Release Pingus 0.7.3

[joseluisjazz]

I've just ported the last version of Pingus, the Free Lemmmings-like game.

When it starts a dialog asks you whether you prefer to run it on fast graphics mode (no backgrounds, no transition effects, etc) or in a slower mod with pretier visuals. Overclock to 700 for a smooth game with the fast graphics mode. And overclock and free the processor all you can for the "pretty graphics" mode. Enjoy it !
You can get it from the app store

 

[jaycee900]

I've just ported the last version of Pingus, the Free Lemmmings-like game.

When it starts a dialog asks you whether you prefer to run it on fast graphics mode (no backgrounds, no transition effects, etc) or in a slower mod with pretier visuals. Overclock to 700 for a smooth game with the fast graphics mode. And overclock and free the processor all you can for the "pretty graphics" mode. Enjoy it !
You can get it from the app store

Fantastic, love Lemmings so will give this a try after I've cooked the sunday roast lol thanks again!

Edit: had a go before dins lol nice little game, shame there is only 22 levels in total and considering the project is 13 years young! CPU wise 650+MHz seems to stop the music stuttering on pretty mode, really smooth on 850 but still playable on 650, fast mode stutters as well so will leave on pretty mode!

 

[EvilDragon]

Wooot
Love that game. Started it on my PC, but on the Pandora, it's more fun

 

[conso]

shame there is only 22 levels in total and considering the project is 13 years young!

There are a lot more levels available, but most are not integrated into the world-map. Don't know if they are inside the pnd, else you can just copy them from a desktop-installation. You can load the extra levels in the editor or just start them from your file-manager.

 

[God Ginrai]

I've just ported the last version of Pingus, the Free Lemmmings-like game.

They halted development?

-God Ginrai

 

[joseluisjazz]

Edit: had a go before dins lol nice little game, shame there is only 22 levels in total and considering the project is 13 years young! CPU wise 650+MHz seems to stop the music stuttering on pretty mode, really smooth on 850 but still playable on 650, fast mode stutters as well so will leave on pretty mode!

Do you think is it worth to have the dialog at the beginning to choose between modes? The pretty one had also 2-4 FrameSkipping and it didn't go faster than 20 FPS while the other had betwen 0-2 FS and had double FPS.

There are a lot more levels available, but most are not integrated into the world-map. Don't know if they are inside the pnd, else you can just copy them from a desktop-installation. You can load the extra levels in the editor or just start them from your file-manager.

Yes, they are included in the PND, under share/pingus/data/levels (test, playable, volcano, multiplayer, halloween, wip and tutorial) 325 in total. I don't know how many are playable though

I think it was possible to associate an extension with a PND, I'll look into it. And see how to make the PND rise the clockspeed because I believe that's not working.

They halted development?

I don't know, the project evolves pretty slowly. What I meant is that this one is the last version released until now. English isn't my mother language so I'm not sure if I'm expressing my self well in this case.

 

[cosam]

Do you think is it worth to have the dialog at the beginning to choose between modes? The pretty one had also 2-4 FrameSkipping and it didn't go faster than 20 FPS while the other had betwen 0-2 FS and had double FPS.

You could opt to put the dialog in a separate script/app in the PND and have it write the choice to a file in appdata, which is in turn read by the main script/app. I did this with Dega to switch between video modes as it avoids a dialog every time you start up, but you can still change it if you want to.

I think it was possible to associate an extension with a PND, I'll look into it. And see how to make the PND rise the clockspeed because I believe that's not working.

I don't think either work yet, but setting clock speed is in Hotfix 4.

 

[God Ginrai]

Yes include the choice. Use SteveM's suggestion for how to handle that.

And see how to make the PND rise the clockspeed because I believe that's not working.

A PND should never set the clockspeed of the system, that could fuck up other applications the user is running. That's what .ovr's are for, so the user can make the choice.

They halted development?

I don't know, the project evolves pretty slowly. What I meant is that this one is the last version released until now. English isn't my mother language so I'm not sure if I'm expressing my self well in this case.

Ah, ok. Yea, last pretty much means final. What you were trying to express would probably be summed up by the word "latest".

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes include the choice. Use SteveM's suggestion for how to handle that.

And see how to make the PND rise the clockspeed because I believe that's not working.

A PND should never set the clockspeed of the system, that could fuck up other applications the user is running. That's what .ovr's are for, so the user can make the choice.

Before HF4, it didn't work - and you can safely set the clock speed in the PXML with Hotfix 4.

The Pańdora will ask on start if it should raise the CPU speed or not (or lets you enter a custom value) and will only do so if the current clockspeed is lower as the suggested one.

So: Yeah, use the PXML Clockspeed setting

 

[God Ginrai]

Yes include the choice. Use SteveM's suggestion for how to handle that.

And see how to make the PND rise the clockspeed because I believe that's not working.

A PND should never set the clockspeed of the system, that could fuck up other applications the user is running. That's what .ovr's are for, so the user can make the choice.

Before HF4, it didn't work - and you can safely set the clock speed in the PXML with Hotfix 4.

The Pańdora will ask on start if it should raise the CPU speed or not (or lets you enter a custom value) and will only do so if the current clockspeed is lower as the suggested one.

So: Yeah, use the PXML Clockspeed setting

I don't want to be asked every time whether I want to overclock my system when I run an application. This should be handled by .ovr's.

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

I don't want to be asked every time whether I want to overclock my system when I run an application. This should be handled by .ovr's.
-God Ginrai

.ovr simply override PXML settings.
Whether the CPU Speed is set within the PXML or within the .ovr doesn't matter.
It's the exact same thing.

 

[God Ginrai]

I don't want to be asked every time whether I want to overclock my system when I run an application. This should be handled by .ovr's.
-God Ginrai

.ovr simply override PXML settings.
Whether the CPU Speed is set within the PXML or within the .ovr doesn't matter.
It's the exact same thing.

No, there is a difference. If it is set in the PXML, it is set by the application author. If it is in an .ovr, that reflects a conscious choice by the user to overclock it to that speed. It is completely different.

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

.ovr simply override PXML settings.
Whether the CPU Speed is set within the PXML or within the .ovr doesn't matter.
It's the exact same thing.

No, there is a difference. If it is set in the PXML, it is set by the application author. If it is in an .ovr, that reflects a conscious choice by the user to overclock it to that speed. It is completely different.

-God Ginrai

That's why it asks - so basically, you want to implement that it shouldn't ask when run from .ovr but should ask when you don't run it from an .ovr.

Hmm, I'll talk to skeezix about that, should be possible.

 

[God Ginrai]

.ovr simply override PXML settings.
Whether the CPU Speed is set within the PXML or within the .ovr doesn't matter.
It's the exact same thing.

No, there is a difference. If it is set in the PXML, it is set by the application author. If it is in an .ovr, that reflects a conscious choice by the user to overclock it to that speed. It is completely different.

-God Ginrai

That's why it asks - so basically, you want to implement that it shouldn't ask when run from .ovr but should ask when you don't run it from an .ovr.

Hmm, I'll talk to skeezix about that, should be possible.

I still don't want to have to deal with authors pushing their own settings on to me. If I want to overclock, that is my choice, not the author's. If you tell the authors to use that feature then this will just cause problems for the users. If an author has a suggested clockspeed, then maybe they can provide an .ovr for the user that the user can use if they so choose. This is the same reason why people didn't like it when skeezix originally had the SNES emulator overclocking to 600 when he first released it.

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

I still don't want to have to deal with authors pushing their own settings on to me. If I want to overclock, that is my choice, not the author's. If you tell the authors to use that feature then this will just cause problems for the users. If an author has a suggested clockspeed, then maybe they can provide an .ovr for the user that the user can use if they so choose. This is the same reason why people didn't like it when skeezix originally had the SNES emulator overclocking to 600 when he first released it.

Well, and I had quite some people asking me why they always have to set the CPU speed manually, they don't want to fiddle about, they want that the game just runs fullspeed. So they want to use suggested values.

Looks like to suite your needs, I need to make this configurable so you can switch it on and off.
No big deal, I wanted to create some tweak settings script anyways.

 

[joseluisjazz]

So it seems that we should have a config file where we could choose this sort of things. And maybe a dialog similar to that of nub configuration. Nice.

 

[cosam]

Looks like to suite your needs, I need to make this configurable so you can switch it on and off.
No big deal, I wanted to create some tweak settings script anyways.

Even a simple Zenity dialog with a checklist which allows you to switch on/off for manual, .ovr and PND would get the job done for now. I think ideally, though, you'd have a dialog with three sections:

• "When I set the CPU speed manually" ...
• "When I override the CPU speed for a package" ...
• "When a package requests a specific CPU speed" ...

Which can then be set to one of:

• Always set CPU speed to the new value
• Ignore (do not change the clock speed)
• Ask me what to do
• Ask only if new speed exceeds recommended CPU speed

Maybe even a few more options, like setting you own custom "recommended" and default speeds and an absolute minimum/maximum.

 

[tsh]

Even a simple Zenity dialog with a checklist which allows you to switch on/off for manual, .ovr and PND would get the job done for now.

Does it make sense for the PND to provide the author's suggested clock speed, which on first run stores your choice of how to manage clock speed in the future? Having needless dialogues is annoying, but so is having an app mess with your config. If the initial dialogue is automatic, what is the mechanism for re-setting the choice (other than finding and deleting the .ovr file?) Maybe a 'find all of my .ovr files' routine would make sense - so if a kernel tweak means that an individual wants to up their 'flat out' setting (or maybe lower it by 5MHz because they were a little too optimistic) it is as simple as possible.

 

[cosam]

Does it make sense for the PND to provide the author's suggested clock speed, which on first run stores your choice of how to manage clock speed in the future?

You mean saving the choice per package? That would be nice, but I wouldn't store the choice in the PND (if that's what you mean) as you're basically giving carte blanche to the package to do what it wants with CPU speed. The choice would need to be under control of the OS. As you say:

Having needless dialogues is annoying, but so is having an app mess with your config.

If the initial dialogue is automatic, what is the mechanism for re-setting the choice (other than finding and deleting the .ovr file?) Maybe a 'find all of my .ovr files' routine would make sense - so if a kernel tweak means that an individual wants to up their 'flat out' setting (or maybe lower it by 5MHz because they were a little too optimistic) it is as simple as possible.

If this is in response to my proposal I think you may have gotten the wrong end of the stick. I'm suggesting a new dialog (probably under settings) with which you can configure whether you're warned about CPU speed changes or not (and possibly under which circumstances). Also, setting to automatic wouldn't create an .ovr but merely suppress the warning.

 

[tsh]

You mean saving the choice per package? That would be nice, but I wouldn't store the choice in the PND...

I was thinking per package (and store the result in appdata). The user would still have the decision about if and how much to up the clock speed.
Maybe it is not worth having for each app, and it would make more sense for the individual config to just set a threshold for overclocking (based on reliability) and if they want to be asked. Still leaves some room for improvement, in case an app is jumpy up to say 600 MHz, but still shows some improvements up to 800.

I think I will still opt generally to run at 790MHz all the time unless I'm away from a power socket (so I would only see a dialogue occasionally)