ANNC: Kobo Deluxe v0.4pre7!

SDL Development
1

Way too much new code and not enough time for hacking,
but here it is, finally…-------------------------------------------------------------------
Kobo Deluxe v0.4pre7

This prerelease version should have been released months ago, but
I couldn’t keep myself from hacking new stuff. (And then I’d rather
have most of it working before I release… heh) Most important
changes:

  • A software synth that can play MIDI files. (On platforms
    with OSS or ALSA, it’s also possible to drive the synth
    with external MIDI.)

  • EEL - The Extensible Embeddable Language. Yet Another
    Scripting Language…

  • AGW - Algorithmically Generated Waveforms. Sound effects
    and instrument waveforms rendered using an EEL script
    driven off-line synth.

  • Music! (Just three little demos for now, with only AGW
    sounds - I’ll make some serious tracks when the synth
    engine is ready for real work.)

  • Two brand new AGW sound effects. (You will learn to fear
    them, I’m sure. :slight_smile:

  • 2D positional sound! :slight_smile:

  • Player Profiles. (Thanks to Jeremy Sheeley for the 0.3
    patch!) You can have multiple profiles per installation,
    and each profile logs scores in a “private” high score
    table.

  • That highscore table in the intro finally shows real
    scores! (Best score from each profile.)

  • “Chase scrolling” radar screen (optional) and other radar
    improvements.

  • ALT+ENTER to toggle fullscreen/windowed mode. (Works any
    time - pauses game automatically.)

  • PrintScrn/SysRq saves a screenshot to disk. (Currently not
    in OpenGL mode, though.)

  • Dithering for low color depth modes.

  • Diagonals Emphasis Filter. (Optional.) Makes it possible
    to stay in diagonals without holding down keys or holding
    the joystick.

  • Initial game code changes in preparation for new game
    modes. (Such as deathmatch… :slight_smile:

  • Possibly other interesting stuff I forgot. (Look at that
    ChangeLog entry… And it’s not even complete, naughty,
    sloppy me!)

  • Various other tweaks, optimizations and fixes.

  • A whole lot of brand new bugs to discover! :wink:

So, jump into your Protection Suit for Hazardous Environments (in
case something blows up…) and give it a try! :slight_smile:

http://olofson.net/skobo

(There is source and a Win32 package with libraries and
executable with and without OpenGL support.)

Oh, and if you want to try OpenGL on Win32, keep in mind that Kobo
Deluxe still doesn’t support plain double buffering (which
OpenGL/Win32 normally gives you) properly. And, just in case
buffering settings don’t do what you expect; on my G400, asking
for single buffering seems to give you a retrace synced double (or
triple) buffered display (“ultra smooth”), while asking for double
buffering gives you a “fake” double buffered setup with
back->front blits without sync - tearing and jittering, that is.
(Dunno’ if it’s Matrox or me…)

It’s been over 5 months since the last “official” release, and
even the 0.4pre6 release was quite some time ago. Not good. I’ve
also failed to split the integrated libraries and engines of Kobo
Deluxe off into their own projects. That sucks even more.

There will be more frequent releases with less major code changes
from now on.

For now, there’s pretty much a freeze for 0.4. Please test this
version on various platforms, and yell at me if there are any major
issues. Preferably, I’d like to have the code reverified on the
platforms that are listed as supported:

GNU/Linux/x86
FreeBSD/x86
NetBSD/x86
Windows 95/98/ME
Windows 2000/XP
Sun Solaris/x86
Sun Solaris/SPARC
Mac OS X
BeOS
AmigaOS

Some updates for the build scripts will probably be needed. On LE
machines, please check for endiannes issues in pfile.cpp. If it
screws up on the “501” score file in the source tree, pfile.cpp
is broken.

New platforms I’d also like to support:

Mac OS Classic
	Codewarrior project file needed.
	filemapper_t needs stat(), opendir(), ...

Windows NT
	No DX5 - will GDI cut it? Will OpenGL work?
	(Other than that, it should Just Work(TM),
	as there are no problems with Win2k.)

Linux on non-x86 hardware
	If it works on any LE CPU, any OS, this
	should work out-of-the-box.

Various handheld devices
	Vertical screens would be one issue. One
	would need new "dashboard" graphics, but
	other than that, one should need to change
	little more than the window coordinates in
	build_screen() in kobo.cpp.

	Another issue might be the off-line synth.
	(This applies to all machines with weak
	FPUs, BTW.) Let's just say it should be
	relatively trivial to get it to render
	*several times* faster. There's still a
	problem if you don't have an FPU, though.

//David

.---------------------------------------
| David Olofson
| Programmer

david.olofson at reologica.se
Address:
REOLOGICA Instruments AB
Scheelev?gen 30
223 63 LUND
Sweden
---------------------------------------
Phone: 046-12 77 60
Fax: 046-12 50 57
Mobil:
E-mail: david.olofson at reologica.se
WWW: http://www.reologica.se

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