Opentyrian2x Alpha Released!

[Mindless]

So far I am seeing some major improvements in running speed.

If you haven't already, you could probably implement a fixed-point mixer... that would speed it up a bit.

 

[Kalimerou]

The game has heavy reliance on memcpy() and memset() so I'm going to compile with the assembler versions of these and see how it goes!

If you would take the easier way, Reesy already did that job with PocketSNES.

 

[Kalimerou]

EDIT: Pretty sure getting PAUSE support will be fairly straight forward too.

I was thinking to bind the Select button to the SDLK_ESCAPE key code. The GP2x device is recognized as a joystick, the joystick management is done in src/joystick.c. You may attach the key press to the JE_doInGameSetup() function (src/mainint.c)

 

[slaanesh]

EDIT: Pretty sure getting PAUSE support will be fairly straight forward too.

I was thinking to bind the Select button to the SDLK_ESCAPE key code. The GP2x device is recognized as a joystick, the joystick management is done in src/joystick.c. You may attach the key press to the JE_doInGameSetup() function (src/mainint.c)

Yes I was having a look at this. I was going to use START as the pause key.

I've compiled with the new settings and ASM functions and done some tests. It's super fast now
In fact it's fast enough that I've upped the default setting to the 486 processor.
This means there's another background scrolling layer, transparent explosions and score is displayed.

I saw in the code that there is means of adjusting the level of display detail "in-game" but I can't actually find it. I only had a very quick look and have not followed that up yet.

Apart from pause, the only really annoying things left are that it doesn't quit - for me it just hangs. Is this true with everyone else? And I'm still getting that single mega-pause. Once per level. I haven't tracked that one down either.

I noticed in the code that the audio cleanup is not called anywhere? I'll have a look at this, as I believe it's got something to do with the audio thread not shutting down which is why it's not quitting.

Once these bigger issues are sorted there's just a number of little things and feature adds. And if you want a new mixer. I hadn't really planned on doing anything like this though.

 

[hsinn3r]

yeap, same here, it doesn't quit, it just hangs.. apart from that, i think it's coming along GREAT on the gp2x.

the little things that need attention imho (apart from the the above problem), is that we should be able to use the volume up/down. i do believe that this is kinda tricky to setup, so just access to the main menu (esc on the pc) would be great. apart from that, maybe fullscreen would be nice.. maybe if you guys made it use the hardware scaler, it would be fast enough, but i don't know if it would look nice enough..

and i just loaded up the pc version through dosbox, and it switched to christmas mode! damn i love this game

keep up the good work

 

[slaanesh]

I was totally unfamiliar with this game until I first played in on the GP2X. I was like "WOW" what a great game! Hiding for all these years!

How do you activate Christmas mode? I did see code to do this - so perhaps this would be a good thing to implement seeing as it's close to that time of year!

 

[hsinn3r]

I was totally unfamiliar with this game until I first played in on the GP2X. I was like "WOW" what a great game! Hiding for all these years!

How do you activate Christmas mode? I did see code to do this - so perhaps this would be a good thing to implement seeing as it's close to that time of year!

well i just loaded it up on dosbox, and before it launched, it game me a message on the terminal, if i wanted to activate christmas mode, yes or no, so it must check the date from the system clock (and from what i know the gp2x doesn't have one ) but i really care more about flying the carrot ship haha

 

[Kalimerou]

I was totally unfamiliar with this game until I first played in on the GP2X. I was like "WOW" what a great game! Hiding for all these years!

How do you activate Christmas mode? I did see code to do this - so perhaps this would be a good thing to implement seeing as it's close to that time of year!

The Christmas mode is activated regarding the current date (if we're around 25th of december). Since there's no clock on GP2x, there should be a menu option to activate it.

 

[Zeladin]

I saw in the code that there is means of adjusting the level of display detail "in-game" but I can't actually find it. I only had a very quick look and have not followed that up yet.

In the original game you could bring up a menu in the middle of a level, and change details settings from there, and even the game speed, sound levels, exit to main menu etc.

Also I discovered on the last release that the tyrian does exit cleanly, if you remove the second last line of the launcher script - where its resetting the ram timings.

If we could program in a pause+lock+switch off screen mode - it would be even better for portable use - not that many other apps for the Gp2x implement that. I do a bit of city bussing...

 

[Kalimerou]

I saw in the code that there is means of adjusting the level of display detail "in-game" but I can't actually find it. I only had a very quick look and have not followed that up yet.
JE_doInGameSetup() is the key of everything ! On the PC version, that function is called when you press ESCAPE. It makes a menu appear, in which you're able to set game speed, details, volume and so on.

Also I discovered on the last release that the tyrian does exit cleanly, if you remove the second last line of the launcher script - where its resetting the ram timings.

I thought about that, but I was too lazy to test if it worked.

 

[slaanesh]

I've added a new version of Opentyrian2x to the archive which builds on the previous release by Kalimerou.

I've made the following changes:

• Changed sound/music from 44100hz to 22050hz.
• Changed detail level to 486 level.
• Changed launcher script for use with Gmenu2x.
• Compiled with latest version of hardware SDL.
• Compiled with assembler versions of memcpy() and memset().

It's only a simple re-compile. I've only included the Opentyrian2x executable and launch script.
Basically it's quite a bit faster so I upped the detail level from '1' to '3' which makes it somewhere at 486 level.
I haven't added any extra buttons or keypress suppport (yet) though that will be next!
I have found that the game will exit however it appears to "hang" if you do not specify your launcher in the Opentyrian2x.gpe script. Yes, it's a /bin/sh script that you need to edit. I've also commented out the cpu_speed ram timings as I set this from gmenu2x instead.

 

[ViperKnight]

You are the man!!

I remember playing Tyrian on my first Pentium computer and it rocked! Although I could never beat that darn Beer level....still can't

I reckon once the ingame pause/exit/change settings menu is implemented it'll be all good.

 

[Tobriand]

You are the man!!

I remember playing Tyrian on my first Pentium computer and it rocked! Although I could never beat that darn Beer level....still can't

I reckon once the ingame pause/exit/change settings menu is implemented it'll be all good.

Zarquon's Ale? I'm afraid to say that once you beat it, it just wraps back around to level 1. I felt curios one day so used GameWizard (or some variant of a cheat proggy) to lock my armour at max. Gets to level 99, and it just goes back to 1. Kinda an anti-climax, I must say, though it does imply they never really thought anyone would make it to level 99!

 

[slaanesh]

Although I could never beat that darn Beer level....still can't

Zarquon's Ale? I'm afraid to say that once you beat it, it just wraps back around to level 1.


Yes it wraps around. When I got to this stage I just kept playing it and found eventually... it wrapped around. And I was annoyed! All that work!
Anyway, I played through again and read some of the data-cubes this time around and found it actually tells you that it's endless.
So there you go, another lesson for RTFM.

I'm going to implement PAUSE and the in-game setup menu in the next release.
And hopefully the Christmas level. This is usually unlocked by the computer's system date but I might hack it by getting it to look for a file called "christmas" or something like that.

 

[doc5avage]

Are there any artists out there that could knockup an icon for gmenu2x?

 

[slaanesh]

I've got two icons which I will include in the next release (couple days time).

Sorry they just missed going into this release.

EDIT: I've added scaling and I quite like it. That is 320x200 being scaled to 320x240. It's at least looking like the correct aspect ratio. ie. Planets look circular instead of ovoid. You don't really notice the scaling as the screen scrolls and the action is nice and fast.
Anyway, this will be a selectable option - there's a fullscreen/windowed option at the start of the game which will switch this.

EDIT2: Got christmas mode going. As I said earlier, it can be activated by the existence of a zero-length file named "christmas" in the same directory as Opentyrian and it will start in Christmas Mode. Ho ho ho!

EDIT3: Christmas mode activation changed! (see below)

 

[Zeladin]

I have an icon buried somewhere too, I converted from the original.

This release is really fast - so yeah, in game menu + speed settings. The original was scaled to a 4:3 screen, of course that was on a crt.. so it probably just scanned differently or something. Sound, sounds great still.

 

[Kalimerou]

You are the man!!

Nope, remember that it's a team who provided us with OpenTyrian. OpenTyrian runs on PDA, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, GP2x, PSP, Wii... and Gizmondo soon !
They even have a website : http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/

We (Kalimerou, Daid, Slaanesh and others) just added some tweaks to make it more playable on GP2x. This is only the emerged part of the iceberg !

 

[Megagun]

Hey there..

Loving this so far. Played through the first episode already, and this game rocks. Plays very quickly.

However, one thing (the only thing!) that's been bugging me is the ingame menu controls. They're way too quickly, and I find it rather hard to select the menu items I want since the cursor is completely skipping over the thing I want to select...

Keep up the good work!

 

[slaanesh]

Kalimerou is right. Credit goes first and foremost to the Opentyrian team who without their amazing effort would not see any of this amazing game. So thanks to them!

(I will include full credits in the next release in the lovely little scrolling section)

Also, I've changed the way "christmas" is activated, the special launching scrpt simple sets the date to christmas time and the game will launch into christmas mode.
The regular script changes the date to another non-christmas date.

This is cleaner and more in keeping with the original (which also asks for confirmation of activation of "christmas mode" but this is not present on the GP2X version).

However, one thing (the only thing!) that's been bugging me is the ingame menu controls. They're way too quickly, and I find it rather hard to select the menu items I want since the cursor is completely skipping over the thing I want to select...

Agreed. Will be fixed soon.