PinePhone Game Thread

[bcnaz]

Some game controller reviews of : ===> Pine phone ( and Pro ) Bluetooth compatible controllers ?

[gamerminstrel]

Some game controller reviews of :    ===> Pine phone ( and Pro )  Bluetooth compatible controllers  ?

I have a fair amount of controllers(xbox one, ipega, moga, steelseries, too ashamed to actually count them all ), and all of them share the same pitfalls. The Pinephone will pair with all of them just fine, and they are recognized as Xinput controllers. The big hurdle and a half for controller support on the pinephone/pro is entirely software based; 

• Outside of emulators, almost no games or apps even recognize controllers.
  
• The occasional game will recognize the d-pad, but that's hardly usable. (Sonic Robo Blast can work with enough patience/tinkering)
  
• Bluetooth on the Pinephone gets spotty after extended use (haven't tested this one in about a year tho, might have improved)
  
• KDE Plasma Mobile uses LibInput to recognize mouse/keyboard/touchscreen inputs. Libinput does not respect gamepads. This means trying to play anything with the gamepad on Manjaro+PlaMo will put the screen to sleep after 30 seconds no matter what. Libinput expects the software(games) to tell Linux to stay awake, which hasn't happened yet.
  

I personally have a Razer Kishi because I got a good deal on one, and to me it feels like it fits the Pinephone perfectly. It doesn't use bluetooth (thus more reliable connection), but it still hits all the other pitfalls.

[bcnaz]

I saw some on ebay that look like a ps4 controller, the phone snaps into place in landscape mode at the top of the controller.
any opinions on those ?

[gamerminstrel]

I saw some on ebay that look like a ps4 controller, the phone snaps into place in landscape mode at the top of the controller.
any opinions on those ?

I've tried several of them, and while they are perfectly usable, its the little things that made them not my favorite. When you clip the phone into them, they become incredibly top heavy. Held normally, they feel notably heavier because the weight isn't directly between your hands. And (depending on the clip used) anything other than sitting upright will result in the phone clip swinging closed.

If you're really interested in one of those, personally I felt this one was by far the best bang for the buck.

However;
Something like this one feels much more balanced in the hands. The tradeoff for the second one I linked is that you can't really plug the phone in while in use.

Now if you feel like spending extra:
Gamesir X2 and razer kishi physically plug into the controller and have USB-C passthrough for charging, but the trade-off with them (if you can even call it that) is that they rely on the physical connection, so you cannot use them while the phone is farther away (like plugged into a monitor or TV)

[yellowtrireme]

I managed to get Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (console mode) compiled and running on the PinePhone. It pairs well with the keyboard. I followed the compiling instructions here: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/blob/mast...#compiling with a couple minor modifications. Before running 'make' as instructed, edit the crash.cc file, and remove these lines (toward the top of the file):

Code:

#ifndef __HAIKU__
        #define BACKTRACE_SUPPORTED
#endif

musl doesn't support backtrace, and the compilation will fail (at the very end) if you do not remove these lines.

Also, do not run 'make' with the '-j4' argument like the instructions describe. Running parallel jobs will make it compile faster, but will also get your pinephone blisteringly hot... and will cause the battery to drain faster than the charger can keep up.

Assuming you've got all the dependencies installed correctly (don't forget to install the '-dev' versions of packages), you can ignore the "git submodule update --init" command.

It can take quite a long time to compile, so make sure to have the phone plugged in.

[israel]

Retroarch is working well in all most every area except for the touch screen controls. Anyone had luck finding out what you need to do to make the touch input work for the overlay touch controls?

[TheBlindEarthican]

You can run some Steam Indie Games and GOG DRM-Free with Box86/64. Here is a guide for setting it up (https://github.com/Raezroth/Linux-ARM-Gaming-Chroot). This works on both the PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro.

[xavi92]

Some time ago, I started implementing a free (as in freedom) real-time strategy video game that works on mobile GNU/Linux:

https://git.sr.ht/~xavi92/rts

[FOSSagent0]

Would it be easy to get Ren'py VN's on the Pinephone to work? I do know they have support for ARM Linux.

https://www.renpy.org/

The latest stable version of this open-source visual novel engine is 8.0.3
https://www.renpy.org/latest.html

[elinkser]

My 8bitdo SN30 Pro  Wireless game controller didnt connect to my Mobian bookworm 3GB pinephone, even by USB, although it did work with my Linux laptop.

However the Gamesir X5 Lite and Nova Lite controllers did work by USB.

Tested with AntiMicroX joystick configuration app.

Interestingly, the Nova Lite has a phone holder accessory available on AliEx that you might be able to stuff a keyboard into instead of the controller, as long as the keyboard is 75mm wide or less, with some foam padding or other trickery.


With display at 150% the Stella Atari 2600 emulator was easily playable with games like Berserk, and every othet 2600 game I tried.

Other games like Tuxpuck (mouse only), Supertux Racer, and Neverputt worked decently.

Emilia pinball was too resouce intensive.


Edit: that should be "SuperTuxKart" , as mentioned by linmob.

I also tried a couple of games at 100% display:
FreeTennis only displays partially, but TuxFootball and gtkpool are ok with external keyboard/mouse.
(from packages.debian.org/bullseye/gtkpool. Another oldie from that package archive is gtans).
* actually AntiMicroX lets you remap arrow keys to dpad for TuxFootball, and you can double tap and drag right on the screen (for gtkpool) a little better at 125% display - a bit hard to locate your fingertip on the ball.

Also tried csmash, but you _really_ need external mouse, and even at that it's challenging. Also downloaded xboard w/engine, but computer just sits there not making a move, so still scratching my head on that one.

Update: using gnuchess -e with "chess.app" for front end.
Honestly I find games like tuxpuck, neverputt, and gtkpool have better physics and gameplay than what you can get on a dedicated gaming device like r36xx, expecially if you get the gamepad and keyboard - even csmash becomes playable. And of course it is fun to develop on the pinephone if you have a keyboard:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...#pid126315