Outcast (castaway Module) Beta 005 Released


skeezix

Internal Development
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
8,063
Website
www.codejedi.com
edit: Beta 005 now, instead of 004.

Nab it here, or I'll upload to the gp2x archive in a few minutes..

http://www.codejedi.com/outcast/

Should be beta or release quality now :)

NEW: Volume buttons now actually work
FIX: .MSA (ST-compressed) disk images now work fine; took hours to
bloody find it, and its one of those stupid-but-invisible buglets :/
FIX: Medium resolution should now work
NEW: In joystick mode, 'Y' is now keyboard SPACEBAR, so that Turrican
Xenon 1 are happier ;)
NEW: Sorts the disk picker display (by filename)
NEW: The games database is now auto-scanned and the results cached; ie: when
it loads up the picker, it scans the cache and looks up all the games
for you; uncached files are scanned and cached. A second column shows
the gamenames in the picker.
- I've got a few hundred disks, and the first load took a minute or
two, but subsequent scans (from the cache) took only 2s or so.. a
win I think.
NEW: Quitting the emu via the runtime (START) menu will return to the
gp2x launcher properly.

Enjoy!

jeff
 
Cool, I'll download and take another look tonight with I get home from work. Would you like to run a test on lots of games and do a feedback on the results , emulation quality etc. Does it also allow multi-disk? and is that a chance to have a favourites folder for my most loved games.

Great work,
 
If you want to run tests, then be sure to include the emu version (004), the crack group and disk number (ie: Automation 133 == one crack of Xenon 2) -- there are many crack groups, and not all are created equal.. some disks more compatible than others (and often the originals are the way to go.)

Multi-disk is fine; most games don't like drive B, so you have to swap disk 1, 2, 3 etc into drive A: using the runtime menu.

To test that I'm firing up the GAU Civilizatoin crack.. some 3 or 4 disks. Unthrottle to get through the world creation faster, and save a state for later :p

Ah, must run.. I'll post results in a sec :)

jeff
 
Most of my disks are either Automation, D-BUG or Medway. So if I do the test i'll mention with disk group I was using.

I know this may be a silly question but when using Steem, it allows the selection of a game via the game database (ie you enter Dungeon Master and it'll tell you which CD disk this game is available on) Would this be possible on OutCast, Not really a must but could be use. If you need a copy of the database file you can down load it from with Steem website or I can forward a copy of to you.
 
I created my own database (with the help of many gp32x folks back a coupoe years ago) .. that whole thing was copied from us ;) It'll likely go in, as it is in the GP32 version ;)

The database used in the Windows ones is a MS Access db, and thus not really useful; they're good folks doing good work, but I'm not going to bother until its converted to XML and standard formats; I've emailed them about it, and they're groovy with it, but no time to do such a conversion at this time..

But the ST Games Databasde we built up is pretty good; not as big, but prtty big; no thumbnails though, but that saves space :)

jeff

Even in 002/003 you could look up what was on a disk, and 004 shows the game list beside the disk names in the picker.. so is already 90% there :)
 
I'm sure your game selection will be more than good enough it was just a question. I'll take a look tonight. The misses with be happy about the volume control :rolleyes: .
 
The 2 games I wanna play the most are giving me trouble.

Gods - (crack - Elite) freezes on the loading screen (with the helmet)

Cadaver - I can get the 1 disk version to work but not the 2 (I think the 1 disk is unfinished anyway)

Both were from Planet emu - thats the only place I know of for ST games. :cough hint
 
Dastardy - brought a copy of the Atari catalog which contained ST, Lynx, Jag and many of the order systems. I got this mainly because I could remember the names of my old ST fav games. But I can recommend this catalogue it comes on 3 DVD's and seems to have everything on. Full games and CD disks. The company I got it from as based in the UK and I got the disks pretty fast. Heres the URL if your interested www.retro-burner.co.uk/console.htm
 
The 2 games I wanna play the most are giving me trouble.

Gods - (crack - Elite) freezes on the loading screen (with the helmet)

Cadaver - I can get the 1 disk version to work but not the 2 (I think the 1 disk is unfinished anyway)

Both were from Planet emu - thats the only place I know of for ST games. :cough hint

This will make you happy. :)
 
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It's also against rules. :)

Sorry then... I should just say google and search for the "automation" and "st games". It's on the first place on search results.

If it's not tolerable (note that I didn't give an obscure link to some kind of underground site - it's a direct link from the official Steem www) then please delete that post.
 
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I was an Amiga guy and didn't have access to the ST, tried this out for shits and giggles, seems pretty solid.

Nice to see the interface was just as ugly as workbench :)
 
Thanks for the link Radek but it seems that none of the links on that site work.

Cant be against the rules if it dont work eh? ;)
 
I was an Amiga guy and didn't have access to the ST, tried this out for shits and giggles, seems pretty solid.

Nice to see the interface was just as ugly as workbench :)

Ah... the GEM... but it fits in just 192KB of ROM so wasn't that bad. At some point of time Atari was considering using Microsoft's Windows for ST series...
(so it could be much worse) :)
 
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I don't think Atari ever intended to use Windows.. ie: GEM was a competitor to Windows early on, and Atari was using GEM back in 1985 (perhaps late 1984?) .. I'd have to check, but thats about the era of what, pre-Windows 1.0? Windows 1 and Windows 2 were total shite (just memory managers pretty much), so GME slaughtered them until Windows 3 came around.. So Windows 1 was 1985 release and Windows 2.0 was 1987. So there was no real danger for GEM :)

(Unless you mean on the TT or Falcon or ATW or the like .. I don't know much about their development internally in Atari..)

/me hugs his TT030

jeff
 
I don't think Atari ever intended to use Windows.. ie: GEM was a competitor to Windows early on, and Atari was using GEM back in 1985 (perhaps late 1984?) .. I'd have to check, but thats about the era of what, pre-Windows 1.0? Windows 1 and Windows 2 were total shite (just memory managers pretty much), so GME slaughtered them until Windows 3 came around.. So Windows 1 was 1985 release and Windows 2.0 was 1987. So there was no real danger for GEM :)

(Unless you mean on the TT or Falcon or ATW or the like .. I don't know much about their development internally in Atari..)

/me hugs his TT030

jeff
I played games from 1982 onwards... and thats it. You guys know too much stuff man. Does your head hurt Jeff?
Take a break from all the good stuff youve been doing, you deserve a break. :D
 
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Being a coder means knowing way too much about a given problem domain (and using terms like "problem domain" :)

I'm going to break for a bit .. I think 004 is pretty darned stable, though maybe I'll tweak controls for craig so he can play Ghosts N Goblins better :)

I've got to do real life work for awhile, andf get my dev environments working again for Palm, Pocket PC, windows, etc :p (new machine and sold old one, and it only does gp2x dev right now .. :)

jeff
 
I don't know jeff, just a 2 day break and you've updated Outcast again....

You just can't keep away can you ?

Eagerly putting it through its paces now :D .

Tony
 
Being a coder means knowing way too much about a given problem domain (and using terms like "problem domain" :)

I'm going to break for a bit .. I think 004 is pretty darned stable, though maybe I'll tweak controls for craig so he can play Ghosts N Goblins better :)

I've got to do real life work for awhile, andf get my dev environments working again for Palm, Pocket PC, windows, etc :p (new machine and sold old one, and it only does gp2x dev right now .. :)

jeff


Enjoy your break jeff, you've earned it ;) .

Tony
 
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