New here with developmental questions

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DrNicholas
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New here with developmental questions

Post by DrNicholas »

Hello, my name is DrNicholas. I have been working ona game and have been trying to get it to run on the dreamcast. I am using fenix 0.93 for dreamcast which is supposedly sdl but the SWAT compiled it weird and he refuses to work on it anymore. I cant get the start button or sound effects to work. So I think I may switch to SDL.

1. Would this be a completely major rewite or is fenix closely related to SDL?

2. If i do have to/ should rewrite (which I might as well), would someone be willing to help me port the engine over? its not that complicated yet.

3. Will fmv cutscenes and .mp3 and sound effects work on the dreamcast?

4. Where on earth can I find a precompiled version of KOS for windows 7? I tried every single download and some of them went to the pick a directory but the install button was faded like I could not install it. So if theres a "portable" (no install), precompiled version of everything that I need, that would be nice :3.

5. How would I test a KOS thing when its compiled? I do not have a coders cable, lan adapter, or bba.


Thanks!
OneThirty8
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Re: New here with developmental questions

Post by OneThirty8 »

DrNicholas wrote: 1. Would this be a completely major rewite or is fenix closely related to SDL?
It would be a complete rewrite. You would need to rewrite the program in C. SDL is simply a cross-platform sound and graphics library. I did find SDL to be fairly straight-forward when I was initially trying to create a program that would run on the Dreamcast.
2. If i do have to/ should rewrite (which I might as well), would someone be willing to help me port the engine over? its not that complicated yet.
Your best bet is to ask specific questions on the forums here to get answers when you run into trouble.
3. Will fmv cutscenes and .mp3 and sound effects work on the dreamcast?
Yes, but maybe not with SDL. You can use SDL_Mixer for sound effects and music but I don't think there's a great solution for playing cutscenes using SDL. There's SMPEG, but I don't know that anyone ever got a great framerate using it.
5. How would I test a KOS thing when its compiled? I do not have a coders cable, lan adapter, or bba.
Some people use emulators on their PCs, but it's better to test on the actual hardware since the emulator might have a bug that makes your program crash when it shouldn't (or maybe keep running when it should crash). I would download a copy of DemoMenu or DCHakker to use as a boot disc. When you have a compiled binary, burn it to a multi-session CD-R and leave the disc open. When you make changes and want to test again, burn a new session to the disc.
DrNicholas
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Re: New here with developmental questions

Post by DrNicholas »

no answer for #4 :P?
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Re: New here with developmental questions

Post by mankrip »

There's no way to use it without installing, as Cygwin needs to be configured properly in the Windows registry to work.
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OneThirty8
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Re: New here with developmental questions

Post by OneThirty8 »

DrNicholas wrote:no answer for #4 :P?
I don't use Windows at home, so I had nothing to offer there.
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Re: New here with developmental questions

Post by PH3NOM »

OneThirty8 wrote:
DrNicholas wrote: 3. Will fmv cutscenes and .mp3 and sound effects work on the dreamcast?
Yes, but maybe not with SDL. You can use SDL_Mixer for sound effects and music but I don't think there's a great solution for playing cutscenes using SDL. There's SMPEG, but I don't know that anyone ever got a great framerate using it.
Regarding .mp3 -
Just about any music format you can imagine can work on DC. Look at the source for DCMC beta 1 for reference.

Regarding fmv cut-scenes-
Certainly not with SDL.
I compiled SMPEG some time ago for DC, and it was SLOW, ~320x192p@10fps. Don't waste your time.

Also, this topic has been discussed:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=100977
Which led to this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=100995

I should be mention that SDL_Mixer is VERY SLOW compared to using the k:os sound functions.
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