Playing only with one display possible?

Ryou · Post by **Ryou** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:02 am

Hey,

I'm a big Fan of ScummVM DS but one thing bothers me.
Is there a way to shut down the upper screen?
I don't need 2x the same Scene (it irritates) or a zoom of one edge. So.. can I only switch to a black upper screen in any way, or will there such a function in an upcoming version?

Thanks~

Harley77 · Post by **Harley77** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:26 pm

So, you never use the keyboard function? Kind of hard to do without the second screen. Otherwise, I suppose you could flip the bottom display to the top to enable the keyboard, but that seems rather pointless.

Ryou · Post by **Ryou** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:42 pm

Keyboard Function?
Maybe I misunderstand it, but I never need more than the mouse (the touchscreen) at 99% of the Scumm-Games.

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:45 pm

The keyboard function is used a lot in AGI games.

If the scrolling of the top screen annoys you, you can zoom all the way out and have the screen in 'fit' mode. Then it won't scroll.

I don't see the point of a blank upper screen.

cde · Post by **cde** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:18 pm

I don't see the point of a blank upper screen.

In addition to Ryou's personal preference, how about battery life?

ScummVM games are great for long sessions, such as journeys where recharging could be impossible, so halving the screen use might be easier than carrying a spare battery and screwdriver...

arnarchie · Post by **arnarchie** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:59 am

I totally agree with cde, saving battery power makes it a very useful feature... if you just keep the upper screen off and switch the bottom screen zoomed/unzoomed with the a button, and switch the upper screen on temporarily when using keyboard (full view on the upper, keyboard on bottom screen)

This would save battery power and increase game fun, because it stops the annoying double-view you get, and which is not useful in EVERY game... i once again started playing day of the tentacle and dont need a zoom so far, if i need one later, i easily could press one button to do so.

So if anyone who is responsible for implementation reads this:
please lets make the DualScreen a SingleScreen

thanks for listening

arnarchie · Post by **arnarchie** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:05 am

me again. wanted to try adding a "disable top screen" feature for myself, but i am stuck, as i dont even get the original version compiled.

i downloaded the sourcecode, put it into a directory, installed devkitPro (latest version from feb 29th 08, maybe that could be the problem?!!??!?!)

searched a bit through the forum and found one post about how to compile it for the DS, so i went to the source directory\backends\platform\ds\ and tried to make it, he does a lot of stuff and then gives the error

make[2]: *** No rule to make target `scummvm.nds'. Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/g/DSDev/homebrew/scummvm-0.11.1/backends/platform/ds/arm9'
make[1]: *** [ndsall] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/g/DSDev/homebrew/scummvm-0.11.1/backends/platform/ds/arm9'
make: *** [all] Error 2

it is obvious that i did something terribly wrong..
i havent compiled big ds projects yet, and maybe scummVM is a little too big for me, but i would never have thought i would fail even at compiling the unedited release...

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:11 am

At the top of the makefile, there is a list of defines to select which build you want to make. You need to uncomment one of the lines to select one of them.

You will also need to disable mp3 support by commenting out the USE_MAD=1 line, unless you have an arm version of libmad compiled.

arnarchie · Post by **arnarchie** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:50 pm

thanks agentq for the quick reply, compiling works now. (although commenting the USE_MAD=1 out didnt work, i changed the if-clause from ScummVM_E to ScummVM_A, not the most elegant way, but...)

anyway there is another problem (please let me know if i bother you).

this is what ive got so far:
- i added an "enable top screen" checkbox to the ds options menu,
- when this is changed changed, the function TopScreen(bool) is being called. (i just rewrote the commands that were there for the oder checkboxes)

- At first i thought of powering off the graphics Sub engine, but this would not have affected the top screen but the complete function of the zoomed screen. i wanted to let the top screen always be blank and when pressing A the bottom screen Swaps between zoomed and non-zoomed.

So i tried to google a little and found out about the powermanagement register of the ARM7, which can disable the top screens backlight (exactly what i need).

i guess i could use the existing powerManagerWrite function and let the arm9 communicate to the arm7 (although i dont have the right idea how to do it properly, yet) but my primary problem is that it seems that any changes i make to the arm7 code are completely ignored... (when make finishes, it always sais "scummvm.nds is up to date")

so... am i on the completely wrong way or is there something more i have to do?

and just to go shure again: if you have too much to do to help me out here, just say it, then i wont bother you again with this...

many greets,
Arne

agentq · Post by **agentq** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:44 pm

I would have thought disabling the backlight on the top screen would not save as much power as turning off the sub 2D core which powers that screen. When swapping screens with A, the sub 2D core can be turned back on, and the main 2D core could be turned off.

Of course, one worry I'd have is that the VRAM or other video settings could be lost when the core is turned off.

I'm not sure why the Arm7 isn't building, but I would suggest you delete the main.o file to force it to rebuild it.

arnarchie · Post by **arnarchie** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:34 am

good point about the sub2d core. but i want to turn off the backlight anyways, because if the sub 2d is disabled at startup, the top screen remains white (which i think is quite annoying). I Guess i'll try out forcing the rebuild and then try disabling top backlight and sub 2d core and turn on/off of the 2D Cores when pressing A. then we'll see if it affects any Video settings. i as far as i can see for now, turning the sub core off has not affected anything, because when turned on again, everything looked correct... I'll test it out, many thanks to you.

dj_daniel88 · Post by **dj_daniel88** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:56 am

Hi!

I'm new to this forum, and I was searching to see if there was a way to turn off the top screen. It is pretty much unnecessary on most of the games, and it's annoying to have to views of the same scene. Is there any update on this, has anybody figured out a way to disable the top screen?

arnarchie · Post by **arnarchie** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:28 am

well i started changing the current release and managed to implement an option to turn off the top screen. zoomed view is still possible the same way.
Didnt have much time the last month, but i also wanted to let the option manage the 2d cores, so it would save even more battery power.
Anyway this is just my personal modification and i dont know if there is a way to make it official (agentq???

if there is any interest in using it, i would send you the source of my modificated version, as soon as i am ready with the 2d core management. all changes marked with a comment to find easier... anyway let me know, because i would also be very happy not to have to change every future release for this purpose

)
greets Arne

tomten · Post by **tomten** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:23 am

arnarchie wrote:Anyway this is just my personal modification and i dont know if there is a way to make it official (agentq??? if there is any interest in using it, i would send you the source of my modificated version, as soon as i am ready with the 2d core management. all changes marked with a comment to find easier... anyway let me know, because i would also be very happy not to have to change every future release for this purpose )
greets Arne

I think it's a great idea. If you can find a clean, isolated way to handle it, then I'm sure the port maintainer(s) will at least consider it for inclusion, if there's popular demand (which there is). Don't stop!

Post by **sev** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:04 am

There is a standard approach for those. Feel free to submit your patch to our tracker.

Eugene

Playing only with one display possible?

Playing only with one display possible?

I agree

compiling