SDL-Fighter - DC Shooter Em up port.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:31 am

Wouldnt it be easier to just fix up KETTM ? I think that engine is better than this one...

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:34 am

Well allways welcome to work on KETM. It's a much better shooter of course but not finshed game and is no longer worked on by the pc author so not much chance of a complete version. This is pretty new and i undertand the code better. Both i intend to work on now and then for fun much more enjoy-able then emulaton some times. With this the FPS counter does tell you if your compiler settings or code optmizing is working or doing any thing.

Nice and easy to work with i think.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:41 am

doubling the speed is gonna be a problem.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:44 am

Allways try just got to profile the code on pc and find were the problems are.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:09 am

From looking at the whole thing, it seems very little could be done to it. Im pretty sure its mostly just SDL slowness.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:28 am

SDL is not that slow i would think the game is pretty simple. Some maths i would think needs more adjustment i did scale it from 800x600 the game was set for that.

Maximo2703 · Post by **Maximo2703** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:42 am

some nice news to hear a new game is out. that would be awesome if you could get a boresque modding out of it. its kind of funny as i was reading this i started thinking about K.E.T.M then all of sudden i see quzar mentioning it. i did like that little shooter ,but since the orginal author isn't working with it no more it'll be a shame to see a shooter with so much potenional get abandoned. ill give this a shot later. just take it easy ian ,and might i add thankx for another release

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:47 am

Ian Micheal wrote:SDL is not that slow i would think the game is pretty simple. Some maths i would think needs more adjustment i did scale it from 800x600 the game was set for that.

I didnt mean SDL just by itself, but it uses like... all the different SDL extensions too, SDL_image, SDL_mixer, and even the rarer (for DC) SDL_gfx. Im sure that is where most of the speed is being lost.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:52 am

SDL_gfx you can take out just from my make file not needed in this game at all. SDL_mixer is pretty fast ive found SDL_image ive found can be slow. Having a go at optmizing bits now. I find it relaxing at this stage easy to work with for me.

Im looking into the way it's using the timer t1=t2 = SDL time i think this is pretty slow.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:00 am

the one part of it i really didnt like was how it used the randomizer function. For some reason i have a feeling there is a much better way to do it. That and i think if it can be made to not double buffer it would also be faster, but that would be really complex (compared to other things possible).

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:26 am

Yeah i agree Random function needs work and the scrollying and movement is taking up far to much speed. But i think i can learn some thing from parts of the code. Just need to get it to 20fps and above then it would be much more useable. I had it 16.9 but was a freak GCC build.

Working on geting the enemies moving at different rates.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:36 am

Well ive tryed and it will not load the images and music from the cd dont know why sorry.

Code: Select all

#define main_dir "/rd/"
#define sounds_dir main_dir"sounds/"
#define pixmaps_dir main_dir"pixmaps/"
#define explosion_dir main_dir"pixmaps/explosion/"

Should be easy for example

Code: Select all

#define main_dir "/cd/"
#define sounds_dir main_dir"sounds/"
#define pixmaps_dir main_dir"pixmaps/"
#define explosion_dir main_dir"pixmaps/explosion/"

Well it will not load or boot like that. So i guess no new version for today.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:45 am

I can think of one way to get it to 60FPS - port it to KOS natively, rather than using SDL. The PVR could handle that stuff (and a lot more) very easily. Of course, that depends on how much the game relies on SDL - I'll have a look.

...

It does rely on SDL quite a lot. It's pretty small, so it could probably be ported without SDL. It'd just involve quite a lot of work.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:21 am

Yeah some of it i could ported to kos pretty easy, i did this with the controls as there was no joystick controls at all. Even 20 fps would be useable. It's very much an SDL game so it ,would take a lot of work to port to kos, if i did that i would mostly just use it as a base and write my own version with out using any code from this, because most of it would have to be rewritten. I would think with the amount of work that would be needed to be done it would be easyer to write a game in the same style from new. Any way it Shows some what thar SDL is not all that useable on dreamcast even for simple games. Ive had the same trouble with games ive written being to slow if you use 640x480 res in sdl it's slow no matter what it seems.

Also it's there now any one want to play with it go a head ive tryed for longer then i should to get it faster. Cant seem to break 16 fps it has a fps counter so easy to see any improvements you make. . It will not load any files from the cd dont know why?????.

EDIT

Got the framerate better the animated explosions was 31 frames ive lowered this and now ive got 15 fps even when there's a lot on screen so much less slow down and smoother. Better still not smooth enff gets to 16.9 at times now.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 12:09 am

*Update.
Changed some game maths to make it run better and be a bit more fun.The Game hits 16fps and is 5fps faster at times then the last version. Still not flying along but maybe in time.

*To Do
Change the grafix to load from the cd i could not seem to get this to work dont know why prolly my new burner.

-Speed needs optmizing
- Grafix loading from the cd for moding.

*List of credits
Quzar he removed some debug info and the sdl controls and got some speed up and added the exit command.

Slightly better and i changes the bullet speed and movement so it plays better more normal to me.

Grafix loading from the cd i could not get it to work so if any one can let me know.

DCmad · Post by **DCmad** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:01 am

Ian, are you intending to make it modable as BOR? it's cool
what method do you plan to do it? maybe BA or fragger don't mind add a mod select screen
* h0h0h0 megaman shoot'em up *

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:13 am

Yeah basic things would be fire rate of the bullets movement of the ships and grafix and scrollying speed. I could have all the editedable from txt files. Only problem i had and a strange one is i cant get it to read the files off the cd.

There very long file names i think thats it or my new cd burner. Just the grafix from the cd would let you mod the whole look of it.

Post by **Quzar** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:42 am

Oh yea hehe i forgot to tell you i added an exit thing =P both triggers + start. its a dirty exit, but it would probably work better if there are multiple mods on one disc or something.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:13 am

Works fine saves me rebooting between tests. Cant get it to load files of the cd for me.

Smiles · Post by **Smiles** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:05 pm

Was it necessary to scale the game down from 800x600. I'm pretty sure the DC supports 800x600. It would be really cool to see a game actually take advantage of this on the DC.