Feature Requests For Outcast

[skeezix]

Its been a busy few months for sure, but I'd like to do a few little things to OutcaST; There were a few requests here or there but rather than dig around a lot I thought I'd see what everyone might want

I do want to make the menus look a little better .. the existing menu style I've been using in various projects fdor oh.. three years?

I do recall someone(s) wanted an option so 'up' didn't do anything, and that Y did Up instead.

Config files so keys could be bound and defaults set (per load, per disk, from a menu, etc)

What all else?

jeff

As to Columbo/2x .. I've got a slightly better sound system (I don't have a Coleco to test it against, but I think its more accurate -- I spent a pile of time working on my cpu core but somethign is still futzy so I'm still using one I don't like to use, so I may keep at it before releasing. (Runs faster and cleaner.. lower the clock -- I do need to add menus for fullscreen scaling/smoothing, and clock rate, and onscreen keyboard and such...

 

[Iorgy77]

I do recall someone(s) wanted an option so 'up' didn't do anything, and that Y did Up instead.

Please make it like castaway on the gp32, Y does up and up does up.

Also a button to switch inputs like the gp32 version instead of going to the menu to switch to mouse.

A "reset and run" button while in the menus from any menu, that way you do not have to go through menus to find reset and then run, you can select the disk and press the "reset and Run" button straight away.

Also bring back the database scanning if you can.

I'm sure I'll think of more after I have had a bit of a play around.

 

[skeezix]

Should I put in the feature (lik eI had in the gp32 version) so it can list 'by game' instead of by disk? (ie: list all the games on all the currently known disks, and when you pick it it fires it up on the first disk that has it.)

jeff

 

[Iorgy77]

Should I put in the feature (lik eI had in the gp32 version) so it can list 'by game' instead of by disk? (ie: list all the games on all the currently known disks, and when you pick it it fires it up on the first disk that has it.)

jeff

Yes please, a toggle between the two modes would be handy.

 

[DaveC]

Also please have it so that you could put the disk images anywhere you like. An editable text file with the path would be fine. Hardcoded paths kinda bite.

Make it so that it saves your parameters such as clock speed, control bias etc. without having to set them everytime you start the emu.

Up should still be up, but you could pick a button to be up as well. (Doesn't have to be "y", assignable buttons for the win)

Yes a by game would be great. Now I can't find XenonII although I know it is on one of those menu disks.

Make the disk name cache only refresh once. It is a bit slow to have to do a check everytime you switch games if you have alot of disks. Make it an option to "refresh list" if a disk image is added/removed.

Hotkey (again assignable) to switch control to mouse, joystick etc.


Filter (ignore) diagonal input when using virtual keyboard. Those diagonal bias sticks always tend to go up when you just want to go across.

 

[BobBorakovitz]

Up should still be up, but you could pick a button to be up as well. (Doesn't have to be "y", assignable buttons for the win)

I agree with almost all the suggestions posted in this thread, but I'd like the option to not use the up control and only use a button.

 

[Belgarath]

I'd like controls to be fully definable, you should be able to save a default configuration and also be able to save seperate configs for each game which are loaded automatically when you load the game.

 

[EvilDragon]

I forgot - is it already possible to delete a disk from within the rom browser?
Would be handy to dump the non-working disks

 

[Iorgy77]

Also, when on full screen scaling mode and the disk loading icon appears, could you make it sit on top of the display rather than setting the display back to non scaled mode?

I have a feeling Skeezix is regretting starting this thread now.

edit: If you get a chance to look at the sound emulation that would be super as well, certain games have broken or missing sounds like starwars and RVF Honda.

 

[TomVS]

Nice to be heard...

Config files for controls and assigning keys to certain gp2x buttons would be great just like the gp32 version... I like to play some flightsims on the move

Nice work !

 

[zektor]

Good to hear work continues on OutCaST and Columbo! I actually posted a mesage on yoru boards regarding Columbo and how it was way too fast. I am eager to see a new release! The Colecovision does not get as much love as it used to nowadays...

As for OutCaST, I do have a small request. Do you think it would be possible to parse a zipped disk and extract the names? The emulator extracts the names just fine with an unzipped ST disk image, but does not when zipped. Same way on the Zodiac version as well.

 

[skeezix]

Hmm.. I've definately had it peek inside zipped files in various versions.. I dont' recall if I do that in the gp2x one

I think theresd already a Delete option; I hit it by mistake way too much in the past during devving -- its the last option in one of the menus, and I used to have it so the right/left 'auto move selection bar' would carry to submenus.. so you'd hit 'right' and 'press' and it'd auto-scroll down to Delete and stop since it was the last entry. Woops

As to the disk access indicators whil ein full-screen scaling .. I have it scale to 1:1 when that happens for performance sake -- ie: I've optimized the rendering to be 'per scanline'; ie: it renders from ST screen to real screen on a per-line basis, since many games do tricks betwene scanlines (changing palette etc), and it keeps things nice and fast. ie: Rather than blit whole offscreen buffers, I just blit per-line as they occur; if a game never updates a given scanline, why update it on the real display? This keeps it nice and fast (based on various assumptions which hold true for the ST, but not so with other platforms). But you will notice on other emus when you bring up an onscreen keyboard the game slows... the reason for that is why I dont' do it here -- if I'm drawing _on top of_ the ST screen with diskj access indicators, and doing scaling and such.. suddenly I'm not blitting per-scanline anymore or I'd draw over the extra stuff, so I'd have to keep an extra buffer in there and do extra draws.. it ends up slowing things down.
o On the PSP I use the hardware GPU to alpha fade in/out the onscreen keyboard, and draw access and such on top of the display.. its a free blit. That same sort of trick could be done for performance sake using GP2X hardware, but I'd still have to manage some more buffers since I don't keep a backbuffer 'per se' here since I just render per-scanline.. so its doable just take some fiddling, but as it it keeps highest performance
o As such, when extra junk onscreen, I just scale 1:1 and sneak it all in at the bottom; maybe goofy .. but few things hit the disk a lot during play since it was so slow in those days.. its usually all up front so I figure its not too troublesome

* but yeah, now I have work to do.. so much easier to just be a burnt out husk and not touch it..

* don't worry, another Columbo whenever I get fed up enough with my cpu code, or find the issue

jeff

 

[geise69]

Is there a frame limit added in the last release? I was wondering because some games seemed to run way to fast. Also one thing I wouldn't mind but is also asking to much is the sound. In some games it just gets really scratchy. Anyways I love this emulator and want to thank you with all the hard work you've been putting into this. It's really nice having my whole Atari ST computer on the go.

 

[vEGA-rJ]

To do OutcaST compatible with wizkid would be a great thing!

 

[skeezix]

Speed limiting.. I think I've got a menu in there to let you specify 50 or 60 hz, among others (like 30 hz I often offer, to make games easier, as well as higher ones to make them faster ..)

I'm thinking of making the menus prettier a little since they're pretty ghetto right now, but I'm also tempted to just make them look like an ST (GEM desktop style).. hmm

jeff

 

[EvilDragon]

Just played a bit more with it:

I still have the same problem I already had with the GP32 version:
Some games seem to crash the virtual keyboard.
You can't press any button anymore. Resetting the ST doesn't fix this, the only way I know to fix it is to restart Outcast...
Maybe a manual keyboard reset would be possible...?

 

[skeezix]

yeah, theres a few oddities .. I'm not sure its even 'game' related.. just after a few resets, the emu core is being confused somewhere. I'm not clearing some piece of state when I do a reset .. I'll track that down. I've been meaning to do that for like 2 years

jeff

 

[EvilDragon]

Played some more, did even happen to the mouse today

Okay, some things that I can imagine improving the emulator:

- Don't update the database list each time you enter the disk browser. Gets annoying if you have a lot of games... maybe a cache like the one for DrMD would work? If you put new games on the SD Card, you could select "Refresh" or so.
- Most of the time, you insert a new disk because you want to run a new game. Maybe an "Insert Disk into drive A and restart" would be a nice option. At the moment, you need to insert it, exit the browser, reset the Atari and exit the menu...
- Remember the last selected disk in the browser. Testing games would be easier if you don't always start at the first disk in list - and changing disks more comfortable, as you don't need to browse down each time.
- Warm Reset the Atari - why not automatically exit the menu after that? I can't imagine a single thing to do after resetting the Atari except for exiting the menu and run the emulation
- The alternative control where Up is button X and Fire is button A is really missing for games like Turrican 2

Well, that's all I can think of right now. Hope this helps

BTW: Quite a lot of games don't work for me. I didn't use the compilations (as the browse database by game function is not implemented yet) but used single disks for each game.
Are they known to be more incompatible?
Quite a few games load up the green desktop and when I open the disk, it's empty. Never had an Atari (was an Amiga player), but what does that mean? Is it a disk not compatible with this Atari ST? Or with Outcast...?

Thanks a lot
Now I'm back playing Atari

 

[Iorgy77]

BTW: Quite a lot of games don't work for me. I didn't use the compilations (as the browse database by game function is not implemented yet) but used single disks for each game.
Are they known to be more incompatible?
Quite a few games load up the green desktop and when I open the disk, it's empty. Never had an Atari (was an Amiga player), but what does that mean? Is it a disk not compatible with this Atari ST? Or with Outcast...?

I get this a lot too, I will try and give some specific examples, usually it is stuff that worked fine in CaSTaway on GP32.

 

[icurafu]

BTW: Quite a lot of games don't work for me. I didn't use the compilations (as the browse database by game function is not implemented yet) but used single disks for each game.
Are they known to be more incompatible?
Quite a few games load up the green desktop and when I open the disk, it's empty. Never had an Atari (was an Amiga player), but what does that mean? Is it a disk not compatible with this Atari ST? Or with Outcast...?

I get this a lot too, I will try and give some specific examples, usually it is stuff that worked fine in CaSTaway on GP32.

ok, for me, I try to run Xenon 2. and...

"Xenon 2 - Megablast (1989)(Bitmap Brothers)[cr Bitcrack Brothers][One Disk].st" FAILS (This is in the manner described by ED.

I rename file to "Xenon 2.st" and it works like a charm.

My conclusion is that it fails to read long filenames... or maybe one of the symbols used in that long file name. It'd be good if others posted the file names of games that failed as well.


I've noticed that prince of persia runs very fast compared to the PC version. Doe some games run faster then normal at the moment?