[HELP] openMSX Android build is dying...

Ascended (19462)

07-05-2018, 22:26

People who are interested in the openMSX Android build: we need your help!
The Android build is dying. The current code doesn't compile anymore in the environment with g++-4.8, so we need to upgrade it. But alas, we're running in all kinds of problems and we don't have the time to sort it all out. Alex, who made the previous port, would be ideal to fix it, as he created the port, but he also doesn't have the time anymore.

So, who can help out?

Let me know if you have questions, and even more if you want to help...

!login ou Inscrivez-vous pour poster

Par eimaster

Champion (282)

08-05-2018, 00:19

This is a bad and sad news for me. I can't use my computer as a host for emulating my belived MSX so I use my Android mobile to enjoy MSX. If openMSX for Android dies then I won't be able to enjoy it anymore.

Par cax

Prophet (3740)

08-05-2018, 07:20

AFAIK NDK is clang now, and it looks to me a more future-proof decision for openMSX.
Is back-porting to g++-4.8 a good choice, considering the effort required in both cases?

Par Manuel

Ascended (19462)

08-05-2018, 09:27

We'd like to move on to modern C++, which means g++-4.8 isn't sufficient anymore. I tried to update to the latest NDK and latest commander genius (SDL port for Android that is used for the current openMSX Android port), but I couldn't get it to compile.

For the long term a port with SDL2, without commander genius is the way forward. But that is quite some work...

Par Manuel

Ascended (19462)

08-05-2018, 09:28

eimaster wrote:

If all fails, you can keep using the current openMSX version, right?

Par eimaster

Champion (282)

14-05-2018, 09:55

Manuel wrote:

eimaster wrote:

If all fails, you can keep using the current openMSX version, right?

Yes, but my horse will be back there behind most of you. I won't be able to enjoy any new features you guys use! Especially if you get rid of the blurry screen0:width80 and make it clear. I was really waiting for any solution to be able to use a practicle 80 columns with my phone. MSX.emu and fMSX for Android both are clear when displaying screen0:width80 but I don't like them both because they force the use of their built-in keyboards (especially MSX.emu which has a very lame and stupid (sorry) keyboard which does not contain all MSX keys) do not implement the use of Hacker Keyboard which is easier and comfortable when typing.

Par NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

14-05-2018, 11:18

I would not be that worried about getting behind latest development... Naturally it is possible or even likely that at some point openMSX will get some neat new feature that we can't even imagine yet, but for pure MSX emulation openMSX is already very ready project. Even if you are hardcore MSX developer bending the possibilities to the edge, it is still relatively rare to come up with a bug in emulation... And even if you do it is about 50:50 change that the problem is that openMSX performs better than real hardware would do... This kind of bugs rarely affect general user experience although they are still something to fix.

eimaster wrote:

Especially if you get rid of the blurry screen0:width80 and make it clear.

Have you already tried to set scaler to 1 or tried other available renderers? Adjusting Blur & Scanlines may be also worth a try.

Par Manuel

Ascended (19462)

14-05-2018, 13:10

The problem with the blurriness is that the Android port only supports scale factor 1, so 320x240. That was probably a mistake.

Par Manuel

Ascended (19462)

14-07-2018, 14:00

No one really stepped forward with concrete help. However, we (me and mth) managed to build an experimental Android build, based on a much newer NDK and newer SDL-android port. Please try it out and tell us about your experiences. There are most likely some issues with it...

To try, manually uninstall the existing openMSX app and then download and install this experimental one.

You can get it here: https://openmsx.vampier.net/android/app-release.apk

Par Vampier

Prophet (2412)

14-07-2018, 18:09

New download link - https://vampier.net/android/app-release.apk

Par ARTRAG

Enlighted (6935)

15-07-2018, 07:55

It gives me an error during installation
The apk installer says that the file is not valid