Windows Phone now supports native code (C / C++)

Discussion about other and unofficial ports of ScummVM

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necrosmash
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Windows Phone now supports native code (C / C++)

Post by necrosmash »

Hey, long time lurker here. Love ScummVM, thanks for all the hard work :)

I was wondering if, since WP8 will support C and C++ code as well as C#, we will ever see a ScummVM port to WP8?

Thanks for your time.
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LordHoto
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Re: Windows Phone now supports native code (C / C++)

Post by LordHoto »

necrosmash wrote:Hey, long time lurker here. Love ScummVM, thanks for all the hard work :)

I was wondering if, since WP8 will support C and C++ code as well as C#, we will ever see a ScummVM port to WP8?

Thanks for your time.
If someone will work on it, there may be some port in the future.
relexx
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Post by relexx »

Same as here:
If anybody is actually going to work on a Windows Phone 8-Version of ScummVM, I will be willing to pay for a WP developer account to publish the app to the store.
I'm serious. There's just nothing more brilliant than ScummVM on this planet. Thank you for let me playing my beloved games once and once again.
Managarm
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Post by Managarm »

To everyone, who will be working on this port....im willing to donate some money for it. worth every coin!

please! :shock:
bartekxyz
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Post by bartekxyz »

I'm also willing to donate, count me in.
Sykar
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Post by Sykar »

I'd be so willing to donate to get scummvm for Windows phone 8.
The good old games on the Lumia 920 is something that I wish for.
donomar
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Post by donomar »

Yep, i m waiting too and willing to donate to anyone who would like to make a port to windows phone.
Because if you don't like iOS, Android or the discontinued MeeGo/Symbian systems you can't enjoy your old games on a mobile device and that is a no go either :p
Too bad i m not into coding myself.....
digitall
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Post by digitall »

To be clear, as LordHoto previously indicated, the problem is not a lack of donations/money, but a lack of skilled developers with time, WP8 and motivation to work on this.

It is also non-trivial as currently libSDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) is not supported on WinRT or WP8. There is some alpha code for this, but it is not complete and some way from being merged to the SDL mainline:
https://bitbucket.org/DavidLudwig/sdl/wiki/Home

Also, even if this is done, this would be unlikely to be backported from libSDL 2.0 API to the 1.2 API, which ScummVM currently builds against.

You have three options:
1. "Do Nothing": Be patient and in time, a port will emerge when the required libraries are supported on WP8 and a developer with a WP8 device decides to work on this... but this may be some time as most of us have day jobs!

2. "Do It Yourself": Either you learn C/C++, the WP8 APIs and look at the SDL code and ScummVM code and do this yourself... or find a developer friend who might do this for fun.

3. "Pay a Developer": Use those donations to pay a contract developer from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VWorker or similar service to do the work of porting SDL and ScummVM and provide the code patches to the project...
AndreBotelho
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Post by AndreBotelho »

I think I'll try to do one if the SDL port works and once I finish my current project, I want to see SDL on WP8. Maybe someone can do it first, but if not I'll work on it next month.
donomar
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Post by donomar »

hey.that sounds great.you can keep us updated on this topic ;)
cheers
sufi
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Post by sufi »

Any updates?
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LordHoto
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Post by LordHoto »

sufi wrote:Any updates?
Not that I know of. It seems nobody popped up with some working port so far.
Lybra
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Post by Lybra »

As a WP8 and WinRT user and developer I would love to get ScummVM ported.

One of the biggest issues right now is to move the project over to the new build system of windows store/phone apps. The existing project tools for visual studio are designed for win32 projects and won't help afaik.

From what I can see, porting it will be a huge task and I doubt we gonna see this happen. :(
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LordHoto
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Post by LordHoto »

Lybra wrote:As a WP8 and WinRT user and developer I would love to get ScummVM ported.

One of the biggest issues right now is to move the project over to the new build system of windows store/phone apps. The existing project tools for visual studio are designed for win32 projects and won't help afaik.

From what I can see, porting it will be a huge task and I doubt we gonna see this happen. :(
Don't you use VisualStudio for building for Windows Phone too? If so, it might not be that hard to adapt create_project to output working VisualStudio project files, which we want anyway, since manual project file updates are rather tiresome.

Of course, you can try to create custom project files first and we can then see how hard it would actually be to automatically generate those.
Lybra
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Post by Lybra »

While it's true that you use VS for both Windows Phone and Windows Store Apps, both the SDKs and project templates are different. But to be honest I don't know any details :(
The SDL port from DavidLudwig gives an example how to setup a SDL project for WinRT, I'm going to have a look at it.

Apart from that, a lot from the Win32 API is missing on both platforms. Also the SDL port is based on SDL 2.x, which may work though.

As I said, it's a pretty big task. If someone (especially an experienced C++ developer) is interested in working on this, I would gladly help.

I will have a look at it myself, but don't put high hopes on me, I'm a C# developer :P
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