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Looking at the master spreadsheet I've documented 222 of the 781 titles, the trackers/effect modules so far (ignoring version differences) are:

1 - BambuzleMusic
1 - BodgeMusic
1 - Coconizer
2 - D50_Syn
2 - DataVox
6 - DesktopTracker (shimmed)
2 - DSymphonyPlayer
12 - ExSound (32 bitted)
1 - GremlinSound
1 - IronVoices
49 - MusicModule (shimmed)
2 - NinjaSong
20 - QTM (32 bitted)
7 - RepMusic
1 - RSSND
1 - ScrabFX
2 - SongMod
1 - Sou_Player
1 - SoundManager
1 - SoundMaster
2 - SoundSystem
2 - SoundTracker
1 - Stasis (26/32 bit neutral)
1 - SXFM
1 - TickTock
16 - TrackerModule (32 bitted)
2 - Trk_Player (shimmed)
1 - TrkDriver
3 - Tune:Melody
1 - VoxLib (32 bitted)
3 - WFS (32 bitted)

Out of these, do we know which ones can be shimmed to QTM? Should we be looking at 32bit'ing any via disassembly the hard way?

What should I be coding into ADFFS to cater for the shims? Do we want to trap the modules being loaded and then load QTM / shim or do it manually via the boot script? Both would be seamless to the user, but obviously the latter would mean they have to be booted instead of run from the desktop. I'm not sure how big a deal that is, personally I prefer the boot method as it's more flexible.

The easiest to 'shim' will be those that use ProTracker format, then Arc Tracker format (as it's well documented, and in the case of trackermodule already attempted/done?), more difficult will be other/unique formats, but having said that, I have some partially written concersion code for coconizer...

So from your list, 5 of the 6 should be possible. The remaining one being MusicTracker, which I've not heard of before...? It may be easy though, if it uses ProTracker format...

I'm not sure what these non-desktop boot scripts are? So far I've only used ADFFS by opening the ADF file and double clicking the game inside. If you have to leave the desktop, that is surely a step backwards? Even most old RiscOS 2 games support returning to desktop after use. On older 1 or 2 MB machines, where memory is tight, there's a valid reason - but otherwise, and particularly for newer 32bit computers, there should be no need to leave the desktop.

steve3000 wrote:I'm not sure what these non-desktop boot scripts are? So far I've only used ADFFS by opening the ADF file and double clicking the game inside. If you have to leave the desktop, that is surely a step backwards? Even most old RiscOS 2 games support returning to desktop after use. On older 1 or 2 MB machines, where memory is tight, there's a valid reason - but otherwise, and particularly for newer 32bit computers, there should be no need to leave the desktop.

You can attach an Obey file to a JFD, which is executed when you select "Boot floppy".

At the moment ADFFS exits to the Supervisor, saves it as !Obey in the !ADFFS folder and executes it. However it's never as simple as that. To fully emulate a SHIFT-BOOT it resets the monotonic time to fool game protection into thinking the machine was actually booted.

I'm thinking of changing it to a RAMFS style file system, so we can add more that just an Obey file. Although I could just do away with it completely once I've implemented delta writes, however the disadvantage there is you're limited to the size of the floppy. The other option is to take the script out and put it in a subdirectory of ADFFS, although you'd then have to mess about with two files, with it in the JFD its transparent to the user.

It was originally a bit of a botch to get around all the poorly written !Run scripts, I'd say around 50% of them don't work due to poorly written code. If a game runs from the icon at the desktop, happy days, you don't need to boot it, however a lot of game won't load via running them from their icon.

I suppose I could change all the boot scripts so they control quitting to the supervisor and resetting the monotonic time and take it out of the ADFBootFloppy command, a few do currently go back to the Desktop to finally run the game, and very few need monotonic time resetting.

Ok, that makes sense - so it's not intended to be a requirement for all games.

I think anything we can do to stay on the desktop should be the preferred option, dropping back into supervisor is a last resort - but I can see now why in some cases this might be needed.

FYI - I've worked a bit further on MusMod2QTM and making some good progress now. More on that soon.

Steve

JonAbbott wrote: MusicTracker

I've just double checked...its MusicModule, so ignore this one. So it sounds like we can shim the lot.

I'll have to go through all the discs and figure out which trackers they all use. Might take a while!

I've now been through all the JFD's and have updated the master spreadsheet.

The list is as follows:

• BambuzleMusic
  BodgeMusic
  Coconizer
  DesktopTracker
  GremlinSound
  MusicModc2000
  MusicModule
  MusicModule2
  MusicModule3
  MusicModule4
  MusicModule7
  NinjaSong
  QTMPlayer (the non module version)
  QTMTracker
  RepMusic
  SongMod
  Sou_Player
  SoundTracker
  TrackerModule
  Trk_Player
  Tune:Melody

Thanks for posting that list Jon!

I've had a look at the spreadsheet - of the ones you've identified so far the top used tracker modules and number of games using them are:

MusicMod variants 39
QTM 12
Trackermod 11
Repmusic 7
DTT 5
Sound tracker 3

So I'm glad I started with Mus2QTM

For convincing games to use QTM instead of TrackerModule, feel free to use any/all bits of QTeM that you wish:

http://www.phlamethrower.co.uk/riscos/qtem.php

Although it is worth pointing out that QTeM isn't 32bit compatible! Perhaps I should fix that now that QTM is.

Phlamethrower wrote:For convincing games to use QTM instead of TrackerModule, feel free to use any/all bits of QTeM that you wish:

http://www.phlamethrower.co.uk/riscos/qtem.php

Although it is worth pointing out that QTeM isn't 32bit compatible! Perhaps I should fix that now that QTM is.

Thanks Jeffrey! I've already downloaded it, just need to find time to have a play - iirc you have included the source code too, and I'm sure that will be useful.

Of note - I've also now found my converter code I wrote for the QTM editor (which never was) - and that covers Coconizer and DSymphony formats (with a few limitations - no long patterns/etc. but a good start point!).

I've updated the list in the OP.

With the exception of ExSound and RepMusic it looks like we now have the bulk of the games that use Tracker modules covered. ExSound doesn't look like QTM will support (I tested The Dungeon "Intro"), for RepMusic we'd need to extract a tracker from Repton 1, 2, 3 or Ravenskull to test.