[Scummvm-devel] Release plans, once again

Tim Ansell mithro at mithis.net
Fri Aug 20 02:26:02 CEST 2004


On Fri, 2004-08-20 at 17:36, Max Horn wrote:
> Am 20.08.2004 um 04:05 schrieb Tim Ansell:
> 
> >
> [...]
> 
> 
> >
> > I play ScummVM mainly on my Zaurus so I guess I'm biased towards 
> > features which benefit it, however I would like to see the following:
> 
> Actually, yes, you seem a bit biased, but of course so am I :-). I 
> would rate none of the items you list below as release critical, 
> neither for 0.7.0 nor 1.0 ...
> 

It depends what you call "release critical" :) Personally I see no
reason to try and release a "version 1" anyway.

> 
> > - Much improved mpeg2 rendering in Broken Sword series - It's way too 
> > slow even on my p333 laptop. Everything else runs well and even some 
> > unoptimised players get better speeds then ScummVM.
> 
> Patches welcome. Hardly of high importance, though. Personally it runs 
> smoothly on my system. I think libmpeg2 is fine speed wise, but the 
> ScummVM backend simply isn't designed for movie playback (to many 
> scaling stages etc.). Nevertheless, somebody might want to take a look 
> at this with a profiler and try to speed up things. Of course, running 
> on a 8bit device will always be slow due to color conversions.
> 

I'll get around to it one of these days :) I'm not sure if it's the
decoding or the display (I think it's the display) which is chew up the
time. 

I think that ScummVM should at least make the games playable on lower
end hardware. The original games run perfect on this p333 box.

> > - Consistent compression support for all music and sounds. (It would 
> > be nice if Broken Sword could get this).
> 
> There are various FR items open for this. Again, patches are welcome, 
> but its not of high priorty. Doing this is rather difficult in many 
> cases because the sounds are interwoven with the rest of the data, so 
> compressing it separately is not possible.
> 

Yeah I know, but it would be nice to have a consistent way for storing
and using the compressed music files. (IE kinda like the CD audio
stuff).

> 
> > - Support for reading from the whole game in compressed zip file or 
> > ISO image. This would make it a lot easier to use the original the CD 
> > (as they appear as an ISO on /dev/<bla>) or images of the CD.
> 
> As Ender said: Never!
> 
> > - Porting the pop-up keyboard, buttons to all (from WinCE) to all 
> > platforms. Would use it on a keyboard less console then. (Which seems 
> > like most games are suited to.)
> 
> I see how this could benefit a Zaurus (and there is an open FR item for 
> this, I think). The virtual keyboard from WinCE is implemented in the 
> WinCE backend. What you are asking for is to implement one in the SDL 
> backend (implement it outside of the backend is problematic because 
> then we'd have to add support to the backend for injecting events, 
> something I'd rathe avoid). This certainly should be possible.
> But support for the Zaurus, while nice, is not a top priority item for 
> us.  None of us has a Zaurus, hence we rely on some 3rd party to 
> provide a patch.
> 

The Zaurus is basically a Linux based PDA with full keyboard (IE It
doesn't "need" a pop-up keyboard). I was more interested in having the
pop-up keyboard for my Linux based tablet which doesn't have a keyboard
and my other Linux based PDA. Being able to play the game on any
platform with just the mouse would be good.

On another note I have a "spare" PDA (and a "spare" Zaurus) here which I
might be willing to let go at minimal cost if it improved ScummVM
support on ARM based platforms. (Contact me privately if anyone is
interested.) 

> 
> > I think most of them should be required for a 1.0 release. But thats 
> > just me.
> 
> See above :-).
> 
> Our goal for 1.0 is not to support every target system perfectly out 
> there. Rather, it's to be easy to use (new docs, maybe improved GUI), 
> good to perfect support of our games, and stability. Everything else is 
> nice but can wait for 1.1 or later releases. And there is always room 
> for a 2.0 and a 3.0, too, of course :-)
> 
> 

Of course your free to ignore everything I say, I'm not a developer so
take my opinions with a grain of salt ;) Only think I do currently is
maintain the ScummVM packages in "Open Embedded" build system.

> 
> Bye,
> 
> Max

-- 
Tim Ansell <mithro at mithis.net>





More information about the Scummvm-devel mailing list