[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Porting to very small devices

[Kero van Gelder <kero@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I have been thinking about writing a client for PDA style devices,
> > somewhere in the range of 200x320 sized screens.
> > I'm not so much worried about the CPU power or the memory as I am the
> > actual client itself: it possible to effectively play
> > freeciv on such a small screen?
> 
> It was possible classic Civ to play at 320x200 with 16 colours on an EGA
> screen, so certainly it should be possible. You'll want to make a new
> tileset, like the one in classic Civ, with very "diagramatic" units.

My iPAQ is 240 x 320, running X (Xfbdev), possibly with xinerama (runtime
90 degrees rotation of the screen), 12 bits LCD screen (16 bits X server).

You'd have to split all big windows into pieces. A small overview-map
on a 320x200 screen seems pretty useless, unless you look at the
overview map only. City report will need a very small font, or needs
to be done differently.

> There is a version of SimCity for the Palm Pilot, which is black and white
> only (though the hardware supports 16 grays). So really, with a bit of
> clever UI work, it should be possible to run it on very small devices.

I agree.

> Remember that the AIs take a considerable bit of processing power. On a
> Pentium II with many AIs (~16) there is significant delay between turns on
> a large map.

heh, same iPAQ has 200 MHz StrongArm CPU.

+--- Kero --------------------------------- kero@xxxxxx ---+
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