Help needed testing new version of ScummVM for NDS

robinwatts · Post by **robinwatts** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 12:23 pm

Hi all,

As you're no doubt aware, the ScummVM team is constantly busy behind the scenes improving ScummVM to support new games, new features and fix bugs etc.

As a side effect of this work, the memory usage of ScummVM tends to creep gradually upwards - something that makes it harder and harder for it to keeping work on 'small' devices like the NDS. If this keeps going on, we may find that when future releases come along, either we can't do a NDS release, or we have to drop support for certain games!

To help stem this flow, we'd like to try to move the port over to using Thumb mode (for those that don't know, Thumb mode is an alternative encoding for the machine code used on the ARM CPU within the DS). Put simply, it should allow us to squeeze more code into the same space.

The problem with this is that in the past we've hit problems with the compiler we use that cause glitches and even crashes in the gameplay. The compiler is being improved all the time though, so it's possible these problems have gone away now - it's even possible that if we find problems, we can get them fixed.

To this end, we'd like to invite people to try out a new set of unofficial ScummVM binaries. These can be found here:

http://www.wss.co.uk/scummvm/NDS/Thumb001/

Simply install them on your NDS, and play as you would normally - hopefully you shouldn't notice any difference!

If you do spot problems, please post details of them here, in this thread. Specifically we're interested in cases where this (Thumb) version performs differently from the normal (ARM) version. If you can supply us with a save game near where the problem occurs, that'd be even better.

Even knowing that you've played a game and it *didn't* go wrong would be very useful!

If the results are good enough, we may be able to move over to using this in the next official release.

Thanks in advance for all the feedback,

Robin

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:37 pm

Ok. I put the binaries in a directory and I figured they will use the same config files as the regular build so I left those in place.

I booted the A executable and loaded Sam & Max. First thing I want to ask is: How do you actually load a savegame?

Next thing I've noticed is that the game [Sam & Max, since that's what I tried so far] will freeze once you exit the console. It just stays on the last processed frame and that's that. You can move the zoomed picture around but you can't really continue.

The ingame config menu is a bit off. The config screen has sections and the first two section names lack the first letter in their names, so it shows me "ontrol" and "raphic".

The game itself though seems to run noticably faster. When playing on the regular build I would see the characters yapping on with their mouths even though the lines were already finished. This build has them perfectly synchronized.

That's just some quick observations after five minutes with the new build. Was anything specific done to improve the performance?

I'd really like to know how to load savegames, since I have a bunch of savefiles I'd like to test. Mainly the VR machine scene and Conroy Bumpus' concert.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:26 am

A small update. Tested Beneath a Steel Sky a bit and the game seems to run too fast. Fast is good, but too fast is bad and BaSS is TOO fast. Other than that, everything worked ok I guess. At least so far.

Simon the Sorcerer 2 [floppy] froze up on load. The screen goes black and that's that. I don't know what's the problem there.

I could not load any of the Goblins games. The paths are ok, but the program gives me a line about not being able to find one thing or another. I'll get back to you with the details.

Anyone else besides me tried this one out? It's in our best interest to debug this thing.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:02 am

Regarding the "speed improvement" you noticed in Sam: That sounds not like a speed improvement, but rather like a difference in the talkspeed settings. I.e. you can adjust how long the subtitles are displayed, and if that is set to a higher value, it will cause the "lag" you reported. And since 0.12.0, the way the talkspeed value is handled has changed. So even with identical config file, it's no surprise that you see a difference.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:26 am

It's not only the speech synchronization, it's the whole game. You can see that the characters are walking really fast, and while that still is ok in Sam & Max, Beneath a Steel Sky is TOO fast, which I said earlier.

The subtitle settings only adjust the time when the text is being displayed, not the actual game speed, right?

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:41 am

Morden wrote:Tested Beneath a Steel Sky a bit and the game seems to run too fast. Fast is good, but too fast is bad and BaSS is TOO fast. Other than that, everything worked ok I guess. At least so far.

I've noticed too that the game seems to run faster in ScummVM than in DOSbox. There's a game speed setting in the game's control panel, so I guess it can be adjusted, though I haven't tried to play the game at slower speed myself.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:01 pm

I haven't seen a "game speed" configuration screen, but that aside, I just encountered another bug. When in the config menu, go to "misc" and click on "theme". Whole program will freeze.

I know this is just a debug build and I know that you're not planning on supporting themes for the DS so I'm guessing the regular build won't have the "theme" option.

pncFreak · Post by **pncFreak** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 5:52 pm

Morden wrote:I haven't seen a "game speed" configuration screen

The game speed configuration is the little slider beneath the sound slider, above the resume button (left portion of the screen) in the 'Beneath a Steel Sky' control panel.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 6:47 pm

Right, but that's a game specific feature. You can't adjust the game speed in Sam & Max because the function isn't built in. When I slide the BaSS game speed slider all the way down, the game runs at what could be described as nearly normal speed. It seems that whatever was done in this build makes the games run faster.

BaSS ran at default settings in regular ScummVM DS build doesn't run that fast and I didn't have to adjust game speed from the menu at all.

Anyway, I'm just reporting the things I see when testing this build. Is this helpful at all, by the way? I mean reporting things like these.

Until I wrote the first entry noone really posted anything, so should I focus on major issues and freezes or do you want all the info on what's changed since the last build?

robinwatts · Post by **robinwatts** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:16 pm

My, how embarassing. The game speedup is my fault.

While doing the thumb build, we had to work around a problem caused by a compiler bug in the interrupt handling. In the course of debugging that I raised the frequency of the internal timer from 1000 times a second to 2000 times a second... hence doubling the speed. Sorry.

I'm swamped in work at the moment, but I'll try and get new versions of the builds up there with this fixed. I'll post back here later.

Thanks for your feedback so far - please don't think that because I haven't replied I'm not interested. It's just that we all have to fit this stuff in in our free time, around real world work.

Update: New versions at http://www.wss.co.uk/scummvm/NDS/Thumb002/

All of them start up to the GUI at least. Gobliins starts up to the game. Sam N Max seems to run for a bit at least, but I can get it to assert by pressing the wrong button (but the speed seems right to me).

Sorry/Thanks,

Robin

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:30 am

My, how embarassing. The game speedup is my fault. (...) I raised the frequency of the internal timer from 1000 times a second to 2000 times a second... hence doubling the speed.

Ha! I knew something was changed. Besides, it wasn't really hard to spot the increased speed since all of the games ran double as fast.

Thanks for your feedback so far - please don't think that because I haven't replied I'm not interested.

It's all cool, man. What's most important is that bugs are being fixed. Take your time. We all know noone is paying you guys to do this.

All of them start up to the GUI at least. Gobliins starts up to the game.

Goblins not starting was actually my fault. I noticed that for some games you need to specify the paths once more. Like I said before, I put the thumb build on my R4, but I didn't remove the regular build and all of its config files were there.

I figured that the programs use same files so I'll just leave them. When I started each thumb build binary, it already had my games on the list, which means it read the from the already existing config files.

While Sam & Max worked fine fron the start, I had to specify the paths one more time for Goblins and other games even though when I went to the config screen it showed me a correct path already. After I did that, all Goblins games loaded. Simon 2 floppy version still refused to boot.

I'll take the second build for a spin and I'll let you know how things work now. Keep up the good work!

P.S. - You made a small mistake in the Build 2 link. You wrote .../nds/Thumb002/ while it should be .../NDS/Thumb002/ :] Looks like the url is case sensitive, because it gives me a 404 with the lowercase "nds".

Debugged and Fixed Link to Thumb Build 02!

robinwatts · Post by **robinwatts** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:51 am

Morden wrote: P.S. - You made a small mistake in the Build 2 link. You wrote .../nds/Thumb002/ while it should be .../NDS/Thumb002/ :]

Oops. Thanks. I've edited the original post and corrected it.

Robin

Luminious · Post by **Luminious** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:03 am

Robin,

can you direct me to the path in order to get the latest Kyra.dat needed to testing Legend of Kyrandia 1,2,3. I would greatly appreciate it.

- Lumi

md5 · Post by **md5** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:53 am

You can get kyra.dat for version 0.12.0 of ScummVM here:
https://scummvm.svn.sourceforge.net/svn ... a/kyra.dat

and for the latest SVN version here:
https://scummvm.svn.sourceforge.net/svn ... a/kyra.dat

gspawn · Post by **gspawn** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:29 am

Hi Robin,

I just download the latest version (thumb002) and tried running Monkey Island 1 with build A. The game loads fine and everything, but when I press start to bring up the menu, it crashes to the console and says:

"ERROR: Widget (ScummMain.Quit) has y + h > 200 (204)"

And it does this consistently every time I run the game. I haven't tried any of my other games yet, but I thought you'd want to know.

Also, I should mention I'm using a DSTT with v1.17 firmware on a NDSLite, with a 4gb MicroSDHC. I also have an ez 3-in-1 slot 2 card, if that makes any difference.

EDIT: Sam & Max also crashes when I push the start button, but it doesn't crash to the console. The bottom screen goes blank and the audio starts skipping. The top screen displays the text "Assertion failed: '##s##' at file C:/CVS/scummvm/trunk/backends/platform/ds/../../../common/rect.h line 175

Monkey Island 2 displays the same message as Sam & Max.

Maniac Mansion 1 displays the same console message as Monkey Island 1.

DOTT also displays this same message.

I also tested BASS with build B, but everything seems to work ok. the start button brings up the menu and everything. Hope this info is helpful.

Help needed testing new version of ScummVM for NDS

Help needed testing new version of ScummVM for NDS

Hey Robin

Secret of Monkey Island with Build A