Developer Thread Feedback

[Moose or Chuck]

Alright, I made this thread because I wanted to reply to somethings said on the Developer Thread.<br>First off all, I found a bug. Quake freezes when I try to start a new game when I'm already playing. I'm using MIPS .004, but I don't think it's a platform specific problem. Also, I greatly dislike the bubbling effect of Jacco's (?) original perspective correction speed hack. It takes away from gameplay when you see a wall bubbling 20 feet that-a-way

[Phantom]

You DISLIKE the bubbling? Man, do you know how much work it is to simulate curved surfaces on a crappy 200Mhz PDA? <br>But serious, I really should make that a toggle. I doubt that it matters a lot anyway.

[Moose or Chuck]

Clever and witty. But it should be a toggle, especially after that whole conversation about degradation in visual quality and turning it not into Quake.

[CARPEDIEM]

Moose, try to have a little more "tact" when making comments and sending feedback please. Programming takes a lot of time and patience and we do it for free and ask nothing in return.<br>It's pretty easy to piss a programmer off, mainly when you criticize his hard work. Perhaps you dislike it but you always have older versions to play with, so just don't use the new ones and that's it.<br>Remember this is and will be for a long time i think, a beta version.<br>

[randall]

I haven't noticed a "bubbling" effect on MIPS 0.04. I also didn't notice Moose using anything less than "tact". Jacco seemed professional enough to take it in stride. <br><br>Yes programming is a thankless job, but those who can't handle the criticism shouldn't be doing it. Regardless how many hours are put into a project, if the end user doesn't like it then that is the deciding factor. Hours, even days can be wasted on code that may or may not work. Again, a professional programmer knows this is a possibilty and takes it in stride and moves on.<br><br>Everything Carpediem has done with the MIPS build is greatly appreciated. Dan is a remarkable talent undertook a huge task- and his courage has paid off. I imagine he wanted to give up a million times. That's just the way it is, but something keeps us going.<br><br>I can program in VB, Jscript, ASM, C++, and Java. But only as a hobby and to a limited extent. This is why I haven't offered any programming help- my limited knowledge may hinder the project.<br><br>

[Dr. Phat]

Carpe, your back?  Since when.  Anyway, Moose, couldn't that be a RAM related problem?

[Moose or Chuck]

What do you think could be a RAM related problem? The starting a new game while already playing one? No, because it should automatically halt all the active game calls and start new ones.

[randall]

The next time you successfully start a new game, save the game immediately. Preferably before you move or do anything else.<br><br>Then if you want to start a new single player game just load the previous game.

[randall]

regarding the bug. When you see the screen "are you sure you want to start a new game", does anyone notice that calling up the keyboard keeps the keyboard on top? It isn't overdrawn by the skin.<br><br>Anyway, I don't know why the game seems to pause in this manner. Pressing the "menu" button reverts back to the previous menu and continues normal operation.

[Moose or Chuck]

That's called a work around. It shouldn't do what I described anyway. I'd work on it if I knew anything, but alas, my programming book has not yet arrived.<br>Well I opened up the keyboard and noticed that, because it's in a state of pause waiting for user input and not updating the screen. I continued to press the Y on my SIP (Why isn't it called an OSK, on screen keyboard. What does SIP stand for anyway?) at which time it promptly froze. I had to soft reset to get functioning again.Last modification: Moose Master - 02/28/01 at 17:09:42

[randall]

I know, it's a work-around (sigh). But I don't know if we currently have anyone working towards a new MIPS build to fix these little problems. I can look at the source code all day long, but it doesn't do much good until I get my embedded visual toolkit via snail mail.<br><br>Dunno why you had to reset yours.

[Dan East]

First off, I have no idea what's up with the SIP on the Casio devices. It works perfect on the iPaq and in the "generic" emulator. The SIP issue will have to be debugged on the actual device (Carpediem ) .<br>I checked the code, and Quake is not nice in that it expects only a lowercase 'y' to confirm the start of a new game. With the current keymapping limitation only uppercase characters can be entered, thus it is not possible to answer Yes. I've modified the code to accept Enter, Fire, 'y' and 'Y' as acknowledgement. The next version released will contain that addition.<br>Technically it doesn't freeze up with the current version. You can hit Menu to back out of the question; you just can't answer yes.<br><br>Dan East

[randall]

I can type a lower case y, or uppercase y. I can write a lowercase y or an uppercase y. For some reason, the keyboard stays open and visible, but the input doesn't seem to register with the game. This is almost the only time the keyboard works the way it is supposed to, but the game won't acknowledge it.

[Dan East]

What I mean is that in Pocket Quake, 'y' is translated to 'Y'. This is a separate issue from the MIPS SIP not showing. <br>That prompt is modal to Quake - in other words no screen drawing occurs while Quake is waiting for the appropriate response. That further indicates that requesting the screen buffer (GXBeginDraw) is what cases the SIP to detract.<br> <br>Dan East

[Moose or Chuck]

Well, maybe my freezing was an isolated case, because it DID freeze. But thanks for fixing it!