Minetest Android Port game suggestion

[sapier]

Hello,

Android port of minetest is supposed to be simple and fast, thus right now I plan to limit singleplayer to one game and one world only. Which game is not yet decided and I'm asking for suggestions.

Requirements:
-small (<16MB)
-fast (there are a lot of limited android devices out there we have to honor this)
-smooth (parts should "match")

To prevent false assumptions, in client mode android port does support every game a server runs, of course!

[rubenwardy]

A modified version of this?

viewtopic.php?t=9192&p=139944

[stu]

While I agree that any android release should ship with a lightweight (but complete) game, I do not think
it is right to restrict the client from adding different games or more worlds.

minetest_game runs perfectly well on my 60 Euro tablet (cpu 1.6Ghz ram 1Gb) I get about 20-30 fps in single player and slightly better when connected to a remote server. (that is my own port btw)

A year from now I reckon anything less than this will be more or less considered obsolete.

[spillz]

sapier: Why one game/world? Makes no sense from a user perspective to have this restriction. I realize you have been struggling with the UI, but that shouldn't be an excuse.

That said, Minetext_next, nodetest, and minetest+ would all make sense to me as a default game. (As would most of the games on the first page of the games sub forum)

Btw, UI is almost completely broken on your latest Android version. See screenshots. Also, there is still something wrong with the speed of the startup scan, there is just no way my storage is that slow. Is it possible it is reading the device through some emulation layer?

[sapier]

FPS isn't telling anything on android as most cpu intensive task seems to be emerge thread which doesn't affect gui.

I'm sorry to tell but flash is really that slow.

Interessting gui effect you have there ;)

stu minetest_game is a lightweight game ;-) ... And the limitation is gui only don't worry.

[spillz]

I'm sorry to tell but flash is really that slow.

But there must be a workaround. No other game / app that i use has these issues. Maybe something to do with stat'ing so many files? What if all of the resources were put inside a zip file?

Interessting gui effect you have there ;)

Hopefully something you plan to fix ;)

[stu]

FPS isn't telling anything on android as most cpu intensive task seems to be emerge thread which doesn't affect gui

That does make sense because even much lower FPS results actually seem (for me) to be more playable than the equivalent frame rate on a pc. End users will measure performance in terms of FPS and general playability.

stu minetest_game is a lightweight game ;-) ... And the limitation is gui only don't worry.

I hope by this you mean that you will not hobble the client to only allow one specific game and one single world. A single big world takes no less memory than several tiny ones. This is free open source software, there should be no special restrictions on what should be an android port, not an android version!

[sapier]

I don't intend to add any limitation the limitation is just result of simplified menu!

I can't help end users using wrong numbers to judge performance but this issue is as old as benchmarks are out ... like using MHz for cpu speed or megapixels for cameras.

Yes spillz things like that (gui size) are supposed to be fixed, but first I need to find out why they happen.

The other issue, our loading screen ... Problem is we need all our textures and scripts to be stored on sdcard in order to be able to access them from irrlicht/lua. Originally they're packaged within our apk file. To make it even worse, user is able to access our sdcard storage and can delete files there. So we're forced to check on each start if all our files are still there. That's what "scanning" part is for. Copy (the one really incrementing the progress bar) should only take noticeable amount of time on first run (or if user deleted the minetest folder)

[spillz]

It's the scan that takes all the time every time i start the app (at least a minute!). Happens on all 3 of my reasonably modern devices. The copy takes no noticeable additional time. How long does it take on your phone/tablet?

[sapier]

scanning takes less then 10s for me

Edit1:
Spillz whats the display size of your device? If I interpret it correct you've got a very high dpi screen.

[hoodedice]

sapier, can you toast up latest apk for testing?

[spillz]

Sapier: http://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_no ... 0-4854.php

[Sokomine]

I think we ought to create a uniq mod collection for this. minetest_next could be a good base for it. A mod that adds /spawn and /home is necessary for the main game anyway. It's not uncommon for new players to get lost and then having to abandom their buildings - which is bad. Fortionately, minetest_next already has a /home command.

Another thing that'll be necessary is some sort of craft guide. unified_inventory is very nice but too large for such tiny screens. Maybe the other craft_guide that existed before and which comes with that nice computer node can be updated/modified to use the craft guide functions unified_inventory now has.

Leafdecay can be a problem on heavily frequented servers. It remains to be seen if it's fast enough for singleplayer on low-end hardware. TNT and fire ought to go. Perhaps lavacooling as well.

A few more blocks to build with would be good. MoreBlocks ought to go in. Homedecor would also be nice - provided it is doable. If it's too large/has too large textures, my cottages mod may also supply the most needed items.

In genral, it would be good to know what has to be avoided for low-end hardware.

[sapier]

spillz in current version you can use gui scaling to fix the gui size for your device. Please test and give feedback if it works as intended

[spillz]

How?

Btw, i can appreciate that there is some need for simplicity on phones/tablets, but I don't think stripping out the various options accomplishes that. More important to make the menus touch friendly by making sure they are appropriately sized.

[sapier]

I agree with adjusting the sizes but that's quite difficult to get done ... but it's still on list.
And if buttons get bigger we need to strip even more. For what I assume you've got a major problem with this as you have a high dpi device, for most tablets this isn't as pressing.

[stormchaser3000]

i would say Rpi