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Best homebrew games for Pocket PC?

There are a bunch of homebrew games listed here. I was wondering which are the best? They can either be native PPC (2002) applications or something run inside an emulator. My tastes lean more towards RPGs and strategy games, especially games like Shining Force or Fire Emblem. Turn-based wargames are also OK.
Thanks!
-Mike

Will we ever see powerful applications on Android?

Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile. A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage. Why aren't there any media players or a PSX emulator or a N64 emulator even? They've been out on the iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile and even Symbian has it. Don't get me started on Maemo. I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?
For example the HD2 can play DivX and has a working PSX emulator. All the Desire/N1 has is yxflash for playing DivX which is a pretty poor media player if you ask me.

This has all been discussed in the past. Search and you'll find the answer.

supremeteam256 said:
This has all been discussed in the past. Search and you'll find the answer.
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Android is changing every day. The outlook and future of Android is being shaped every day. I amn't looking for an answer, i'm looking for a discussion so please get off your high horse.
I amn't some noob asking stupid questions, I know Android runs through Java and this is why intensive apps aren't as numerous. That's not the point of this thread though.

abc27 said:
Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile. A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage. Why aren't there any media players or a PSX emulator or a N64 emulator even? They've been out on the iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile and even Symbian has it. Don't get me started on Maemo. I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?
For example the HD2 can play DivX and has a working PSX emulator. All the Desire/N1 has is yxflash for playing DivX which is a pretty poor media player if you ask me.
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There are media players. Plenty of them. Maybe you should look. And why would you want an N64 emulator? I don't even see the point in the NES emulator on the market now. Personally, handheld consoles are only things that should have an emulator on a mobile phone - especially on an all touchscreen one. MAYBE an N64 emulator would be cool on one with a physical keyboard. Also, have you EVER opened up the market AT ALL?! There are plenty of useful apps.
WTF is with all you people who expect Android to be the best even though it is practically brand new? How about you sit down and just wait for a little bit, ok? All these posts down-talking Android are just annoying. You haven't even let it develop yet, you just assume the first cake baked will the better than the rest.
And if it's so easy, go do it. Don't complain because someone hasn't met your wants yet. Suggestions work better than hammering. You grow a tree by planting a seed, not cutting it down.

r3s-rt said:
There are media players. Plenty of them. Maybe you should look. And why would you want an N64 emulator? I don't even see the point in the NES emulator on the market now. Personally, handheld consoles are only things that should have an emulator on a mobile phone - especially on an all touchscreen one. MAYBE an N64 emulator would be cool on one with a physical keyboard. Also, have you EVER opened up the market AT ALL?! There are plenty of useful apps.
WTF is with all you people who expect Android to be the best even though it is practically brand new? How about you sit down and just wait for a little bit, ok? All these posts down-talking Android are just annoying. You haven't even let it develop yet, you just assume the first cake baked will the better than the rest.
And if it's so easy, go do it. Don't complain because someone hasn't met your wants yet. Suggestions work better than hammering. You grow a tree by planting a seed, not cutting it down.
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Whoa whoa, calm down
I wasn't putting down Android at all, i'm just curious as to why there seems to be so few "heavy" apps like N64/PSX emulators and the like. There are no GOOD media players, by that I mean a media player that plays DivX and plays it well. The only one I know of is Coreplayer 2.0 and development for that seems to be very slow. There are useful apps but there are far more useless apps or just pure rubbish strewn in the market. Far too much actually.
I never suggested developing these apps are easy but I don't even see many attempts at developing apps like that. There isn't enough variety in apps, for every app there are ten more trying to copy it. I just don't feel that i'm using my phone to it's full potential.

At least we're free to have/develop Apps like Emulators and Media Players, unlike a certain Fruity Smartphone.....

chrism_scotland said:
At least we're free to have/develop Apps like Emulators and Media Players, unlike a certain Fruity Smartphone.....
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lol @ fruity smartphone starting with "i"

abc27 said:
I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?.
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Time for a technical reply
I put several emulators on the market (search 'shagrath') and believe me, this is not so simple. The current state of native development on Android is very early. Meaning you have to implement a lot in Java (not really a big deal, but you can't reuse code done by other people in Qt/GTK/SDL/whatever), and there's no real APIs to access video hardware in a fast way, except OpenGL, which can be ok on some devices, but slow on others (N1 i'm looking at you)
I'm sure this has something to do with Google making things right before opening up better APIs. After all, the goal of Android is to support many hardware components/SOCs (system on a chip), while keeping compatibility of older Android apps. On the other side, the OSes you mentioned are all based on a single combination of hardware/software or so (except WinMo maybe ?). Better, a lot of them are breaking compatibility in their newer versions (Meego, WinPhone7, Symbian^3), because you can't keep crappy APIs forever
So, in a nutshell, a really good video player will not come before Google ship new APIs (I guess the CoreCodec guys have done all they could and are now waiting for them)
PSX and N64 support has more to do with motivation and code resources, because we have access to OpenGL on Android. I've yet to see a good Mobile PSX emulator other than Fpsece on WinMo (which is closed source, and will likely never be ported elsewhere). And both PSX and N64 emulators on Maemo are slow.

I haven't read through the whole thread but a few of the Samsung Galaxy line of phones are suppose to come with a pretty good built in divx player for android phones. For a general media player the music app for the Motorola Cliq XT is one of the best I have seen for Android.

Well there are emu's for:
NES
SNES
GBA
Genesis
GBC
We(Android community) have Quake 3(runs quite smoothly on small maps) and Quake 1 running, as well as doom (zdoom to be specific if memory serves me correctly). N64 emu is currently being developed by scottgl. We have web servers, DLNA servers, remote RDP clients (although no servers to the best of my knowledge).
I do agree that there has yet to be a really strong video media player on the Android, again as mentioned above, that’s due to API support (or lack thereof ).
I fail to see your problem, Android has plenty of great apps! Unless you think the omission of a few thousand fart apps means no great apps......

Maybe money is the issue?
In my view Android does currently lack large quality applications in some areas particularily media players. Many of the apps have an amateurish feel to them ( no offense guys but that's my honest opinion).
I suspect a significant factor is the difficulty in making money from the Android Market. Developing large scale polished apps takes a lot more time than the average hobbyist developer has available and since it's considerablely more difficult to make a decent income (compared to the Iphone market) we end up with a large number of lower quality apps as the developer/s stops after a while without a financial incentive.
IMO. The lack of some sort of quality control mechanism and easy moneyization ( E.g. charging apps to the Carrier bill ) may prove to be one of Android's achilles heel

abc27 said:
Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile.
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Depends on what your definition of "worthwhile" is. Frankly, I've had a G1 for two days and it has been better in many areas than my iPhone 3GS (which I still own!).
abc27 said:
A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage.
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Well, that's just not true...
From what I've seen (which hasn't been much yet), Android is indeed lacking on the media front. However, there are two things to consider here: (a) The iPhone makes a really good iPod, and (b) Most Android devices do not double as dedicated music players; they are meant to be smartphones through and through, which sacrifices many things on the media front.
This was a problem on practically anything that wasn't the iPhone, but as someone mentioned here, Android is in quite an early stage of the game. It literally just got "decent" after Eclair, which was released, what, last year?

Mame4droid - New MAME emulator on the market

Haven't tried it yet, but grab it quick... emulates 0.37b5 ROM list. Yes, it supports Xperia Play buttons.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.seleuco.mame4all&feature=search_result
Project page: http://code.google.com/p/imame4all/

Nice find. Testing romset now

I prefer this to jrioni, it has a better user interface.
Games run at good speed, just as good as jrioni, and I find the sound better in this.
Still no save states that I can see though.
Posting for tiger kings emulator to own them all. Mame needs save states to be functional imho. I play for 5 minutes at a time at work and can't progress in games without save states.

The good thing about this emulator is that it saves all your high scores. with Jromi you have to manually save and load your high scores.
My Metal Slugs and CPS2 games dont seem to work though.

dsswoosh said:
I prefer this to jrioni, it has a better user interface.
Games run at good speed, just as good as jrioni, and I find the sound better in this.
Still no save states that I can see though.
Posting for tiger kings emulator to own them all. Mame needs save states to be functional imho. I play for 5 minutes at a time at work and can't progress in games without save states.
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They are *arcade* games. They're only meant to be played for 5 minutes at a time. Only purpose for savestates is if you are cheating your way through a game with infinite quarters.

zerojay said:
They are *arcade* games. They're only meant to be played for 5 minutes at a time.
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Totally disagree with this.
Some games take 30+ minutes to beat and complete. Some are even longer taking 1 hour+ to beat.
You forget that this is a mobile device. Which means you are playing games on the move.
People playing on trains, aeorplanes, cars, 10 minute work breaks, sitting at the bus stop, sitting on the toilet (yea i do this ), etc etc etc
You want to continue your game, but at a later date.
zerojay said:
Only purpose for savestates is if you are cheating your way through a game with infinite quarters.
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This sentence makes zero sense if you sit to think about it.
"Infinite Quarters" are there whether you have save states or not
Completing metal slugs, alien vs predator, final fight, street fighter, strider, rampage, ghould n ghosts, heck LOADS of games take ALOT longer than 5 minutes.
If you played ghould n ghosts for 5 minutes at a time, you would forever be playing the first level.
What is the point in that?
Yes, it is inconclusive, save states ARE needed.
However i have some unfortunate news, MAME4ALL will NEVER have save states, since it is based on a version of MAME that doesnt have them either.
Our only hope is to see what magic Tiger King can produce.

Anyway, no disrespect to Jrioni, i was one of the people that loved and bought his version of Mame.
I support him ALL the way.
But this version of Mame i prefer, the UI is superior to Jrioni. And since it is free, there is no need to purchase Jrioni anymore.
Anyone who wants to play Mame games, this is now the best version.

Glad I held off from buying Jrioni now. Was waiting for save states.
This seems better, though without save states as well.
...and to say Save States are not needed on a mobile device is well...I'm not going to get into it again...but its pretty stupid.

Red_Kop said:
Glad I held off from buying Jrioni now. Was waiting for save states.
This seems better, though without save states as well.
...and to say Save States are not needed on a mobile device is well...I'm not going to get into it again...but its pretty stupid.
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does Mame4droid support dip switches?
reason why i ask its pointless playing mame games for me on medium setting, i like to crank the difficulty up on games, otherwise no challenge !

harlzden said:
does Mame4droid support dip switches?
reason why i ask its pointless playing mame games for me on medium setting, i like to crank the difficulty up on games, otherwise no challenge !
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No it doesnt.
Which is quite annoying because i cant change the analog sensitivity for games like Paperboy, which is unplayable on Mame4Droid because he steers to the left all the time.
Jrioni's graphics seem to be a bit better too. Mame4droid is a bit blockier.
Sound and speed works best on Mame4Droid though. And Mame4Droid is far more user friendly in setting up screen sizes etc.

mame4droid support dip switches u can enable it during in games by pressing select+start at the same time will bring up the menu, only the bad side is the graphic blockier but enable smooth graphic the games lag if it can fixed this then this is the best emu u can get for play.

Does the APP comes with roms or do you have to download them if so from where?! does the app run well on the sony play?
Teku

squall12 said:
mame4droid support dip switches u can enable it during in games by pressing select+start at the same time will bring up the menu, only the bad side is the graphic blockier but enable smooth graphic the games lag if it can fixed this then this is the best emu u can get for play.
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Yes!
Dip switches work.
This is hands down the best Mame emulator for Android. The only thing that can top this is save states or support for newer ROM sets.
Guy above. Don't ask for roms here. They are easily findable with any search engine.

for the roms to work with this Emulator what file type do the roms need to be?

It tells you on the market download page

dsswoosh said:
No it doesnt.
Which is quite annoying because i cant change the analog sensitivity for games like Paperboy, which is unplayable on Mame4Droid because he steers to the left all the time.
Jrioni's graphics seem to be a bit better too. Mame4droid is a bit blockier.
Sound and speed works best on Mame4Droid though. And Mame4Droid is far more user friendly in setting up screen sizes etc.
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I must be doing something wrong because even though sound is a bit better than Jrioni's, this emus is much slower, almost unplayable. So I will stick to Jrioni.

rugalb said:
I must be doing something wrong because even though sound is a bit better than Jrioni's, this emus is much slower, almost unplayable. So I will stick to Jrioni.
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What games are you seeing that are slower?

For instance Three Wonders, and Mortal Kombat 2 does not work. On a second attempt I uninstalled it and downloaded from Market and works fine now.

FYI Three Wonders works perfectly in Tiger Arcade 2.20

I'm trying to put this on my ATT Captivate and I can not get the games to show up on the program. I know that I have the right versions of the games. After installing the program, I checked the SD card to see if a ROMs folder was created. There wasn't any so I created a ROMs/Mame4all/roms folder which didn't help. I tried to move the program to the SD card, but I couldn't see the folder when I put the card in a reader. What am I doing wrong?
Never mind. It was on the phone. I was able to see the folder after plugging the phone directly into the computer.

Any Decent Looking Solitare Games Out There?

I like most people my age grew up on solitaire, that and minesweeper were the only games we had back in our day... two miles in the snow, both ways uphill and all that jazz. Either way, most of the solitaire apps I've seen on Android look just about as bad as they did on Windows. In fact, the Windows version looks even better! All these Android card apps look like SHlT! I can get high def shooters and race games, but not a decent looking solitaire game? Anyone recommend any slick looking apps?

I use Solitaire deluxe. iirc i got it as Amazon's free app of the day a while back, but i believe they have a free version. It is ok and has a lot of games including a few of the classics. Many games can be configured with different options to make them easier or more difficult to beat.

Emulators: no-fuss options for Nexus Player

I'll maintain this thread so long as there's interest. In order for an emulator to be listed here, it needs to meet the following criteria
-must be able to open the app with the OFFICIAL Nexus Player gamepad (NPGP)
-must be able to exit the app with the official NPGP
-Must be able to configure all in-app options, to include gamepad button assignments, with the NPGP.
-Must be installable from the Nexus Player (waivable if installable from Play Store on PC)
-Must have a leanback launcher shortcut
Basically, if the emulator requires root, ADB, third party peripherals (for use or configuration), sideloading, etc., it won't be on this list.
NES:
NES.emu ($3.99)
Open the Play Store on your Nexus Player, and scroll up to search. Type or speak "Nintendo" or "emulator" and this will be one of the options that comes up. Alternatively, you can purchased and push install from the web-based Play Store. Open installation and first run, you should go to the settings and configure the gamepad for in-game actions (specifically, to exit the app).
SNES:
Snes9x EX+ (FREE)
Same as above (same developer and menu system).
I'd advise using the SNES emu first (as it's free) to learn how his menu/control setup works, then move on to his other paid emulators. You can see his other emulators at this page here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Robert Broglia&hl=en
Alternatively, you can open the Play Store on the Nexus Player, scroll up to search, and type/speak "emulator." Pretty much all of those are his. As I purchase his other emulators I'll add them to the above list when confirmed. If others wants to try them and report back, I'll also update the list based on that. If you find other emulators that meet the above criteria, please share.

Won't they get removed from the store soon? Emulators are banned quickly on Google Play, aren't they?

Magnesus said:
Won't they get removed from the store soon? Emulators are banned quickly on Google Play, aren't they?
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Most emulators on Google Play have been there for years. Nesoid and the other emulators made by that developer were removed for a specific violation. Here's a good article on the subject.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/0...nded-are-emulators-soon-to-be-banned-content/
Also, I'm going to go out on limb here. It's normally bad form to distribute links of ROM distribution website (and I won't post it here unless a moderator explicitly tells me that it's ok). However, there's one website that is actually legal (and as such, don't expect to find the best games here). Basically, the ESA has set up a way of protecting the rights of gaming companies and their work, while also offering some ROMs to gamers. Read more on the ESA here:
http://www.theesa.com/ (NOTE: Not a ROM distribution site)
Due to this, one website is completely ESA compliant and has, at the request of Nintendo (and other parties) intentionally set up dead links that will usually be at or near the top of Google results. If you search for a specific ROM on a Nintendo platform, and you click on the link for this specific website, all you get is a link that says "This page has been removed due to copyrights." What few ROMs are available on this website are legally freely distributed. Have at it.

The only problem I have with console emulators has always been the controller lag. This has been true even on my gaming PCs. Playing Super Mario 3 for example, on my SNES (bought one just for this game - lol) it's smooth and does what I expect it to. On my PCs, ADT-1, etc., there's always a minor lag that's just enough to throw timing off.
Mame for the most part on the PC has worked very well for fighting games. Chankast with MvsC2 was damn smooth for me. I'd love to see Android get to this level of emulation.

Mi|enko said:
The only problem I have with console emulators has always been the controller lag. This has been true even on my gaming PCs. Playing Super Mario 3 for example, on my SNES (bought one just for this game - lol) it's smooth and does what I expect it to. On my PCs, ADT-1, etc., there's always a minor lag that's just enough to throw timing off.
Mame for the most part on the PC has worked very well for fighting games. Chankast with MvsC2 was damn smooth for me. I'd love to see Android get to this level of emulation.
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There are two types of lag that you'll have to deal with here: system timing and input lag.
System timing - Each emulator developer takes their own approach to this. For the SNES, for example, SNES9X and ZSNES took two different approaches. ZSNES made the system timing more consistent, while SNES9X attempts to emulate the system timing of the SNES to a fault. As a result, playing a game on SNES9X will more closely mirror the actual SNES than ZSNES will. Basically, if you're playing a game that requires timing, you'll have to completely relearn your timing on ZSNES, whereas SNES9X will require less (if any) adjustment.
As for Sega 8/16-bit systems and the 32X, you should ONLY be using Kega Fusion on the desktop. This emulator is made by the same guy who has been hired by Sega numerous times to help them port their "Ages" collections to various platforms. He has inside knowledge of the hardware which is why his emulation is so spot on. There should be no noticeable difference in timing between an actual SMS/Genesis/SegaCD/32X and Kega Fusion. Unfortunately, the emulators available for Android aren't based on Fusion.
Input lag - All monitors/HDTVs have a degree of input lag. If you're gaming at 60fps, you want input lag to be <16.67ms, or 1 frame. This ensure that your button response is never more than 1 frame off. NOTE: This has NOTHING to do with pixel response time advertised by LCD manufacturers. Do NOT confuse these two specs. Here's a database of PC monitors and their associated input lag - http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/
HDTVs have an inherently high input lag due to all of the processing that they attempt to do. If you're going to game on these HDTVs, you want to disable as much as possible by using any built-in game mode that the HDTV has. For example, I use a Samsung L46A650. I bought this HDTV in 2008 because, at the time, it had the best input lag control. To date, no HDTV has bested it, so I'm keeping it until it dies. If I use HDMI input 2, set the source to 1080p (possible with Xbox 360, not with PS3), and set it at PC mode, it acts as a PC monitor. Input lag is <16.67 ms in this mode. For other inputs, enabling game mode has an input lag of 16.67ms to 33.33ms (1-2 frames). VGA (Dreamcast) is <16.67ms. If you dare use standard or movie mode, input lag is 3-4 frames. And if you have component hookups (like my PS2) and forget to enable game mode, it's a horrid 4-6 frames worth of delay. Here's an AVS thread on it - http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-l...-results-your-lcd-display-here-reference.html
Bottom line is that you can greatly reduce the timing issues that you're having by ensuring that you're using the optimal emulator, and properly configuring your display.

^Thanks for all the detail man! I'm using a Samsung TV as well and had been using game mode for my ADT-1 input. Switching it from Game to PC, I saw a significant improvement in the input lag; however, I do see occasional screen hiccups (just a quick flash while navigating). The SNES games (Mario 3 in this case, for comparative purposes) plays almost flawless and as smooth as my SNES. Not perfect, but a helluva lot better than in game mode. It's comparable to my PC at this point, from the quick 10 minutes of testing I did.

Mi|enko said:
^Thanks for all the detail man! I'm using a Samsung TV as well and had been using game mode for my ADT-1 input. Switching it from Game to PC, I saw a significant improvement in the input lag; however, I do see occasional screen hiccups (just a quick flash while navigating). The SNES games (Mario 3 in this case, for comparative purposes) plays almost flawless and as smooth as my SNES. Not perfect, but a helluva lot better than in game mode. It's comparable to my PC at this point, from the quick 10 minutes of testing I did.
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I'm glad that you found it useful. I want to clarify something from my prior post that I was misleading on.
There are essentially 3 classes of "modern" emulators for the SNES, and there are many that fall in around or between these classes. For this example, I'm going to refer to Higan (formerly BSNES), SNES9X, and ZSNES.
Emulation is tricky. The more accurate you attempt to be, the higher the system specs that you need. Due to this, Higan stands alone as the most accurate emulator. It won't do any graphics filters. It won't speed up games. If a game had a scene with horrendous slowdown on a physical SNES, it will have the same horrendous slowdown on this emulator in the same spot. If you want to perfectly emulate an SNES, don't care about modernizing the graphics, and have the specs to run it (quad-core 3ghz+ Intel Core series CPU), then go for Higan. Note: There's no equivalent for Android, nor could there be at this point.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is ZNES (and there are far worse emulators, but I'm picking on them). Like all emulators not named Higan, this program takes shortcuts to mimic functionality. More shortcuts means better speed and lower system requirements, but also more compatibility issues. Try playing Earthworm Jim 2 and you won't hear most of the sound effects.
SNES9X is a compromise. It is far more accurate than ZSNES and therefore has higher system requirements. It takes more of a 95/5 approach. It won't have the accuracy as Higan, but it also won't have the slowdown found in Starefox to the degree that a real SNES or Higan would. It also allows you to enhance the graphics with filters and such. It's also ported to damn near every platform (including the Android TV app mentioned in the OP). It won't be exactly like playing on an actual SNES, but it will be closer than most emulators while offering enhancements, and consistency across multiple platforms.

I have installed these emulators and these are superb.