• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

Ultima Online Mobile!!! 1!

J

Janus69

Guest
I want it. Seriously, my phone has better specs than my old computer that I used to play UO for years.. If I could just play on my Android, my work productivity would be completely shot in the a$$. Get r done
 
P

Prince Caspian

Guest
On one hand, I'd love it, as I often take my laptop on trips so I can play UO on the go.

On the other hand, the point and click interface on the iPhone's teeny screen would be a nightmare.
 
J

Janus69

Guest
On one hand, I'd love it, as I often take my laptop on trips so I can play UO on the go.

On the other hand, the point and click interface on the iPhone's teeny screen would be a nightmare.
Hmmm this is a good point. Someone needs to develop some kind of mouse/keyboard that plugs into the micro usb/hdmi then, or redesign the UI altogether
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
On the other hand, the point and click interface on the iPhone's teeny screen would be a nightmare.
Perhaps this might help?
[YOUTUBE]XIjBwNFYtGY[/YOUTUBE]


I realize that video is 100% fake. But it's still pretty cool.
 

Kri

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
On one hand, I'd love it, as I often take my laptop on trips so I can play UO on the go.

On the other hand, the point and click interface on the iPhone's teeny screen would be a nightmare.
Hmmm this is a good point. Someone needs to develop some kind of mouse/keyboard that plugs into the micro usb/hdmi then, or redesign the UI altogether
Don't know about iPhones but with Android you can connect a bluetooth keyboard (a mouse too, presumably, but I've never tried that.)
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm 95% sure you can connect a bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone.

I'm 100% positive you can with the iPad.
 

Ned888

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
I certainly wouldn't mind this for an IPad or other tablet, but it would be too small for a phone. It's already small now, with a full sized monitor!
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
of mouse/keyboard that plugs into the micro usb/hdmi then, or redesign the UI altogether
or you could just buy a real smartphone, like the ones from HTC, that have slideout keyboards and a trackpoint built onto the phone.

...just sayin :D (I have all the lucasarts and sierra adventure games on my phone, works just fine)

Makes me curious now though, If i could get Qemu running on my phone I could just flat out install UO on it and play the normal client.....would be super slow emulating x86 code but it would probably run just fine....or i could just cheat and use a VNC client and install UO on one of my webservers...be a little laggy but work

And by the way, there actually already IS a cell phone version of UO..sort of (it's not "really" uo, but a semi-remake for cell players only, but still interesting), just not available in the US Ultima Online goes mobile in Japan - News at GameSpot
 

Martyna Zmuir

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I've played UO through my Android 3.0 tablet using a remote desktop app. Walking can be a little clumsy using arrow keys, and a lot if mobiles onscreen at once gets laggy... but it works.

While an Android native UO app would be awesome, we all know it won't happen...:sad4:
 

Ahuaeyjnkxs

stranger diamond
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
There is an indian guy who I've seen on a TV clip that does exactly this Mr.Black Sun...

he uses a camera and mini projector he sets on his head, and it can display keyboard, and larger interfaces with full interactivity...

this one might be fake but the guy has it fully functional now...
 

Salivern_Diago

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Haha I'm going to get my wife to watch the video and get her thinking thats its the new Iphone... heheh I can hear the "I want that... NOW" and the 'glares' till I get her one.

[Edit] her words were "OH WOW! I bet thats expensive" I didnt dare look at her...
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
There is an indian guy who I've seen on a TV clip that does exactly this Mr.Black Sun...

he uses a camera and mini projector he sets on his head, and it can display keyboard, and larger interfaces with full interactivity...

this one might be fake but the guy has it fully functional now...
laser projected keyboards have been around since IBM created them in the early 90's

here, you can buy one that bluetooth syncs with your phone for $170 right here
ThinkGeek :: Cube Laser Virtual Keyboard for iPad & iPhone

The reason they never caught on....they're as bad for typing on as a touchscreen is, same basic problems, without touch feedback you can't really touch type on it, and since your hands have to be on it to type you occlude a good portion of it when typing. Useless for getting any real work done but they do work just fine I've used one before and they're no worse than typing on something like a tablet screen.
 

curlybeard

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Splashtop has a quick enough response to play UO. Works with a Bluetooth keyboard, though I had to tweak the mouse settings in the host OS to make movement easier. If you are within 30 meters of the host computer, you can run a Bluetooth mouse on the host.

Another possibility is using qemu to run wine from within an ubuntu (or debian) chroot on an Android or WebOS device. I haven't been able to make it work, but there are some that claim success with other x86 apps on an ARM device. WINE has an official ARM wiki unfortunately it doesn' t give complete instructions.

I don't have a win98 disc/iso, otherwise I would try setting up a virtual machine on the ARM device. XP is just too heavy.

Perhaps with Win8 supporting ARM devices, Bioware may release UO compiled for ARM. Won't hold my breath

Though none of the above solutions address that most tablets lack mouse support. My Bluetooth mouse will pair with my webOS device, but won't connect to the tablet. Perhaps there support is lacking in the custom linux kernel. Same result with WiFi mice.
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Perhaps with Win8 supporting ARM devices, Bioware may release UO compiled for ARM. Won't hold my breath
Would take a lot more than simply a "recompile" to arm for UO to run on the mobile verison of win8, it would be a full porting job as if porting to any other OS. (and at that point, why not just make a cross platform client so UO can run on anything with a single client, it's not like it' that complicated of a game client side....)

We're talking EA though, they won't even spend money getting the windows clients working correctly.
 

curlybeard

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My understanding is that win8 has the full windows API for x86 and ARM, there is not a separate mobile version. Win8 has the ability to load the regular desktop in both versions, but the metroUI is designed more for touch-touchscreens. Is this not correct?

Edit: For ubuntu applications I use the same source code, just change the target device when compiling, to run a program on my x86 netbook and then again on my ARM tablet. Is it different for windows?
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
Makes me curious now though, If i could get Qemu running on my phone I could just flat out install UO on it and play the normal client.....would be super slow emulating x86 code but it would probably run just fine....
Super slow would be an understatement. Huge difference between running DOS games, which I do on my iPhone, and running something like UO.

Keep in mind you would not just be running UO, you would be running UO on top of Windows. It would probably have to be Windows 98 at the minimum because of DirectX 9. There maybe a form of Wine or Crossover for mobile devices, but even those can take a decent desktop or laptop to run with any decent performance. I can't imagine how slow it would be trying to emulate an x86 environment and running Windows and then UO on top of it. I know Samsung is making quad-core CPUs for the next generation of iPhones (next year or the year after), but I'd have my doubts even with those. You're better off doing the VNC route.
or i could just cheat and use a VNC client and install UO on one of my webservers...be a little laggy but work
I've used the Splashtop software that curlybeard mentioned and Splashtop isn't bad with an iPad 2. There is some lag. I would assume other VNC clients work decently if configured properly and with the right hardware.
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
We're talking EA though, they won't even spend money getting the windows clients working correctly.
And their ports to Mac OS X seem to consist of taking the Windows version and wrapping it in Cider instead of doing a proper port. It's actually not that bad though - I've played Warhammer through it. And I play UO using Wine on my Mac.

But if they won't do a proper port to Mac for games that sell half a million or more copies on Windows, they aren't going to do it for any of the BioWare Mythic MMOs, let alone mobile devices.

They won't even port Star Wars: The Old Republic to Mac.
 
S

sayler04

Guest
i hate it when posts degenerate (read: evolve, mature, grow) into tech stuff i dont understand (read: not bright here)
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
i hate it when posts degenerate (read: evolve, mature, grow) into tech stuff i dont understand (read: not bright here)
How is this: Trying to run UO natively on a mobile phone would be like trying to win the Indy 500 with a go-kart.
 

curlybeard

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Qemu running wine is probably the best option to run a non-native binary. Keep the number of instructions that need to be translated to a bare minimum. Even then there was a discussion by people much more knowledgeable than I, that 50% was the maximum achievable efficiency. Currently, I think the best that is achieved is 20%. Running a full OS would be even worse.

In this instance that fact that UO is in many ways vintage 1997 works in our favor, I think
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Qemu running wine is probably the best option to run a non-native binary. Keep the number of instructions that need to be translated to a bare minimum. Even then there was a discussion by people much more knowledgeable than I, that 50% was the maximum achievable efficiency. Currently, I think the best that is achieved is 20%. Running a full OS would be even worse.

In this instance that fact that UO is in many ways vintage 1997 works in our favor, I think
There's so much bloat in the classic client now my laptop hasn't been able to run it at a decent framerate since after I returned (I left at ML, came back about 2 years ago), it gets 5-10 fps max now. Too many years of developers implementing stuff in it without knowing what they're doing has made it actually require a lot more than it did back on release, my laptop is a 800mhz P3 w/ 16MB graphics card and has that much trouble so emulating it at a playable rate w/ qemu would be basicly impossible at this time.
 

curlybeard

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Try using 524 (forget the exact number it is 5 hundred something) color mode. Made a huge difference on my netbook under wine and old laptop with xp. Runs on my 10 year old convertible tablet pc with a Celeron-m and 32 mb nvidia card. Though I do have 2gb ram on both systems.
 

RaDian FlGith

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The reason they never caught on....they're as bad for typing on as a touchscreen is, same basic problems, without touch feedback you can't really touch type on it, and since your hands have to be on it to type you occlude a good portion of it when typing. Useless for getting any real work done but they do work just fine I've used one before and they're no worse than typing on something like a tablet screen.
Actually, the real reason they haven't caught on is that the people they would be most useful to -- touch typers -- would be typing faster than the detection rate. I personally type between 125 and 175 words per minute presently (depending on whether you include or exempt errors), and the poor little laser keyboard only picks up about 400 characters per minute. Even presuming an average word length of 5-6 characters, anyone typing at around 75 wpm or more is pretty much screwed.

Anyone who hunts and pecks might get some mileage out of it, but then the occlusion issue you mentioned comes up. If your fingers are in the way of the keyboard, it's not really all that useful.
 

Merion

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My understanding is that win8 has the full windows API for x86 and ARM, there is not a separate mobile version. Win8 has the ability to load the regular desktop in both versions, but the metroUI is designed more for touch-touchscreens. Is this not correct?
I concur! Windows 8 might be the best chance of seeing UO on mobile devices.
 
I

iamscotia

Guest
I want it. Seriously, my phone has better specs than my old computer that I used to play UO for years.. If I could just play on my Android, my work productivity would be completely shot in the a$$. Get r done
Apples and oranges, your phone and a desktop pc of any halfway recent era are incomparable. I would start with a google searches "arm architecture" then "x86 architecture" followed by "arm x86 compared".
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
I concur! Windows 8 might be the best chance of seeing UO on mobile devices.
Not even close, because it would still have to emulate desktop x86 code on mobile ARM devices and that's not going to happen, one of the people in charge of Windows 8 has already stated that x86 Windows apps won't run under Windows on ARM.

You're also mixing Windows 8 the desktop OS running on an Intel architecture with Windows Phone 7, the mobile OS on a mobile ARM architecture.

Look, maybe this will explain it: If it was easy to port an MMO or get a MMO running natively on a mobile device, Blizzard would have done it. World of Warcraft brings in nearly a billion a year, they have over 10 million people playing, and 4,000 people working on WOW. Unlike EA, Blizzard actively supports multiple platforms with native - Windows and Mac OS X. They would have the easiest time getting something on iPhone/iPad given they have teams working with Mac OS X everyday, but they aren't porting to mobile.
 

curlybeard

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I got FreeCiv running on my arm device. Of course windows 8 on arm would only support arm code. And windows 8 on x86 would only support x86. Microsoft has already said it isn't doing something like Apple's Rosetta for PowerPC apps on Intel macs. My point and my only point is that the windows 8 API will be implemented for both arm and x86. By doing that it should be almost trivial to port between architectures.

I do this on Ubuntu it isn't hard. Granted the code I am working with isn't as complex as UO probably is.
 
Top