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DS development > n00b question regarding porting software/games

#135820 - Tikker - Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:52 pm

I'm not a programmer in any way, shape or form, but this is just a matter of curiousity

In order to port a game, what do you actually have to do?

I kind of just assume that you need to grab the source, and then re-code/replace the original hardware specific code with corresponding code for the device you're trying to port it to?


obviously that's a simplistic view of it, but is that kind of the general gist of it?

#135826 - simonjhall - Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:36 pm

Yes that's pretty much the crux of it. But as you say, it's not as easy as it may sound :-)
Things which may be an issue:
- 256x192 is not a common screen size - you may have to move around hard-coded stuff (eg gui elements) to make it fit
- most games don't support two screens - if you're going to integrate the dual-screen nature into the game, how are you going to retro fit this into the code?
- the game you're porting may require more buttons than the DS has
- CPU power (and FPU requirements)
- memory usage
- polygon limit
- assumptions about the sound hardware
- usage of APIs whose internals you're not familiar with (and so how will you replace these calls?)

this is all from my own personal experience btw. Any other porters got any juicy stuff worth mentioning?
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#135827 - LiraNuna - Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:36 pm

Quote:
I kind of just assume that you need to grab the source, and then re-code/replace the original hardware specific code with corresponding code for the device you're trying to port it to?


I don't think anyone can say it any better then you did, since porting is a code-dependent job and depends a lot on how the code is designed and what it uses.
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