[OLD-1] AGS engine Linux port

[scottchiefbaker]

If I remove the Windows exe I save about 2MB on GeminiRue.

[s_d]

For the Gemini Rue beta, a LOT of people complained about the game launching in fullscreen and only seeing a tiny postage stamp sized window in the middle.

Yes, I mentioned that night before last 

Since Janet is spinning a new version without the OS check, it would be a good time to repackage it with BigMC's autoscale feature.  Introducing a config editor, simple or otherwise, seems like unnecessary work.  Has anyone pinged Electroshokker?  Might as well check out the old GUI code and see how portable it is.  Why reinvent the wheel?

[scottchiefbaker]

Since Janet is spinning a new version without the OS check, it would be a good time to repackage it with BigMC's autoscale feature.  Introducing a config editor, simple or otherwise, seems like unnecessary work.  Has anyone pinged Electroshokker?  Might as well check out the old GUI code and see how portable it is.  Why reinvent the wheel?

I thought the autoscale feature did make it in the release that we used?

As for a config editor, it's SO simple I think we should do it. I have half a perl script written already. I'm thinking we should check for acsetup.cfg on launch, if it's not there launch the configuration editor.

[Crimson Wizard]

Introducing a config editor, simple or otherwise, seems like unnecessary work.

It should be fairly easy program to write when such need arises, at least for Windows/Linux, using Qt, wxWidgets, maybe Python, idk, there's many.

Might as well check out the old GUI code and see how portable it is.

Do you mean Elektroshokker's one, or vanilla AGS? The latter is non-portable, because it uses WinAPI.

Why reinvent the wheel?

We don't re-invent, we re-implement, that's totally different thing .

[s_d]

Do you mean Elektroshokker's one, or vanilla AGS? The latter is non-portable, because it uses WinAPI.

Yes, Elektroshokker's.  Looks like he logged in here not too long ago, so a PM might get his attention 

Though, if I recall, it used an old GTK or something and may need to be rewritten anyway.  I suppose we could bung it out in Python and use iniparse & PyGtk to make it pretty.

[scottchiefbaker]

As part of the Gemini Rue beta we had several reports of people running at 1920x1080. Currently the engine only supports up to StdScale4, are we able to do 5 or 6?

[s_d]

I thought the autoscale feature did make it in the release that we used?

Well, as I mentioned, I didn't see it working.  I just assumed that you expected us to build our own ags binary to go with the new library set (and I did so), not that exact specific tar archive.  Mea culpa.  I could have been noisier about that.

As for a config editor, it's SO simple I think we should do it. I have half a perl script written already. I'm thinking we should check for acsetup.cfg on launch, if it's not there launch the configuration editor.

Have at it!  My point is that if the only feature is scaling, then why bother for beta?  Just re-roll ags & re-release while testers are still engaged (they get bored too).

[scottchiefbaker]

Here is a simple perl script I wrote up that we can use to detect resolution and pick StdScaleX appropriately:

http://www.perturb.org/tmp/ags_config

Comments?

[BigMc]

I thought the autoscale feature did make it in the release that we used?

It is in my upload from February 4, but you used the older one (at least concerning ags64).

[scottchiefbaker]

It is in my upload from February 4, but you used the older one (at least concerning ags64).

I did? That was an oversight on my part. I should rebuild.

Just to clarify the autoscale works in both windowed and fullscreen mode?

[Crimson Wizard]

As part of the Gemini Rue beta we had several reports of people running at 1920x1080. Currently the engine only supports up to StdScale4, are we able to do 5 or 6?

Simple answer is - not fully sure.
The filter classes take multipliers as constructor parameters (I think I mentioned this somewhere already), so it's only to add few more options.
However, I cannot tell if there's something hidden deep in the code that would cause problems with new scaling. A quick discussion about this: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47344.msg636444924#msg636444924

I'd say, let's try out, this could be an opportunity to test this.

[s_d]

As part of the Gemini Rue beta we had several reports of people running at 1920x1080. Currently the engine only supports up to StdScale4, are we able to do 5 or 6?

Crimson Wizard answered this last week;  there are Hqx2 and Hqx3 filters.  Higher multipliers would need to be implemented (I'm at work right now, so I can't look at that to see if there are any inherent limitations, sorry).  It may be easy it may be hard, someone will have to look.

For what it's worth, I'm on 1920x1080 as well (on a workstation).

[scottchiefbaker]

Crimson Wizard answered this last week;  there are Hqx2 and Hqx3 filters.  Higher multipliers would need to be implemented (I'm at work right now, so I can't look at that to see if there are any inherent limitations, sorry).  It may be easy it may be hard, someone will have to look.

Ya I'm only concerned with the StdScaleX scaling. The Hqx2 is a complicated algorithm, but StdScale6 should be simple to implement. BigMc will your autoscale go beyond StdScale4? With GeminiRue being 320x200 that could still be considered small on a 1080p monitor.

[scottchiefbaker]

I can't believe I released the Gemini Rue beta without BigMcs autoscale! That really sucks. I did an overzealous cp -a when moving from one release to the other and included the ags32 and ags64 binaries when I shouldn't have.

Doh!

If you haven't seen it yet Wadjeteye posted the public beta on their forums. There is lots of good feedback there, mostly about the scaling and windowed vs fullscreen mode. Some reports of a "slugish" mouse also.

[BigMc]

I pushed a change enabling StdScale up to 8x. Seems to work just fine. Don't know about performance, my PC handles it.

[JanetC]

But, hmm, thinking further about this. If rain is in script module, it might be pretty slowing factor for weaker platforms. Is it possible to, for instance, disable it for PSP, where we had speed issues lately? Just a thought.

Linux is basically the same as PC in system requirements. We have no plans for a PSP release, so it shouldn't be an issue.

[s_d]

I can't believe I released the Gemini Rue beta without BigMcs autoscale! That really sucks.

Hey, it happens!  That's what beta is about.  I'll be a more diligent helping in the future, since I did notice it.

This way we get a nice bump in scale from BigMC as well!  Just turn another package and get the beta folks going again, it will all work out 

[Crimson Wizard]

We have no plans for a PSP release, so it shouldn't be an issue.

But it is already possible to run Gemini Rue on PSP using PSP port...

Well, this situation is a bit complicated. The AGS game is resources + script, so what counts for game release on other platform? On other hand, from end-user point of view the publisher should be responsible for both engine and game quality, so they see them as a single whole, I guess.

I was just thinking that maybe, since there are ports to number of different platforms already, we could encourage game developers to add perfomance options to their games, like switching extra effects on/off.
These options could be hidden, and activated only from script as a reaction to platform check, like either game runs on "hi-end" or "lo-end" platform.

[BigMc]

We have no plans for a PSP release, so it shouldn't be an issue.

we could encourage game developers to add perfomance options to their games, like switching extra effects on/off.
These options could be hidden, and activated only from script as a reaction to platform check, like either game runs on "hi-end" or "lo-end" platform.

Please don't use the platform check for that. Remember what the result was for Gemini Rue. For example, there are slow and quite fast Android devices.

[s_d]

from end-user point of view the publisher should be responsible for both engine and game quality, so they see them as a single whole, I guess.

Also, and to the point, from the publisher's perspective they should be responsible for both engine and game quality.  Clearly, Wadjet Eye takes that very seriously.