Related
I’ve reviewed the hardware-optimized (Intel 2700G) version of the Pocket PC port of the famous desktop game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 some weeks ago. I had mixed feelings with the game – probably because I’ve never skated myself (cross-country skiing, swimming and Nordic walking are my favourite kinds of sport. I used to play basketball too, but haven’t played it in the last 15 or so years and I also used my bicycle a lot to go to school/work, even in the deepest snow.)
In the meantime, the developer of the game, Aspyr Media, has released a version for Pocket PC’s that don’t sport an Intel 2700G chip (that is, Pocket PC’s except for the Dell Axim x50v/x51v).
I, frankly, didn’t have high expectations before testing version 1.1 of the software-rendered version because I’ve found the hardware-accelerated version quite annoyingly slow.
Fortunately, I turned out to be wrong. While the game is in no way as spectacular as, say, Anthelion II by PDAMill (the latter uses almost full-screen animation in high, VGA resolution on VGA devices - also with software-only rendering), it’s not worse than most, other, software-rendered 3D titles. This may be adequate (or even great) for THPS2 fans.
Also, the software-only version has much better map loading times than the hardware-only one (some seconds vs. about a minute or even more). This, however, may be a version number-reated problem (of the hardware-accelerated version, I’ve tested version 1.0, while I’ve tested version 1.1 of the software-rendered version) already fixed in the 1.1 2700G version. (Or, with a problem with the built-in storage/file handling speed of the Dell Axim x51v.)
Important!
The homepage of the game states the game is compatible with “Windows Mobile 2003 or Windows Mobile 5.0”. This is only half-true – the game is not compatible with WM2003 devices, only with WM2003SE ones. The reason for this is that the game relies on the built-in orientation change support of the operating system. This means the game will display in Portrait on WM2003 devices, meaning the rightmost third of the screen won’t be visible. An example screenshot of this is as follows (taken on my iPAQ 2210):
Click for screenshot
Also, the homepage lists the following supported devices: Dell Axim X50, Dell Axim X30 above 500 MHz, HP iPAQ hx2410/2415, HP iPAQ hx2700/2750, HP iPAQ hx4700/4705. In addition to them, I’ve successfully played the game on a VGA Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 as can be seen in here:
Click for screenshot
RAM shortage – beware!
The game only runs with 28 Mbytes of free RAM (dynamic program memory – don’t mistake it for storage ROM on WM5 devices!). If you have less RAM, the game will not run and you can’t “hack” it to run either. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to start the game on, for example, the HTC Wizard – with any HTC Wizard ROM (see the article here). Unfortunately, this also means you'll have problems with a lot of other WM5 devices that "only" have 64M RAM built-in RAM because, in general, 64M WM5 devices have around 30M of free RAM, of which Today plug-ins (for example, Spb Pocket Plus 3.1 takes some 1.6 Mbytes of precious RAM memory on WM5 devices) and extensive Contacts/Appointments lists can take Megabytes - just to start with.
My biggest grief with the game...
...is still the lack of a trial version. A $30 game, especially a 3D title, should have a trial version. The lack of the trial version is especially annoying because of the non-full device compatibility list (the game runs on a lot of other PC’s but you can't be absolutely sure your particular one) and, more importantly, it claiming WM2003 compliance (which the game completely lacks).
Verdict
If you’re a fan of the genre, check it out – you will most probably like it. Don’t expect too much, however – software-only rendering won’t deliver you miracles, particularly not with this title. Finally, if you do not want to spend $30 on a game you can’t test before buying, mail Aspyr Media to release a trial version.
Wow, 28MB of free RAM required. My Treo 700w doesn't even have that at a hard reset state... perhaps not even before the WM5 OS is loaded. LOL
In case anyone doesn't know, the "128MB/60MB Storage Capacity" that they mention on their website omitted the fact that the device only has 32MB of RAM, and that 128/60 is the Flash ROM area...
Anyone having read my report & networking tutorial on the newly-released DoomPPC (the DoomGL port for non-3D-accelerated Pocket PC’s – it runs on any Pocket PC, not just ones with the 2700G and the GoForce GPU) knows the initial version(s) didn’t support Pocket PC versions prior to WM5.
Now, the developer of DoomPPC, Kokak, has released the WM2003SE-compatible version. It works just great on my WM2003SE Pocket Loox 720.
Note that WM2003 is not supported because of the operating system-level lack of landscape support.
It’s available on the official homepage of the game (direct link here).
As installing / configuring it is exactly the same as with the WM5-only version, please see the original tutorial for more information.
I’ve started working on my MIDlet Bible, the premiere and definitive resource of everything related to running the, particularly on “dumb” mobile platforms, hugely popular Java programs called “MIDlets”. Currently, the project is on hold because I’m still waiting for some MIDlet Manager developers to answer my mails so that I can, for example, can directly recommend where to download / purchase MIDlet Managers from. (If you’re one of them and we used to be in correspondence but you haven’t heard anything from me, please check your spamfilter – it might have caught my mail(s).)
Several people have been looking for running 3D-based games on Windows Mobile. As this part of my forthcoming MIDlet Bible is pretty much self-contained, doesn’t really depend on the rest of the Bible and can, therefore, be separately published, I’ve decided to take the plunge and publish it right now, before coming out with the “full” MIDlet Bible.
1.1 Is it worth bothering at all? Isn’t Java, particularly 3D games, slow?
You may have heard a lot of people despising Java because of its “sluggishness”. This is not really a case, particularly with the highly optimized Java environments, that is, MIDlet Managers (also abbreviated as KVM’s; some people also refer to them as JVM’s, using the well-known desktop/server mnemonic) of today. You will be REALLY astonished: current KVM’s can produce at least as quick 3D speed as highly optimized, native Windows Mobile games written in C(++).
You don’t believe me, do you? Neither would I have before embarking on some serious 3D MIDlet testing (and, of course, I also know most, if not all, native racing games for Windows Mobile like the palm of my hand).
Well, just give some of the tested racing games (for example, 3D High Speed, 3D Andreotti Racing, 3D Fast or Furious Fugitive) a try and you’ll see this for yourself. Compare them to the current native 3D titles. These Java programs are blazingly fast even on VGA devices and even on, otherwise, graphically, pretty sluggish models like the HTC Universal – while still rendering high-resolution (not plain pixel doubled) graphics. Yes, I told you, many Java titles just rock on Windows Mobile – if you’re into games and, particularly, racing games, you WILL want to give these programs a try.
Speed issues aside, price is another factor. Java MIDlets games, in general, way cheaper than native Windows Mobile games – several high-quality Java games cost no more than $5, while native WM games, generally, start at $10. In cases, you are allowed to even buy a MIDlet for all your phones and, then, you can put it on any number of your dumb & smartphones and Windows Mobile handhelds. Think of it: you buy a high-quality MIDlet game for, say, $5, and, then, deploy it on the phones of your wife / husband / children in addition to your WM phone so that they can also kill some time playing it. You won’t ever have problems explaining to your wife why you’ve spent a single penny on a game ;-) Yeah, being multiplatform (meaning a single Java MIDlet can run on a vast number of mobile phone platforms, even cheap dumb phones) has definite advantages.
This, of course, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t purchase Windows Mobile games, not in the least. The Windows Mobile market being tiny (orders of magnitude smaller than that of desktop Windows or, even, yes, Java MIDlets) developer community (and, consequently, the future of the entire platform) does need your software purchases too. It’s just good to know you can play a lot of cheap and, in cases, really high-quality games you may not have been aware of.
2. Available, 3D-capable KVM’s
In this roundup, I mostly concentrate on playing games with three-dimensional (3D) graphics. There is a separate standard (JSR 184, also known as M3G) that most 3D (but not all!) games rely on. This means that, in order to be able to play these games, the KVM must support JSR 184. There are, currently, two KVM’s that, currently, do this: Jblend by Aplix (coming with the Samsung BlackJack MS Smartphone and some, outside Japan, not widely used Pocket PC phones like the Sharp W-ZERO3), the 11.x series of TAO Intent MIDlet Manager coming with several Pocket PC’s (note that the current TAO Intent version shipping with current (!)Smartphone ROM’s, for example, the German ROM with the HTC Vox, still contain a 10.x-series, non-3D-capable TAO Intent version).
However, as there are some 3D titles that don’t use the specific features of JSR 184, there may be cases you can use non- JSR 184-compliant KVM’s to run these games. Without doubt the best of these non-M3G-compatible KVM’s is Esmertec’s Jbed, the successor of Jeodek of the same company, which ships with many current, WM6 Pocket PC’s and Smartphones (for example, the HTC Vox / s710). It’s Jbed that you will always want to prefer when playing, especially because of its unique full screen and music emulation capabilities and speed.
Now, let’s take a look at all these three KVM’s.
2.1 Aplix Jblend
This KVM is compatible with everything Windows Mobile 5+ with a phone inside: that is, all WM5+ Pocket PC Phone Edition (Windows Mobile Professional) and Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) devices. This, unfortunately, also means it’s NOT compatible with non-Phone Edition (that is, Windows Mobile Classic) Pocket PC’s.
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It has excellent M3G support and has no problems (as opposed to the TAO Intent MIDlet manager, introduced below) with WM5 softkeys either. It also has some other goodies; for example, by default, it stores all the deployed (installed) MIDlets under its home directory, unlike Jbed, the other excellent KVM. This has particular advantages on storage-constrained devices, particularly, low(er)-end Smartphones like the HTC s310 / Oxygene, which, by default, only has some 12M of built-in storage free. As a modern, decent (3D) game can easily take up 300-1000 kbytes, you will fill in your built-in storage very quickly if you use a KVM storing its deployed MIDlets there.
Its only downside is, in addition to not being compatible with non-phone-enabled devices, is the very bad sound and non-existing music emulation. In this respect, the two other alternatives (particularly Jbed) is WAY better.
It’s available for download HERE (direct download link to CAB file). Just download the CAB file and install it and, after that, you can just click on any JAR files copied to your Windows Mobile device, it’ll deploy them (just press the left softkey two times to let it go on). Again, unless you have plenty of built-in storage memory and/or you only plan to install a handful of games, you’ll want to install it on a storage card so that the deployed games (and other MIDlets) don’t take up any central storage.
2.1.1 JBlendFullScreen
Note that there is another version of Jblend circulating on the Net; a much older and non-M3G-capable one called “JBlendFullScreen”. Its only advantage over the Jblend version I’ve linked in is that it uses the full screen (no taskbar will be visible at the top), which is of BIG help when you run strictly 240*320 (QVGA) MIDlets displaying important information (status row or even softkey titles) in the bottom-most 10-15 pixel rows otherwise hidden.
2.1.2 Consequences of not being full-screen
Several games suffer from the recent Jblend version’s not being full-screen; for example, the QVGA version of the pretty good, Russian-language Wolf3D clone "3D Bunker" and "3D Storm", 3D Burnout, 3D Formula Racing, 3D Covert Ops etc. Hopefully community hackers will soon come up with a decent solution for this problem. If you do suffer from this problem, in the meantime, either give a try to the old JBlendFullScreen (it MIGHT run the game if it isn’t strictly M3G-based) or, even better, Jbed. Alternatively, you might want to use a version of the MIDlet, when available, meant for devices with smaller screen. Most MIDlets have several different versions for different screen sizes; 176*208 (old(er) Symbian S60), 176*220 (non-QVGA MS Smartphone) and QVGA (newer / better Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile) being the most widely used and available.
2.1.3 Java heap size setting
Finally, note that, unlike most other KVM’s, you can set the memory given to Jblend in the registry ( [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JBlend\JavaHeapSize; which is 0x00400000 by default; that is, 4 Mbytes, which is already pretty high, compared to most other KVM’s (except for Jbed; more on this question in the forthcoming MIDlet Bible). Setting it to a much higher value, 12M, didn’t help with the non-working games I’ve retested.)
2.2 TAO Intent MIDlet manager
Another M3G-capable KVM is the TAO Intent MIDlet manager, of which I’ve already published a lengthy tutorial HERE. You’ll want to download the latest, 11.1.7.1036 version (direct CAB link), unless you have a non-Phone Edition Pocket PC, in which case you’ll want to get version 1023 (direct CAB link). Finally, if you have a Smartphone, you’ll want to forget it altogether as it’s only the non-M3G-compliant 10.1.x series that is compatible with the “dumber” platform.
As with Jblend (and, for that matter, Jbed, to be introduced below), it’s simple to install: just get the CAB file and install it. As with Jblend (and unlike Jbed), if you install it on a storage card, it’ll also deploy the MIDlets on the card to save built-in storage memory. That is, make sure you install it on a storage card if you have little built-in storage left.
Unfortunately, the TAO Intent MIDlet manager is, gaming-wise, pretty bad and you’ll only want to use it in few cases (most importantly, when you only have a non-phone-enabled Pocket PC). For one, it has pretty bad music emulation. While it’s certainly better than that of Jblend (the latter has no music emulation at all), it’s WAY worse than that of Jbed. What is even worse, it doesn’t support softkeys in most games (and many applications as is the case with, say, Teashark reviewed HERE), which means you just won’t be able to run these games if they do depend on softkeys (and most do – very few games can be played / menus can be navigated without them).
2.3 Esmertec Jbed
This MIDlet Manager doesn’t directly support the M3G library. However, as it’s without doubt the best KVM out there right now, particularly music emulation and WM5 softkey-compliance-wise, it’s still worth mentioning it in here. The reason for this is pretty simple: some of the popular 3D titles aren’t strictly M3G-based (that is, based on JSR 184). These titles may run under Jbed as well, which means, in general, superior music and/or sound and, sometimes, speed compared to Jblend and, on top of all this, softkey support, compared to TAO Intent.
While there’re some purchasable Jbed distributions at Handango, I don’t know whether they’re updated at all (their last-updated field are all 2005) and, despite my several mails sent to my Esmertec contact, in the last month I haven’t received a definite answer to this question. Therefore, for the time being, you’ll want to use an OEM version of Jbed version 20070802.2.1 available HERE. Unfortunately, this version is pretty buggy. Should you want to use it for other purposes (most importantly, for Opera Mini 4 beta 2, by far the best MIDlet-based Web Browser and one of the best Web browsers even on Windows Mobile), be aware of that it doesn’t support for example cookie handling, unlike previous, but not any more working versions. This, however, won’t have any affect on running games, where it’s really excellent at.
Jbed is, just like Jblend, compatible with both WM5+ Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphones. It is NOT compatible with regular Pocket PC’s without a built-in phone. Sorry. Hope as soon as the Esmertec folks contact me back, I’ll be able to provide more info on which Handango Jbed distributions support non-phone Pocket PC’s.
2.4 Co-existing on the same Windows Mobile devices
All these KVM’s (and, for that matter, additional ones like IBM J9, Esmertec Jeodek etc.) can co-exist on the same Windows Mobile device – they won’t have any influence on the other MIDlet managers. The only restriction will be that, should you click a JAD or a JAD file on either the Web or the local file system, the last-installed KVM will be invoked and it will deploy the given MIDlet.
However, you can easily remake a given KVM the default KVM to be invoked when clicking JAD / JAR files. No, you don’t even need to reinstall the given KVM – you will only need to import a given Registry import file, which changes the JAD / JAR file associations. I’ll provide these files in the final version of the Bible.
In the meantime, keep the following in mind: if you download the JAR file of all MIDlets you’d like to use (you do NOT need the JAD files!), you can easily deploy them under any KVM’s.
Fortunately, this is pretty easy in two of the three KVM’s (in addition to the, in this respect, inferior Jblend, it’s only with the, here, not discussed IBM J9 that it’s a pain in the back to deploy a MIDlet to if you don’t have set up the file associations or they’re pointing to another KVM: in there, you must enter the full path and name of the JAR file by hand and can’t even use any file system browser tool). The Jbed and TAO KVM’s have a “deploy local files” option; you go there; in there, you are listed the JAR files in the file system. Your only task is selecting the one to deploy and all is done – after this, you will only need to let the KVM deploy the stuff (answer Yes to the security questions and, with Jbed, to the question of the target folder). These menus are as follows:
Jbed: Menu / Install / Local Files (another screenshot of the list and the desployment / optimization process)
TAO Intent: Menu / Install / Local (a list of the MIDlets found, just click the one you’d like to deploy). Note that it’ll only find JAR files residing in the root directory of your storage card(s), NOT in subdirectories, unlike Jbed.
The fact that Jblend doesn't have file browing capabilities also means that, should you want to keep all the three KVM’s on your phone, you’ll want to install Jblend last so that its file associations remain the default.
3. Compatibility info & chart
I've made some VERY thorough tests with ALL the 3D games available HERE. Feel free to give these titles a try. You only need to download the JAR files off the Web site; don’t bother with JAD files. Note that you won’t be able to access the page with the standard desktop Internet Explorer (as is also pointed out in my Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible) because it isn’t WAP-compliant. Therefore, if you do access it on the desktop (in order to download the JAR files to your desktop and, then, transfer these JAR files onto your Windows Mobile handheld in order to deploy them), make sure you use either Opera or Mozilla to access these pages.
You will find the compatibility results in the chart available HERE. Sorry for not including it in here – it’s way too big and, after all, it’s only an additional click away. I’ve tested the latest, above-linked versions of Jblend, TAO Intent and Jbed. With Jblend and Jbed, I’ve run the tests with the HTC Vox (s710) Smartphone (I’ve chosen a Smartphone because of the directly and easily accessible dialpad on the front). For the (few) TAO Intent tests, I had to use a WM6 VGA HTC Universal because 1, it also has numeric hardware keys so I could still test controllability via dialpad (numeric) keys 2, it’s a Pocket PC, and the 11.1.x, that is, M3G-compliant series of TAO Intent only supports Pocket PC’s.
3.1 Dynamic screen stretching
Note that I’ve tested ALL the games compatible with Jblend that dynamically use (stretch) the full available screen estate on the WM6 VGA HTC Universal Pocket PC as well. I’ve done this STRICTLY in Portrait mode (in Landscape, there were graphics problems with Jblend). The aim of this was to find out whether the given games are able to adapt to HUGE screens like those of VGA devices. As can clearly be seen, while all dynamic stretching-capable games were able to dynamically adapt to QVGA screens (from inherently smaller screen sizes), the situation was quite different with four times bigger (VGA) screens. Note that this isn’t a problem with the Universal itself but with the given titles’ inability to dynamically stretch themselves onto “huge” VGA screens. That is, they won’t run on other VGA Pocket PC’s either, let alone Pocket PC’s with even bigger screens (for example, the WVGA (800*480) Toshiba G900 or the, hopefully, forthcoming HTC Omni).
With titles that don’t run (right) on the Universal, I’ve also repeated the tests on the WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard Pocket PC to find out whether it was a VGA-related problem or a generic Pocket PC incompatibility. As can clearly be seen, these were all VGA-related problems and not because of the different (Smartphone vs PPC) platform: all the (dynamically adopting) titles that had (severe) problems on VGA devices ran flawlessly on the QVGA Wizard.
Also note that I’ve only tested the Jblend compatibility of dynamically stretching titles. Games that turned out to be of “dumb” static ones will run on any large-screen Pocket PC’s – confined to the boundaries of their original, hard-wired screen estate. This means all the other “static”, for example, 176*208 or 176*220 titles are supported and playable on VGA devices too.
4. Additional sources of information
JSR 184 (M3G) - everything you will need to know about 3D in MIDlets (mostly meant for programmers and/or advanced users)
UPDATE (10/11/2007):
Thanks to XDA-Dev forum member niala6433 (see THIS thread), my attention was brought to a M3G-capable Jeodek version (20060421-95649). It seems to be a bit faster than Jblend and is compatible with both Pocket PC’s and (at least Portrait) types of (touchscreen-less) MS Smartphones (I’ve thoroughly tested it on the QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and the 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310)) with some disadvantages on the latter (namely, the constant visibility of the bottom bar). As it’s a comparatively old and quite restricted build of Jeodek, you will ONLY want to use it to run 3D games otherwise not (sufficiently well) running under Jbed, which, currently, doesn’t support 3D but support real full screen mode on both platforms, has, generally, superior speed and the best sound / music emulation. For everything else, you’ll want to use the other, much more optimal solutions.
(Deep 3D on a QVGA HTC Wizard Pocket PC PE)
(Absolute Lightup Deluxe on a VGA HTC Universal Pocket PC PE)
(Absolute Lightup Deluxe on a 176*220 Smartphone; the “Start / Call history” softkeys are both from the Today screen)
Getting, installing
It’s available HERE for download. Installing it is pretty simple: just unRAR jeodek.exe and jeodek.exe.0409.mui to anywhere on your handheld (storage cards preferred because, then, it’ll also store the deployed MIDlets there, not taking up any built-in storage memory). Copy the \lnk\Esm3D.lnk to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs on Pocket PC’s (or \Windows\Start Menu\ on a Smartphone; you can, of course, use subfolders) and, finally, import \fileassoc\ Jeodek3DStoragecard.reg into the Registry so that the file associations are right, should you want to deploy MIDlets from the outside of the MIDlet manager. (This isn’t essential as Jeodek has built-in support for searching for MIDlets in the file system.) Note that you’ll want to change all occurrences of “esm3d” in the Registry import file, should your files be somewhere else than \Storage Card\esm3d. Also note that, should you want to deploy MIDlets using this file association, Jeodek must already be running.
Finally, note that you do NOT need to install an “official” Jeodek / Jbed on your handheld before intsalling the hack. You can, but don't need to. Simply doing what I’ve explained suffices.
Problems
On the Smartphone, the bottom bar of the previous screen will always be visible. This means games specially designed for the given screen resolution (320*240 or 176*220) will be severely cut off, as can be seen in the following two screenshot pairs:
(QVGA Smartphone)
versus
http://www.winmobiletech.com/092007MidletBible/Jeodek3DBottomBarTooPPC.png
(VGA Pocket PC)
See the difference? Not only the softkey titles have been cut off with the Smartphone version, but even the bottom part of the text bubble. A solution to this, should you still want to play these kinds of strictly 320*240 titles on your QVGA Smartphone but can't because of the lacking screen content, is looking for a, say, 176*220 version of the same MIDlet. (And, the same stands for the case of playing on a 176*220 Smartphone. Then, your best bet is looking for a 176*208 (Nokia S60) version instead.)
Worthy for Opera Mini and the Gmail MIDlet?
While the network access works and there’re no security problems or other bugs either (unlike with Jblend), you won’t really want to use it because of the lack of full screen support as can be seen in HERE. In this respect, later Jeodek versions (no command bar at the bottom on Smartphones) were better, let alone Jbed (real fullscreen).
Speed
niala6433 has reported in his post (see thread above) that, in benchmarks, this Jeodek version produced slightly better 3D results than Jblend. This is definitely good news.
Verdict
You should keep this KVM on your handheld too, should you run into a strictly M3G-dependent, working title not usable (or, not fast enough) under Jblend or TAO, the two other, M3G-compliant MIDlet managers.
works great
UPDATE (10/19/2007):
I’ve greatly enhanced the 3D compatibility chart with
the games linked from THIS post (three of them, EA Sports’ Fight Night Round 3 (V 4.6.0), THQ’s Juiced 2 and Falcon Mobile’s Bimmer Street Racing 3D are really kick-ass)
I’ve continued adding compatibility info with other really nice titles like Red Pyramid’s Hummer Jump And Race, I-play's Fast and the Furious: Fugitive, Digital Chocolate's Mini Golf Magic (also see THIS), EA’s Need for Speed Carbon (Xbox 360 review HERE), 3D Night Fever, 3D Rally Evolution, i-Play’s The Fast And Furious Tokyo, 3D Tron 2.0 and Gameloft's Turbo Jet Ski 3D, just to name a few.
what is more, now that I also have a Nokia N95, I’ve tested ALL the games on it too, mainly to see whether it’s compatible with (far) more titles than the Windows Mobile KVM’s (the answer is, unfortunately, no – while it does run a bit more titles, it’s in no way compatible with all older titles) and whether the 3D hardware acceleration support really increases speed.
Unfortunately, as it seems, the hardware 3D acceleration doesn’t help the speed of emulation much. Based on the JBenchmark synthetic tests, one would expect a speed increase of about an order of magnitude. The reality, however, is different: in general, games where 3D hardware acceleration works at all run on the 330 MHz TI OMAP-based Nokia N95 only run two to three times faster than on a TI OMAP-based HTC Vox clocked at the default 200 MHz. I’ll continue doing some extensive tests to find out why the results are, indeed, below expectations and why the JBenchmark synthetic tests show much better results than the real-world games really show.
I really plan to publish the Bible this weekend or early next week. I think I will be able to do so.
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the main chart of the Bible, which has been constantly evolving in the meantime and contains a lot of tricks (for example, “how can I increase the heap memory available in Jblend? How can I make Esmertec’s MIDlet managers, TAO Intent and Jblend run on non-phone Pocket PC’s? Why I should refrain from using the latest Gmail MIDlet (I really recommend THIS MoDaCo thread, particularly my posts there, for more info on it) "on TAO / Esmertec Jeodek, and where can I download the older, 1.1.1 version?” etc.) It also has all the download links and, again, as with all my other charts, answers to ALL the question you will EVER want to ask about these applications.
Vote to Sticky!
Wow!! Lots of information! Thank you!
I honestly can say this post should be stickied.
DIE_HARD said:
Wow!! Lots of information! Thank you!
I honestly can say this post should be stickied.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!
It's, currently, sticky in the Smartphone general forum, until I publish the full MIDlet Bible (in the next 2-3-4 days). Then, finally, I'll make sure I put all my similar articles in the Wiki.
The next part of the series has just been published: TUTORIAL: Control issues of Java MIDlets – all secrets of button handling
It’s cross-posted to PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, XDA-Developers - 3, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de.
what can i do about some missing libs?
javax.microedition.io.connector.bluetooth.client?
iassael said:
what can i do about some missing libs?
javax.microedition.io.connector.bluetooth.client?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not much. So far, noone has managed to "hack" BT support on the WM KVM's. See my related links in the final MIDlet Bible.
im new to this. apologies if this is the wrong forum.
i managed to get opera browser to run off my p3600i using the Esmertec's Java Midlet Manager. the one that came with the phone just hung on opera.. but this other loads it up fine.
im trying to get medal of honor working, and i keep getting an error saying
The MIDlet could not be instantiated:
java.lang.noclassdeffounderror
what does this mean, i got no idea.
cheers aron.
aron_abu said:
im new to this. apologies if this is the wrong forum.
i managed to get opera browser to run off my p3600i using the Esmertec's Java Midlet Manager. the one that came with the phone just hung on opera.. but this other loads it up fine.
im trying to get medal of honor working, and i keep getting an error saying
The MIDlet could not be instantiated:
java.lang.noclassdeffounderror
what does this mean, i got no idea.
cheers aron.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1, welcome to xda-dev
2, the answer, as with most my articles & related questions, can be found in the Compatibility Chart of my article, in the "!3D_Medal_Of_Honor_Airborne.jar" row. (Use Ctrl-F to quickly find it.) That is, it's impossible to make it work under Windows Mobile.
ahh ok, thanks...
thats a shame it dosent work.
cheers aron.
I’ve started working on my MIDlet Bible, the premiere and definitive resource of everything related to running the, particularly on “dumb” mobile platforms, hugely popular Java programs called “MIDlets”. Currently, the project is on hold because I’m still waiting for some MIDlet Manager developers to answer my mails so that I can, for example, can directly recommend where to download / purchase MIDlet Managers from. (If you’re one of them and we used to be in correspondence but you haven’t heard anything from me, please check your spamfilter – it might have caught my mail(s).)
Several people have been looking for running 3D-based games on Windows Mobile. As this part of my forthcoming MIDlet Bible is pretty much self-contained, doesn’t really depend on the rest of the Bible and can, therefore, be separately published, I’ve decided to take the plunge and publish it right now, before coming out with the “full” MIDlet Bible.
1.1 Is it worth bothering at all? Isn’t Java, particularly 3D games, slow?
You may have heard a lot of people despising Java because of its “sluggishness”. This is not really a case, particularly with the highly optimized Java environments, that is, MIDlet Managers (also abbreviated as KVM’s; some people also refer to them as JVM’s, using the well-known desktop/server mnemonic) of today. You will be REALLY astonished: current KVM’s can produce at least as quick 3D speed as highly optimized, native Windows Mobile games written in C(++).
You don’t believe me, do you? Neither would I have before embarking on some serious 3D MIDlet testing (and, of course, I also know most, if not all, native racing games for Windows Mobile like the palm of my hand).
Well, just give some of the tested racing games (for example, 3D High Speed, 3D Andreotti Racing, 3D Fast or Furious Fugitive) a try and you’ll see this for yourself. Compare them to the current native 3D titles. These Java programs are blazingly fast even on VGA devices and even on, otherwise, graphically, pretty sluggish models like the HTC Universal – while still rendering high-resolution (not plain pixel doubled) graphics. Yes, I told you, many Java titles just rock on Windows Mobile – if you’re into games and, particularly, racing games, you WILL want to give these programs a try.
Speed issues aside, price is another factor. Java MIDlets games, in general, way cheaper than native Windows Mobile games – several high-quality Java games cost no more than $5, while native WM games, generally, start at $10. In cases, you are allowed to even buy a MIDlet for all your phones and, then, you can put it on any number of your dumb & smartphones and Windows Mobile handhelds. Think of it: you buy a high-quality MIDlet game for, say, $5, and, then, deploy it on the phones of your wife / husband / children in addition to your WM phone so that they can also kill some time playing it. You won’t ever have problems explaining to your wife why you’ve spent a single penny on a game ;-) Yeah, being multiplatform (meaning a single Java MIDlet can run on a vast number of mobile phone platforms, even cheap dumb phones) has definite advantages.
This, of course, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t purchase Windows Mobile games, not in the least. The Windows Mobile market being tiny (orders of magnitude smaller than that of desktop Windows or, even, yes, Java MIDlets) developer community (and, consequently, the future of the entire platform) does need your software purchases too. It’s just good to know you can play a lot of cheap and, in cases, really high-quality games you may not have been aware of.
2. Available, 3D-capable KVM’s
In this roundup, I mostly concentrate on playing games with three-dimensional (3D) graphics. There is a separate standard (JSR 184, also known as M3G) that most 3D (but not all!) games rely on. This means that, in order to be able to play these games, the KVM must support JSR 184. There are, currently, two KVM’s that, currently, do this: Jblend by Aplix (coming with the Samsung BlackJack MS Smartphone and some, outside Japan, not widely used Pocket PC phones like the Sharp W-ZERO3), the 11.x series of TAO Intent MIDlet Manager coming with several Pocket PC’s (note that the current TAO Intent version shipping with current (!)Smartphone ROM’s, for example, the German ROM with the HTC Vox, still contain a 10.x-series, non-3D-capable TAO Intent version).
However, as there are some 3D titles that don’t use the specific features of JSR 184, there may be cases you can use non- JSR 184-compliant KVM’s to run these games. Without doubt the best of these non-M3G-compatible KVM’s is Esmertec’s Jbed, the successor of Jeodek of the same company, which ships with many current, WM6 Pocket PC’s and Smartphones (for example, the HTC Vox / s710). It’s Jbed that you will always want to prefer when playing, especially because of its unique full screen and music emulation capabilities and speed.
Now, let’s take a look at all these three KVM’s.
2.1 Aplix Jblend
This KVM is compatible with everything Windows Mobile 5+ with a phone inside: that is, all WM5+ Pocket PC Phone Edition (Windows Mobile Professional) and Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) devices. This, unfortunately, also means it’s NOT compatible with non-Phone Edition (that is, Windows Mobile Classic) Pocket PC’s.
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It has excellent M3G support and has no problems (as opposed to the TAO Intent MIDlet manager, introduced below) with WM5 softkeys either. It also has some other goodies; for example, by default, it stores all the deployed (installed) MIDlets under its home directory, unlike Jbed, the other excellent KVM. This has particular advantages on storage-constrained devices, particularly, low(er)-end Smartphones like the HTC s310 / Oxygene, which, by default, only has some 12M of built-in storage free. As a modern, decent (3D) game can easily take up 300-1000 kbytes, you will fill in your built-in storage very quickly if you use a KVM storing its deployed MIDlets there.
Its only downside is, in addition to not being compatible with non-phone-enabled devices, is the very bad sound and non-existing music emulation. In this respect, the two other alternatives (particularly Jbed) is WAY better.
It’s available for download HERE (direct download link to CAB file). Just download the CAB file and install it and, after that, you can just click on any JAR files copied to your Windows Mobile device, it’ll deploy them (just press the left softkey two times to let it go on). Again, unless you have plenty of built-in storage memory and/or you only plan to install a handful of games, you’ll want to install it on a storage card so that the deployed games (and other MIDlets) don’t take up any central storage.
2.1.1 JBlendFullScreen
Note that there is another version of Jblend circulating on the Net; a much older and non-M3G-capable one called “JBlendFullScreen”. Its only advantage over the Jblend version I’ve linked in is that it uses the full screen (no taskbar will be visible at the top), which is of BIG help when you run strictly 240*320 (QVGA) MIDlets displaying important information (status row or even softkey titles) in the bottom-most 10-15 pixel rows otherwise hidden.
2.1.2 Consequences of not being full-screen
Several games suffer from the recent Jblend version’s not being full-screen; for example, the QVGA version of the pretty good, Russian-language Wolf3D clone "3D Bunker" and "3D Storm", 3D Burnout, 3D Formula Racing, 3D Covert Ops etc. Hopefully community hackers will soon come up with a decent solution for this problem. If you do suffer from this problem, in the meantime, either give a try to the old JBlendFullScreen (it MIGHT run the game if it isn’t strictly M3G-based) or, even better, Jbed. Alternatively, you might want to use a version of the MIDlet, when available, meant for devices with smaller screen. Most MIDlets have several different versions for different screen sizes; 176*208 (old(er) Symbian S60), 176*220 (non-QVGA MS Smartphone) and QVGA (newer / better Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile) being the most widely used and available.
2.1.3 Java heap size setting
Finally, note that, unlike most other KVM’s, you can set the memory given to Jblend in the registry ( [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JBlend\JavaHeapSize; which is 0x00400000 by default; that is, 4 Mbytes, which is already pretty high, compared to most other KVM’s (except for Jbed; more on this question in the forthcoming MIDlet Bible). Setting it to a much higher value, 12M, didn’t help with the non-working games I’ve retested.)
2.2 TAO Intent MIDlet manager
Another M3G-capable KVM is the TAO Intent MIDlet manager, of which I’ve already published a lengthy tutorial HERE. You’ll want to download the latest, 11.1.7.1036 version (direct CAB link), unless you have a non-Phone Edition Pocket PC, in which case you’ll want to get version 1023 (direct CAB link). Finally, if you have a Smartphone, you’ll want to forget it altogether as it’s only the non-M3G-compliant 10.1.x series that is compatible with the “dumber” platform.
As with Jblend (and, for that matter, Jbed, to be introduced below), it’s simple to install: just get the CAB file and install it. As with Jblend (and unlike Jbed), if you install it on a storage card, it’ll also deploy the MIDlets on the card to save built-in storage memory. That is, make sure you install it on a storage card if you have little built-in storage left.
Unfortunately, the TAO Intent MIDlet manager is, gaming-wise, pretty bad and you’ll only want to use it in few cases (most importantly, when you only have a non-phone-enabled Pocket PC). For one, it has pretty bad music emulation. While it’s certainly better than that of Jblend (the latter has no music emulation at all), it’s WAY worse than that of Jbed. What is even worse, it doesn’t support softkeys in most games (and many applications as is the case with, say, Teashark reviewed HERE), which means you just won’t be able to run these games if they do depend on softkeys (and most do – very few games can be played / menus can be navigated without them).
2.3 Esmertec Jbed
This MIDlet Manager doesn’t directly support the M3G library. However, as it’s without doubt the best KVM out there right now, particularly music emulation and WM5 softkey-compliance-wise, it’s still worth mentioning it in here. The reason for this is pretty simple: some of the popular 3D titles aren’t strictly M3G-based (that is, based on JSR 184). These titles may run under Jbed as well, which means, in general, superior music and/or sound and, sometimes, speed compared to Jblend and, on top of all this, softkey support, compared to TAO Intent.
While there’re some purchasable Jbed distributions at Handango, I don’t know whether they’re updated at all (their last-updated field are all 2005) and, despite my several mails sent to my Esmertec contact, in the last month I haven’t received a definite answer to this question. Therefore, for the time being, you’ll want to use an OEM version of Jbed version 20070802.2.1 available HERE. Unfortunately, this version is pretty buggy. Should you want to use it for other purposes (most importantly, for Opera Mini 4 beta 2, by far the best MIDlet-based Web Browser and one of the best Web browsers even on Windows Mobile), be aware of that it doesn’t support for example cookie handling, unlike previous, but not any more working versions. This, however, won’t have any affect on running games, where it’s really excellent at.
Jbed is, just like Jblend, compatible with both WM5+ Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphones. It is NOT compatible with regular Pocket PC’s without a built-in phone. Sorry. Hope as soon as the Esmertec folks contact me back, I’ll be able to provide more info on which Handango Jbed distributions support non-phone Pocket PC’s.
2.4 Co-existing on the same Windows Mobile devices
All these KVM’s (and, for that matter, additional ones like IBM J9, Esmertec Jeodek etc.) can co-exist on the same Windows Mobile device – they won’t have any influence on the other MIDlet managers. The only restriction will be that, should you click a JAD or a JAD file on either the Web or the local file system, the last-installed KVM will be invoked and it will deploy the given MIDlet.
However, you can easily remake a given KVM the default KVM to be invoked when clicking JAD / JAR files. No, you don’t even need to reinstall the given KVM – you will only need to import a given Registry import file, which changes the JAD / JAR file associations. I’ll provide these files in the final version of the Bible.
In the meantime, keep the following in mind: if you download the JAR file of all MIDlets you’d like to use (you do NOT need the JAD files!), you can easily deploy them under any KVM’s.
Fortunately, this is pretty easy in two of the three KVM’s (in addition to the, in this respect, inferior Jblend, it’s only with the, here, not discussed IBM J9 that it’s a pain in the back to deploy a MIDlet to if you don’t have set up the file associations or they’re pointing to another KVM: in there, you must enter the full path and name of the JAR file by hand and can’t even use any file system browser tool). The Jbed and TAO KVM’s have a “deploy local files” option; you go there; in there, you are listed the JAR files in the file system. Your only task is selecting the one to deploy and all is done – after this, you will only need to let the KVM deploy the stuff (answer Yes to the security questions and, with Jbed, to the question of the target folder). These menus are as follows:
Jbed: Menu / Install / Local Files (another screenshot of the list and the desployment / optimization process)
TAO Intent: Menu / Install / Local (a list of the MIDlets found, just click the one you’d like to deploy). Note that it’ll only find JAR files residing in the root directory of your storage card(s), NOT in subdirectories, unlike Jbed.
The fact that Jblend doesn't have file browing capabilities also means that, should you want to keep all the three KVM’s on your phone, you’ll want to install Jblend last so that its file associations remain the default.
3. Compatibility info & chart
I've made some VERY thorough tests with ALL the 3D games available HERE. Feel free to give these titles a try. You only need to download the JAR files off the Web site; don’t bother with JAD files. Note that you won’t be able to access the page with the standard desktop Internet Explorer (as is also pointed out in my Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible) because it isn’t WAP-compliant. Therefore, if you do access it on the desktop (in order to download the JAR files to your desktop and, then, transfer these JAR files onto your Windows Mobile handheld in order to deploy them), make sure you use either Opera or Mozilla to access these pages.
You will find the compatibility results in the chart available HERE. Sorry for not including it in here – it’s way too big and, after all, it’s only an additional click away. I’ve tested the latest, above-linked versions of Jblend, TAO Intent and Jbed. With Jblend and Jbed, I’ve run the tests with the HTC Vox (s710) Smartphone (I’ve chosen a Smartphone because of the directly and easily accessible dialpad on the front). For the (few) TAO Intent tests, I had to use a WM6 VGA HTC Universal because 1, it also has numeric hardware keys so I could still test controllability via dialpad (numeric) keys 2, it’s a Pocket PC, and the 11.1.x, that is, M3G-compliant series of TAO Intent only supports Pocket PC’s.
3.1 Dynamic screen stretching
Note that I’ve tested ALL the games compatible with Jblend that dynamically use (stretch) the full available screen estate on the WM6 VGA HTC Universal Pocket PC as well. I’ve done this STRICTLY in Portrait mode (in Landscape, there were graphics problems with Jblend). The aim of this was to find out whether the given games are able to adapt to HUGE screens like those of VGA devices. As can clearly be seen, while all dynamic stretching-capable games were able to dynamically adapt to QVGA screens (from inherently smaller screen sizes), the situation was quite different with four times bigger (VGA) screens. Note that this isn’t a problem with the Universal itself but with the given titles’ inability to dynamically stretch themselves onto “huge” VGA screens. That is, they won’t run on other VGA Pocket PC’s either, let alone Pocket PC’s with even bigger screens (for example, the WVGA (800*480) Toshiba G900 or the, hopefully, forthcoming HTC Omni).
With titles that don’t run (right) on the Universal, I’ve also repeated the tests on the WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard Pocket PC to find out whether it was a VGA-related problem or a generic Pocket PC incompatibility. As can clearly be seen, these were all VGA-related problems and not because of the different (Smartphone vs PPC) platform: all the (dynamically adopting) titles that had (severe) problems on VGA devices ran flawlessly on the QVGA Wizard.
Also note that I’ve only tested the Jblend compatibility of dynamically stretching titles. Games that turned out to be of “dumb” static ones will run on any large-screen Pocket PC’s – confined to the boundaries of their original, hard-wired screen estate. This means all the other “static”, for example, 176*208 or 176*220 titles are supported and playable on VGA devices too.
4. Additional sources of information
JSR 184 (M3G) - everything you will need to know about 3D in MIDlets (mostly meant for programmers and/or advanced users)
Ignore this
UPDATE (10/11/2007):
Thanks to XDA-Dev forum member niala6433 (see THIS thread), my attention was brought to a M3G-capable Jeodek version (20060421-95649). It seems to be a bit faster than Jblend and is compatible with both Pocket PC’s and (at least Portrait) types of (touchscreen-less) MS Smartphones (I’ve thoroughly tested it on the QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and the 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310)) with some disadvantages on the latter (namely, the constant visibility of the bottom bar). As it’s a comparatively old and quite restricted build of Jeodek, you will ONLY want to use it to run 3D games otherwise not (sufficiently well) running under Jbed, which, currently, doesn’t support 3D but support real full screen mode on both platforms, has, generally, superior speed and the best sound / music emulation. For everything else, you’ll want to use the other, much more optimal solutions.
(Deep 3D on a QVGA HTC Wizard Pocket PC PE)
(Absolute Lightup Deluxe on a VGA HTC Universal Pocket PC PE)
(Absolute Lightup Deluxe on a 176*220 Smartphone; the “Start / Call history” softkeys are both from the Today screen)
Getting, installing
It’s available HERE for download. Installing it is pretty simple: just unRAR jeodek.exe and jeodek.exe.0409.mui to anywhere on your handheld (storage cards preferred because, then, it’ll also store the deployed MIDlets there, not taking up any built-in storage memory). Copy the \lnk\Esm3D.lnk to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs on Pocket PC’s (or \Windows\Start Menu\ on a Smartphone; you can, of course, use subfolders) and, finally, import \fileassoc\ Jeodek3DStoragecard.reg into the Registry so that the file associations are right, should you want to deploy MIDlets from the outside of the MIDlet manager. (This isn’t essential as Jeodek has built-in support for searching for MIDlets in the file system.) Note that you’ll want to change all occurrences of “esm3d” in the Registry import file, should your files be somewhere else than \Storage Card\esm3d. Also note that, should you want to deploy MIDlets using this file association, Jeodek must already be running.
Finally, note that you do NOT need to install an “official” Jeodek / Jbed on your handheld before intsalling the hack. You can, but don't need to. Simply doing what I’ve explained suffices.
Problems
On the Smartphone, the bottom bar of the previous screen will always be visible. This means games specially designed for the given screen resolution (320*240 or 176*220) will be severely cut off, as can be seen in the following two screenshot pairs:
(QVGA Smartphone)
versus
http://www.winmobiletech.com/092007MidletBible/Jeodek3DBottomBarTooPPC.png
(VGA Pocket PC)
See the difference? Not only the softkey titles have been cut off with the Smartphone version, but even the bottom part of the text bubble. A solution to this, should you still want to play these kinds of strictly 320*240 titles on your QVGA Smartphone but can't because of the lacking screen content, is looking for a, say, 176*220 version of the same MIDlet. (And, the same stands for the case of playing on a 176*220 Smartphone. Then, your best bet is looking for a 176*208 (Nokia S60) version instead.)
Worthy for Opera Mini and the Gmail MIDlet?
While the network access works and there’re no security problems or other bugs either (unlike with Jblend), you won’t really want to use it because of the lack of full screen support as can be seen in HERE. In this respect, later Jeodek versions (no command bar at the bottom on Smartphones) were better, let alone Jbed (real fullscreen).
Speed
niala6433 has reported in his post (see thread above) that, in benchmarks, this Jeodek version produced slightly better 3D results than Jblend. This is definitely good news.
Verdict
You should keep this KVM on your handheld too, should you run into a strictly M3G-dependent, working title not usable (or, not fast enough) under Jblend or TAO, the two other, M3G-compliant MIDlet managers.
UPDATE (10/19/2007):
I’ve greatly enhanced the 3D compatibility chart with
the games linked from THIS post (three of them, EA Sports’ Fight Night Round 3 (V 4.6.0), THQ’s Juiced 2 and Falcon Mobile’s Bimmer Street Racing 3D are really kick-ass)
I’ve continued adding compatibility info with other really nice titles like Red Pyramid’s Hummer Jump And Race, I-play's Fast and the Furious: Fugitive, Digital Chocolate's Mini Golf Magic (also see THIS), EA’s Need for Speed Carbon (Xbox 360 review HERE), 3D Night Fever, 3D Rally Evolution, i-Play’s The Fast And Furious Tokyo, 3D Tron 2.0 and Gameloft's Turbo Jet Ski 3D, just to name a few.
what is more, now that I also have a Nokia N95, I’ve tested ALL the games on it too, mainly to see whether it’s compatible with (far) more titles than the Windows Mobile KVM’s (the answer is, unfortunately, no – while it does run a bit more titles, it’s in no way compatible with all older titles) and whether the 3D hardware acceleration support really increases speed.
Unfortunately, as it seems, the hardware 3D acceleration doesn’t help the speed of emulation much. Based on the JBenchmark synthetic tests, one would expect a speed increase of about an order of magnitude. The reality, however, is different: in general, games where 3D hardware acceleration works at all run on the 330 MHz TI OMAP-based Nokia N95 only run two to three times faster than on a TI OMAP-based HTC Vox clocked at the default 200 MHz. I’ll continue doing some extensive tests to find out why the results are, indeed, below expectations and why the JBenchmark synthetic tests show much better results than the real-world games really show.
I really plan to publish the Bible this weekend or early next week. I think I will be able to do so.
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the main chart of the Bible, which has been constantly evolving in the meantime and contains a lot of tricks (for example, “how can I increase the heap memory available in Jblend? How can I make Esmertec’s MIDlet managers, TAO Intent and Jblend run on non-phone Pocket PC’s? Why I should refrain from using the latest Gmail MIDlet (I really recommend THIS MoDaCo thread, particularly my posts there, for more info on it) "on TAO / Esmertec Jeodek, and where can I download the older, 1.1.1 version?” etc.) It also has all the download links and, again, as with all my other charts, answers to ALL the question you will EVER want to ask about these applications.
The next part of the series has just been published: TUTORIAL: Control issues of Java MIDlets – all secrets of button handling
It’s cross-posted to PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, XDA-Developers - 3, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de.
the link is down for the download
1. One of the best Pocket PC games of all time, Orions: Legend of Wizards (along with its expansion pack Orions: The Second Age) is sold with a 40% rebate HERE. Definitely worth purchasing it if you already haven’t done so. See my two Orions Strategy Guides for more info (Pocket PC only).
2. Astraware has released Platypus, a side scroller shooter, for both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones (and Palm OS devices).
You might want to check it out. While I don’t consider it a better title than SkyForce Reloaded (the, currently, best top-down scroller on all mobile platforms) or even Fire Hawk by c2matrix (another cool scroller), you might like it more than me. At least the scener music is worth noticing.
Note that, on touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s, your ship can only be controlled with the stylus, not the D-pad. Fortunately, it has no performance problems on HTC’s current, 2.8” devices (ALL of them except the very few, CDMA-only Xscale-based ones) exhibiting the infamous touchscreen CPU usage bug; not even on my non-overclocked HTC Wizard (running the AMP WM6.1 ROM based on OS 5.2.19199). It doesn’t have performance problems on VGA devices either (tested on the x51v with makuu’s WM 6.1 A06 privß06p).
As it’s a landscape-only game, you might want to think twice before even installing it if you have a device with screen polarization issues (like the Dell Axim x50v/x51v) and your eyes happen to be sensitive to them.
Note that the Smartphone version is told to be compatible with 176*220 devices. This doesn’t seem to be the case – it simply stated my 176*220 s310 / Oxygen to be incompatible (I’ve tried both the CAB and the EXE installer). It, of course, ran flawlessly on my QVGA (240*320) s710 / Vox.
3. There is another RPG-style game, Through Enemy Eyes by ArabellaGames, a Russian / Swedish newcomer to the Windows Mobile gaming scene. I didn’t find it particularly entertaining or even interesting; however, you might find it cool. (Of maze-type games, I’d prefer AIM Productions’ Tmax or Astraware's Mazera instead – see Gaming Bible - Part I - instead.)
4. SmartGear, the all-in-one Pocket PC & Smartphone gaming console emulator, has been further improved. In addition, the developer, Larry Bank has announced he’d add support for Pocket PC 2000 and 2002.