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  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    It won't. 32-bit color should fix the palette and flickering issues, but that's a separate matter. Nothing was ever done about the keyboard problems. If you need to run as an administrator, that's probably to get permission to write the save and config files, which has nothing to do with Allegro.


    IDK if any of the changes would affect the colour mode issue, but there have been some extensive fixes since 4.2...

    http://liballeg.org/stabledocs/en/changes.html

    It's hard to know what positive benefits we'd gain from there, but there are some critical fixes in there that necessitate updating. Furthermore, at least some touchscreen support was added, as was the ability to compile for the PSP, which would probably be a very attractive option for ZC, although I'm uncertain if the PSP has enough RAM to run ZC (unless we fix ffc/map memory usage).

    There are many *nix based fixes, and some OSX fixes. I'm unsure what 'Added Windows 7 detection' and many of the other fixes are meant to imply though, as many of them are vague.

    There's really no immediate-apparent reason not to update to 4.4.2, so I think it'd be good to try it, and see what breaks (if anything).

    I'm a bit confused on one thing: I've also seen a package 'Allegro 4.9'. Do you have know anything about that? It seems to predate 4.4, which leads me to believe that it was a dev-cycle ID for ag5 alphas, or something.

    Edit: Confirmed. Allegro 4.9 was early ag5.

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    What fixes do you think are important? I don't see anything there that affects us that hasn't already been patched.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    What fixes do you think are important? I don't see anything there that affects us that hasn't already been patched.
    Off the top of me head, the fixes for the drawing primitives, including the polygon3D overflow issue are pretty critical. As I said though, I'm not even sure what is meany by some of these. Adding Win7 detection was my example above. What did this fix entail? What issues does it prevent?

    Also, the Linux side updates, might prevent wasting a full core to run ZC, and an assortment of the issues with X11. (The fact that I could never get ZC to run on Linux at 60fps,with any of my laptops, was a pretty noteworthy complaint.)

    The thing is, I don't think we'll lose anything by updating. If all the allegro fixes are self-contained in that fixes file, then reimplementing them shouldn't be too painful.

    I believe we use 4.2.2, so, from the list of changes, these are the ones that stick out, to me, between 4.2.2 and 4.4.2:

    Add detection of Windows 7 (Andrei Ellman).
    * No explanation given.
    Fixed a problem with keyboard focus being lost on OS X when switching from windowed mode to fullscreen mode (Peter Johansson).
    Updated PSP port from diedel. "The graphics, system, digi, keyboard, mouse, joystick and timer drivers are implemented and are fully functional. It supports 8, 15, 16 and 32 bpp color depths and a max. resolution of 480x272 pixels."
    Eliminated the need for old DirectX headers for the Windows port (David Capello).
    Fix problems in Windows when you use Alt-Tab. Sometimes the Alt modifier is kept pressed when you focus the Allegro window. (David Capello)
    * This one is potentially what causes the input to flicker around when you alt tab out of ZC, and then back into it.
    Fix various compilation and build problems (scottmc, Cristian Morales Vega, Tony Ylisirni�, Edgar Reynaldo).
    * Not specific enough to know if this would fix compiling with Linux AMD-64.
    Allow Linux joystick driver to be used with the X11 port without enabling the Linux console port.
    Avoid problem compiling joystick driver on some Linux systems.
    Fix a build problem with CMake 2.6.2+ on Mac OS X.
    Fix an integer overflow problem with polygon3d().
    Avoid a potential divide-by-zero in non-FM synth case in OSS MIDI driver.
    * I have no idea if this affects us.
    Trent Gamblin added _trans and _lit versions of all rotate_* and pivot_* functions. New example: exrotscl.
    * More, useful drawing options, although we don;t actually use the light table properly.
    Milan Mimica fixed display switching on linux console driver.
    Paul Suntsov made a replacement function for do_ellipse() which produces accurate ellipses and much more rapidly.
    Jon Rafkind and Milan Mimica implemented draw_sprite_ex() function and added an extrans2 example.
    8L45T3R fixed a bug in arc() function, where small arcs would be drawn as circles.
    Trent Gamblin made a small change to the Windows mouse driver to add support for touchscreens (at least 1 of them).
    David A. Capello made key_shifts work properly on Windows for Control, Alt, and Shift.

    'Various minor improvements'
    * Again, non-specific, and any of these undisclosed changes could potentially help with some of the issues that we have at present.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ZoriaRPG View Post
    Off the top of me head, the fixes for the drawing primitives, including the polygon3D overflow issue are pretty critical.
    ZC doesn't use polygon3d. The others might be relevant, but we haven't had any problems with them that I'm aware of.

    Adding Win7 detection was my example above. What did this fix entail? What issues does it prevent?
    It just sets a variable that users can check if they're interested. It doesn't do anything on its own.

    Also, the Linux side updates, might prevent wasting a full core to run ZC, and an assortment of the issues with X11. (The fact that I could never get ZC to run on Linux at 60fps,with any of my laptops, was a pretty noteworthy complaint.)
    They did integrate AllegroGL, which would be nice to have, assuming it will just work without additional effort. Gleeok attempted to integrate it before, and that didn't go well at all.

    Fixed a problem with keyboard focus being lost on OS X when switching from windowed mode to fullscreen mode (Peter Johansson).
    Fullscreen doesn't work on Mac, anyway, and that's not changing soon.

    Fix problems in Windows when you use Alt-Tab. Sometimes the Alt modifier is kept pressed when you focus the Allegro window. (David Capello)
    * This one is potentially what causes the input to flicker around when you alt tab out of ZC, and then back into it.
    No, that's a minor input issue. Might cause you to open a menu accidentally, but that's about it.

    Fix various compilation and build problems (scottmc, Cristian Morales Vega, Tony Ylisirni�, Edgar Reynaldo).
    * Not specific enough to know if this would fix compiling with Linux AMD-64.
    It might help with Allegro itself, but there are other libraries that are still stuck in 32-bit, so that doesn't do us any good.

    Avoid a potential divide-by-zero in non-FM synth case in OSS MIDI driver.
    * I have no idea if this affects us.
    Eh. It could, in theory, but no one uses OSS anymore, and I don't think anyone's ever gotten it to use an external MIDI driver successfully.

    'Various minor improvements'
    * Again, non-specific, and any of these undisclosed changes could potentially help with some of the issues that we have at present.
    You can check the commit log. They really didn't leave out anything interesting.

    Compilation stuff doesn't really matter. We don't have problems with that. Anything to do with the console driver on Linux or the GDI driver on Windows isn't relevant. There's no chance of a PSP port in the foreseeable future.

    The thing is, I don't think we'll lose anything by updating. If all the allegro fixes are self-contained in that fixes file, then reimplementing them shouldn't be too painful.
    Hard to say. I'm not unwilling to give it a try, but it doesn't look to me like a high priority, and it's more than just a few minutes of work even if everything goes smoothly.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post
    ZC doesn't use polygon3d. The others might be relevant, but we haven't had any problems with them that I'm aware of.
    I belive that it does...now. It's probably one of the things that I added, and Gleeok already added the ZASM-end stuff for all the drawing functions, unless this change has nothing to do with the polygon3d drawing primitive.

    It just sets a variable that users can check if they're interested. It doesn't do anything on its own.
    They did integrate AllegroGL, which would be nice to have, assuming it will just work without additional effort. Gleeok attempted to integrate it before, and that didn't go well at all.
    They seem to have done a fair number of tweaks to do with gfx libs. I'm hoping that between those, and the input vchanges, some of our longstanding bugs may have been resolved. I'm not in deep enough to know precisely what's causing them.

    Fullscreen doesn't work on Mac, anyway, and that's not changing soon.
    What is the present reason for that, though?

    No, that's a minor input issue. Might cause you to open a menu accidentally, but that's about it.
    I noticed a group of fixes relating to input. Had you ever worked out exactly what causes loss of input, and what causes random input when ZC is defocused on Windows with alt+tab (and only alt+tab does this)?

    It might help with Allegro itself, but there are other libraries that are still stuck in 32-bit, so that doesn't do us any good.
    Probably true. Grayswandir has been trying to compile on his Linux system, and he's had no success at all, even when he forces a 32b compilation, so these changes might resolve that.

    Eh. It could, in theory, but no one uses OSS anymore, and I don't think anyone's ever gotten it to use an external MIDI driver successfully.
    I'm more interested in expanding the nsf formats that we can use. The expanded chipset types, don't work at present, and I've never looked at what we use for that. Adding .sid support would also be nice, for that matter.

    You can check the commit log. They really didn't leave out anything interesting.
    I'll do that, but only the forum posts, and any usenet stuff, might have everything. As I don't know exactly what causes each issue that we have at present, i just think it prudent to update, and rule out that the allegro changes may have fixed things, before making hacks around the bugs.

    Compilation stuff doesn't really matter. We don't have problems with that. Anything to do with the console driver on Linux or the GDI driver on Windows isn't relevant.
    It does, when gcc won't compile due to kernel issues when compiling ag 4.2. Feel free to ask Grayswandir about those; and as I'll likely end up doing the OSX builds in the future, I would like to have as much of the resolved OSX issues, well, resolved before I need to drink meself into oblivion, trying to figure out why things don't work.

    There's no chance of a PSP port in the foreseeable future.
    Do we use external binaries with no source, that we can't compile on other arcitectures? Really, what is the main limiting factor with this one? Input differences? System resources?

    I don't even own a PSP, but if it was possible to compile a PSP-specific ZC build, even a 'light' version, I might consider working on it. I do have enough on the plate for the present though.

    Hard to say. I'm not unwilling to give it a try, but it doesn't look to me like a high priority, and it's more than just a few minutes of work even if everything goes smoothly.
    If you feel up to it. I had it on my agenda for a while, so I will eventually get around to it, once I finish the zscript, and lexer stuff that I'm working on at present. If all goes well, I may have added case-switch; but I anticipate quirks. Comment blocks, likewise may be viable now, but I won't know until I test them, and I need to marge some of my changes with what Gleeok has done, and see if all is right in the world.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by ZoriaRPG View Post
    I belive that it does...now. It's probably one of the things that I added, and Gleeok already added the ZASM-end stuff for all the drawing functions, unless this change has nothing to do with the polygon3d drawing primitive.
    Oh, I see it now. It's used indirectly. Didn't think to look for quad3d and such.
    But it still doesn't appear to affect us. The issue only applied to builds with assembly disabled, which we don't do, and shouldn't show up in C++ programs, anyway.

    What is the present reason for that, though?
    It requires 32-bit color. Well, strictly speaking, it requires the application's color depth to be the same as the desktop's.

    I noticed a group of fixes relating to input. Had you ever worked out exactly what causes loss of input, and what causes random input when ZC is defocused on Windows with alt+tab (and only alt+tab does this)?
    Random input? First I've heard of it.
    By "loss of input," are you referring to the GUI no longer accepting keyboard input even though it still works in the game? That happens because the keyboard buffer it reads from is used from multiple threads but isn't thread-safe.

    I'm more interested in expanding the nsf formats that we can use. The expanded chipset types, don't work at present, and I've never looked at what we use for that. Adding .sid support would also be nice, for that matter.
    Upgrading libgme might do it, but the API has changed, so it's not straightforward.

    Do we use external binaries with no source, that we can't compile on other arcitectures? Really, what is the main limiting factor with this one? Input differences? System resources?
    Libraries that only compile on x86.

  7. #17
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    AllegroGL was a PITA. It's obvious that it was not something that was designed to replace existing allegro code, but rather lets you use GL while allegro4.x does everything else, so it's really only useful if you were using it from the start--of course nowadays there are a million better ways to do this than agl. It's also massively slow, wonky, and (extremely) buggy in allegro compatibility mode, which is basically the entire zc architecture.

    Don't know about polygone3d, but unless you actually hit the usage case which triggers the bug, I wouldn't worry about it.


    [edit]32-bit color has some problems. At the time I added a configuration for this there were a few very labor-intensive bugs that needed to be solved. As you might of figured, I have not yet solved them. :/
    Last edited by Gleeok; 06-21-2016 at 06:58 PM.
    This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saffith View Post

    Random input? First I've heard of it.
    Affects win 7 and higher: When using alt+tab to move from zc or zq to something else, such as a text file, and using alt+tab to shift back, ZQuest (probably also ZC) believes that the tab key is constantly pressed until you press another key.

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