The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Maybe it's been discussed before but today I was thinking that this 3DO version of star control 2 is practically begging to be ported to the playstation.

I don't know much about coding for playstation but there's got to be someone out there who knows it inside out and also happens to be a huge star control 2 fan.

If it came into existence this would be the best playstation game of all time!

oooh...or even....a 3do port!  Oh wait....nevermind :)

Much more practical: Dreamcast.  It can run CD-Rs without modification, and Linux has already been ported to it.  There's even some early VMU support for saving games.

Seems like the only significant hurdle is the limited RAM, and maybe the lack of a keyboard (how did the 3DO handle that?).

Then again, Linux does run on the PSX, too...

--
Dum de dum.

The 3D0 handled things alright, my friend has one still, I played the Zelda game on it the other night. He doesn't have Star Control 2 unfortunetly he's not much of a gamer. Loser.

Hopefully there will be ports to many a system, but it is a free project afterall. I've been looking for a way to get Star Control series again after losing it so long ago :( :(

Heh, I still own my 3DO and have SCII.  The controls worked very well actually, but I'm off my point.

The 3DO only had 2 (technically 3) megs of ram on board.  Playstation only has 2 megs, but Dreamcast has at least 16 megs of RAM if I remember correctly.. (or was it 32.. bah, I'll look it up later.) Thing you have to remember is that this is not a terribly RAM intensive game.  Being that the 3DO version was meant to be run on a console, very little of the content is actually held in RAM at any given time, because it's constantly being swapped out.  Sure, having more RAM means less seek time on the CD, but it's not entirely neccesary.

Anyway, Once the code is done, it should be relatively easy to port to the DC, as the DC runs Windows CE.  They do make a keyboard and mouse for the DC too and best of all, they're really cheap.  Keyboard is like $15.00 USD and the mouse is like $12.00 (if that).  In any case, I'm sure the controls can be mapped to the DC controllers as well without alot of pain.

It's a neat idea, but I'm sure it's WAY on the backburner for our trusty Dev folks... I'm sure they would prefer to just get the code  as near to 100% as possible before trying to port it to yet another system.

You can still get a 3DO on ebay, but they're not that cheap.  Still running around $130.00 or so.  Sometimes you can find them cheaper, but not often.  Dreamcasts are still everywhere, fortunately, and they're dirt cheap.

Okay, enough blathering..

Arcain

Been there... done that. Sort of.. :)

I have the latest CVS code compiled and running under PlayStation 2 Linux using SDL.

It plays mostly okay. Graphics are a little slow in places, as I haven't been able to get UQM's OpenGL stuff to compile with PS2GL. (PS2GL is an OpenGL-like AP for the PlayStation 2)

The audio is working pretty well, though I get some pops and clicks when there are heavy graphics redraws or disk I/O. I imagine memory is a problem as well, as the PlayStation 2 is fixed at a whopping 32MB of RAM. ;)

I expect these problems will improve as UQM nears 1.0 and I figure out PS2GL and perhaps tweak my PS2 Linux for some more performance.

Keep up the good work everyone!!! :)

- Twilight1

I asusme you did this recently, and that you are not running a debug build?  (The debug build is noticably slower than doing a release build). There was work done last week on the new draw-queue, which reduces memory usage by 10-20 MB (hovers around 20MB in windows now).  Also, the new sound mixer (mixsdl) is much nicer than SDL_mixer, and will give you the o'scope and slider functionality, plus it would be nice to get it tested on non x86 architectures too :)

A Playstation port would be one of the Greatest Things to happen to the playstation!!  Ah what a great day that would be....

*dreams of playing Star-Control 2 on his playstation....

Yup. I was running from the CVS tree, snapshot taken on 20030124. I can't remember if I was running a debug or release build at the time; I built them both.

However, now that the weekend is here I have some time to play with it some more. :)

I'll move this thread over to the Technical Issues forum since it will be more suited there.

BTW, as I write this, I have been running a release build on the PS2, watching two awesome cyborgs with balanced teams go at it with each other. From my initial observations, it doesn't look like memory is a problem. I noticed that every time there was a sound dropout or pop, there was HDD I/O going on. Otherwise, it's looking (and sounding) great! (Dodo! Jerk! Moron!  :D )

See ya in the tech forum... where I will give ya some juicy details. :)

- Twilight1

Don't worry, there aren't any real Squaresoft fans left.  No one I know has liked a Final Fantasy game since 7.

For my own benefit, describe to me the problems with the PS2.

I have a Dreamcast, and I haven't felt the need to buy a PS2...

It's all marketing.PS2 is not that good.

I haven't done the research, so I don't really know enough to rebut your arguments.  All in all, they seem pretty coherent--if bitter.  I do have a question, though--a lot of your comments have to do with graphics and high technology.  If that's so important, why are you still playing Star Control?

I think the only way you'll ever be able to play Star Control II on a PlayStation 2/Dreamcast/X-box is by modifying the console to run linux and then load it through that.

I was going to feed the troll, but decided better of it. ;D

As for porting, yes, a mod chip would definitely be necessary.  Although would a method of putting the game on a CD and saving to the hard drive be feasible?  Ports to the DC/Saturn wouldn't be that hard, then.

Cyamarin,

I think the reason everybody is still playing StarControl 2 it's because of the playability (or replay value).

Today's games are all about show off, great grafics, Super AA anisotropic Hipersampled Shadow Fx engines  ;). Most of the times, game companies forget the main goal of a game... wich is to entertain.

My point precisely.  I have a PS2 'cause I like the games.

Well, backward compatibility is nice too.