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Great, FREE Carmageddon clone Death Drive out - a must have!

Thanks to great German multiplatform mobile gaming site PocketGaming.de, which were first to report on the latest “made in Russia” game Death Drive, I've also given a try to the brand new, great Carmageddon / Destruction Derby / Twisted Metal / Death Rally clone, which has just been released for the Pocket PC. That is, unlike what the title suggests, it's not a "plain" Carmageddon clone - it's just that the title length is limited and had only place for one title. That is, it's pretty much like Handy Entertainment’s Dreamway and Garga Games’ Ganxta Race on the Pocket PC - but all in 3D, unlike these 2D games.
The game uses the same Voxel technology used in, for example, the Comanche series, which, at its time (in 1992), was a real breakthrough on PC gaming with its (compared to alternative technologies) excellent speed and visuals. The speed advantage is present on the Pocket PC too - the game is pretty playable on, with today's standards, low-end Pocket PC's and has no problems on VGA devices either.
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The homepage of Gajon Entertainment’s new game is here (BabelFish “translation” here; a related article & comments (Babelfish here) and thread (both in Russian) ).
The company mostly develops for other platforms (most importantly, the PC and the PowerTV set-top box) and this is their first Pocket PC conversion. Despite this (and the fact that it’s free), it is a VERY mature product - actually, it's even better than MANY commercial Pocket PC games. This also applies to the English of the game – it’s all in English with no, say, Russian leftovers.
Availability
The direct download is here (original Gajon Entertainment page; may be slow to download) and here (very fast PocketGaming.de back-end).
Installation
Un-RAR (with, for example, WinRAR or the free (!) and highly recommended (its proprietary 7-zip compression is about 15% better than even the compression rate of RAR!) 7-zip) and copy the deathdrive_hires directory to your PDA. Execute DeathDrivePPC2003.exe inside to start the game.
Compatibility
It had no problems with my following Pocket PC’s:
WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v (A12)
WM5 VGA HP iPAQ hx4700. Unfortunately, the D-Pad-based controls in the game can’t be redefined and the movement can’t be controlled by the stylus; therefore, on the hx4700, you’ll want to use an external Bluetooth gaming pad
WM2003SE VGA Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720
WM2003 QVGA HP iPAQ h2210 (it was clearly slower on it than on the first three devices)
On my non-overclocked HTC Wizard, it was pretty slow. If you don’t plan to overclock, just disable the mirror, the engine sounds and the minimap in the Setup menu – then, it becomes pretty usable. With overclocking to 240 MHz, you don't need to do this - then, the game becomes pretty playable.
While the game is advertised as PPC2k2-compatible, it isn’t (there’s no PPC2k2-compliant executable). This is certainly bad news for PPC2k2 users.
Note that, up to now, I've received two reports of it not working on Samsung CPU-based models (HP iPAQ rx1950 , HTC TyTN etc) and haven't received any success stories on these CPU's. That is, you may too have problems with the game if you have a Samsung-based model.
Gameplay
Please read the above-linked Wiki pages to read all about it. It's a combination of the listed games
My personal remarks: Much as the game, at first, seems to be rather boring for non-Carmageddon / Desctruction Derby etc.-fans (including me), taken into account all the game / tournament options, weapon upgrades and so on, it becomes pretty fun.
Control
Unfortunately, it can only be controlled with the D-Pad and, if present, a dedicated jog dial. Unfortunately, it doesn't support SmartSKey, the great "make your volume slider of previous-generation WM5-based HTC phones to a jog dial" hack either, which is bad news for example for HTC Universal / Wizard users.
If you don't have a (dedicated) jog dial, you'll welcome the fact that the weapon key (the Action button, which can't be reassigned) is "sticky" and you'll end up having to re-press it few times.
Note that while some state it can also be controlled with stylus (just like GeorallyEX or Handy Entertainment’s Dreamway and Garga Games’ Ganxta Race, this is definitely not the case.
Visuals
For a free game, I’d say it’s excellent. OK, there’s no 2700G support or VGA hi-resolution, but you can’t expect much of a FREE game, can you? (Note that many state it's hi-res on VGA devices. This is not the case.)
The game uses (right-handed) landscape orientation; this can’t be changed (bad news for users of devices with bad landscape polarization or left-handedness).
Sounds & music
As far as in-game sounds are concerned: for a free game, they’re excellent. Probably the biggest problem is the engine sound: there are only two engine sounds for “slow” and “fast” speed; this can be pretty misleading when you don’t pay attention to the speedometer. Fortunately, it can be disabled in the Options menu.
Unfortunately, there’s no in-game / menu music.
Verdict
This game has set a new standard for freeware Pocket PC games and is a must. Go get it!
UPDATE (11/06/2006): some updates to the article; a link to the PocketPlayers.de review published in the meantime.

Game is kinda fun but how in heck do you exit it?

Press the Email button. If it doesn't work, try tohe othe rhardware buttons

does not start on my htc hermes!

sebi112 said:
does not start on my htc hermes!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1, Did you copy all the files?
2, did you try a soft reset before running?

yes i copied all the files a also did a softreset. when i start the game i just get a file called debug in the gamdirectory. nothing else happens!

Menneisyys said:
1, Did you copy all the files?
2, did you try a soft reset before running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have completed thart first race so many times and I still get no points and no cash despite it saying complete. What gives?

sebi112 said:
yes i copied all the files a also did a softreset. when i start the game i just get a file called debug in the gamdirectory. nothing else happens!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you ask fellow Samsung (Hermes) users to test the game? It seems the game is incompatible with the Samsung CPU.

Updated version posted

UPDATE (11/17/2006): Jim Karpen’s related article may also be of interest.
Many users have reported (see for example this, this, this and this) it wouldn’t switch to next tracks in Tournament mode and/or wouldn’t add money to the account.
Some people (see for example this) say you must install it to the main memory to fix this problem.
I’ve thoroughly tested the tournament mode on my x51v in three cases (game copied to the root of the built-in storage of the device, the root of the SD card and a subdirectory on the card); all three worked OK with me.
However, if you do encounter problems like the above, try copying the game to the main storage of your PPC to see whether it helps.

Artemis almost perfect for it
Driving with the scroll wheel on the Artemis would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that the car turns the opposite direction you are turning the scroll wheel. I wish there was some way to change that! Otherwise, I guess I will just have to train myself as though I were backing up!!!!

sebi112 said:
yes i copied all the files a also did a softreset. when i start the game i just get a file called debug in the gamdirectory. nothing else happens!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same behaviour in my htc tytn.
dont work
if somebody wants to know, the debug file created has the following data (without quotes):
" Log > open
(release)
"

HTC TyTN - Samsung CPU not supported
Folks with HTC TyTN/Hermes/O2 XDA/QTEK 9600 can commit suicide, because this game does not work on Samsung CPU processors. Unfortunatly author of this game is not able to cooperate with developers to fix this problem or even let us know which graphical engine is used.
I believe problem is in the graphic engine which is using specific processor instructions in ASM which are not supported by Samsung CPU

Ever wanted to play Nebulus on Windows Mobile? The Nebulus Roundup

I don’t think I need to introduce Nebulus to anyone older than, say, 30-35 years – it was one of the best games written by no one else than Hewson (later: Graftgold), the developer of other, similarly nice titles as Paradroid and Uridium; two really excellent home computer games (and, as you can except from any Hewson titles, it was blazingly fast on the Commodore 64). If you really don’t know the genre, I REALLY recommend you download the desktop version HERE, unzip it to any directory on your desktop’s hard disk, start toppler.exe and engage playing. I also recommend this add-on MP3 file - just copy it in the home directory of the game and (re)start it. I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.
Now that [email protected] has just released their Nebulus clone Towers Tricks, I’ve found it important to finally publish a full (!) roundup of Nebulus ports on Windows Mobile, particularly because there is a REAL, free gem almost noone has ever heard of; that is, n0p’s Tower Toppler port.
n0p’s Tower Toppler
First and foremost, the first port you should give a try to is the Windows Mobile port of the well-known Tower Toppler project.
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The game has been ported to Windows Mobile by noone else than n0p, who is really famous for some of his other ports; for example, Genesis Plus/Pocket PC, PocketSNES, DOSBox and Stratagus – four well-known emulators. (DO check out his homepage and Google for user remarks on the other stuff he’s ported to Windows Mobile!)
This port is, in my opinion, the best available Nebulus clone. After downloading the new, ARM version, decompress it (WinRAR will handle the .7z file just fine). If you decompress it on the desktop and, then, transfer the files to your PDA, make sure you transfer the uncompressed files to your PDA directly, via ActiveSync (with either File Explorer or the WinCE file system plug-in of Total Commander). Then, just run toppler.exe.
Otherwise, if you copy the files to a storage card in a card reader and try to run toppler.exe, the game will not run and will display a (null) message at the top as can also be seen in here. This is caused by the file copying’ automatically converting all files to uppercase characters. You can only fix this by renaming all (but at least m1 – it contains the first few maps) .ttm files to their lowercase equivalents from either Resco File Explorer (after letting it display file extensions too) or Total Commander, both run on the PDA. This requires a lot of work (you need to manually rename all files); therefore, whenever possible, try using the ActiveSync-based file copy method I’ve explained above.
The game runs just great; the only problem is that you can’t directly enter the map code in the Options dialog on a device without a built-in keyboard (devices with built-in keyboards work just great; I’ve tested this on my Wizard), should you want to jump to a map directly. Then, you will want to add a row (or edit it, if it’s already in there) in the file .toppler.rc containing
password: "cxt"
where change cxt to the map code you’d like to jump to.
Also note that you can freely delete / hide the .ttm map files as you wish. Should you want to get rid of the first few maps, get rid of m1.ttm and so on. You can also see what maps are contained in a given file by quickly peeking in them; they contain the map names also displayed at the start of each map.
I haven’t encountered any problems on any of my test devices (x51v, hx4700 WM5 2.01, Universal, WM2003 iPAQ 2210, HTC Wizard etc.) running the game.
The Windows Mobile version doesn’t differ much from the desktop version – other than it doesn’t make use of high-resolution of (W)VGA devices. But, at least, it’s really quick and responsive – even on “slow” TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile models (for example, the HTC Wizard) running at the factory default 195 MHz. The other titles in this roundup (particularly the Palm OS Nebulus) exhibit quite remarkable choppiness at lower CPU speeds.
Note that while the desktop version is able to initiate playing back the in-game music (conveniently offered as a downloadable add-on MP3 file), the Windows Mobile version is unable to make use of it. However, you can play it back in any player in the background, it won’t have any bad effect on the gameplay or the in-game sounds. This isn’t the case with the other two titles, however.
(P.S. I’d like to thank AximSite forum member DaLabrador for pointing out the n0p port has a filename capitalization problem.)
Towers Tricks
The second title you may want to check out is [email protected]’s brand new Nebulus-alike Towers Tricks. Unlike the other two titles, it’s not trying to mimic the original Nebulus as closely as possible. While the towers are exactly the same, the sprites and the background are different and there are weather effects (fortunately, the latter can be switched off).
A unique feature of the game is that it’s compatible with ALL the available operating systems – yes, even PPC2k2 and, yeah, MIPS / SH3 PPC2k! Note that while the game is compatible with even MIPS / SH3-based, very old Pocket PC 2000 models, you probably won’t want to play the game on these devices (unless you have an E-750 overclocked to 290 MHz) – it’ll be far too slow (yes, I’ve tested this on my 150 MHz E-125). Unfortunately, the same stands for the 206 MHz StrongARM-based PPC2k2 iPAQ 36xx series: the game runs pretty slow, even when overclocked to 236 MHz. On my other test Pocket PC’s (400 MHz PXA255 HP iPAQ 2210, HTC Wizard with dynamically scaled CPU speed, Dell Axim x51v), it runs OK. Speaking of the Wizard, with the CPU speed at the factory default of 195 MHz, it’s still playable, but stutters now and them.
Incidentally, the game initially sold at $19.95. At that price, I wouldn’t have recommended it at all. The price was reduced to a much more friendly $9.95. While I still recommend n0p’s free Tower Toppler to it, at this price, you may also ant to give it a test ride.
Note that the game doesn’t utilize the high resolution of VGA devices – as is the case with the n0p port.
Finally,
The Palm OS version of Nebulus run under the StyleTap Palm emulator
If you already have these two pieces of software, your Windows Mobile device is powerful enough (after all, emulation needs a lot of CPU power) and you don’t want to take a look at the alternatives (you should, most importantly to the free and very cool n0p port!). With the current version (v1.0.025) of StyleTap, the REAL Palm OS emulator for Windows Mobile, the game is running OK too.
A remark to VGA users: you will want to use the hi-res Palm OS 5 version (Nebulus_PalmOS_5.prc) instead of the low-res POS 3/4 one(s). Note that you must switch the emulator to 66% screen mode so that you won’t have graphics problems during emulation.
A quick chart
Verdict
As I’ve emphasized, I think you will want to give a try to the n0p port first. It’s free, fast, doesn’t chew through your batteries and is a perfect remake of the original Nebulus.

Isotope244 (Acky’s XP Breakout etc.) releases beta of GREAT RTS game Machines at War

Many game buffs know the name of Isotope244, the developer of Acky’s XP Breakout, the, in my opinion, (particularly music-wise) best Breakout clone for Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s.
Their latest development is an Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game, Machines at War, promised to be released in a week and already having a public beta HERE.
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((Q)VGA Pocket PC / Smartphone)
(176*220 Smartphone)
I’ve thoroughly tested the game and found it, apart from some problems (of which I’ll later elaborate on), definitely better than the two other native (!) RTS games for the Pocket PC, Warfare Incorporated and Argentum.
(Here, I don’t count in the Age of Empires port; neither do I take emulation into account. Just keep in mind that some early RTS games like Dune II can be very well emulated under even free (!) MS-DOS emulators on the Pocket PC and Smartphone. See THIS for more information on all this. Note that there are a lot of other “ancient” home computer / console platforms with early RTS games too; of them, however, you’ll want to prefer mouse-based ones like the above-mentioned MS-DOS emulators, the Amiga and the Atari ST emulators. See my emulation-related articles for more information. You might also want to give a try to n0p’s Stratagus & Wargus port to play, say, Warcraft II.)
As usual, instead of publishing a full tutorial to the game (just start playing the title and you’ll very quickly learn how to play it), I publish several tricks & tips, mostly in the extensive Comparison & Feature Chart.
What makes this game good?
First, great news for MS Smartphone (WM Standard) users: it runs on all kinds of Smartphones – even on low-end, 176*220 ones. Regardless of the lack of the touch screen, it’s pretty much playable even on these platforms – particularly, if you have a Smartphone with a built-in QWERTY keyboard. If you define keyboard shortcuts (in which this title is exceptionally good at) for, for example, group assignment / recall, you can really quickly operate even without a stylus.
There are some welcome additions missing from even desktop-based strategy games (for example, deploying the same building multiple times with a simple stylus drag (or, on Smartphones, D-Pad + hold down left softkey) operation, parallel unit production in parallel factories with little stylus (D-pad + left softkey on Smartphones) usage, really good stats (see the “Stats” row in the Chart for some screenshots to see how freaking good they are) or the ability to select any number of units at the same time. For example, Starcraft, probably the best RTS of all times on desktop Windows, lacks all of these features.
It allows for grouping units – only Argentum allows for this (and, of course, Starcraft) – Warfare doesn’t. What is more, you can even use hardware buttons / keys to quickly access these groups – which is particularly nice with devices having a built-in keyboard, which the game makes full use of (along with the traditional Pocket PC / Smartphone keys like red/green phone buttons, softkeys, volume buttons, home / back buttons on the Smartphone and app buttons on the Pocket PC).
It has full keyboard / button redefinition support. In this respect, it’s FAR better than anything else.
Graphically, the game is MUCH prettier than Warfare. Explosions are great, so are trails. Damage done to the terrain is visible throughout all the game – no other PPC RTS game offers this (and not even Starcraft, of course.)
Last but not least, the developer is REALLY open to discussions and requests. This means the bullets listed in the “Bad” section below may soon be last year's snow.
The bad
Currently, there’s no multiplayer support; albeit, the developer promised he will look into implementing it if the game sells well
If you only have a 176*220 Smartphone, some of the texts / explanations will be pretty hard to read (see for example the “Tech tree” screenshots in the Chart).
There is (still?) no multiplayer support, unlike with Warfare (and, of course, Starcraft)
The lack of Attack-move is a real pain in the back (as is with the two other native RTS titles – see the “Attack-Move (instead of simple move)” row in the “Unit movement & selection” section). Hope the developer fixes this – I’ve been discussing this issue with him in several mails. Incidentally, there are no Patrol and waypoint functionalities (see the “Patrol?” row) either.
Also, the game, currently (the developer also promised he will look into this) lacks automatic moving to position and answering to fire upon an attack to a very closely placed, friendly unit. In this respect, both Starcraft and Warfare Incorporated are far better – unless the units in the former are explicitly ordered to Hold, in which case they in no way will leave their position to answer fire out of their range.
The comparison / feature chart
It’s available HERE. As usual, it’s a MUST to check it out. Also make sure you check out the (several) screenshots linked from the chart – I’ve made a lot to show examples of what I speak of.
As I’ve already explained the meaning of most of the rows in the chart, I don’t elaborate on it any more. If you don’t understand something or need help with a specific issue, let me know, though.
Quick note for QVGA (as opposed to 176*220) Smartphone users
By default, as of the current beta (I’m pretty sure the problem will be fixed in the final, commercial version), the game runs in 176*220 mode. To switch this to QVGA (and to use the standard PPC GUI), you’ll need THIS file. (Right-click to download as it’s an XML file – don’t left-click it!) Just copy it into the home directory of your game, overwriting the old one.
Verdict
Without doubt, this title is by far the best and most promising title. A must, particularly if you “only” have a MS Smartphone (that is, without any other real RTS titles). I really hope it does receive multiplayer support, attack-move functionality and a way to disable the default ‘hold’ setting for units.

UPDATE (06/30/2007):
version 0.91 out with a LOT of enhancements and bug fixes, most of them are in direct response to my suggestions. This means the majority of my grieves with the game (for example, the lack of attack+move mode) are no longer topical. Please see the list of enhancements on the product feedback page.
PPCT frontpage.

REVIEW: Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer add-on

I’ve long been promising a real review of the multiplayer add-on (available HERE for download; just install it on top of your existing CoD2 install) of Call of Duty 2, the Windows Mobile port of the desktop classic, reviewed for example HERE.
(A quick note: please make sure you check out the Windows Mobile Multiplayer Bible for more information. In this review, I will NOT explain what for example Wi-Fi p2p or IP-based multiplayer means.)
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(screenshot taken on an x51v with the 2700G GPU. A screenshot of the opposing player (taken on a Pocket Loox 720 without hardware graphics acceleration; hence the much worse graphics quality) is HERE. A screenshot of the status window, showing the names, frags and pings of each player – here, with four players, each having the model name of the Pocket PC it used (I've explicitly set this).)
The main menu
The main menu , of course, contains server hosting capabilities and joining the game as a client. Setting the username allows for setting an intelligible username to be used (instead of “Unknown soldier”) - hee, 'x51v' (after the model name of my Dell Axim x51v). Finally, Game options sets the usual stuff already known in the single player version (1 2). Note that Smartphone defaults only refers to the built-in keyboard, not the MS Smartphone (WM Standard) platform, which the game is completely incompatible with – as opposed to the PPC defaults (which only uses the standard hardware buttons and D-pad). Finally, Credits, as you may have already guessed, doesn’t contain much of interest.
Connection model
LAN (with the server even hosted on one of the PPC’s) and central server-based Internet. That is, pretty flexible and good, particularly when compared to solutions only using one of these approaches.
Hosting the game on the PPC
While there’s a desktop server (screenshot HERE – as you’ll see, it’s exactly the same GUI as with the PPC version), unlike with some other PPC multiplayer games, you won’t really have performance problems if you elect to run the server on one of your Pocket PC’s. This will be of particular importance if you elect to use Wi-Fi p2p connections strictly between Pocket PC’s, not involving any kind of Internet connection or desktop PC’s.
Setting up a game is pretty straightforward: you select the connectivity type (either LAN or Internet), the game type (deathmatch or team deathmatch), score and time limit, the name of the game, an optional password (which may be important with public Internet games to keep unwanted people out), the map, whether friendly fire is allowed and the max. number of players:
After the server has been started (when you press OK in the above dialog), you go through exactly the same dialogs as the clients joining the game: first, you select your team (either the allied forces or Germans) and, then, select your weapons (HERE are the allied and HERE the German weapons available, they can always be quickly swapped in the game).
Clients simply select the game they’d like to connect (the LAN and the Internet mode is, of course, separate and you need to select the correct one to see the server / hosted game) and click OK on the client connection interface:
After this, they need to select a team and a (starting) weapon and off you go.
The good
No noticeable lag over Wi-Fi p2p (LAN) connections (this won’t necessarily be the case over lagging Internet connections though), not even with slow PPC's (like the TI OMAP-based Wizard) participating and/or four Pocket PC's playing each other
You can play MP games with the same copy installed on two (or even more) Pocket PC’s (unlike some other games like 4connect’s Great Gold Rush)
(Via Wi-Fi p2p) stable connections, I’ve encountered very few connection drops during gaming
When playing LAN games, it uses multicast for discovery: no IP entry necessary
When playing Internet games, it uses a central negotiating server, which means no IP entry necessary either - and firewall-friendliness. You may even see other players looking for an opponent (I haven’t – if you really want to play someone, look around in THIS AximSite thread)
Both LAN and Internet server can be run on a Pocket PC, no desktop computer needed
The game only requires 16M RAM, which is definitely better than the RAM requirements of the single-player games
The bad
There’s no direct IP-based game, should you encounter central server problems. The “Waiting for Master response” in Internet source mode may refer to this
Sound is NOT stereo. This is a major problem in multiplayer as COD2 extensively uses sounds of steps to sign the movement of a player to other players
Few (four) maps available
I’ve encountered problems joining already started games. The games will still be listed as joinable and the clients will enter the Team selection screen; however, it won’t go further and won’t be able to exit it in any way either
(Unable to join desktop games / play them)
Verdict
While I’ve found the single player version of CoD2 a so-so game for a desktop CoD2 veteran like me (the Pocket PC version is nowhere as enchanting as the desktop version), I’ve found the multiplayer version WAY better and more entertaining. If you’re a big fan of multiplayer games (player over LAN’s – for example, Wi-Fi p2p ones) but, so far, haven’t purchased CoD2, you may want to give it a try now.

if ms were visionary they would make a ms live gaming intergration with xbox pc and pocketpc..

Does COD2 only work on VGA devices? I can't seem to get it running on my Hermes... It installs but then when I tap on it to run it, it does nothing.

Yip - same as Madcap 180 on my hermes. Just wont run.

SOTI Pocket Controller6.02 released+Full phone controller Benchmark Roundup published

Unfortunately for Windows Mobile users, a lot of developers have switched to other platforms (most importantly, iPhone) recently. This is one of the reasons there haven’t been, for example, any decent game releases for Windows Mobile for quite a long time, except for Gameloft’s products only available via mobile phone operators. (Check out PocketGamer.org, the leading Windows Mobile gaming news site for more info. Note that it’s just been gone through a serious facelift, also meaning many of my emulation-related articles have been frontpaged there.)
Unfortunately, almost the same stands for applications and tools. Fortunately, much more established WinMo developers have stuck with the platform than games developers. This also results in the remote device controller applications’ (still) being worked on. These programs let you control your Windows Mobile PDA or handset using the keyboard / mouse of your Windows desktop (or notebook) computer
There has been a lot of changes since I’ve published my last all-in-one roundup of device controller applications. (Note that I’ve also elaborated on these apps, at least as far as capturing screens is concerned, in my all-in-one bible “ALL Secrets of making Pocket PC screenshots – everything you will EVER need to know!“.) Several new applications (My Mobiler, EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition and mDesktop) with direct control capabilities have been released in the meantime and the already-existing ones (VirtualCE, SOTI Pocket Controller) have undergone a serious facelift. Now, there are much better and more sophisticated phone controller tools than in 2006, during the writing of the previous roundup; this is why I don’t elaborate on outdated and/or plain not recommended applications like rCE, VNC server-based ones, MS Windows Mobile Developer PowerToys and PDA Controller but only on recent and (with the exception of mDesktop) recommended ones:
VirtualCE 4
My Mobiler
EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition
mDesktop
and, last but in no way least, SOTI’s Pocket Controller, which has just been updated to 6.02.
As the last batch of my reviews doesn’t contain a well-documented performance comparison (it was back in 2005 that I published [a Pocket PC Thoughts frontpage] my last performance comparison with real videos), I found it necessary to augment my past reviews with a real performance evaluation.
This also means this roundup doesn’t really compare features and capabilities (just follow the My Mobiler, EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition, mDesktop and VirtualCE reviews for a complete overview) but another very important aspect: performance. (Except for a row dedicated to elaborating on the image capturing features of these apps.) When you control your phone with the mouse / keyboard of your desktop (notebook) computer, you’ll want to see as good performance and responsiveness as possible. With QVGA (low-resolution) screens and using standard operating system or utility / application (read: no games), this won’t really be an issue – all the current phone controller apps are able to deliver acceptable to excellent results, performance / responsiveness-wise.
Not so with the CPU usage of the controller app (which does need some handset-side processing – for example, compressing and send the current screen), which should be as little as possible (the more the CPU usage of the controller app, the less responsive the entire phone becomes). There are huge differences between these apps, even in QVGA mode (let alone the far more demanding high-res ones). This is why I paid special attention to measuring the CPU usage of the controllers.
And, there is a question of high-resolution (VGA or WVGA) screens and capturing game screens / videos, which, in cases, put an enormous burden on the phone (CPU usage-wise) and/or don’t result in any kind of usable control.
Test videos; evaluating them
I’ve, in addition to exactly measuring rendition speed with them, I’ve also published the benchmark test videos. They are at http://winmobiletech.com/012009PDAControllers so that anyone can evaluate / review my benchmark results him/herself.
There are several videos there for each of the five apps and the four test cases: two for QVGA, two for VGA and one-one for the GUI rendering speedtest with my benchmark tool elaborated on in my already-linked, 2005 benchmark article and another for the full-screen game animation test with Nanobotz. Note that while I talk about five apps, I offer six sets of videos: with SOTI’s Pocket Controller, for both 6.01 and 6.02 so that you can evaluate the performance differences yourself; note that with the two 6.02 gaming cases, I’ve also published comparative videos of an interim and the final 6.02 build for both QVGA and VGA.
The filename convention of the videos is as follows:
Phone name (either the VGA HTC Universal or the QVGA HTC Wizard) – either Draw (my tool) or Game (Nanobotz) – one of the five[/i] (six/seven) apps.avi
That is, Univ-Draw-mDesktop.avi means it
- has been taken on the Universal
- shows the GUI benchmark results (as opposed to the game)
- using the mDesktop remote controller app.
Evaluating interface speed; slowdown of the device
The easiest way to do this is playing back the counter benchmark videos slowed down and checking out how many figures are left out of the rendering. For example, if, in a video, all you see are 1, 5, 9, 13 etc., then, this means every fourth animation phase is displayed on the desktop.
The easiest way of slowing down the video playback is using Videolan VLC. Being playback and, then, right-click the 1.00x label on the bottom right, to the left of the elapsed/remaining time display. Drag down the slider so that the animation becomes far slower so that you won’t miss any number shown. This way, you can be absolutely sure you’ll see all (even the slightest) changes.
There is another issue some controllers (most notably, mDesktop on both QVGA and VGA and MyMobiler on QVGA) suffer from: the phone slows down because of them running. You can easily spot these problems too: just run the counter tests and check how much time it takes for them to get from 0 to 299. Basically, it should be 9 seconds; with the, in this regard, worse apps (most importantly, mDesktop), this can rise to as much as 14-15 seconds. Note that, in parentheses, I’ve also published these results.
Computing gaming fps
It’s pretty easy to compute the exact speed (frames per second, FPS) of rendering games: just divide the number of frame changes by the total time. For example, the VGA video taken with the current build of Pocket Controller 6.02 is 20 seconds long, and it contains 13 frame changes; that is, the net speed is 13/20 = 0.65 fps. Of course, the bigger, the better.
Key differences between SOTI Pocket Controller 6.01 and 6.02
As is pretty much clear from the performance results, (if you have the money,) the most recommended application is SOTI Pocket Controller. Let’s take a brief look at how the old (6.01; released about two years ago) and the brand new, 6.02 versions compare, performance-wise. (Feature / compatibility-wise, take a look at the list HERE) Note that the comparison chart contains numeric data on both versions (so does the video repository) in the second and third columns, respectively; here, I just emphasize the differences.

First, there is a notable CPU usage decrease on both QVGA and VGA devices. This is a definite plus as Pocket Controller used to have quite high CPU usage on particularly VGA devices. Now, this has been heavily decreased – without a (major) impact on the responsiveness and the speed of rendering the phone screen on the desktop. On the three VGA devices I’ve directly compared the CPU usage on (x51v, Universal – both in the chart – and the HP iPAQ 210, where SOTI 6.01 scored 23% [by clicking around, not significantly higher] and 6.02 scored a more than two times better result: 11% [clicking around: about 25%]), there is a definite CPU usage decrease.
Second, while standard operating system (non-gaming) rendering hasn’t really been sped up (see the counter test), the is a HUGE increase in the VGA gaming capture performance: the new version is about five times(!) better and more responsive. Incidentally, at this stage (and also the QVGA one), I’ve also listed (and published) the performance results (and videos – hence the “final” for the two [QVGA / VGA] gaming videos in the video repository; the other 6.02 videos apply to both builds) of an interim, non-public build, b1385, I’ve been using since January. As can clearly be seen, the biggest difference between b1385 and the current 6.02 build, b1426, is the VGA gaming responsiveness. In this regard, the final, public version of Pocket Controller 6.02 blows everything else out of the water.
Note that while the in-game speed and efficiency remained the same with QVGA and radically increased with VGA, I’ve measured a little bit of speed decrease in both VGA and QVGA with my drawing benchmark (counter) tool. Nevertheless, it’s still way faster than any of the alternatives.
The comparison chart
Note that I haven’t listed subjects that all the tested apps are capable of; for example, Windows 7 compatibility.
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Verdict
Basically, you get what you pay for. That is, if you want to control your VGA device and/or want to capture game screens, you’ll want to bite the bullet and purchase a Pocket Controller license. If, on the other hand, you only have a QVGA device and don’t want to take screenshots of apps / games making 100% use of the CPU of the phone, you can consider sticking with the cheaper (or free) solutions.
As a rule of thumb, however, you should avoid using the desktop controller functionality of mDesktop altogether.

Note that, as has already been mentioned in the mDesktop review, mDesktop isn’t just a phone desktop controller: it’s far-far more than that. Actually, directly accessing the desktop of the phone is just a subfunction of the app. This means you should still consider giving it a try if you, for example, want to quickly edit / write SMS messages, , manage files, make/receive calls, install apps, edit your contact list etc. on your desktop as quickly and conveniently as possible. The test results above only emphasize mDesktop’s phone desktop controller functionalities are definitely worse than that of “true” phone controller apps. The latter, however, don’t offer any ways of the other, direct control facilities.
Also note that the current version of mDesktop is 2.1. The version I’ve reviewed (and compared to Jeyo, its main alternative) in my previous review was 1.0. There have been some major improvements to mDesktop in the meantime (between version 1.0 and 2.1), which I couldn’t elaborate on in this roundup, as it’s all about desktop performance and CPU usage assessment and nothing else.
If you do find mDesktop useful (to, say, access your SMS messages etc.), you still may want to stay away from its direct access functionality and use something else for that purpose (only), particularly if you plan to use this often. This is what the results in the current roundup state. Nevertheless, the *other* functionalities of mDesktop are completely unrelated to the pretty bad-working desktop control and are pretty good. All you need to do is comparing it to Jeyo’s app and decide which way to go.

A brand new review & benchmark & comparison of REDFLY Mobile Viewer: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3612241#post3612241