiplayer games as halo for the xbox -- noobs on the pc were slaughtering tournament vets on the xbox).

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 06 Dec 2006, 01:03
by C01eMaN
oh well it was an idea maybe one day someone will decide to port it heres hoping...


sorta off topic:
on other notes tho... in quake 3 for xbox it has keyboard support and i think q3 is running off opengl but im not %100 sure im trying to get in contact with the guy that ported it... and maybe convince him to release the source

EDIT:

just found a playstation emulator so ill be playing my psx version of warzone on ma xbrick... hehe should be funny

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 07 Dec 2006, 03:12
by kage
best of luck to you on that -- if you know of native games that use a mouse and keyboard and run on open gl, then there's a pretty low path of resistance to making a port... come to think of it, i think i have heard stories of users plugging their standard usb keyboards into an xbox for various reasons -- it might be worth investigating, because it really wouldn't be too hard at that point (for someone familiar with the xbox hardware, system interface, etc). there is, also, the side benefit of bringing a lot of attention to our modest little game when people realize they can get another free game for xbox (and not many people port stuff to game consoles compared to "computer" architecture ports).

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 08 Dec 2006, 00:09
by DevUrandom
One more thing one should look at before starting to port: Does the XBox has any limits in ressources, memory-management, whateva? (Like the PSX version of WZ seemed to limit the engine a lot, eg. a FRACT type was needed, because the PSX didn't support floats.) And: How long till the XBox will be so outdated that Warzone (with the new features) doesn't run on it anymore smoothly?

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 08 Dec 2006, 07:47
by kage
DevUrandom wrote: (Like the PSX version of WZ seemed to limit the engine a lot, eg. a FRACT type was needed, because the PSX didn't support floats.)
iirc, the psx used an arm processor, and those generally are very slow with floating point numbers -- suffice it to say, the programmers could've used a float type (even if it was emulated, as is the case on some arm processors), but it's a whole lot faster to use something integer based.
DevUrandom wrote: And: How long till the XBox will be so outdated that Warzone (with the new features) doesn't run on it anymore smoothly?
i don't really see that as a good reason not to make a port -- it'd be the same as asking "what about all the people with pc's that are currently capable of running warzone but aren't good enough for the features we have planned?"

one of the main graphical improvements created by the dev team (shadows) can be turned off, presumably decreasing performance when off. if most new graphical features can be turned off, then it's not really any issue, since, at least the graphics can eventually improve past where they are now (on the xbox, you don't see many titles come back and offer patches that increase the graphics), and hopefully, most of those features can be turned off

say we eventually add fluid physics: rain falls down, hits a hill, and begins to flow down to lower ground... then we make that effect interact with gameplay: the hill becomes muddy, and tanks rolling across it might slide down as they drive over it, and going uphill to attack an enemy base is considerably more difficult in a rainstorm than it already would have been -- in either of these cases, the visual effect of water flowing down a hill could still be turned off, while still providing the gameplay interaction, and even the "slide calculations" could be done server side in a multiplayer game (which is ideal - too much client side and people cheat, and the only effective anti-cheat protection is making the client entirely unauthoritative), further lightening the load on the client in some cases.

there might, of course, be some graphical/gameplay improvements that can't be turned off, such as replacing the tile system with a nice free-flowing mesh -- there's no way to effectively make this work again as a tile system, and the processing power would go up.

so indeed, whether or not this game eventually has half-life 3 style graphics, we should try to make as much of it as possible old-hardware friendly, in which case, the xbox would be viable for some time: the xbox is far more capable than the minimum computer needed to play this game originally, and unless something has changed, afaik, the dev project enhancements, with shadowing off, should be perfectly playable on the same machines as could play it when it was still closed-source.

Re: Warzone 2100 on XBOX

Posted: 18 May 2009, 23:26
by zereoin
Hey, I'm new to the forums. Love playing warzone. I want to have lans with my friends. I was wondering if it would work to just put linux on some old xboxs and link them together. I know that xbox controlers use usb interfaces so you can just switch the ports for usb ports.
If we use xboxs we don't need to worry about system requirments or firewalls and stuff.
Would this work as an alternitive to emulating it?

I don't know anything about networks but I'm going to check this out elsewhere and see what I can find out.