The web log of a meandering nobody…
RSS icon Email icon Home icon

  • ScummVM: ‘GIT 6b8fb196-pre1.4.0’ builds for GPH devices (GP2XWiz and Caanoo)

    Edit: These builds are now outdated and people should try the official 1.4.1 releases on www.scummvm.org.

    Most interested people will have realised that my ScummVM backends (GP2X, Wiz, Caanoo and OpenPandora) missed the entire 1.3.* release cycle leaving the official releases stuck back in the old 1.2.* cycle.

    There are a number of reasons for this (all my fault) but rather than dwell, lets just say I am trying to get them all back into shape for future releases. With that in mind I am going to start doing test ‘point in time’ builds of the code for various devices when things reach a point that I would like some community testing done.

    The first of these test releases is for the GP2XWiz and Caanoo. The GP2X build will follow once I nail the last annoying little input bug that is causing the cursor to go off for a wonder on it’s own Winking smile(simple bug I am sure but you know how it is when you stare at something). Then I will turn to fixing up the OpenPandora backend.

    They have been built from the main ScummVM GIT (Revision:  6b8fb196cbd58e20ef57bf367d5ecbf0ee2ebdad).

    These builds exist purely to get some feedback and testing from the community so I can try and get a good solid release done when we get into the next official ScummVM release cycle.

    If your not interested in testing and providing feedback (and dealing with the odd issue) please stick with the old 1.2.* releases. These are not robust, fully tested release builds but I am also pretty sure they will not eat or damage your GPH device.

    Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink these preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this page.

    This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions and cuts down on me being requested to support ancient releases.

    Also note that these test releases are not officially (or unofficially) supported Winking smile.

    They are built from the new unified ScummVM backend for all the GPH devices (to make supporting them somewhat easier for me and to cut out the rot that had set into the old dedicated stand alone GP2X backend).

    All the engines enabled in configure are included in this build but I make no promises about the usability of any WIP game engine.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: “1.2.1 – Børk Børk Børk release”.

    It’s been a hectic few weeks but I finally had time to get the 1.2.1 builds uploaded for my all backends following the main Dec. 19th release. Sorry about the delay Winking smile.

    The 1.2.1 release is mainly a bugfix and cleanup release for 1.2.0 and also introduces some additional translations of the GUI.

    There are few changes to my backend code but all the core changes are rolled in.

    Oh, I also just noticed the date so “Happy New Year” everybody.
    Maybe I should try and find more hacking time in 2011 Open-mouthed smile.

    Providing feedback:

    If you would like me to consider a feature or fix a bug in my backends help me to help you by ensuring the reports end up recorded in official places.

    Downloads:

    All the 1.2.1 releases including my GP2X/GP2XWiz/Caanoo and OpenPandora backends can me found on the main ScummVM download site.

      • ScummVM’s Main Download Page: download

  • ScummVM: “1.2.0 – FaSCInating release”.

    This post is a few days late but as all my releases are now uploaded and available I thought it was work announcing the release.

    The entire ScummVM team is rather proud of this release and you can read the official announcement here. One of the major ‘headline features’ is that this is the first release to feature the fruits of the integration/refactoring of the FreeSCI codebase and it’s substantual enhancement and extension by our own SCI engine team.

    There are also enhancements for several engines and the addition of support for “Fascination” (An amusing risqué point and click adventure from Coktel) in the Gob engine.

    From my point of view the 1.2.0 release marks the 1st official release of 2 new device backends/ports I have put together (GPH Caanoo and OpenPandora) and also features quite a few enhancements and speedups to my existing GP2X and GP2XWiz backends.

    It also marks the official release of new backends for Android and Dingux and the unfortunate retirement of the venerable old PalmOS backend.

    The upshot is that this should be our best release yet and I would certainly recommend this release over any older versions of ScummVM for the devices I support.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: “1.2.0 preview 1” for GPH devices (GP2X, Caanoo & GP2X Wiz).

    EDIT: This release has been superseded, please get the latest release.

    This post is to announce the release of a testing preview of the upcoming 1.2.0 ScummVM release for the GPH (GamePark Holdings) devices I support.

    This release supersedes recent ‘SVN’ builds as should provide a very good indication of what to expect in the final 1.2.0 release.

    Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink these preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this site.

    This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions.

    Also note that these test releases are not officially (or unofficially) supported Winking smilebut I will help if I can.

    I am hoping to get at least another preview release out for the GPH devices before the final 1.2.0 release as I carry on fixing bugs. This is why it is important to provide feedback, patches, fixes etc.

    Please give these releases a go and provide feedback.

    Noteworthy features:

    Below are the main features and fixes added with this new release.

    ALL:

    Changes to the way the music drivers are loaded (should fix game loading issues).

    Performance improvements.

    Add support for TouchScreen ‘Tap Modes’, Left Click, Right Click and Hover.

    GP2X:

    Performance tweaks/code clean-up (quite noticeable in some areas, not giving up on the old GP2X any time soon).

    Revised the button layout (please read http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=GP2X for more info), feedback on the button layouts is appreciated.

    GP2X Wiz:

    Fixes to 16 bit graphics support (still not sure this is 100% working well).

    Revised the button layout (please read http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=GP2XWiz for more info), feedback on the button layouts is appreciated.

    Caanoo:

    Revised the button layout (please read http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Caanoo for more info), feedback on the button layouts is appreciated.

    TODO List:

    ALL:

    Add support for a ‘Left Handed Mode’ (swapping the Left and Right trigger behaviour).

    Make the ‘Trigger Tap’ configurable by the user.

    Anything on the TODO may not happen in time for the 1.2.0 release, it is all rather dependent on my free time and that is at a premium at the moment.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: “SVN r52631” builds for the Caanoo and GP2X Wiz.

    EDIT: This release has been superseded, please get the latest release.

    This is just a quick post is to announce a new set of SVN builds of ScummVM mainline code for the GP2X Wiz and new Caanoo.

    Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink these preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this site.

    This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions.

    Also note that these test releases are not officially (or unofficially) supported Winking smilebut I will help if I can.

    This release is mainly to give users a chance to preview updates to some of my ScummVM backends and try a bug fixed version of the Caanoo port with working controls. They are not by any means bug free.

    All of my backends will get further preview/test releases before the 1.2.0 release as I carry on fixing bugs.

    These releases are built straight from the mainline trunk ScummVM code for the given SVN revision number.

    OpenPandora and original GP2X ScummVM SVN releases should be ready late next week (very busy with work at the moment). The GP2X code is being merged in with the Wiz and Caanoo to create a GPH backend so expect the GP2X to get all the new features from it’s siblings. The OpenPandora code has now been merged into ScummVM but is still in need of a lot of bug fixing.

    Please give these releases a go and provide feedback.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: Very belated 1.1.1 release for the GP2X Wiz

    While this is a little late to say the least (better late than never and all that, I mean it’s only 3 months late Surprised smile) I have finally managed to get my hands on a working GP2X Wiz, some all important free time and motivation, and built up and tested the GP2X Wiz backend for the 1.1.1 release following on from the official announcement.

    This post is also an announcement of the GP2X backend release as I forgot to post about it at the time despite the fact it got uploaded and released only a few days late ;) .

    I have not had a great deal of time recently to work on these releases so the backends are largely the same as the previous releases with just the needed changes to support all the fancy new things in the ScummVM core. No reworking of the control system or the like has been done yet (it’s still on my TODO).

    Some of the highlights of the changes 1.1.1 bring, that benefit the GP2X and GP2X Wiz, include 2 completely new engines and games, Dragon History (available free from here) and TeenAgent (available free from GOG.com). Also new is 16bit graphics support, which allowed us to add support for a whole bunch of newer Humongous Entertainment games for kids and improved support for the Amiga versions of Monkey Island, Legend of Kyrandia and Future Wars.

    Please provide feedback in the usual places on these releases and enjoy using them.

    Platform specific restrictions:

    Each of the releases has a small number of restrictions that have an affect on the games/engines you are able to use with each platform.

    GP2X: The biggest restriction with this platform is the overhead (and crudeness) of the downscaling when using 640*480 high resolution games on the 320*240 screen making such games perform poorly and look, well, bad.

    GP2X Wiz:  The downscaling support is a relatively recently added feature to the Wiz backend and while it looks a lot better than the GP2X, some issues still remain with high resolution games exhibiting ‘tearing’ when updating the screen under some circumstances.

    Unfortunately this seems to be an exhibit of the Wiz screen tearing bug and while efforts have been taken to minimise it in this release it the problem has not totally gone away.

    Providing feedback:

    If you would like me to consider a feature or fix a bug help me to help you by ensuring the reports end up recorded in official places.

    Downloads:

    What’s Next:

    Now I have the outstanding official 1.1.1 releases out of the way my plan is to get test releases from the main ScummVM trunk codebase featuring the ‘new’ SCI engine out as soon as I get time for the GP2X and Wiz, hopefully I will also be including support for the new GPH Caanoo at the same time.

    I also plan to update the OpenPandora release at the same time.

    Regards,

    John Willis

  • ScummVM: 1.0.0 “Shiny Logo” released for the GP2X and GP2XWiz

    This is just a quick post is to announce the 1.0.0 releases of the ScummVM for both the GP2X and the GP2X Wiz following on from the official announcement.

    Please provide feedback on these releases and enjoy using them, this is a huge milestone for the ScummVM project and we are all very proud of this release.

    New features since the 1.0.0 RC1 for my backends:

    Below are the main features and fixes added with this new release from the earlier RC1 release.

    Both releases feature additional ARM assembly optimised routines and tweaks to the build system along with a myriad of small ‘nips and tucks’.

    There are also further tweaks to refine the use of the “Return to Launcher” and “Global Main Menu” features (remember that Left Trigger and Select/Home/Menu will bring up the Global Main Menu in any game).

    This is in addition to the hundreds (litterally) of bug fixes that have gone into the core and game engines for this release from the ScummVM development team.

    Supported engines:

    Both releases feature support for all the game engines that are due to be included with the 1.0.0 release.

    This includes support for high resolution games.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: 1.0.0 “Preview 2” for the GP2X and GP2X Wiz.

    EDIT: This release has been superseded, please get the latest release.

    This is just a quick post is to announce the “preview 2” test releases of the upcoming ScummVM 1.0.0 for both the GP2X and the GP2X Wiz.

    Note: Please don’t mirror or hotlink preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this page. This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions.

    Please test and provide feedback on these releases as they will form the basis of the official 1.0.0 release candidate release for these platforms.

    New features since preview 1:

    Below are the main features and fixes added with this new release.

    Both releases feature additional ARM assembly optimised routines that offer performance increases in a number of games including “Sam and Max” and “The Curse of Monkey Island”. Both releases also feature tweaks to the default volume levels to cut down on sample clipping.

    There are also tweaks to refine the use of the “Return to Launcher” and “Global Main Menu” features (remember that Left Trigger and Select/Home/Menu will bring up the Global Main Menu in any game).

    GP2X: Lots of code cleanup and a few tweaks to lower memory usage. Disabling “Aspect Ratio Correction” now also works as expected rather then stretching the screen.

    GP2X Wiz: The biggest new feature is the addition of downscaling support using an optimised ARM assembly routine. This means the Wiz release now features support for the 64*4xx games such as Discworld 2, The Curse of Monkey Island etc. – It should also be mentioned that this seems to work well (better then I expected as I am not a fan of downscaling). Lots of my testers reported that the high resolution games are often extremely playable and look very nice on the Wiz’s OLED screen.

    There has also been substantial code clean up and fixes since the preview 1 release.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • ScummVM: 1.0.0 “Preview 1” for the GP2X and GP2X Wiz.

    NOTE: This post is now out of date, please see the most recent posts for more info.

    This is just a quick post is to announce the “preview 1” test releases of the upcoming ScummVM 1.0.0 for both the GP2X and the GP2X Wiz.

    Note: Please don’t mirror preview/test/alpha etc. releases or put them on download services but rather, direct people to this page. This helps me ensure that users always have the most recent versions.

    Please test and provide feedback on these releases as they will form the basis of the official 1.0.0 release for these platforms.

    New features:

    Both the GP2X and the GP2X Wiz backends benefit from some long overdue code cleanup and general TLC in this release. Where possible both backends are using common/similar code to aid in there long term maintenance.

    Both releases also now feature support for the ScummVM virtual keyboard. This can be accessed by holding the left trigger and pressing the right trigger (the old ‘0’ for Monkey Island 2 copy protection key combination).

    The ScummVM virtual keyboard works well but it’s feature set is still maturing. If you have virtual keyboard specific feedback I would welcome that. It should be noted that the virtual keyboard works independently of the game engine and the running game is paused when it is in use.

    GP2X Wiz: If you have used the early alpha releases for the GP2X Wiz then you will be pleasantly surprised, all the known issues with saving, OGG Vorbis playback and volume control have been resolved along with loads of other minor fixes.

    Supported engines:

    Both releases feature support for all the game engines that are due to be included with the 1.0.0 release.

    Specific restrictions:

    Each of the releases has a small number of restrictions that have an affect on the games/engines you are able to use with each platform.

    GP2X: The biggest restriction with this platform is pure performance (some audio can be choppy) and the overhead of the scaling code when using 640*480 games on the 320*240 screen.

    This renders high resolution games such as Discworld 2 totally unusable on the device and games such as Curse of Monkey Island, Touché and the Broken Sword games very slow (to the point of unplayable IMHO but others disagree).

    GP2X Wiz: Whilst the Wiz is a more powerful console then the GP2X on paper there are still a number of features lacking compared to it’s older sibling. The most noteworthy is the complete lack of any down-scaling support in this release.

    This means that any games that have graphics higher then > 320*240 will fail to function on this release. Most/all 320*240 or lower resolution games run very well at full or near full speed on the device.

    Providing feedback:

    If you would like me to consider a feature or fix a bug help me to help you by ensuring the reports end up recorded in official places.

    Note: Feature Requests for 1.0.0 are closed but any requests will be looked at for future releases.

    Downloads:

    Please ensure you download the correct version for your device.

    Extract the contents of the zip to a suitable folder on your SD card and launch “scummvm.gpe” to run.

    Review the README-GP2X for more information.

    Extract the contents of the zip to the game folder on your SD card, ensuring that you have a “scummvm.ini” in your game folder and the rest of ScummVM in a “scummvm” subfolder. Launch “ScummVM” from the main SD launcher menu to run.

    Review the README-GP2XWIZ for more information.

  • ScummVM: A quick and dirty alpha release for the GP2X Wiz.

    NOTE: This post is now out of date, please see the most recent posts for more info.

    As some people know I have been hacking around with the Wiz on and off for some time now (in addition to the Pandora) and while I got ScummVM running on the Wiz quite some time ago I have been holding off on a release so that I could get a little more time to fix issues with the Wiz backend.

    Well time has been rather cruel of late and I have not had as much time as I would like to clean up things and add funky features so rather then leave a half completed ScummVM backend languishing on my hard disk and rotting I decided to find a few hours to trim down the code, bring it up to date and put aside all the non working bits for now (mostly scaling support, OpenGLes parts, better controls, that sort of stuff) and get a ‘raw and ready’ ScummVM release out so people can start to give me feedback etc.

    This release is mostly untested and is built from mainline (HEAD) ScummVM revision 41101. Expect odd issues and things not to quite be working correctly yet. If your not happy with the odd crash and bit of unexpected behavior then this build is not for you.

    Anyway, onto what you get in this release and what you need to do to get it running.

    You can download the release here – Don’t forget to check the README-GP2XWIZ text file in the zip.

    As this is an early alpha release and is likely to get superseded quickly I would appreciate it if you did not mirror the download but rather pointed users back to this page.

    Once you have downloaded the release you need to extract the contents of the zip to the ‘game’ folder on your SD card. Once extracted you should have a ‘scummvm.ini’ file in the game folder and a separate ‘scummvm’ folder with all the actual files needed by the Wiz.

    Pop the SD card into your Wiz and select ScummVM from the SD games menu. If all goes well after a few seconds you should be greeted with the ScummVM game launcher. From this point it behaves very much like any other ScummVM release.

    Controls are very similar to the GP2X F200 release (including touchscreen support) with a few notable exceptions. Menu now brings up the game menu and Left trigger + Menu now brings up the global main menu for ScummVM.

    Other then that things pretty much match the layout of the GP2X F200 release. If you want to refresh yourself of the control mappings I have included full details in the README-GP2XWIZ text file in the zip.

    Known Issues:

    • No scaling support so only 320*xxx games run. Games that need a bigger screen then the Wiz will just crash ScummVM. Scaling support is on the TODO.
    • Save support may be erratic. Not quite sure of the cause yet but some of my testers had the odd issues with saves not writing correctly.
    • Speed. For most games speed is quite good but I have noticed a few points when performance really gets bad. Still looking into that.
    • OGG Vorbis support: One tester mentioned that games he used that had OGG Vorbis audio did not work. Still looking into that.

    Feedback on this release:

    The feedback avenues for the Wiz release are the same as the existing GP2X release.

    In order to help me keep track of requests, bugs etc. I am asking that people kindly report such issues to the correct places (or at least copy them there). I don’t spend all my time looking at forums and bug reports placed on random internet forums are never very helpful to me (i.e. they are very unlikely to get fixed or even read). The same applies to feature requests etc. etc.
    If you would like me to consider a feature or fix a bug help me to help you by ensuring the reports end up recorded in official places.

    Source Code:

    Source for this release will be up on a ScummVM patch tracker in the next few days (or, if the team view it as good enough, hopefully committed to SVN).

 

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Categories

Archives

Gaming Tags


Powered by WordPress
Designed by My Mobiles