10 replies to this topic

[NoeL]

So, an Android port of ZC has been brought up years before and deemed more trouble than it's worth, but now it's 2023. Average phones are more than capable, there's a swath of dedicated Android handhelds on the market, and the ZC Web player exists.

How hard would it be to write a browser wrapper than runs ZC Web and allows gamepad inputs (like from a usb/bluetooth controller, or dedicated device hardware)? And I'm not sure, but does the web player let you run quests from the local drive in addition to streaming?

[connor.clark]

For a few years now, web browsers have supported installing webapps as "Progressive Web Apps", which makes them show up as standalone apps on your mobile homescreen (or on your Windows / Mac / whatever desktops). The web version of ZC supports this today. Load it in Chrome or Safari (I believe FF removed support for PWAs), and you'll see a prompt somewhere for "Install as App" (both on desktop and mobile).

 

The web version supports gamepads, and when on a mobile device it even has some really basic touch controls shown on the screen (which should go away if a gamepad is detected).

 

Note that the web version is still pretty janky.

BTW, the new home for the web version is here.

> And I'm not sure, but does the web player let you run quests from the local drive in addition to streaming?

It does - on first run you are prompted for whether to keep all data in a browser-local storage, or somewhere on your actual filesystem. You can change this configuration in the "Settings" tab at the top of the web page. Note that only Chrome currently supports attaching to your actual filesystem. For browsers that don't support that, you can still copy over whatever files you want to the local browser storage in the same "Settings" tab, but it won't sync back to your filesystem (you can individually extract files in the "Settings" tab, though).

[NoeL]

Hmm, annoying. Game is slow and choppy on Chrome, and Firefox doesn't recognise joystick. I'll try and find some layer that maps joystick to touch input. Thanks anyway.

[Timelord]

Hmm, annoying. Game is slow and choppy on Chrome, and Firefox doesn't recognise joystick. I'll try and find some layer that maps joystick to touch input. Thanks anyway.

 

This is sadly not shocking. Yes, mobile devices are far more powerful now, but compared to a laptop from ten years ago, they cannot compete. Beyond this, you are running a vre app os, with a vre browser, running an i686 piece of software wrapped by a web compiler. Ideally, you want some native port for Android and iOS, but even then you must address the basic fact that these devices are designed for touch input, not joystick (analogue!) inputs.

 

If you have some sort of Android gamepad I would be curious if it helps. Back in 2019 I was working on an attempt to clean up touch screen input in Windows, using tablets and external libs. This went poorly.

[NoeL]

I use a Gamesir X2 (USB) for mobile gaming (mainly N64/Dolphin emulation). It requires reverse landscape orientation since the USB connector is on the left side - I noticed when I "installed" ZC from Chrome, the app would force landscape, so it was unplayable for me anyway regardless of performance (unless this can be changed in the cfg).

[connor.clark]

About a month ago an interested Android developer shared he was looking into a port. Haven't heard back since though. RIP?

The web version is still experimental, and only really works well enough on high end devices. That's not inherent to the web platform, it's just that improving performance requires more substantial architectural changes than simply getting it to compile with Emscripten. It'll be more a priority after the z3 feature lands. Until then, we'll keep framing it as experimental.
 

I believe I have a fix for only the primary landscape orientation being allowed.

[connor.clark]

Recent updates to the browser version doubled the FPS for me in many cases.

Also, both landscape orientations should work now.

[NoeL]

Sweet, I'll give it another go.

[NoeL]

Recent updates to the browser version doubled the FPS for me in many cases.

Also, both landscape orientations should work now.

It tanked the FPS for me. Even less playable than before. Weird.

[connor.clark]

You likely need to hard refresh and clear your browser cache. If the landscape change doesn't work for you, you were on the older version.

[NoeL]

Still no luck. The landscape fix works, but clearing the cache and restarting didnt do anything. Any other ideas? Is a Snapdragon 865 not powerful enough?