[Xeirxes]

Again, the problem with porting MZX to console systems is that you would have to program the controllers to 'press' keys for every different game.

[Exophase]

Xeirxes, on Jun 12 2004, 10:56 PM, said:

Again, the problem with porting MZX to console systems is that you would have to program the controllers to 'press' keys for every different game.

Yeah, you would need a file that specified keymappings (it'd be a good exercise to include this anyway for normal gamepad support... good thought). Most games only use a few buttons, and the default is fairly trivial - map the direction keys, space, delete, and insert (those are the only default game keys, and most games stick to them). Oh, and escape. And less important, enter.

- Exo

[Pyro1588]

but if you ported it to dreamcast, dreamcast had a keyboard (i'm pretty sure, anyway.)

[duvel]

I remember there was a ZZT port to the Dreamcast at once. I got it and burned it and it didn't work .

Anyways, I just want v.2.70 since megazeux runs fine on my computer.

[commodorejohn]

I typically find that games designed with the PC keyboard's arrow keys in mind don't work all that well when it comes to joystick/+-pad arrangements. They're just harder to play, IMHO.
Also, what about games like Bernard The Bard that require actual text entry?

[Terryn]

There's a good amount of games that do work fine with a joystick emulating keypresses, mostly older games (I've mapped a lot of games for the old 486 and a Gravis pad; Zeliard moves as smooth as silk). Besides, I'm sure if joystick support was created, then a special exception would be made for handling the x/y axis (one that doesn't emulate key presses but that accesses the functions directly, perhaps? DirectInput maybe?).

[Exophase]

Terryn, on Jun 13 2004, 04:34 PM, said:

There's a good amount of games that do work fine with a joystick emulating keypresses, mostly older games (I've mapped a lot of games for the old 486 and a Gravis pad; Zeliard moves as smooth as silk). Besides, I'm sure if joystick support was created, then a special exception would be made for handling the x/y axis (one that doesn't emulate key presses but that accesses the functions directly, perhaps? DirectInput maybe?).

SDL has joystick support, so it'd be used natively. There'd be support to map buttons to keys so that buttons stuffed key presses; later, there'd probably be Robotic support explicitely for gamepads.

- Exo

[Koji]

Yay joysticks/pads are back on mzx!

Why was that removed in the first place? I remember someone mentioning that mzx DID have joystick support way back.

[Terryn]

It was only in MZX versions before 1.00g (i.e. private betas), and it was removed because it was too buggy.

[weasel]

I don't know what I'd do with gamepad support, except for fighting games.

[paulguy]

I use JoyEm all the time. It's funner than using a keybored. Like I'm playing on a SNES. (Or Oddyssey, depending on the game.)

[apage43]

Actually, you can use USB keyboards and mice with a PS2, and probably XBox too. I played some startrek game with a mouse I nicked from my compy before.

[Exophase]

Just so you guys don't all think I stopped working on it I'll give a screenshot. Builtins are working (except CW/CCWs) and so are signs/scrolls, but no robots yet (gonna redo the system entirely, I've started). I expect Caverns to be just about totally playable within a week, probably less.

Oh, and, did some tests and optimizations with Lancer and the current renderer is VERY fast. I don't think anyone will have a problem, unless they're running on a 486 or something.

- Exo

Attached File(s)

•  caverns.png (0bytes)
  Number of downloads: 0

[Dr Lancer-X]

Very nice.. can't wait to be playing Caverns under Linux..

[Dr_Dos]

CAN WE REALLY TRUST EXO?

How do we know he didn't load up mzx as it is and take a caverns screenshot

More importantly who the hell gets hit by bears? Exo clearly sucks at these games.

[GetDizzy]

Caverns... Woo...


Meh. I guess its an accomplishment. when you show us Bernard the Bard running I'll be happy.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Dos: That was obviously to show you that the message bar works, duh.

[asgromo]

Insidious, on Jun 17 2004, 11:34 PM, said:

Caverns... Woo...


Meh. I guess its an accomplishment. when you show us Bernard the Bard running I'll be happy.

=(

I don't see how running Bernard the Bard is a greater accomplishment over running Caverns.

[Xombie]

Bernard the Bard used overlay and probably some other stuff, but this is awesome none the less. I may finally be able to start doing something other that lurk on the forums while playing Adventure Quest!

[Revvy]

Exo, that picture is obviously photshopped because the viewport on the left and right sides IS TWO CHARACTERS WIDE, not one like it's supposed to be. I'm very disappointed in your dishonesty, and I'm reporting your post to the admins.

[asgromo]

Revvy, on Jun 18 2004, 12:44 AM, said:

Exo, that picture is obviously photshopped because the viewport on the left and right sides IS TWO CHARACTERS WIDE, not one like it's supposed to be. I'm very disappointed in your dishonesty, and I'm reporting your post to the admins.

EXO IS THE ADMINS. YOU ARE LOSE REVVY.

[weasel]

So, in essence, Revvy, you're reporting Exo's post...to Exo (among others)?

[KKairos]

MZX in windows...this is gonna be THE BOMB...and not the builtin bomb, either.

Okay, this is likely a -very- stupid question, but is this going to be running in a window, fullscreen, or either? I assume fullscreen, but either way I don't care..

-edit- : Okay, another likely-stupid question: Will my voodoo 3 prevent me from using SMZX in the windows versioN?

This post has been edited by KKairos: 19 June 2004 - 12:44 AM

[Frobozz]

Quote

Okay, this is likely a -very- stupid question, but is this going to be running in a window, fullscreen, or either? I assume fullscreen, but either way I don't care..

I would imagine fullscreen. If Exo creates a config screen to set up the display it will probably be put there.

Quote

-edit- : Okay, another likely-stupid question: Will my voodoo 3 prevent me from using SMZX in the windows versioN?

Does SDL support your Voodoo? If so then there will not be any problems since SMZX and regular MZX will be drawn in nearly, if not entirely, the same way in SDL.

This post has been edited by Frobozz: 19 June 2004 - 01:42 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

KK: Exo will almost certainly allow for a choice between windowed and fullscreen, since SDL handles both easily. Windowed mode might be slower, as it could impede graphics card acceleration.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Yeah.. MZX and SMZX are drawn perfectly; bottom line, if your video card can support graphics, it can probably support SDL.

[Pyro1588]

i wonder if sdl would allow for transparent colors, cus that would totally rock.

[Exophase]

Lancer-X, on Jun 18 2004, 09:37 PM, said:

KK: Exo will almost certainly allow for a choice between windowed and fullscreen, since SDL handles both easily. Windowed mode might be slower, as it could impede graphics card acceleration.

Not only that but most people don't run their desktop in 8bpp so it has to be converted. It should still be fast for anyone who isn't using a crusty old computer though.

Pyro1588 said:

i wonder if sdl would allow for transparent colors, cus that would totally rock.

I'm not sure what you're saying exactly - I take it you're asking if individual pixels will show up behind overlay and sprites and whatnot. For the time being, the answer is going to be no, because internally everything is rendered in about the same way as its always been (and that impacts sprite rendering too), however, a change in the char rendering and the way the system works in general could allow this. It'll be a bit slower though. I'd expect to be seeing it for sprites first, if anything.

- Exo

[Exophase]

Okay, status report. I've got the robot allocation, communication, and parsing framework (was roballoc.cpp and runrobot.cpp, is now robot.cpp) up. A lot of things have been rewritten from scratch; I won't go into gory details, but communication between robots should be faster and jumping to labels should be a LOT faster.

I started working on the robot interpreter. It's a long, long road. It might take a while to really finish, but hopefully won't be too bad. It bothers me because it's so full of spaghetti code and I hate just leaving that as it is.

I've come to a few design decisions.. first, I definitely see myself changing the save game format, but not the world format yet (this is what I've been doing..). Previous save games will NOT be playable in the port, sorry (if there's demand a converter is viable..). These are some ramifications of the new format... I'll try to list them.

* Counters are going to be stored differently. Counter values will have a full 32bit range. Also, string counters will be a different type of counter so you will be able to have a much larger number of strings (strings will be identified by starting with a $, and the $stringN strings will be handled transparently this way)

* Robots will always have a stack that doesn't need to be initialized. It will be dynamically resized when it's about to be overflowed (this should allow for realistic recursion)

* There will probably be an array of local counters instead of local and the troublesome local2/local3. Expect about 32. They'll still be named localN though. The counter system isn't really flexible enough at this point to allow for real local variables to be implemented.

That's all I can really think of right now. The string issue will be pretty difficult to work out, hopefully there won't be any serious complications there. Unfortunately some other counter implementations are so hacked that there's not really an elegant solution for fixing them (for instance the file open counters)..

- Exo

[duvel]

Well yay. I really don't think most people are going to whine about save games being incompatible. It's nice that we now have a 32bit counter range, which means you CAN set random "blah" -32768 32767