Is it possible to port OpenLara to Dreamcast?

[Anthony817]

So I just found out about an open sourced Tomb Raider engine for the first 5 games. It was just ported over to the OG Xbox. We sure could use a few more of the first games in the series on the DC. Here it is in action on the Xbox, even has some extras like FPV and split screen coop!




https://youtu.be/S_xVW_6r7eY

It is SDL 2, so hopefully it is possible to get this working on the DC within the limited memory. First few games should hopefully perform well.

https://github.com/XProger/OpenLara

Now I know the OG Xbox is many times more powerful than the DC, but without trying to use all the fancy effects it should hopefully be possible to have the early classic TR games on the DC that we are missing.

I mean it even has a tech demo on the GBA. So it is for sure able to be ported over to the DC.

https://youtu.be/Cz1AzQsJu18

[dubcity]

Someone else like ian would have to say if it can be ported.

But it sure is interesting.

I wonder if someone with the skills can use it to make original 3d game on dreamcast?

[Anthony817]

Mh, not sure about that? I don't know how extensively modable the original TR games even were, let alone this engine? But with a custom engine and full source I guess anything is possible. I had hoped that would happen with the SM64 port but it is going to be unlikely with how much memory it was already using. My hope is at least the first 3 games could be ported over, since the other 2 are natively on the system and thus newer, may require more resources than the system could provide without being made with official SDK. But that is just a guess on my part, the other 2 games would not even be needed.

But the early TR games always felt like they all should have come over to the console, well the first was actually developed targeting the Saturn, so 3 games did come to Sega consoles. Just missed 2 in that transition to the DC.

[Protofall]

SDL 2? That's odd, I thought OG Xbox didn't have that, only SDL 1.X (My reference is a MVG video, but he's been very wrong about stuff in the past (Dreamcast security video, lol) so take that with a grain of salt).

I know Dreamcast has multiple versions of SDL 1.X floating around with various levels of complete-ness. Ian knows which version is best though.

Comparing this to the SM64 port, this one might be easier just because Tomb Raider was originally a Saturn game and hence used optical discs instead of Cartridges. The SM64-DC port had everything loaded at once which is why it took a bit to get everything in there.

[Anthony817]

Oh yeah I think that it might have been recently updated on the Xbox. I know my friend marty over at EmuXtras was working on FakeGL for it, which is what his Xash3D Half-Life engine port was using. I do believe that SDL may have been updated on the Xbox when they did that recent Diablo port earlier this year.

Looking at this, it is SDL 1.

https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX

So hell, perhaps that Xbox port of Diablo could be used as a basis for a DC port?

But anyways, I still haven't gotten around to trying the TR port on Xbox. Waiting for the guys over at EMUXtras to update their private repository with a compiled build.

[Esppiral]

If it can run on a Gameboy Advance I see no reason baby it can't on Dreamcast

[Ian Micheal]

Freakdave saysThe OG Xbox port was done directly with the XDK (and not SDL2, as stated in the forum). It uses XInput, DirectSound and even ASM shaders. So while it's true that there's FakeGL on Xbox (even 2 versions at some point, Marty and I worked on it), it is not being used in this port.

So he looked into it there not using what ever they said they did.. plus it's using asm shaders.. right at this moment I'm not confident..

It may look like it can be done maybe with some work it might be able to a proper opengl port might be..

[Anthony817]

Oh wow you know Marty and worked with him on FakeGL? Nice!



Hopefully there could be a way to strip out all those fancy shaders?

[freakdave]

Yes, Ian knows because i told him. Obviously you can't use FakeGL here because that library converts OpenGL to D3D8 code and afaik this is not available on DC.

If you look in the repository there are different graphic APIs (XBox, Vulkan, Switch, Software Rendering, etc..).

If you're aiming for OpenGL, then a downport of the SDL2 code is the first you should try. Just make sure to undef _GAPI_GLES and _GAPI_GLES2 (GLES2 and GLES3), then it should theoretically fallback to whatever is defined in SDL_opengl.h.

[Anthony817]

Ah that is nice to know! I have been playing it on Xbox and it really is such a great project. Really amazed at how awesome it is. The movement with analog is pretty decent too. Not true analog movement, but it feels good with the stick. Really hope someday somebody looks into it. This is one of the greatest action games in history so having it on DC would be pretty awesome.