The Rasberry Pi is a $35 Linux computer (ARM+Debian) complete with video (HMDI or composite), audio, USB and network. I remember a while back someone made an arcade game with AGS (complete with arcade enclosure and everything) and traded it to a popular local restaurant in return for free waffles for life if I recall correctly.
Anyway I was reading about the pi the other day and got to thinking about them waffles and AGS and how cool it would be if AGS were able to run on the $35 pi. Just wondering if anyone else finds the idea interesting or have comments to share.
We have a Linux port of the engine, an X86 version no doubt and I am curious abut the technical aspects of making a pi version. What would be required to make a pi port of the engine?
Anyway here are a couple of links to the pi home and to an article with the hardware specifics.
Home page
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
Hardware specs of later version
http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware
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The Linux port already compiles and runs on the Raspberry Pi (I got one) under Debian. But it is very slow. There is a new hardware accelerated X driver that is currently in testing which improves performance somewhat. But still even low-res games struggle to maintain > 30 fps. Graphically advanced games or ones with a lot of scripting don't run acceptable.
Edit: Technically no effort was required to make a Raspberry Pi port. Any ARM specific problems that might have been there are already dealt with (because of the Android and iOS ports) and there is no real difference between a Debian on x86 or on ARM. The system provides the same libraries on all platforms.
How come the Pi can run Quake 3 at a fairly good lick but can't run old school adventures as well?
I'm sure there's a reason, I'm just curious.
Because the Pi has a very fast and modern GPU (graphics processor) but only a somewhat outdated old ARM main CPU. The fast GPU of course helps with 3d games but won't do anything for 2d graphics that are drawn by the CPU.
Edit: I should add that there is an OpenGL driver for AGS (like the Direct3D driver) but it is not yet working on Linux and the Pi also does not (currently) offer hardware accelerated OpenGL in the X window system. Even with that there is still the issue of script-heavy games hammering the CPU.