0.6.0 has been released

[Arisme]

small note about hardware buttons not working, I've noticed that in Smush too, it's pretty annoying and probably caused by a weird loop causing a very high CPU load (the events are not even catched ... all problems are related somehow ) - be sure to check your hardware button mapping in game ! (OK, that's not very useful for the Skip mapping, but still ...)

[Arisme]

I just caught that in MSDN !

Note The priority levels zero through 7 that were available in earlier versions of Windows CE are now mapped to priority levels 248 through 255.

this could explain a lot of bad things on Windows Mobile 2003 ! could someone try The Dig or COMI with the CE_sound_thread_priority set to 250 ?

[s.c.s.i.]

8O I just caught that in MSDN !
could someone try The Dig or COMI with the CE_sound_thread_priority set to 250 ?

I feel ashamed to ask, but CE_sound_thread_priority doesn't exist in my ini-file.

Is it something I should add, or should it be the from the start?

I can try the game in an hour or so, I can't just whip out my ppc and start playing The Dig with my boss in the office next to mine.

[Arisme]

yes, you should add it in the [dig] section of the .ini file

if it still doesn't change anything, then it means my SetThreadPriority call does not work on Windows Mobile 2003 (which is possible since I use it to change the thread priority from the thread itself, it may be forbidden now).

[s.c.s.i.]

The problem is still there...

The Dig runs slower on 0.6 than om the previous build, both graphics and sound are more choppy.

I have not played the game with the 0.6 build long enough to tell for sure, but I got the impression that sound shopps a little even after the 0.5 seconds, we talked about. In 0.51, I never experienced this.

Altso, the scrolling of the background is slower than before.

[Marconelly]

could someone try The Dig or COMI with the CE_sound_thread_priority set to 250 ?

I have just tried it. It did nothing. I tried 249, 248 and 255 as well. No change to sound hickups or overal performace/speed whatsoever...

You know, the more I think about all this, 0.51 release would be almost perfect for playing COMI - IF it had the fixed version screen scaler implemented. Than again, the fixed screen scaler could be what is slowing things down in 0.60 as well. Arisme, would it be possible for you to make such test build? 0.51 with the only change made so that the screen scaler is fixed?

[Arisme]

No, I don't want to maintain 0.5.1, sorry - the code base is completly different, I have enough work maintaining all the 0.6.0 builds

anyway, I figured most of the problems - everything seems to be related to timer issues. It seems that modifying the thread priority does not change anything on PocketPC 2003, for an unknown reason (every return code is correct).

Now the problem is that the new Digital Imuse needs to be waken up every 40 ms, which is not reliable on PocketPC 2003, but works fine on PocketPC 2000 . I have modified this to be waken up every 80 ms, it fixes most sound glitches, but this may introduce some pending underflow problems.

Smush issue is a bit more subtle - the frame decoding routine takes just a bit longer than in 0.5.1, but it's enough to re-trigger the decoding of the next frame. Meaning that all that Smush does is decoding frames, without drawing them. I'm looking into it right now.

[Arisme]

OK, the 80 ms trick does not work well, we'll see if I can think about something else ...

[Marconelly]

Best of luck in fixing that, Arisme. I'm holding off playing COMI until I see what you come up with regarding those fixes. I'd love to play it using the 0.60 version because of it's superior graphics and sound quality, but the sound hickups and video decoding are a bit annoying Too bad 0.51 isn't perfect either - they kinda complement each other

[s.c.s.i.]

I'm sure that you will figure this out.

[jpxdude.]

Hiya,

I'm not sure if this has been resolved, but I've been using 0.60 and DOTT and Sam and Max work fine, MI2 works fine as well...But when I try MI1, it crashes me back out to my file explorer.

I am using Windows Mobile 2003 on an A716, is anyone else experiencing this problem?

I've also currently got 0.51 on my PPC which is working fine with MI1 right now.

Jassen

[Arisme]

MI1 problem is not yet solved, since my version works nicely.

Here's a little something for the week-end

removed, was really too bad

includes

* Digital Imuse games mixer improvement on PocketPC 2003 (still things to be worked on - if you enable the music, you may get an occasional very loud sound ... don't play with headphones if you got a weak heart )

* FOTAQ patch for crash when talking to Lola

* Smush cutscenes reactivity slightly improved (at least you can skip them now)

[Marconelly]

Arisme, I'm just testing COMI with it, and here are some quick finds:

First the good news:
- Sound quality in game is definitely improved. It sounds nicer than 0.51 now, as there's *very* few skips, and the actual sound samping quality is as good as in 0.60 (or at least so close that I can't tell a difference - definitely better sound quality than 0.51)

Now the bad news:
- The whole game runs slower, feels much less responsive :( Nowhere is that more obvious than on the scene where you have to shoot from the cannon, which is so unresponsive and so damn slow, that it's very difficult if not impossible to finish it now :(

- It's impossible to hide the control panel anymore. No matter what button I assign to hide function, the SCUMMVM quits (or crashes, I don't know) half a second after I press it, and after panel disappears.

- It always asks to assign the Zoom Up/Zoom Down buttons again, althought it was fixed in the previous fix build

- Cutscene playback is actually worse than ever. Video does run smoother than in old 0.60 build, but the sound skips like crazy! It's quite unberable... it's the type of sound skipping that gives you a headache :(

- Skip button still doesn't work - for videos or in-game. You have to press the skip icon in the control panel

- Objects still shake when the conversational text appears, like Wally's cannon I mentioned earlier



Just a question/thought - is it possible to obtain your 0.51 source somewhere? I'd gladly re-compile it myself with whatever compiler fixes it needs to fix the screen scaling.

[Arisme]

I'll recheck with COMI ... I have changed another parameter that shouldn't have changed, I doubt it could be a problem, but you never know ...

you'll have to use CVS to retrieve the 0.5.1 source tag from ScummVM site.

[Arisme]

note that, from the beginning of the game, I have not the feeling that it's running slower. Is it noticeable from the beginning ?