Database Info

REVIEW: CorePlayer, the successor to TCPMP, is finally out!

CorePlayer, the long-awaited, commercial successor to the well-known multimedia player TCPMP, has just been released.
TCPMP has (rightfully!) won the Multimedia / Video category of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Best Software Awards last and this year.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Thanks to BetaBoy, I’ve received a test version so I had the chance to thoroughly test it.
Availability
It’s available here (direct link) and is compatible with WM2003 devices and above. It, officially, costs $24.99, but it’s supposed to have a $5 rebate for AximSite (and, probably, Pocket PC Thoughts) forum members too (go register yourself ASAP ).
Compared to TCPMP,
Changes on the interface level
The GUI, currently, is very similar to that of TCPMP (but, later, will be completely changed - the old GUI is still present because of a bug in the new, which the Core folks are just fixing). This means (at least for a while) you won't need to re-learn everything as can be seen for example here (Settings in main menu), here (file selector) and here (video settings screen - compare this to the screenshots here).
Changes on the underlying engine level
The good
A plethora (and I really mean this! Not even I have had, up to now, the chance to test all of them - will later elaborate on them more thoroughly) of new codecs, which means a lot of new formats to play.
Note that, unfortunately, “exotic” formats like RealOne are (still?) not supported. This isn’t a major problem, however, given that the format of RealOne files are kept in secret very strictly.
Midi support (please see the Midi Bible for more information), as has been promised, has indeed been added. I’ve thoroughly tested the midi module, the quality of instruments and found them to be of very good quality. Of course, for example the piano in ultimate.mid (please DO see the just-linked article if you don’t know what I’m referring to) doesn’t sound so excellent as the custom patch set published here - it definitely exhibits some compression / downsampling effects. However, this is pretty understandable, given that the application only takes some 1.3 Mbytes storage memory, of which, at most, some hundred kilobytes may be taken by the (compressed) Midi instruments themselves.
Other than that, I have no complaints with the Midi quality at all - it sounds MUCH better than HTC's own midi library coming with all PPC Phone Edition devices and I haven't run into a single problem with any of my test Midi files.
The bad
Currently, it has no AVRCP support at all. This applies to both WM5 (which was also the case with TCPMP) and WM2003SE. TCPMP supports the latter OS – CorePlayer, it seems, doesn’t. Hope this will be fixed really soon (along with, preferably, adding AVRCP support for WM5 too). (Note that you’ll see remarks stating CorePlayer supports AVRCP if you install additional, operating system-level software. This is not really the case - currently, it's not possible to make it work. You'll need to wait for the bugfix version.)
Also, it seems it’s not possible to use “old” TCPMP codecs. For example, CorePlayer doesn’t support Speex files (see the Sound Recording Bible for more info on this format) by default. By installing the “old”, TCPMP-specific Speex codec, this problem hasn’t gone away (unlike with TCPMP, of course).
Verdict
Go for this app if you’re serious multimedia user. This application (and its author) certainly deserves paying for and I don’t think the above-mentioned problems (which will only affect few people – for example, only those with Bluetooth stereo headphones) will be only fixed in the distant future.
I really hope, however, that some advanced sound functionality will be also added - gapping, industry-strength reverb DSP's (see the case of 40iPlay), in addition to, of course, AVRCP.
Recommended links
Just Another Mobile Monday’s great review
The AximSite thread
UPDATE (later the same day): PPCT frontpage. I recommend this thread too for some additional info.[/b]

I like it, its works smoothly. I use it when I'm feeling simple and don't want to bother with pocket music.
It was said to have a fully customizable interface, but I look in the menus, and there isn't anything for skin selection? So I look in the folder and it had only two files in it. So I guess skinning isn't possible for this version.

weezy said:
I like it, its works smoothly. I use it when I'm feeling simple and don't want to bother with pocket music.
It was said to have a fully customizable interface, but I look in the menus, and there isn't anything for skin selection? So I look in the folder and it had only two files in it. So I guess skinning isn't possible for this version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They promise a generic update for tomorrow.

Gasp, there are no trial version sadly :'(. As I am experiencing some issues with TCPMP, i would be interested in testing it, but I don't want to pay 25$ for having the same issues.
Does anyone know if the imageon gpu of the tytn is correctly used for MPEG4 acceleration with this soft?

Menneisyys said:
They promise a generic update for tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The update will only be released on Tuesday.

fun_key said:
Gasp, there are no trial version sadly :'(. As I am experiencing some issues with TCPMP, i would be interested in testing it, but I don't want to pay 25$ for having the same issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try to test subsequent releases and report on them so that the lack of trial version isn't a problem.
Unfortunately, as has also been pointed out in my review, the current, 1.0 version is a "bit" on the buggy side.

Playing (and editing!) tracked (module) music on your Pocket PC; with Bejeweled (2)

Many Pocket PC games contain “tracked” “module” music that are very easy to be extracted and listened to without actually running the game. Just run a search for “tracked” in my games reviews (or follow this link).
In my article on listening to the .MOD tracked files of the great shoot’m up game Enslave, I’ve already elaborated on the quite Spartan and MOD-only JT MOD Player 1.0. In the current article, I elaborate on the latest developments in the Pocket PC world as far as playing back tracked music is concerned. In the second section, I also explain how you can use the tutorial to listen to the great tracked music of Astraware’s hugely popular Bejeweled (2).
There are a lot of tracked file formats; .MOD used by Enslave is only one of them. The above-mentioned JT MOD Player doesn’t handle any else (for example s3m / Impulse Tracker) formats. Neither does, unfortunately, CorePlayer (the commercial successor to the best Pocket PC all-in-one multimedia player TCPMP) or any other “traditional” Pocket PC music / media player (without additional plug-ins, that is).
On the Pocket PC, there are two tracked music playback tools (not counting in the mod-only JT MOD Player): MilkyPlay and Zerker’s MortPlayer / GSPlayer plug-in.
MilkyPlay
This free standalone player plays almost all the existing other tracked formats (to see the list of the supported files, see this, this and this), except for, unfortunately, Impulse Tracker (*.IT) files. This means, for example, it has no problems with Bejweleled’s .s3m music. It, however, can’t play back Bejweleled 2’s Impulse Tracker (.IT) music.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
To make MilkyPlay work, just download the archive here or here (not available on pocketpcfreewares.com and the original homepage doesn’t work) and transfer MilkyPlay (ARM).exe to anywhere on your Pocket PC. Start it, go to the Playlist menu and, in the upper frame, find and, then, select the files (you can use mass-selection in a directory with the All button and also scan for files). After adding the files, you can safely play them.
It’s worth pointing out that another very important, free (!) product of the same author is Milkytracker, a fully-fledged, highly recommended module tracker for all computing platforms (for example, even the Sharp Zaurus / Amiga OS4), including the Pocket PC (!).
(here, it shows the Bejeweled 2 music loaded in on the Pocket PC; a screenshot of the configuration screen is here)
Zerker’s MortPlayer / GSPlayer plug-in
This title, as opposed to MilkyPlay, is a plug-in into either MortPlayer or GSPlayer (two high-quality multimedia players for the Pocket PC I’ve often elaborated on; see for example the Midi Playback Bible and the Bluetooth remote control (AVRCP) Bible).
It can play back Impulse Tracker (.it) tracks (and has no problem with the Bejeweled 2 music). It, however, can’t play back some other module types (see the list of the supported types here and compare it to that of MilkyPlay.)
The installation is easy: just follow the quick tutorial on the just-linked homepage and copy the two provided DLL files to the player’s home directory.
CPU usage
Fortunately, these two players don’t consume much CPU cycles; the CPU usage is around 10-11%, which is about the same as with standard MP3 playback (also see the figures here (the “CPU usage: no equalizer / DSP's” row in the chart here)) with the built-in WMP, slightly larger than with TCPMP and considerably larger than with iPlay BUT lower than MortPlayer and considerably lower than with Conduits Pocket Player.
Conversion to WAV / other formats
You may also want to convert your module files to WAV files to, then, reconvert it to MP3/ WMA / OGG / anything to avoid the need to stick to a second media player to play your Module files. Unfortunately, MilkyTracker isn’t able to export WAV files; however, it’s able to read .IT files and it saves all files in the very common .XM format, which is already digestable by MilkyPlay.
Note that the PPC version of MilkyTracker is also able to load .IT files as can also be seen here. Using a full tracker to play back a file is, however, a real overkill. It, however, is also able to do the above-mentioned trick of the desktop version: it’s able to load .IT files and, then, export them as .XM files, which can already be played back with MilkyPlay. A really excellent and useful program, even if you don't plan to actively use it as a tracker, just as a file converter!
If you’re ready to fight with making MS-DOS programs run under XP, convert the file with the original MS-DOS version of Impulse Tracker (also see this on making it work under Windows) to WAV file for further conversion.
Now, let’s move on to explaining where the music files of Bejeweled (2) are to be found.
Ever wondered how you can listen to the in-game music of Bejeweled (2) while not playing?
Many of you may already know Astraware’s Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2, the most famous Pocket PC (and Palm OS) titles of the Color Matching game category.
Both these titles have really excellent in-game music. The music of the first part was entirely composed by well-known Finnish musician Skaven aka Peter Hajba), the composer of the PC FPS megahit Unreal, well-known for its excellent music and sound. The music track (which is over 30 minutes long!) of Bejeweled 2 has been co-authored by him.
If you’d like to listen to these music tracks while not playing the game actively, just do the following:
get the games and install them
go to the home directory of the two titles (\Program Files\Astraware\Bejeweled\ and \Program Files\Astraware\Bejeweled2\ for the two titles when installed to the main storage)
with part I, the three tracked music files are named Bejeweled-music*.s3m, where * is either 1, 2 or 3. They can be played back with both reviewed applications
with part II, the over 30-minute-long music track is bejeweled2-music.it. As has been explained, you’ll need either Zerker’s plug-in to natively play it back or convert it to .XM to be played back in MilkyPlay.
BTW, as some additional information on the two games on both the Pocket PC and Palm OS multimedia-wise, following is a quick comparison of the latest versions:

mirror site for zerker's files
Zerker's webpage seems to be down, can anybody upload the plugins to the xda ftp or post a mirror site for downloading? Thanks

I'll try to find it.

Zerker MOD plugin
Zerker's website is back up. I hope it's okay to post the files here just in case. GSPlayer along with this plugin makes a very nice MOD player. I'm surprised why it has not so had much attention.

RealDice game news – new titles (incl. brand new Dominoes), fixed CPU usage bug!

RealDice has specialized in producing Pocket PC and MS Smartphone multiplayer table / card games. In addition to PDAMill and some other developers (like pocketadventures.com), they should be the first game developer to check out when looking for multiplayer-enabled Backgammon, Chess, Domino, Mahjong, Texas Hold’em Poker and Sudoku games.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
I’ve long been planning a generic update of my last RealDice review published last May. Now that the developer has (for the most part) fixed the CPU usage bug I’ve discovered in the early versions and has also come out with some brand new titles (for example, the last one, Dominoes has just been released; it’s so new it doesn’t even have an official section on RealDice’s homepage as yet and is only accessible on third-party distributors like ClickGamer), I knew I can no longer wait.
Availability
Currently, five of the six RealDice titles are available on the official homepage of RealDice. Note that there aren’t direct links to (three-day) trial downloads in there; you must select the download type (there are, for Pocket PC’s, only two types of files to download: a QVGA and a VGA version; this also means you can safely use, for example, the Acer N30 (QVGA) version for all QVGA and the Acer N311 (VGA) version for all VGA devices, even for non-listed ones. For MS Smartphones, you’ll need to look up the closest relative of your model if you can’t find it in the list) by using the drop-down lists on the left.
Their latest title, Dominoes, still doesn’t have a page on its own and, therefore, must be downloaded from ClickGamer.
What's new?
First of all, the major problems have been fixed and, now, unlike with the earlier versions, I can already recommend these games particularly for VGA users and / or multiplayer fans.
As of the current versions (Backgammon: 1.39; Chess: 1.43; Dominoes: 1.12; Mahjong: 1.30; Texas Hold’em Poker: 4.24; Sudoku II: 1.13),
The good
The CPU usage of all the six titles was between 40 and 80% on all my test devices (in no case lower than 40%; ~70% when waiting for SIP input from the user (for example, entering a name)). This also means ALL the games are perfectly playable on all current Pocket PC’s, as opposed to earlier versions.
I haven’t had compatibility or, as far as the CPU usage is concerned, major playability problems on any of my WM2003+ devices (I’ve tested them all: iPAAQ 2210, WM5-upgraded hx4700 (2.01), Pocket Loox 720, HTC Universal, Wizard (AKU3), x51v (A12)) with any of the current versions.
The bad
While the CPU usage (of ALL current versions!) is definitely better than that of the initial versions, it’s still a bit high, particularly when you take into account the much lower CPU usage of some other games (and the lack of music). The RealDice folks may really want to look into further reducing the CPU usage of the title (by, for example, relying on operating system-level touchscreen / keyboard event listeners)
The game still uses its own on-screen keyboard for input. This solution is not only sub-par because of the high CPU usage and the lack of visible keypress feedback, but also because you can’t quick-edit the contents of the text input fields (for example, quickly position the cursor). Fortunately, you can enter information using a remote controller application (see the roundup here) if you are completely fed up with the shortcomings of the keyboard.
All these titles consist of one big executable file (and a small DLL file). This, unfortunately, also means a slightly longer loading time, particularly when installed onto a storage card / flash ROM (including the built-in storage on WM5 devices).
On VGA devices, the landscape mode (only right-hand landscape mode is possible, which is bad news for slide-out keyboard users) is buggy: the screen events are registered at wrong coordinates.
There is still no in-game music in any of the titles.
Both good and bad
The games are all central server-based. This has, as has also been explained in the Multiplayer Bible both advantages and disadvantages. Now that RealDice has also set up a (as with many similar services – for example, EverQuest on the desktop PC or Sphere on the 2700G-enabled Pocket PC, non-free; it costs $8 a month) online gaming community, you gain access to a lot of additional goodies such a community / central server offers; for example, advanced chat and messaging features, buddy lists and global rankings / ladder. See THIS for more info. (Note that you don’t need to subscribe to RealDice world to play standard multiplayer games! You'll only need it for advanced functionality.) Unfortunately, the lack of direct, internet / server-less multiplayer connection models is still a nuisance. Nevertheless, some games offer hotseat multiplayer capabilities (which is still much inferior to real local inter-PDA multiplayer gaming).
Verdict
I didn’t recommend the earlier versions of RealDice’s games. Now that the CPU usage has been fixed, this is no longer the case: make sure you check them out if you’re into the genre (table / poker games).
Other reviews to check out
The review of Texas Hold'em by great German language Pocket PC side PocketGaming.

REVIEW: Two new media players: WinVibe and LGC Jukebox

In several of my articles (for example, ROUNDUP: Bluetooth remote control (AVRCP) compatible media players), I’ve reviewed several Pocket PC-based audio players. Now, I elaborate on two (with the second, brand) new Pocket PC players, WinVibe and LGC Jukebox.
WinVibe
This free, Korean player is pretty capable – just look at the feature list at the WinVibe homepage (BabelFish translation here).
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
It supports Surround/Bassboost/Reverb/Echo effects, playback speed change (see the similar capability of VITO Sound Explorer), Support Showing lyrics when playing music (both ID3 Tag lyrics and LRC / TXT file), button reassignment (unlike LGC Jukebox), HTTP streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis) and SHOUTcast streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis). Pretty imporessive!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t support AVRCP (Bluetooth remote control).
Availability, compatibility
It’s available for download here (QVGA) and here (VGA) and, as has already been pointed out, is a free download. I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v.)
The default skin is Portrait-only; it automatically switches to Portrait when started in landscape.
CPU usage
In the related, recommended AximSite thread, many have complained about the CPU usage. With my standard test 112 kbps MP3 file (Värttinä: Oi dai) and with the default QVGA / VGA skins, I haven’t measured problematic CPU usage at all. It only consumes about 12-13% CPU on my x51v; with maximal reverb, about 14-15. With iPlay, the corresponding figures are 10-12 and 16%, respectively, with Pocket Player, 14-16% (about 1% less with no visualizations) and, finally, with WMP, 11.6-14%.
The case is similar on the overclocked (to 240 MHz) HTC Wizard; on it, the CPU usage is 27% (with reverb/echo at default: 34%; reverb at max: 30%). This is slightly lower than the, by default, 30-31% CPU usage of WMP.
All in all, unless you use custom skins (with visualization), you won’t have CPU usage problems – on the contrary, it’s slightly better than WMP.
Sound effects; their quality
It also supports echo and reverb.
The latter is, unfortunately, REALLY inferior to that of 40 iPlay, the best player in this respect (screenshot of enabling reverb is here). (Note that of iPlay, I could only test the October 2006 version of the player, due to the, to put it mildly, funny “protection” banning out most of the world and also discussed in this AximSite thread. This means I don’t know if the developer has come out a brand new version in the meantime.).
I’ve also compared the reverb / echo effect to the Conduits Pocket Player 3.01 Echo Effect DSP. I’ve found the latter much more unnatural-sounding.
This also means the reverb quality is around that of other reverb-capable Pocket PC media players (for example, Conduits’ Pocket Player).
LGC Jukebox 2.10
The developer of this title, Lonely Cat Games is well established in the Symbian world, unlike on the Pocket PC, where, so far, their only product is the (not-really-recommended) ProfiMail (see the Mailer Bible for more info).
The Pocket PC conversion of their well-known Symbian audio player LGC Jukebox is a brand new release; it’s so new the official homepage of the title doesn’t even show it; it must be downloaded from third-party sites like this. Note that the trial version will only work for 120 minutes.
Compatibility
I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v).
It’s Landscape-compatible (even left-hand one), unlike WinVibes.
Capabilities
While it supports radio streaming (and has a radio station manager) and offers quick positioning inside a track (as with WinVibe but unlike iPlay – he latter only has buttons for quick forwarding/rewinding), playback-wise, it pretty much lacks: it’s only capable of playing back MP3 and OGG files. No WMA, no Flac, no AAC.
Also, it has absolutely no DSP’s and pretty little visualization; all it offers is equalizer, album art display / download and lyrics display / download (more on this later) support. It doesn’t even let for reassigning hardware buttons (here’s the settings menu), which is a BIG minus – even the most basic players (including WinVibes and, of course, the built-in WMP) allow for this! Needless to say, as with WinVibe, it doesn’t support AVRCP either.
Lyrics support
One of the (not many) strengths of this application is lyrics display and download. Some examples: see this on online searching, this and this on the downloaded lyrics. As can be seen, this is pretty useful at quickly finding lyrics.
It’s also capable of auto scrolling the lyrics; or course, as it’s not Karaoke, it’ll only make guesses on what the current position in the song is. That is, in most cases, auto scroll will be useless.
CPU usage
It’s pretty good: definitely lower than that of WMP and most other players; on the reference x51v: 9.0-9.8%; with an activated equalizer (tested most of them), ~12.5-13.2%. The results were pretty similar on the HTC Wizard (27%, while WMP consumed about ~30-31%).
Verdict
Unfortunately, with WinVibes, you get what you pay for and the situation is even worse with the, in my opinion, pretty basic LGC Jukebox. I’m still waiting for a, battery consumption, AVRCP- and reverb-wise, iPlay-killer title.

UPDATE (02/12/2007): I’ve thoroughly tested the (offline) lyrics, MP3 tag and album art support of the two players.
WinVibe (as of the latest, 4.9.5 version) has turned out
not to support files with .lrc at all (you can, however, (mass-)rename these files to TXT files; then, all will work
to support lyrics .txt files flawlessly
its MP3 lyrics tag support is flawed as can be seen in here – the starting three “Kuin oisin omilla mailla / Oman pellon pientarilla, / Oi” rows are completely missing from the original lyrics. This means it may not display the start of other embedded lyrics either.
Unfortunately, it has absolutely no support for album art or MP3 tags at all.
LGC Jukebox, on the other hand, only supports .LRC files, not embedded lyrics or .TXT files. (The latter, again, can be very easily converted into .LRC files with a simple (mass) file rename.) I should also point out that, while it doesn’t support directory-level album art, it does show embedded thumbnails as can be seen in here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display MP3 tags at all.

Menneisyys said:
UPDATE (02/12/2007): I’ve thoroughly tested the (offline) lyrics, MP3 tag and album art support of the two players.
WinVibe (as of the latest, 4.9.5 version) has turned out
not to support files with .lrc at all (you can, however, (mass-)rename these files to TXT files; then, all will work
to support lyrics .txt files flawlessly
its MP3 lyrics tag support is flawed as can be seen in here – the starting three “Kuin oisin omilla mailla / Oman pellon pientarilla, / Oi” rows are completely missing from the original lyrics. This means it may not display the start of other embedded lyrics either.
Unfortunately, it has absolutely no support for album art or MP3 tags at all.
LGC Jukebox, on the other hand, only supports .LRC files, not embedded lyrics or .TXT files. (The latter, again, can be very easily converted into .LRC files with a simple (mass) file rename.) I should also point out that, while it doesn’t support directory-level album art, it does show embedded thumbnails as can be seen in here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display MP3 tags at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hallo,
please can you help me. I use Winvibe, if i click on show lyrics i see text of this song. But this text is not showed during the playing.
What do i do wrong?
File with the text has the same name as song and the end of name of file is .txt. it is in the same directory.
Thank for your answer and best regards
Petr

just try 40iplay...

brewde said:
Hallo,
please can you help me. I use Winvibe, if i click on show lyrics i see text of this song. But this text is not showed during the playing.
What do i do wrong?
File with the text has the same name as song and the end of name of file is .txt. it is in the same directory.
Thank for your answer and best regards
Petr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=414279

nothin said:
just try 40iplay...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...inaccessible for the majority of the world....

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.)
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(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.