{"id":79023,"date":"2015-07-26T06:30:32","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T04:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=79023"},"modified":"2015-07-27T01:32:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-26T23:32:00","slug":"play-half-life-on-your-smartwatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/gadgets\/79023-play-half-life-on-your-smartwatch","title":{"rendered":"Play Half-Life on your Smartwatch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having been made to run Microsoft&#8217;s Windows XP, it&#8217;s really no surprise that intrepid gadget and hardware enthusiasts would continue to experiment with what could be done with the latest gadget craze, wearbles, or more specially, smartwatches.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of a new app called <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/SDLash3D\" target=\"_blank\">SDLash3D<\/a>, a piece of emulation software that emulates the GoldSource engine, it&#8217;s now possible to play Valve&#8217;s older titles on your smartwatch.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/GoldSrc\" target=\"_blank\">GoldSource<\/a> (otherwise known as GoldSrc) is the engine Valve used to power virtually everything they developed in the past. Think of it as the precursor to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Source_%28game_engine%29\" target=\"_blank\">Source Engine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So just what would it take to run <em>Half-Life<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Minimum:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pentium 133 MHz<\/li>\n<li>24 MB RAM<\/li>\n<li>Windows 95\/98\/NT4<\/li>\n<li>SVGA video card<\/li>\n<li>Windows-compatible sound card<\/li>\n<li>400 MB hard-disk space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Recommended:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pentium 166 MHz<\/li>\n<li>32 MB RAM<\/li>\n<li>OpenGL- or DirectX-compatible 3D accelerator.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Comparatively trivial requirements by today&#8217;s standards.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lg.com\/global\/gwatch\/one\/index.html#about4\" target=\"_blank\">LG G Watch&#8217;s specifications<\/a> include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU, which combines a 1.2 GHz APQ8026 quad Cortex-A7 CPU and an Adreno 305 GPU. Throw in 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of storage and the G Watch is more than capable of running <em>Half-Life<\/em>, specs wise.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it should, theoretically, be able to play <em>Half-Life<\/em> multiple times over. Unfortunately, the game doesn&#8217;t run quite as smoothly as we&#8217;d like.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VnGscfbCz1g\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>We suspect then that the inefficiencies of SDLash3D are at the heart of the slowdowns, less-than-ideal frame rate and the odd hiccup or two.<\/p>\n<p>That said, an emulator is probably the only way you&#8217;ll see a game like <em>Half-Life<\/em> on current-gen wearables.<\/p>\n<p>Just for curiosity sake, the most popular smartwatch at the moment, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Apple_S1\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Watch<\/a>, with its 512 MB of RAM, ARMv7 APL0778 processor and PowerVR SGX543 GPU, is just as capable as LG&#8217;s counterpart. Getting SDLash3D to run on watchOS is another story.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_79027\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LG-G-Watch-vs.-Apple-Watch.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-79027\" class=\"wp-image-79027\" src=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LG-G-Watch-vs.-Apple-Watch.png\" alt=\"LG G Watch vs. Apple Watch\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LG-G-Watch-vs.-Apple-Watch.png 655w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LG-G-Watch-vs.-Apple-Watch-230x130.png 230w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LG-G-Watch-vs.-Apple-Watch-640x360.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-79027\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LG&#8217;s G Watch and the Apple Watch both more than meet <em>Half-Life&#8217;s <\/em>requirements<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Now if only there was a solution to the minute and altogether inappropriate control scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, it&#8217;s a pretty swell way to play <em>Half-Life<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Just keep in mind that we doubt that your smartwatch&#8217;s battery will last all that long under the conditions of SDlash3D.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>In other news<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/78959-bethesda-announces-the-fallout-anthology-at-quakecon-2015.html\">Bethesda announces the Fallout Anthology at QuakeCon 2015<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/78931-a-major-dying-light-expansion-is-teased-during-180-days-of-content-montage.html\">Major Dying Light expansion is teased during 180 Days of Content montage<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/78853-microsoft-intends-windows-10-to-last-until-2025.html\">Microsoft intends Windows 10 to last until 2025<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not perfect, but it&#8217;s pretty darn neat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":79025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8585],"tags":[14939,1834,14937,1969,14941,14935,697,183],"class_list":["post-79023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-apple-watch","tag-half-life","tag-lg-g-watch","tag-news-2","tag-sdlash3d","tag-smartwatch","tag-valve","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}