How do you port to a console

[deathsangel]

On the videos that Gyro Vorbis made he ported all his code to work with dream cast.

Could somebody explain the process that somebody would go through to develop for a console ex(psp, ps2, ps3, dreamcast, gba, wii, etc...)

[dandymcgee]

On the videos that Gyro Vorbis made he ported all his code to work with dream cast.

Could somebody explain the process that somebody would go through to develop for a console ex(psp, ps2, ps3, dreamcast, gba, wii, etc...)

It's entirely different depending on the console. Some of them can easily run homebrew software, some require certain hardware hacks of questionable legality, and others are pretty much impossible without buying the SDK.

[deathsangel]

So how would you do it on the psp or wii whichever is easier. If both are hard then how do you do it on the gba. (I need to be able to use SDL or OpenGL)

[Falco Girgis]

There is no way in fuck that you are going to get SDL or OpenGL on a GBA.

Look, you should really be knowledgeable about programming, hardware, and APIs before you even bother. There's very low level knowledge required to tinker with a console, and based on the fact that you are looking for OGL/SDL (OpenGL might not even be on PSP), I would guess that you can't be too experienced.

It's 99% teaching yourself.

And if I were to rank them in order of homebrew difficulty, I would say:

PSP > Wii > GBA

from easiest to hardest.

[JS Lemming]

Dick around here if you're interested in developing on the wii. It's not that hard. There is an alright port of SDL and a kinda piss poor OpenGL thing. Explore.

[Martyj]

I believe microsoft offers some thing like this for the 360.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/samples/GameCreators/

[herby490]

I believe microsoft offers some thing like this for the 360.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/samples/GameCreators/

No that is XNA but you need to pay 99 dollars a year if you want it on the 360.

[Trask]

Another thing to consider if you're making a PC game(even in the industry) to try and keep everything as generalized as possible as you know Direct X won't help you when porting to a Dreamcast or Playstation or any console really(360's having their own special brew of a DX API). Understand your target platforms and try to keep the code as optimized for both as possible. On the PC you may be able to have a thousand sprites on the screen, but the Sega Genesis can't handle that, so limit it to what the lowest end console can handle, then from there just break down the code. You create a sprite handler for the PC code, you know you need a sprite handler for the target console, just keep track.

[davidthefat]

There is no way in fuck that you are going to get SDL or OpenGL on a GBA.

Look, you should really be knowledgeable about programming, hardware, and APIs before you even bother. There's very low level knowledge required to tinker with a console, and based on the fact that you are looking for OGL/SDL (OpenGL might not even be on PSP), I would guess that you can't be too experienced.

It's 99% teaching yourself.

And if I were to rank them in order of homebrew difficulty, I would say:

PSP > Wii > GBA

from easiest to hardest.

PSP has its own SDK in C and it has lots of code that uses its kernal from what I have seen...

[deathsangel]

Do I need to have custom firmware in order to put code on my psp?

[rolland]

google is your friend
http://www.psp-homebrew.eu/faq/index.php#basics or possibly
http://www.psp-homebrew.eu/faq/setup.php#setup

[davidthefat]

Do I need to have custom firmware in order to put code on my psp?

Yes, or a version 1.5 phat psp... but thats highly unlikely cause CFW


http://www.psp-programming.com/tutorials/

better site... I can help if you need help

[eatcomics]

There is no way in fuck that you are going to get SDL or OpenGL on a GBA.

Look, you should really be knowledgeable about programming, hardware, and APIs before you even bother. There's very low level knowledge required to tinker with a console, and based on the fact that you are looking for OGL/SDL (OpenGL might not even be on PSP), I would guess that you can't be too experienced.

It's 99% teaching yourself.

And if I were to rank them in order of homebrew difficulty, I would say:

PSP > Wii > GBA

from easiest to hardest.

Well the homebrew stuf for gba uses c++ libraries...

[rolland]

And if I were to rank them in order of homebrew difficulty, I would say:
PSP > Wii > GBA
from easiest to hardest.

I would add NDS before Wii (in case anyone's curious)

NDS homebrew is amazingly simple once you get the hardware and software setup (my absolute favorite homebrew platform; more than computers)
Wii homebrew is also pretty easy after setup, and you probably already have the necessary hardware in your room (twilight princess and an sd card)
GBA homebrew seems a little more complicated, as the hardware is a little harder to find(well it was for me) and the libraries aren't as high-level
I don't have a PSP, so I can't say. You could give me yours...

On topic, porting code to a console could be extremely difficult, depending on a variety of factors such as:
1) complexity of code being ported (a hello world program versus Elysian Shadows)
2) the maturity of the toolchains, APIs, and communities of the console(or handheld) being ported to
3) the porter's skill (porting is not a good first or second project)
4) the hardware/hacks required to run the code on the console(or handheld) (many possibilities exist for NDS but good luck running unofficial code on a 360)
5) etc etc...

There is no way in fuck that you are going to get SDL or OpenGL on a GBA.

Yeah, that's pretty definite. If you did, they would suck an amazing amount.

[MarauderIIC]

[quote="rolland1) complexity of code being ported (a hello world program versus Elysian Shadows)[/quote]For instance, we essentially have a renderer wrapper that interfaces to two different rendering systems depending on which platform we're compiling for.