libretro port

[Gleeok]

My understanding is that someone's trying to work on a libretro port of ZC. I don't have the exact information right now but I'm just throwing this up here in case someone is interested in it.

I think @Dimentio has a link to what's been discussed so far, so maybe he can help get it sorted out.

[DarkDragon]

I don't know much about libretro, but I'm happy to answer questions people have if they pop in here. Fair warning though that I give to anyone considering a port of ZC: Allegro's tentacles snake through the entire ZC codebase to an extent that may not be obvious at first, and porting the file IO, ZQ GUI, and sound handling will each require substantial effort.

[jman2050]

I was contacted about this yesterday. Right now I'm only really game to answer questions about the source code and inquire about what a port would entail, but not much more. I'd like to figure out more fundamental questions about ZC's future before deciding on directly assisting on a port to another platform like this.

[ZoriaRPG]

I do not want to bother with libretro. It brings nothing to the table that is ultimately enthralling, over SDL or Allegro 5. Both of these have independent good things that might be useful, and would expand the platforms that we can support. SDL might be the superior choice, although I am more comfortable working with Allegro.

[Gleeok]

I do not want to bother with libretro. It brings nothing to the table that is ultimately enthralling, over SDL or Allegro 5. Both of these have independent good things that might be useful, and would expand the platforms that we can support. SDL might be the superior choice, although I am more comfortable working with Allegro.

Porting to libretro I assume means porting to some general library like SDL (or whatever else works with or has been ported to it already) anyway, so it's basically porting away from allegro, or perhaps wrapping allegro, which kind of means that the "libretro" part of the port is probably the final one percent of the work.

[ZoriaRPG]

Porting to libretro I assume means porting to some general library like SDL (or whatever else works with or has been ported to it already) anyway, so it's basically porting away from allegro, or perhaps wrapping allegro, which kind of means that the "libretro" part of the port is probably the final one percent of the work.

I do not properly comprehend why anyone is asking for libretro. It seems to be a very young library, with a minimal userbase, and goodness knows what its CPU overhead would be. THe main website is a huge list of enumators that use it, with essentially zero technical literature on the library, and I get the sensation that the one or two users asking us to port to it are involved in its development, rather than interested in what is best for the future of ZC.

Shifting to a new library with dodgy support and a focus on flashy advertisements over practical documentation, does not seem wise.

It would probably be 2.012375% of the work though.

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I also see that many of the applications of libretro are for 3D rendering, which we will never, ever, need. The same user who had previously asked for us to use it, indicated a desire for a 3D Zelda game engine. That is neither the purpose of ZC, nor anything that I would ever be interested in developing, or frankly, using. The remainder are mostly console emulators. While I can see the parallel between ZC and an emulator, the internal difference is nothing close. Clearly, the user requesting this has seen SNES9x and other emulators running on libretro, and feels that ZC is similar enough that it should run on it.


More concerning, is that the library seemingly has extremely limited support for a variety of gamepads. I gathered this bit of insight from the Wiki for it. I will admit that I have not investigated it in-depth, but I still see no specific advantage to using it, especially over proven libraries that are more versatile.

Above all else, I do not have the time required to learn yet-another-API, nor do I want 2.60 to take an extra 3 to 5 years to develop because one or two people want us to change the gfx library. While that is a good idea, eventually, as allegro 4 is outdated, doing it now is simply insane.

[Avataro]

True.

[ZoriaRPG]

I wish to clarify something:

I made my earlier posts in the context that this is a request for us to port to libretro.

If the individual that brought this up wants to do a port on his own, I have no objections and I wish him the best of luck in his attempt.

[Avataro]

Right.