16 April 2013, 13:52 | #1 |
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Arcade Game Selector 2
Hello folks.
I noticed a few weeks ago that my old AGS project was still very much alive and has seen a number of forks and fixes, most recently from tomcat666. I started looking at the source again, saw that it was old and messy, and decided to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. It took a little while to get the development environment set up with FS-UAE (I don't have any properly working Amigas these days :/ ), and I seem to have forgotten most of what I ever knew about Amiga coding in general and AmigaE coding in particular. It was fun getting back into it though, and I've managed to get it to a state where I'd like some input from the fine people here at EAB. First off, the project is hosted on GitHub, so you can check out the source code there: https://github.com/MagerValp/ArcadeGameSelector The main changes since version 1 are:
I'd like to warn you that it's a debug build that prints out statistics and opens console windows, so it isn't ready for active use. (FIXED) I'd love to get some feedback though, especially on its performance since I don't have any real hardware to test on (Anyone have a cheap A600HD for sale?). A few notes on the code:
» Is the AmigaDOS 3.x manual available somewhere? I need a good command reference and a guide to writing scripts. In particular I need to figure out why Lap/Skip doesn't work. » As you can tell if you've run the program I'm not a graphics artist. I'm hoping that someone here would be willing to develop a 4-color theme for OCS and a 16 or 32-color theme for AGA. Any takers? » Does anyone have a good WHDLoad archive, preferably sorted in categories and with screenshots still in full 8 or 24-bit color? AGS2 comes with an image converter (imgtoiff.py) and I need to find the best way to run it. NB: I don't need the actual games, just the .start/.png/.txt files. » Are there any decent development tools for tracking down memory leaks, buffer overruns, double frees, etc? I've tried running with Enforcer and MungWall, but since AmigaE frees all resources at exit I don't get any hits when the code is actually executing. I also don't know how to translate the memory addresses that they report into AmigaE function and variable names. It doesn't help me one bit to know that I overwrote a buffer by one byte at $078c9482 after the program quit... And of course if anyone has any questions or requests, please just ask. Last edited by MagerValp; 30 November 2016 at 22:01. Reason: Updated with new snapshot |
16 April 2013, 15:02 | #2 |
Martin Shaw
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Scotland
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Hi MagerValp.
I've been a long time user of AGS, I never expected the original author to pick it up again. Improvements I'd say Lower memory usage overall. Support for auto switching image, Switch between boxart/screenshot. Different image file type support something that can create smaller sized (kb) images than .IFF Although I'm guess supporting JPG and PNG would end up in more wasted memory? Ability to scroll down past the list limit without it breaking up the listing selection, I think someone may have fixed that in another release. .mod and .sid support. Although if adding support for other formats requires more .library usage then I wouldn't bother myself. I noticed that AGS still requires iffparse.library it would be nice if it could run without any library dependencies. Anyway good to see you are working on it again. Here is a video of old AGS in action [ Show youtube player ] |
16 April 2013, 18:03 | #3 | ||||||||
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Last edited by MagerValp; 16 April 2013 at 18:15. Reason: Grammar |
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16 April 2013, 18:10 | #4 |
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No images and only sorted into A-Z folders (AGA and non AGA seperated), this is a good start for a few thousand games and demos though.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=68704 |
16 April 2013, 18:14 | #5 |
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Nice!
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18 April 2013, 16:02 | #6 |
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Quick update:
First up AGA, 256 colors: Then OCS in 16 colors: (Yes, I warned you that I'm not a graphician.) Last edited by MagerValp; 18 April 2013 at 16:03. Reason: Clarification |
18 April 2013, 16:20 | #7 |
Phone Homer
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Cool I use AGS all the time for AGeS - sorry
Also thanks to tomcat666 if he reads for all the .iff and .txt Last edited by Retro1234; 18 April 2013 at 16:36. |
22 April 2013, 15:04 | #8 |
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I made a small movie clip today demonstrating the new configurable UI:
[ Show youtube player ] I implemented the new fast drawing routines so the menu is responsive even on an unaccelerated A600 while loading screenshots in the background. All that's really left is a few nice looking themes... |
22 April 2013, 16:50 | #9 |
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Alright, here's a new build that's feature complete and should be considered a beta - I'm not aware of any major bugs. I'd love to get some feedback, especially on how it performs on slower machines.
AGS2-20130422.lzx |
01 May 2013, 14:10 | #10 |
twenty90seven
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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This is looking great, I like the big screen shots.
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01 May 2013, 14:27 | #11 |
twenty90seven
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This is probably a beginner's question, but what do you type in the .run script for a game to make it run?
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01 May 2013, 20:17 | #12 | |
Phone Homer
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Would it be possible to have a copy of AGS 2 that uses .start so I dont have to change all my files - I might install both AGS 1 and AGS 2 AGA so I can have both big and small screen shots, I will try and give you some feedback when I can
Quote:
CD DH0:Games/GameTitle jst GameHD |
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02 May 2013, 10:20 | #13 | |
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Quote:
I might be able to create a script that converts AGS1 menus into AGS2, but I still haven't found a good shell scripting reference. |
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17 May 2013, 14:11 | #14 |
twenty90seven
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Thanks, but I'm still struggling with the Run script.
I have a partition called Games (which is obviously separate from the System partition). In the root of the Games partition I have a drawer called 'AlienBreedStory', and then within that, the WHDLoad files for the game (AlienBreedStory, AlienBreedStory.slave, etc) I have tried many scripts to get it to work, for example Run Games: AlienBreedStory/AlienBreedStory I have also tried as BooBoo suggested CD DH1: AlienBreedStory/AlienBreedStory I am fairly new to AmigaDOS scripts, can someone please help? Cheers |
17 May 2013, 14:54 | #15 |
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Try:
Code:
cd DH1:AlienBreedStory WHDLoad AlienBreedStory.slave PRELOAD |
17 May 2013, 14:58 | #16 |
twenty90seven
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17 May 2013, 15:01 | #17 |
twenty90seven
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That worked! Thanks so much.
I'm making some TIFF images for the menu using screenshots and this Windows program which converts PNG to TIFF: www.ultimatepaint.com Last edited by twenty90seven; 18 May 2013 at 06:02. Reason: Wanted to discuss TIFF files |
19 May 2013, 09:22 | #18 |
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The screenshots need to be IFF (aka ILBM), not TIFF.
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19 May 2013, 15:29 | #19 |
twenty90seven
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Cheers, yes IFF.
I've got AGS2 set up now and working well, and I'm looking to customise it a bit more. Quick question - when you cycle through the games, there is a background colour which changes (around the edges of the screen - it is yellow for one game, then blue for another, etc). Can this be configured? For some reason, your video of your AGS2 menu on Youtube doesn't have this issue. |
19 May 2013, 19:08 | #20 |
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Sure, you have two options: either ensure that color 0 on your screenshots is always the same color (e.g. black), or use a utility that forces the border to be blank: https://www.google.se/search?q=site%...t+border+blank
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