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[traylorpark]

I had a bit of fun the other day 
Sick and tired of being outclassed by everyone else's cool computers at Starbucks, I decided to go for maximum pretentious!

Dwarf Fortress running on an Open Pandora!



I always thought it would be so cool to have a portable version of DF that I could play as I move about the day (I take a lot of trains and stuff). Something about having a little fort in your hands strangely makes the experience a lot more personal, probably a sentiment a lot of people have with portable games.

This recently became possible with x86 emulation software for ARM that ran at near native speed, called Exagear. Before this, as far as I know, the only option was QEMU, and it wasnt the fastest bit of software.

Of course, while the Pandora is an extremely capable Linux machine, it is lacking in brute strength. The processor is a dated Arm Cortex A8 overclocked from 1Ghz to 1.2 (comparable to an iPhone 4 regards to hardware).

On a tiny 1x1 embark, within the first year (before any immigrants) the game runs between 10 and 20 FPS, while inputting commands jumps back up to 100 FPS. It's certainly playable, just with a bit more waiting for stuff to happen. Hopefully I can keep the micro fort size (I've limited my pop size to as small as I can get it, lets see what that does) and keep the FPS as high as possible.

I did try running it through the terminal itself in "text rendering" mode. The frame rate was much higher, but visual elements were missing. I don't have enough experience with that yet to know how to solve it.

Despite the slow speed, I'm at least enjoying the novelty of having a little fortress in my pocket that I can pull out anytime, and slaughter some yaks, while waiting for the train.

[Orange Wizard]

That's pretty awesome.

[Tawa]

That is pure genius.

I envy you.

[lordpyridine]

How fast does adventure mode run? Because I really want one of those now, if only for roguelikes and psx games.

[BigD145]

I completely forgot about Pandora. Very cool. I sometimes play DF on my Android tablet using TeamViewer and my desktop at home, assuming I have wifi access. Trying to find a folding bluetooth keyboard with F keys and ten key pad has been the biggest hurdle for gaming like that. They are usually $50+. FloatNSplit is a pretty good on screen keyboard with ten key support. Good for adventure mode.

[draeath]

How fast does adventure mode run? Because I really want one of those now, if only for roguelikes and psx games.

My angband itch is... itching again.

[King_of_Baboons]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

Imagine if a DF fan saw you playing this!IMAGINE THE ENVY!!!

[mifki]

Maybe Sony UX series then? Or Fujitsu Lifebook U810...

[Graknorke]

That's impressive. Mostly useless, but impressive.

[traylorpark]

That's impressive. Mostly useless, but impressive.

Ho Ho! Useless eh? Well, I managed to recover the body of a fellow dorf from a stagnant pool of water with a screw pump after he was killed by a roving band of wolves - while waiting for the train. 



Actually, I am keenly aware of the FPS difference between this platform and normal PC. I'm balancing this by setting up BitTorrent Sync to sync the save files between the Pandora and my home computer.

For sure the simulation is quite slow, but sometimes there is a lot of overhead, like militia and job assignments that don't need simulation to be worked out. I can input those commands just fine. When I get back to my home computer, I can do the tasks that require more simulation.

And of course, I am limited to micro forts, with a 1x1 embark, and I am terrified by the idea of migrants pouring in. After a couple more game years, I might be over this novelty.

How fast does adventure mode run? Because I really want one of those now, if only for roguelikes and psx games.

I havent tried adventure mode yet. I am going to guess that miiiiiight be too slow for fun. I'll update when I give it a shot! There are a ton of other roguelikes on this thing though. Just check out the Pandora repo http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=all&search=rogue (nethack is there too) Of course, the main problem with these is that, naturally, the Pandora's screen is quite small ... that could be a deterrent. PSX emulation is really nice! Double resolution and almost always full frame rate without frame skip. Just saw a major performance update as well.

I'd be happy to take some screen shots of apps if folks are curious.

I completely forgot about Pandora. Very cool. I sometimes play DF on my Android tablet using TeamViewer and my desktop at home, assuming I have wifi access. Trying to find a folding bluetooth keyboard with F keys and ten key pad has been the biggest hurdle for gaming like that. They are usually $50+. FloatNSplit is a pretty good on screen keyboard with ten key support. Good for adventure mode.

Maybe Sony UX series then? Or Fujitsu Lifebook U810...

It would be great if other folks could try and and share pictures of their portable, Dwarf Fortress!

[Rince Wind]

Aw, you are in Japan. I miss those vending machines, especially the coffee ones.

[unknown zombie]

This makes me wonder if it's possible to get it running on an Android device.. Would be pretty sweet to play DF on my phone with Bluetooth mouse/keyboard..

[Graknorke]

I think a phone would really be pushing it. The Open Pandora (which I totally am going to get one of some day) is pretty beefy for a handheld device and it struggles still.

[unknown zombie]

I don't know if it would be much worse than the laptop I'm used to playing on now, which is a 2.1 GHz AMD (single core) with 1 GB of DDR 400 RAM..

I play 4×4 embarks on that laptop and get about 10 fps on average with 120-ish dwarves. So I'm used to waiting around for things to get done..

For contrast, my Galaxy S4 is 1.8 GHz (ARM, ofc) with 2 GB (dunno what speed) RAM.

[Graknorke]

DF only uses a single core though, so it's not something that would count against performance.