[Scummvm-devel] Game enhancements

[Eugene Sandulenko]

On 4 November 2010 20:54, Filippos Karapetis <bluegr at gmail.com> wrote:
> Currently, the undithering toggle that has been introduced is in a form of a
> checkbox.
This is a bit problematic.

The reason is that current GUI widget packer is not dynamic, that is,
this checkbox will take space even when not visible. That will make it
hard to add more options.

> A different approach would be to introduce a new graphics mode,
> perhaps, called "EGA
> (undithered)" which could work in a more generic way, without introducing a
> new option (but it will be hard to find afterwards).
Still I think that it clearly falls under "Render mode" category and
is just matter of proper documentation.

> So, the logical question to ask now would be: what should we do with game
> enhancements by default?
At the days of old .ini-based GUI I introduced backend-specific tab.
That returned just piece of .ini file which was shown on a separate
tab.

We still can simulate this with new XML-based themes, just the main
thing to resolve is that it would better reflow layout for each game.
Then it could be GUIO-driven.

> In my opinion, all enhancements should either be on or off by default, and
> some sort of configuration switch should be provided to toggle them from the
> GUI.
I do not think any specific rules could be put here. I.e. let the
engine authors decide on the default value.

> No user wants to
> look through configuration files, so this should be as easy and intuitive as
> possible
Indeed.

> Currently, we have the following game enhancements (these come to mind,
> there could be others):
> - Replacement of original save/load dialogs in SCUMM and SCI
That is for good. We never finished original dialogs, and majority of
them are static screens now

> - Replacement of some sounds in MI1
Is it Mixed Adlib mode?

> - A speed throttler in SCI
> - Undithering in early EGA SCI Games
Now nothing about this.

> - Mouse support in AGI
It is turned on by default now and there is no need to turn it off.

> - Mixed Adlib/MT-32 mode
Yes, this works only for small subset of the games and is an ideal
candidate for moving into separate tab.


Eugene