Fast Forward?

[BlitzOreo]

Hi, I was wondering if ScummVM has a dedicated hotkey for Fast Forwarding?

Some games have unskippable cutscenes, some games have people talk too much when I already know the dilemma, some games are just too slow...

So with all that in mind, a Fast Forward would be great. I know the Amiga emulators Win-UAE and FS-UAE have it, for example.

If there's no such hotkey, is there any way I can request it?

[criezy]

There is no such thing, because ScummVM is not an emulator. So we cannot just speed up the cycles of an emulated CPU to speed up games, as is possible with emulators.

Since we reimplement the game executables, we can in some cases deviate from the original behaviour, such as implement skip in places where that is not possible when using the original executable. However this is something that has to be done on a game by game basis, and may not be easy or possible depending on how the game works.

[BlitzOreo]

There is no such thing, because ScummVM is not an emulator. So we cannot just speed up the cycles of an emulated CPU to speed up games, as is possible with emulators.

Since we reimplement the game executables, we can in some cases deviate from the original behaviour, such as implement skip in places where that is not possible when using the original executable. However this is something that has to be done on a game by game basis, and may not be easy or possible depending on how the game works.

I know ScummVM is not an emulator, which thanks to that it gives quite the benefits an Emulator could not, but I thought a Fast Forward could still be added somehow.

I know very little about programming and coding, I just thought there'd be many ways to fully speed up a game, not just needing to increase the "emulated CPU speed" which of course it won't work in ScummVM.

[eriktorbjorn]

If there's no such hotkey, is there any way I can request it?

It'd have to be implemented on an engine-by-engine basis. Some have it, many don't. E.g. with SCUMM games, you can press Ctrl+F or Ctrl+G to toggle "fast mode" and "really fast mode". You can use Ctrl+F in the SImon the Sorcerer games as well. But when ScummVM adds something like that, there may be the caveat that things occasionally break when you can walk faster than the game expects. Particularly if things are timed to the music. In some cases it was a feature of the original game (e.g. a lot of the Sierra games), and so works in ScummVM as well and should be safe, I guess... though Sierra has a bit of a reputation for timing bugs, as I understand it.

And of course, some games have some sort of feature to reduce travel time built into them, e.g. double-clicking on an exit in Full Throttle or using the map in Simon the Sorcerer 1.

[BlitzOreo]

If there's no such hotkey, is there any way I can request it?

It'd have to be implemented on an engine-by-engine basis. Some have it, many don't. E.g. with SCUMM games, you can press Ctrl+F or Ctrl+G to toggle "fast mode" and "really fast mode". You can use Ctrl+F in the SImon the Sorcerer games as well. But when ScummVM adds something like that, there may be the caveat that things occasionally break when you can walk faster than the game expects. Particularly if things are timed to the music. In some cases it was a feature of the original game (e.g. a lot of the Sierra games), and so works in ScummVM as well and should be safe, I guess... though Sierra has a bit of a reputation for timing bugs, as I understand it.

And of course, some games have some sort of feature to reduce travel time built into them, e.g. double-clicking on an exit in Full Throttle or using the map in Simon the Sorcerer 1.

Interesting, this really does make adding a general/universal Fast Forward for ScummVM rather annoying.

Is this by any chance the reason "Lure of the Temptress" is rather slow in loading? It takes quite a time just to get into the menu.

[eriktorbjorn]

Is this by any chance the reason "Lure of the Temptress" is rather slow in loading? It takes quite a time just to get into the menu.

Do you mean e.g. the title screen where a note symbol is blinking in the lower left corner? I don't really know what it's doing, but it seems to depend on which music driver you're using. Roland MT-32 is slow (lots of custom instruments, perhaps?) while AdLib is not.

[BlitzOreo]

Is this by any chance the reason "Lure of the Temptress" is rather slow in loading? It takes quite a time just to get into the menu.

Do you mean e.g. the title screen where a note symbol is blinking in the lower left corner? I don't really know what it's doing, but it seems to depend on which music driver you're using. Roland MT-32 is slow (lots of custom instruments, perhaps?) while AdLib is not.

Wait, how is that even possible? Just because I use emulated Roland MT-32 it shouldn't be that slow? It has to be a bug, not sure if in ScummVM or the game itself.
I should probably report that as a bug.

Anyway, I have all the info I need for the Fast Forward I'd say, thanks for the help you both.
I'm thinking of giving Cheat Engine's own Speedhack a try for the time being.

[eriktorbjorn]

Wait, how is that even possible? Just because I use emulated Roland MT-32 it shouldn't be that slow? It has to be a bug, not sure if in ScummVM or the game itself.
I should probably report that as a bug.

I think it's sending a lot of SysEx messages to the MT-32 here, and at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT ... y_problems it's prudent to put a slight delay between each of them to work around hardware problems in certain models.