Request For Scummvm 'features' Feedback.

[DJWillis]

All,

As some of you know I now have a working GP2X again so I now have something to test my hacking efforts on .

With that in mind this is a very quick post to ask for feedback on what (reasonable) features people would like to see added to the port. This will help me make a sensible TODO to work from.

In addition what bugs do people consider show stoppers in the current alphas etc.?

I want to have a bit of a push to make the port a bit more feature rich and less buggy before I put it up for inclusion in ScummVM's main SVN but I can't do that without feedback and help.

I'll start to do new beta test releases based on current SVN ScummVM as soon as I get some of the stuff below stabilised.

Current WIP features (updated 10 August 2006):

* USB mouse support - this has been requested by users running ScummVM on TV's.
* DXA video support for Feeble Files (Note: FF does not work yet) and BS1/2.
* Save Fixes (Can people help by detailing the exact bugs).
* On screen key input (Got this re-designed but not started a new implementation yet, any offers of help?).

I have cross posted this to the ScummVM/GP2X project page and GP32x's forums.

Please feel free to reply to the GP32x thread with comments clearly stating if your comments are about 'new features', 'improvements' or 'bugs' and provide detail if it will help.

Regards,

John Willis

 

[Wolfsclaw]

"New features request" & "Improvements"
I would definitely love to play Monkey Island 3 with no lags... its not perfect at all right now. Plus if you go into the inventar it seems there is no way outta it with a item *selected* .. means you cant use your items at all. (or have i missed something^^?)
The Movies are running good, but still werent perfect. Same goes for Broken Sword 1+2...

Also for these three games - It's kinda hard to read the on-screen text, is that because the standard resolution is 640x480 or something? I dont know... but it would be GREAT if you could read the text just as good as in games like dott.

Then one last thing... a "Go back to game selector" option in the scummvm-menu inside a game. Im switching games kinda often so it would be much more handier if you wouldnt always have to go back to the gp2x menu and then start scummvm again... Plus scummvm have some strange start-bugs, as mentioned in another thread i have to run Whacky (homebrew game) before it so it does work, in the new modified version by d_skywalker i can run the application once but the next time i try to start it it gives out a blackscreen (in case i havent resetted the whole gp2x)

Sorry for grammatical/vocabulary issues

 

[murak]

I was thinking of not replying, but here it goes... i would like to be able to play MonkeyIsland3 and Broken Sword 1-2.

At the same time I would like to thank you DJWillis for your work on ScummVM!

 

[techFreak]

Hi DJWillis,

I'll PM you my onscreen keyboard idea. Could you please send me a feedback about it?

 

[DJWillis]

Ok,

Quick reply on the comments thus far.

Monkey Island 3 - Playing this is not 'reasonable' in it's current state . The engine for MI3 is being improved in ScummVM all the time (most of the 'little' ports suffer from the fact the engine is a pig) so it will get better but I see this moving from unplayable to unpleasant to play in the medium term. If I can get the bugs out of this code that runs OGG Vorbis audio on the 940 then things may improve still further if you use an OGG Vorbis encoded audio version of MI3.

Broken Sword 1+2 - To be honest I consider these (minus videos) to be mostly playable at the moment. I am working on DXA video support (should be a lot better then the MPEG2 videos at the expense of the cut scenes being a little bigger). DXA video is also slowly becoming the de-facto ScummVM standard for converting the old Smacker videos in the non-SCUMM game engines so supporting it is "a very good thing (tm)" .

640x480 scaling issues - The hardware that scales down the 640*480 screens to 320*240 (for the LCD) does no resampling of any sort so a lot of information just gets binned without any effort to make a nice resampled display. There is a way to resample the scaled image in hardware but by default it does not work on RGB screens. I have been hacking about with this in the background for another project. If I get it working it will just appear in ScummVM -The performance hit may come from converting the screens to and from RGB but the actual hardware resampling is quite fast.

Go back to game selector - This is not something that would be implemented at the port level (i.e. it's a core change). That said it is being worked on buy some of the ScummVM devs. If it goes into the core it WILL make it into the port. I personally think this is a very nice feature.

Strange start-bugs - I can't speak for D_skywalk's patches but the screen initialisation code in my version has changed somewhat from the older alphas with the 'black screen' bug. I would hope this becomes a non-issue in the newer builds.

 

[bacteria]

Flight of the Amazon Queen - character sometimes shows fine (start of game), but often is only shown in washed out colours (green).

 

[Optimistic]

I would really like to have an option to adjusts how fast the cursor moves---the speed is not quite right for some games.

Also, maybe alternative control schemes for game-specific things like 'Fight controls' for when Indiana Jones gets in a fight. Scummvm for Nintendo DS has this and its pretty cool.

But, most importantly, cursor speed.

 

[WhizzBang]

I find that on The Day Of The Tentacles the sound is about a second out of sync with the animation.

EDIT: I have just worked out that I can fix this by using the volume button to change text speed.

On TV Out, the game is perfectly playable but some of the left hand side of the screen is cut off.

 

[XerXerz]

For Scummvm, can games be included in downloaded, so I do not have to search for them?

 

[Optimistic]

For Scummvm, can games be included in downloaded, so I do not have to search for them?

The games are copyrighted, of course, so NO they can't be included.

But, since they are so old you can pick them up on the cheap on eBay or your local (yet decent) game store.

 

[DJWillis]

Flight of the Amazon Queen - character sometimes shows fine (start of game), but often is only shown in washed out colours (green).

I had not idea about that bug (never seen it) - I'll look into it.

I would really like to have an option to adjusts how fast the cursor moves---the speed is not quite right for some games.

Also, maybe alternative control schemes for game-specific things like 'Fight controls' for when Indiana Jones gets in a fight. Scummvm for Nintendo DS has this and its pretty cool.

Cursor speed is a great idea, I’ll sort that at some point.

As for the DS control mappings, funny you should mention it I was talking to the DS porter about this recently. Again its a great idea but I don't want to fit it in as a nasty hack however so it may take some time (i.e. come up with a clean generic way to do this that the DS and GP2X ports can use).

I find that on The Day Of The Tentacles the sound is about a second out of sync with the animation.

EDIT: I have just worked out that I can fix this by using the volume button to change text speed.

On TV Out, the game is perfectly playable but some of the left hand side of the screen is cut off.

Interested to hear about the LHS being cut off, seems fine for me, I'll try it on some friends TV's.

DOTT lagg? Are you using the newest versions? You mention using volume to control text speed but on the newer builds the volume buttons control volume and left trigger and volume controls text speed in SCUMM games (and Simon I think).

For Scummvm, can games be included in downloaded, so I do not have to search for them?

Nope, well not for the most part. I could possibility get permission to include Flight of the Amazon Queen and Beneath a Steel Sky but I don't see the point as those games are available from ScummVM.Org anyway.

All the other games are copyrighted and not freeware so distributing them would be illegal. The games can literally cost pennies to buy if you have good local game shops (and charity shops can also be a gold mine for old games).

 

[Magnulus]

We're workin on a thing for Platoons where when you scroll or move cursors, the speed of it is based on how long you've been holding the button down, so that you keep the precisition high for short movements, but you can move quickly from one side of the screen to the other.

 

[xtravbx]

edit:

Yeah, cursor speed would be great.

 

[gene_kultpower]

Hi there.

I tried today to use your scummvm port, but I failed. When I start it I can only see a black screen :unsure:

My GP2X has the firmware 2.0 installed. On your project page I found other comments saying that your port does not run with firmware 2.0. Is that true?


Thanks

 

[DJWillis]

My GP2X has the firmware 2.0 installed. On your project page I found other comments saying that your port does not run with firmware 2.0. Is that true?

Nope, the black screen bug is something else - Not firmware related but a screen setup bug. Try running some homebrew app before ScummVM (some people have said that works) or wait for a new test release in the next few days and try that.
The black screen bug should be fixed but I am sure there will be 100's of nice new ones .

 

[gene_kultpower]

Nope, the black screen bug is something else - Not firmware related but a screen setup bug. Try running some homebrew app before ScummVM (some people have said that works) or wait for a new test release in the next few days and try that.
The black screen bug should be fixed but I am sure there will be 100's of nice new ones .

:rolleyes:

Thanks for the reply, I will try that or/and wait for some next release.

Good luck for the release

 

[michaeltoy]

So the only game I could find my CDs for is Fate of Atlantis, so I don't know if this is only one game or all games. Save is broken for me. I can save a game and restore a game and that works OK, but if I turn the machine off and on again, the only save game that actually works is the auto save one. The others show up in the menu, but take me to some point early in the game (which might be where my save game#1 is saved)

 

[DJWillis]

So the only game I could find my CDs for is Fate of Atlantis, so I don't know if this is only one game or all games. Save is broken for me. I can save a game and restore a game and that works OK, but if I turn the machine off and on again, the only save game that actually works is the auto save one. The others show up in the menu, but take me to some point early in the game (which might be where my save game#1 is saved)

Try making sure you quit ScummVM back to the GP2X menu before turning your unit off. If you still loose saves let me know.

 

[DJWillis]

Anybody got a USB mouse hooked up to there GP2X and willing to test some code for me (I left my USB lead at work and I want to test out the mouse code for ScummVM).

 

[Shaddac]

Hmm... I don't get the save feature to work at all, which I find very weird. I have however only tried Broken Sword 1 so far. I get an error message when I try to save, can't really make out what it says due to the rezising issue though. Something like this I think...

Unable to create the "SAVE GAME blabla" blabla... "mnt/sd/Other Games/scumm/bsword"

then a second message appears:

Can't create SAVEGAME.INF in directory :nmt/sd/Other Games/scumm/bsword

I would be extremely happy if someone can help me with this. Don't know whether it's a bug in the GP2X version of SCUMM or if I've done something wrong.

Cheers!
//Shaddac