X-bEnCH - The Amiga Game Launcher (Whdload, exe, ..) and more official topic.

[softiron]

Is there a way to switch off text blinking? It is extremely annoying, at least for me.

[spudje]

You could try if Jim's code already support multiple I guess if you number them gamename_1.iff, gamename_2.iff they may rotate? Or at least I think he has intentions for something similar

[Amiga1992]

I noticed a slight glitch with the latest version of xbench. When there's no image for the selected game, the background turns green!

[spudje]

The full background or where the image should go? Haven't noticed that (in WinUAE, not yet testing on real hardware)

BTW I fixed the loading image, woohoo!!

Put the attached file in the datas folder and rename it to 0006.dat. Put background to black and fading on boot to off for best effect.
I resized it to 320x200 and reduced color depth to 16 colors.

[Amiga1992]

The full background!

And thanks for t hat, so it's a standard lbm image? Will have a go at changing mine too

[spudje]

BTW someone added an awesome full Game and Demo set of screenshots for all of Turan's WHDLoad slaves on aminet.
http://aminet.net/package/game/misc/...game_eab_demos
http://aminet.net/package/game/misc/...game_eab_games
If only someone could (smartly batch) convert these to Xbench...

[spudje]

Mmm, maybe I encountered a bug. In WinUAE xplorer only shows the last partition. So if you have 2 it shows dh1: only (not dh0: ), if you have 3 it shows dh2: only (not dh0: & dh1: )

[apex]

@spudje
Yes!! This picture would be fantastic.

[spudje]

Which picture are you referring to? I posted the one I now use as loading screen a few posts up.

[apex]

Yes, this one.

[spudje]

So you have it now, right?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by spudje

BTW someone added an awesome full Game and Demo set of screenshots for all of Turan's WHDLoad slaves on aminet.
http://aminet.net/package/game/misc/...game_eab_demos
http://aminet.net/package/game/misc/...game_eab_games
If only someone could (smartly batch) convert these to Xbench...

I did it, and I have to tell you, Xbench runs like shit when you add these many pics to the system! It takes a long time to load each pic after i selected it with the arrow keys/joystick.
It really feels like XBench is not really running well when you have a large collection of games, and I think this is paramount. Anyone running XBench is probably want to have a ton of games on their HD

Is there a reason such tiny images are in 32 color format? Maybe they can be done in 8 colors and that would make it faster, I would have to experiment, but I used exactly what was being used because I know XBench can be picky.

Anyway feel free to have a go, they are in the FTP in my folder (~Uploads/Akira). Full credit to the kind soul who made all these!

Unzip them somewhere and transfer to /datas/db/pix . Sorry I didn't do an LHA, I just don't have it on my PC.
What I didn't do: add a textfile for each game/demo entry to describe it. Sorry, too much work. I wish I would be smart enough to make a script that batches the data off hol or something.

[Amiga1992]

Another thing I just noticed, probably a bug: Whenever I launch a WHDLoad game from Xbench, it is ignoring the PRELOAD option that IS present in the game's icon information. Even if I have it ON on Xbench whdload prefs and I launch with the GREEN button, none of my games are preloading! This basically beats the purpose of me having a TF328 :/



[edit] Also noticed it crashes sometimes if i turn the Infoscreen off!

[edit 2] I will also again ask please to let us choose the executable that the WHDLoad lists use. We could prefer WHDLoadCD32, or even CD32Load or JSt.

Right now I really want to try JST but I can't be bothered to do thousands of games manually.

[Amiga1992]

Ugh I am talking to myself here.
I figured out the no preload thing... As hinted in another thread by Retro-Nerd(thanks buddy!), who said Tinylauncher needs Newicons in order to detect tooltypes, seems like X-Bench needs that too to be able to scan tooltypes and use them, otherwise it just ignores them.

I booted a WBs setup that uses PeterK's new icon.library, did an update scan of my lists, and now the games preload as intended.
Should be described in the docs that one needs a new icon.library or newicons to be able to scan tooltypes if you are using newicons

Alternative solution: don't use newicons on your installs. But they all come with newicons already, and it'd be a PAIN IN THE ASS to change all icons for every single install.
Alternative 2 and probably the best for x-bench: IGNORE scanning tooltypes and just use settings in X-Bench's own WHDLoad prefs, and let people edit lists by hand if they need specific tooltypes enabled in certain slaves.

[JimNeray]

Originally Posted by softiron

Is there a way to switch off text blinking? It is extremely annoying, at least for me.

In the setup panel / Launcher Tab you can switch the display mode of the List of the launcher with the option named 'LiStTxt'. You have two options : sLide and fAder. Does this help you ?

Originally Posted by spudje

You could try if Jim's code already support multiple I guess if you number them gamename_1.iff, gamename_2.iff they may rotate? Or at least I think he has intentions for something similar

They may rotate in the future. This is thinked like this but not yet implemented.

Originally Posted by Akira

I noticed a slight glitch with the latest version of xbench. When there's no image for the selected game, the background turns green!

Damn. I can't reproduce this here. When there is no image for the selected game a default pic is displayed with the mantion 'No picture available sorry'.

Originally Posted by spudje

Mmm, maybe I encountered a bug. In WinUAE xplorer only shows the last partition. So if you have 2 it shows dh1: only (not dh0: ), if you have 3 it shows dh2: only (not dh0: & dh1: )

Have you tryed it on a standard workbench or from a custom updated one ? All is ok here for me with a workbench3.1.

Originally Posted by Akira

I did it, and I have to tell you, Xbench runs like shit when you add these many pics to the system! It takes a long time to load each pic after i selected it with the arrow keys/joystick.

I will give a look with the pics that you've updated. Anyway you can set up a timer in the setup panel/launchers options. Use the 'InfoScr' button. By default xbench will check the pictures files 5ms after you have stoped to mode in the listing. If this slow down too much your experience you can switch this value to 10ms or 15ms.

Originally Posted by Akira

Another thing I just noticed, probably a bug: Whenever I launch a WHDLoad game from Xbench, it is ignoring the PRELOAD option that IS present in the game's icon information. Even if I have it ON on Xbench whdload prefs and I launch with the GREEN button, none of my games are preloading! This basically beats the purpose of me having a TF328 :/

Yes this is a bug. This will be fixed in the next release.

Originally Posted by Akira

[edit] Also noticed it crashes sometimes if i turn the Infoscreen off!

I'll give a look at this issue.

Originally Posted by Akira

Ugh I am talking to myself here.
I figured out the no preload thing... As hinted in another thread by Retro-Nerd(thanks buddy!), who said Tinylauncher needs Newicons in order to detect tooltypes, seems like X-Bench needs that too to be able to scan tooltypes and use them, otherwise it just ignores them.

Xbench doesn't need newicon, the tooltypes detection is made by hard reading the .info file linked to the slave. There was some bug with this part that will be fixed in the next release.

I'm bug hunting since the last public release. I think that a new release'll be published in some days for the registered users. If all is going right a public release may be soonly available.

[lineacero]

hello to all partners.
How do I get the activation code?

[spudje]

Originally Posted by JimNeray

Have you tryed it on a standard workbench or from a custom updated one ? All is ok here for me with a workbench3.1.

Only in WinUAE with BetterWB so far. I needed it to create a new mod playlist, but I'll do that manually instead

[Amiga1992]

Hi Jim, wish you would read here more often, we're testing XBench a lot.

Originally Posted by JimNeray

Damn. I can't reproduce this here. When there is no image for the selected game a default pic is displayed with the mantion 'No picture available sorry'.

The background of the infoscreen turns a color of green, not the whole screen, I stand corrected.

I will give a look with the pics that you've updated. Anyway you can set up a timer in the setup panel/launchers options. Use the 'InfoScr' button. By default xbench will check the pictures files 5ms after you have stoped to mode in the listing. If this slow down too much your experience you can switch this value to 10ms or 15ms.

I already did that and it slows down the system too much still. Because if you scroll page by page, it always waits to show the infopic of the next page's item.

Also noticed: As you go down the list, it gets FASTER! So the further you are down the list the faster the image reading gets.

Maybe it's not about your program reading the picture, rather a problem with your program going through a file list/dir/database or something.

Xbench doesn't need newicon, the tooltypes detection is made by hard reading the .info file linked to the slave. There was some bug with this part that will be fixed in the next release.

That is weird, as I said, because when I launch XBench from Workbench after I loaded PeterK's icon.library, it works again.

That still has nothing to do with XBench ignoring WHDLoad options on green button.



By the way, I asked this before, but can you make teh WHDLoad executable be selectable? We might have more than one verison of WHDLoad in our systems (for testing purposes), would prefer to use WHDLoadCD32, or rather just CD32Load or JST, which are WHDLoad slave compatible.

Also unanswered: Why are the tiny images in 32 color format? Seems like a bit of a waste. Would be better to use 8 or 16 and remapped to a single palette (like Rebel's 16 color palette)
Another tiny bug: seems like there's always a color in that palette that turns white.

[JimNeray]

Originally Posted by lineacero

hello to all partners.
How do I get the activation code?

Hi Lineacero.
Have you read the xbench.guide included with xbench ? All is explained here for registering.

Originally Posted by spudje

Only in WinUAE with BetterWB so far. I needed it to create a new mod playlist, but I'll do that manually instead

You can easily create new audioplaylist by using Xplorer. To do so :
1. Browse to your mod file in the left or righ side (as you want)
2. Select a mod (One 'clic' on the name of the file)
3. In the bottomright side 'clic' on the 'Add Mod' button to add your mod.
4. Repeat step 1, 2 and 3 until you have added all the wanted mods.
5. On the bottomright side 'clic' on the button named 'Save PL'

Originally Posted by Akira

Hi Jim, wish you would read here more often, we're testing XBench a lot.

I'll try to be here more often.

Originally Posted by Akira

The background of the infoscreen turns a color of green, not the whole screen, I stand corrected.

Really weird. Hope i can reproduce this to fix it.

Originally Posted by Akira

I already did that and it slows down the system too much still. Because if you scroll page by page, it always waits to show the infopic of the next page's item.

I've installed all your 4000+ pics and all is ok here BUT my main dev/game Amiga unit is an A500Plus with a Vampire 68080. So i maybe miss this slowness. I've a TF328 just plugged in my CD32 but need to find time to install and setup it correctly. Anyway if you change the delay to 15ms it's a bit strange that you have slowness 'cause the picts may not be loaded before you stop moving and the 5/15ms delay is over.

Originally Posted by Akira

Also noticed: As you go down the list, it gets FASTER! So the further you are down the list the faster the image reading gets.

If i understand you, the refresh of the game pics is faster when browsing the game that start with the letter 'M' than the letter 'A'. Interesting ...

Originally Posted by Akira

That is weird, as I said, because when I launch XBench from Workbench after I loaded PeterK's icon.library, it works again.

That still has nothing to do with XBench ignoring WHDLoad options on green button.

As said before this should be ok with the future release. That is working here on a basic wbench 3.1 without any library or patch for the icon.

Originally Posted by Akira

By the way, I asked this before, but can you make teh WHDLoad executable be selectable? We might have more than one verison of WHDLoad in our systems (for testing purposes), would prefer to use WHDLoadCD32, or rather just CD32Load or JST, which are WHDLoad slave compatible.

I'll add this to the todo list for a future release. How would you want to choose the whdload executable ? Directly in the launcher with key mapped to that switch ?

Originally Posted by Akira

Also unanswered: Why are the tiny images in 32 color format? Seems like a bit of a waste. Would be better to use 8 or 16 and remapped to a single palette (like Rebel's 16 color palette)
Another tiny bug: seems like there's always a color in that palette that turns white.

The color 0 is black (0,0,0) and the color 1 is white (15,15,15). This is the background and the text color of the bottom part. So technically there is only 30 colours available for the pics. Many amiga games display more than 100 colours on screen with the copper rainbow background effect. With a so small size of screenshots reducing the depth will be ugly and totally unreadable. When i ill have enough time i must code a tool to convert picts color setup to fix that anoying white point over the pixs.

[Amiga1992]

About the delay on the pic to show up: it always shows at least when I go to the next page with L and R buttons. And yes, From M on or whatever, is faster than from 0 on!

Originally Posted by JimNeray

I'll add this to the todo list for a future release. How would you want to choose the whdload executable ? Directly in the launcher with key mapped to that switch ?

I think the BEST way to do this is selecting which executable you want (with a requester) when you set up the lists, not as an option with a different button.

So if you build a WHDLoad list in the Settings, then choose which executable you want for that particular list. Defaults to "c:whdload" but you can override to whatever you want with a requester.

That way we can also have WHDLoad lists and some JST lists and etc...
What do you think?

With a so small size of screenshots reducing the depth will be ugly and totally unreadable.

I have to say that the screenshots are already ugly and totally unreadable so I would just reduce colors to 16. There's no making them better at that size, they will always look horrible (unless you have 256+ colors so you can do some antialias).
Understood about colors 0 and 1, to be fair to be able to set that on every pic would be impossible for me, so the screenshots will remain as they are. I think it's good enough given the system. We now have pics for about every release that could be in the WHDLoad lists of X-Bench

If you have an 8GB CF card around, I can send you my hard drive HDF for you to test on your TF328. It already has everything in it. Of course on your Vampire system this would be fast (it's very fast on WinUAE with unlimited speed settings) but the CD32's humble 020 is struggling (i imagine this would be really bad on a plain A600/500).