LCDGameModes v0.11

Discuss LCDGameModes by Steve Harrison
PaulV
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by PaulV »

steve3000 wrote:...also I meant to ask, what does ALT-BREAK do? I've not used that before - is it Risc OS 3.5
Well it seems to be a feature of Uniboot as it runs on RISC OS 3.11. It provides a way to rotate through running apps and kill by selection.

This weekend featured a major re-organisation of the hobby room. Coding and testing should resume tomorrow. It looks like there's a lot to go through :D

Paul
steve3000
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by steve3000 »

PaulV wrote:The phone did something odd.

Not a double post but not what I wanted either. The second attempt worked, this is just an edit to remove the junk.
Phone's eh...!

I'll have to try that ALT-BREAK thing... but as I don't have Uni-boot loaded I might just dig out the module :-)
steve3000
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by steve3000 »

I just spotted Paul's elite picture from a previous test version of LCDgm, before I fixed the vertical screen chop-off issue with RockFall.

Image

- now that looks good!

But now I am wondering - is it actually still possible to use LCDgm to get a centred screen like that, or is it always too high now?

On my monitor I'm sure it is too high (I'm away but will check at the weekend). The reason it has to be so high is to fix a minority of games like RockFall which chop off the bottom of the screen by forcing a specific VBER position - but there's certainly no reason to do that for most games.

Now that I have my *Command handling code in the module, I can easily add a *command to allow the user to chose their preferred position...

So I'm planning two new *Commands, for LCDGm:


*LCDgmCentreScreen [On|Off] (this affects the patched RISC OS modes only, not yet widescreen modes, and ensures the screen position is centred vertically, however a small number of games do not display correctly with this enabled, so you may need to disable it, default value is ON)

(other options: *LCDgmShiftDown [On|Off|<0...255>], *LCDgmYShift [<0...255>])


*LCDgmVSyncFix [On|Off] (this slows games down to 50Hz, as they were intended, but for some games this can result in flickering colours so default is OFF)

(other options: *LCDgmFixVSync [Yes|No], *LCDgmSkipVsync [On|Off], *LCDgmVSyncPatch [On|Off], *LCDgm50HzVSync [On|Off])


What do you both think of these commands? Particularly the names and the values? (Jon - I realise the latter command duplicates some functionality of ADFFS, but I think it is useful for the stand-alone module, and my code for this is quite small so it shouldn't significantly affect module size)

I am still aiming for a final release version this weekend.

Steve
PaulV
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by PaulV »

steve3000 wrote:But now I am wondering - is it actually still possible to use LCDgm to get a centred screen like that, or is it always too high now?
On my monitor it's very high even with the V. position lowered as far as it can go.

If you default to the current settings so all games are fixed and LCDgm is basically in "best compatibility mode", then enable the centre positioning to provide a better fix for those games that can deal with it that would make more sense to me.

This could always be addressed in the manual/troubleshooting guide/FAQ describing how to fix games that are too high.

Would the incremental Shift command make much more difference? For the layman user, having a lot of options is not necessarily the best option and let's face it, most gamers will want a no-fuss fix to play the games on their machine rather than setting command lines here, there and everywhere.

As for the 50Hz V.Sync command, I'd plump for LCDgmFixVSync or LCDgm50HzVSync.

Paul
JonAbbott
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by JonAbbott »

I don't have a problem with any of that, we can avoid pulling bits we don't need into ADFFS by modularising the code so we only pull in the core code and main * command to turn it on/off.

ADFFS currently has the *LCDgm command within it. We should strip that out and pull it in from the LCDgm code via a #include for flexibility. Altering the vertical position could be useful and put into the boot script of games that will benefit from it, so we can pull that in also.
PaulV
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by PaulV »

Just thinking about the vertical positioning again.

I've got to agree, the games do look better when they're fully centred in the display area and as it's such a minority of games that have the problem, I guess it wouldn't be so bad to default LCDgm to position the display in the centre and then fix those games that need it by enabling the higher display position.

Either way, it can be dealt with in the help/faq information that goes with the module.

Paul
danielj
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by danielj »

Hello all,
Posted some feedback over on Stardot, just to keep it all in once place as other people wade in trying things out.

d.
JonAbbott
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Re: LCDGameModes v0.11

Post by JonAbbott »

Steve, would you like to respond to the question over on TIB:

http://www.iconbar.com/forums/viewthrea ... e=5#122392
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