A couple of questions/queries

skroooagh · Post by **skroooagh** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:33 pm

*** I added a heap of mods in nxMakaqu a while ago, some work, some don't. Some, like MALICE, need the registered .paks as far as I can tell, but others have different errors. Then there's SHRAK, which was working fine until a point. Now, whenever it loads certain sound effects I get the message "blah.wav is a stereo sample"; the laser starts moving like crazy and the game freezes for ten seconds or so until the sample loads, more often than not the sample is triggered every second or so so at that point the game is pretty much unplayable. I'm pretty sure these errors are occuring on sound samples that were working fine on previous levels. What could be causing this error, and could it be related to save states?

***I've noticed that ZSNES is lightgun-compatible. Does this mean there's a possibility to make a homebrew lightgun game based on a FPS engine like Quake or Doom or something?

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:07 am

There's a chance that the sample may be corrupted in memory. It's not really stereo - it's header is probably corrupted

mankrip · Post by **mankrip** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:07 am

To be sure about the sound samples, boot up the game, type "disconnect" on the console (so the game or any demos won't be playing), and type "play filename.wav" for each one of the problematic samples. If you get the same "is a stereo sample" messages, then it should be.

By the way, the engine doesn't load stereo samples. There must be something else being loaded during those 10 seconds.

Savestates only give problems if you load them in a different version of the same mod which has a different progs.dat file. By "same mod" I mean any mod that is located in a subdirectory with the same name.

-

By the way, I have noticed that the engine behaves a little different in the dreamcast than in Windows. It's not due to any possible differences between the assembly and C versions of the engine code, because I compiled it for windows without the assembly code and it still worked perfectly. The only things I guess that may be causing it are optimization bugs in the SH4 compiler, or bugs with the SH4 compiler itself.

skroooagh wrote:I've noticed that ZSNES is lightgun-compatible. Does this mean there's a possibility to make a homebrew lightgun game based on a FPS engine like Quake or Doom or something?

ZSNES is a SNES emulator for the x86 architecture. It only runs in PCs, some newer Macs, and the Xbox.

There's a driver for the DC lightgun available, but to use it it would have to be implemented in the engine. NesterDC 7.1b+ uses it.

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:06 pm

skroooagh, couldn't you just link to or upload the mod (SHRAK) to zhare or something ? That way Fragger could look into it, instead of guessing what' the problem with it....

Edit: And I like your idea! Using the lightgun to control the view in Quake would be brilliant!

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:11 pm

That would be illegal, as Shrak is copyrighted commercial software.

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:12 pm

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. I assumed it was a regular mod.

Is there a Shrak demo or something ?

skroooagh · Post by **skroooagh** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:19 pm

I actually meant DreamSNES, I don't know what possessed me to write ZSnes, heh. I just had a though the other day about making a lightgun homebrew with a FPS engine, a kinda spiritual successor to House Of The Dead or something. My coding skills are next to non-existant so I doubt I'll ever get anywhere but it's fun to conceptualise at least.

As for Shrak - I downloaded it straight from this website for free - http://www.quaketerminus.com/addon.htm . I assumed it was freeware because for some of the other TC's the links lead to an order form page; this one didn't so I figured it was now freeware. If it isn't, sorry for bringing it up. There's also another problem with the mod; there are "utilities" like grappling hook, flares etc. in the mod which are essentially extra weapons, sometimes when switching through them there are error messages, but I figure that's common for any mod with more weapons than is catered for.

skroooagh · Post by **skroooagh** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 9:28 pm

A couple more questions:

I just downloaded the 10th anniversary Quake compile, and it's awesome! Looks so much better than nxMakaqu, which I didn't expect. As far as I'm concerned it's more or less perfect. That being said, I have a couple of queries:

***I used a program called "Iso-buster" to look at the contents of the SBI file in order to remove as much of the bonus content as possible so I could fit the registered paks in there. However, this program wouldn't let me remove anything. What do I need to do this?

***Joymenu has an option called "Begin Custom Levels" that enters you into what I presume is a deathmatch map, but in one-player mode. Problem is, these deathmatch levels often don't have monsters and/exits. I see that the deathmatch menu has a "go to next level" option, could this be implimented into the "custom levels" level also? I don't know much abut coding but I figure it would be an easy job as most of the framework would already be there, what do I need to be able to do this?

***From what I gather, nxMakaqu is much more mod-friendly. If I wanted to build something for DC based on the Quake engine (specifically, the lightgun game I meantioned above), how much harder would it be to make work in QuakeDC? Furthermore, is the code similar enough to any other source ports to make it feasable to port this game to PS2/Xbox?

I know these are totally n00bular questions, but please, bear with me...

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:18 am

If you're developing a mod for nxMakaqu (or dreamcast quake in general) you'll have to watch out for the system's limits such as its 24mb of RAM and design with everything limited in mind. Don't fear from this though, you can still get away with something badassed from scratch to run on even a 8mb DOS computer.

Usually a config of pre-bound set of keys/buttons suited for Dreamcast is called.

mankrip · Post by **mankrip** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 3:32 pm

skroooagh wrote:***I used a program called "Iso-buster" to look at the contents of the SBI file in order to remove as much of the bonus content as possible so I could fit the registered paks in there. However, this program wouldn't let me remove anything. What do I need to do this?

Extract all files and create a new image.

skroooagh wrote:***Joymenu has an option called "Begin Custom Levels" that enters you into what I presume is a deathmatch map, but in one-player mode. Problem is, these deathmatch levels often don't have monsters and/exits. I see that the deathmatch menu has a "go to next level" option, could this be implimented into the "custom levels" level also? I don't know much abut coding but I figure it would be an easy job as most of the framework would already be there, what do I need to be able to do this?

"Custom Levels" is a single player campaign, it shouldn't be used with DM-only maps. I haven't burned this yet 'cause I don't have enough space in my HD to recreate the image with the registered pak file, so I don't know exactly how this image was configured.

So, the "Custom Levels" mode was enabled? This shouldn't have happened, because we couldn't find any single player maps that could be used (looks like all custom maps out there uses monsters from the registered version). Using DM maps in the Custom Levels mode makes no sense at all.

skroooagh wrote:If I wanted to build something for DC based on the Quake engine (specifically, the lightgun game I meantioned above), how much harder would it be to make work in QuakeDC?

It is impossible to do in QuakeDC because there's no source code for it. It can only be done in nxMakaqu and the other open-source engines.

skroooagh wrote:Furthermore, is the code similar enough to any other source ports to make it feasable to port this game to PS2/Xbox?

I don't know about the PS2, but it would be possible to port Makaqu to the Xbox. There's already a port of WinQuake in it, and it runs smoothly at 640x480. A port of Makaqu would have a similar performance.

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:16 pm

Fragger wrote:So, the "Custom Levels" mode was enabled? This shouldn't have happened, because we couldn't find any single player maps that could be used (looks like all custom maps out there uses monsters from the registered version). Using DM maps in the Custom Levels mode makes no sense at all.

If I remember correctly I included a single level that had a single monster

skroooagh · Post by **skroooagh** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:45 pm

Fragger wrote: Extract all files and create a new image.

Doh! So obvious, yet I never would have thought of that.

Fragger wrote:"Custom Levels" is a single player campaign, it shouldn't be used with DM-only maps. I haven't burned this yet 'cause I don't have enough space in my HD to recreate the image with the registered pak file, so I don't know exactly how this image was configured.

So, the "Custom Levels" mode was enabled? This shouldn't have happened, because we couldn't find any single player maps that could be used (looks like all custom maps out there uses monsters from the registered version). Using DM maps in the Custom Levels mode makes no sense at all.

Like Christuserloser said, there's one level with one monster and no exit. I just assumed that it was a DM level because it was small with no exit.

Would there be some way to use the "Custom Levels" mod to start an add-on like Scourge Of Amargon? Say, by putting the correct files in the correct directory and using "Start Custom Levels" to load the mod? Or is it impossible to have the expansion packs on the same disc?

Fragger wrote:It is impossible to do in QuakeDC because there's no source code for it. It can only be done in nxMakaqu and the other open-source engines.

True. What I meant was, if I make a Quake mod, what are the kinds of things that will make a mod work in nxMakaqu but make it buggy in QuakeDC? For instance, RAM allocation and the like?

Fragger wrote:I don't know about the PS2, but it would be possible to port Makaqu to the Xbox. There's already a port of WinQuake in it, and it runs smoothly at 640x480. A port of Makaqu would have a similar performance.

Excellent!

mankrip · Post by **mankrip** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:03 am

skroooagh wrote:Like Christuserloser said, there's one level with one monster and no exit. I just assumed that it was a DM level because it was small with no exit.

Well, if it has no exit it shouldn't have been included either, since there's no way for you to complete the level.

skroooagh wrote:Would there be some way to use the "Custom Levels" mod to start an add-on like Scourge Of Amargon? Say, by putting the correct files in the correct directory and using "Start Custom Levels" to load the mod? Or is it impossible to have the expansion packs on the same disc?

QuakeDC doesn't have a modlist and there's no way to change the active directory, so it's impossible.

skroooagh wrote:True. What I meant was, if I make a Quake mod, what are the kinds of things that will make a mod work in nxMakaqu but make it buggy in QuakeDC? For instance, RAM allocation and the like?

QuakeDC uses 9.1 MB for its heap and nxMakaqu uses 10, which means that nxMakaqu supports mods slightly bigger. Also, QuakeDC doesn't support the mission packs properly, and lacks support for many custom features implemented in nxMakaqu, like skyboxes and rotating brushes.