One more gaming application review... I'll be reviewing softwares in my next few posts. This time we have Quake S60.

Software Download
The application can be downloaded here and best of all, it's free!

The demo .PAK file can be downloaded here. You need to install the game and then copy the .PAK file to your memory card.

My Review
I am sure many gamers have played Quake when it first came out for the PC. Well, luckily for us, now we are able to play it on Symbian S60 phones. The game looks great and plays well on the keyboard. For those with the newest E90 firmware (V 07.40.1.2), the FPU is utilized which makes the game run smoother. The only problem at the moment is that the center navigation button can't be assigned to any action which means we can't use it as the "fire" button.

The internal wide screen is used to its maximum and little screen space is sacrificed when showing the player GUI.




Tips & Tricks
For those that feel the game isn't running as smoothly as expected, there are a few tweaks that can be done.

By creating an autoexec.cfg file, certain commands can be run automatically once the game is started. To create the file, just create a new text document and add in the commands that you want. After that, rename the document to
autoexec.cfg and put it into your quake folder (E:\quake1\id1). I found 2 commands that affected the performance of the game as well as the graphics:

Syntax: d_mipcap
Default: 0
Sets the detail level. Values range from 0-3 with 0 giving the highest detail.

Syntax: d_mipscale
Default: 1
Sets how much detail distant objects have. Values range from 0-40 with 0 not bluring distant objects at all. (Uses lots of ram if set to 0)

The commands were obtained from this site

Here are some screen shots with various settings:

mipcap = default, mipscale = default

mipcap = default, mipscale = 0

If you look closely at these 2 pictures you will notice that the 2nd one, with mipscale set to 0 is more detailed and sharp. Try looking at the spikes at the top of the screen and also the words "hard". Although it is more detailed, the game runs less smooth and lags a bit.

mipcap = default, mipscale = 40

Just wanted to show how awful it would look if the detail was set to the lowest.

mipcap = 1, mipscale = default

Here we have mipcap set to 1. If you compare this screen shot to the default one, you will notice that the textures are less detailed. I find that this setting improves the speed of the game. It seems more smoother to me.

Some other commands which you might be interested in are:

Syntax: showram <0/1>
Default: 1
Toggles if the ram icon appears when then game is running out of memory.

Syntax: nosound <0/1>

Default: 0
Toggles if sound is on.

For me, I don't like the ram icon appearing so I turned it off and I usually don't play with sound so I turn it off as well. I'm not sure if there is a performance increase if the sound is toggled off, but there could be.

Note: The screen shots have been edited to increase their brightness.

Reviewed Version - v1.03


For my second review on gaming applications, another of my favorites, Markus Mertama's C2Doom.

Software Download
The core version can be downloaded here

The core version is "game only", by default only a shareware episode is started.

My Review
C2Doom is an application that allows gamers to play games such as Doom I & II or custom games created by others. Once again, with the keyboard and wide screen, the E90 is able to deliver an experience very similar to playing Doom on a computer. The graphics, speed and sound are all very good and exactly the same as on a computer. One exception is that when playing with the E90's internal screen, information such as health, ammo, etc can't be seen unless you want to sacrifice some screen space.



Tips & Tricks
In my opinion, the original controls set for the E90 keyboard don't work so well. Because of that, I reconfigured the keys to play as a normal first person shooter would play.

W = Move forward
X = Move backward
A = Strafe left
D = Strafe right

E = Use

Navigation left = Turn left
Navigation right = Turn right
Navigation center = Fire

The custom key configuration files can be downloaded here


After installing the application, the folder C:\c2doom would be created (E:\c2doom if you chose to install in your memory card). In this folder there would be 2 files, c2doomkeys_itu-t.txt and c2doomkeys_qwerty.txt. Replace c2doomkeys_qwerty.txt with the file I have provided.

Next run the game once and close the application. There would be a new folder created C:\c2doom\doom1. In this folder there would be the file .doomrc. Replace this file with the one I provided.

A reminder to everyone,in my settings I have turned off the sound, so for those that want music and sound, just turn them up in the game menu.

Note: This can't be done with the normal File Manager so I suggest downloading a file explorer application such as Lonely Cat Games X-Plore. There are other file explorers out there, but I prefer X-plore.

Finally, this is the link to a forum where you can download WAD files for those who have the full version of C2Doom.

Reviewed Version - v1.12


To start off my first review, allow me to introduce one of my most favorite applications, Vampent vBagX the GameBoy Advance Emulator.

Software Download
The demo version can be downloaded here

Unregistered version has the full functions except of following limitations:
1. Limited time for playing
2. Cannot save/load

My Review
In my opinion, I think that most Symbian or Java games are too short and have little replay value. Because of this, emulators are very important for those who want to play games on their mobile devices. By downloading Roms (I'm not going to post any download links) and storing them in a memory card, a gamer could literally have hundreds of games at their fingertips. Well, depending on the size of their memory card of course.

The E90 is almost perfect for gaming because of its wide screen display and keyboard. In the past, I have tested this emulator on my N73. The speed was fine but the display was too small for certain games which had a lot of text to read. Apart from that, the controls felt a little cramped when using the keypad. But for the E90, these problems are gone...

Tips & Tricks
For those who are interested, here are some tips for the application settings:


First of all, my recommendation to everyone is to set the game to full screen through Menu -> Graph -> Size. This is to ensure you use your screen to its maximum.



As you can see, there is much difference between the Origin and Full settings.

Next up we have Menu -> Graph -> Output. There are 2 settings here which are Direct and Bitmap. Direct has better speed but I have noticed that the screen gets pushed to the right just a little bit. You will know what I mean when you look at the left side of the screen (Sorry, it can't be shown in the screen shots). By choosing Bitmap, the problem with the screen is fixed but games run at a slower speed.

Last on the menu is Menu -> Graph -> Frameskip. This can help increase the speed of the games by incrementing the number of frames skipped. Through some testing, I found out that 2 is the best number for this setting as it gives good speed while allowing the game to run smoothly.

As for the other settings, they do not affect performance in any way. For me, I usually set the Sound Volume to 0 since the sound in most games can't be fully emulated, which means they sound quite bad.

I hope this helps those of you out there wanting to play games on your E90. If there are any questions, just post them in the comments section.

Reviewed Version - v1.12

*Update*
v1.20 - Vampent has just released a new version of vBagX which provides faster performance as well as better sound support.

v1.25 - Another update and this time, speed has improved even more. Vampent has added an option to adjust the compatibility mode of the application (range from 0 - 3), which allows previous games that didn't work, to be played by adjusting the compatibility. According to Vampent, compatibility mode 3 is slow but I didn't feel much difference on the E90. With sound turned on, the game gets slower though. Apart from that, there's media key support, but it doesn't apply for the E90 and finally a simple cheat file support that requires you to create your own cheat file.

Welcome...

Hello and welcome to the blog "My Nokia E90 And I".

First of all, a bit of an introduction. I have been using Symbian devices for a few years now, starting with the Nokia 6600. Recently I obtained the Nokia E90 and have found it to be very useful.

The purpose of this blog is to share my reviews of games and softwares I have used and also to provide some tips and tricks concerning the phone. I hope anyone reading this would be able to learn something new about their phone and its capabilities.

This blog is not only geared towards Nokia E90 users but any other Symbian phone user since most of the software and games are compatible.

Stay tuned for my next post... ;-)

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