Dreamcast Game icons + Problems with Simon + graphic issues

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 10:37 am

Hi,
i am working on a new ScummVM CD for my dreamcast and i found out that if you have a game *.ico in the game folder it gets displayed at the game selection screen. But i only have one for Sam&Max , are there any more? can someone upload them?

I found another problem with the simon games, they work but the screen is only on the top half of the screen, stuffed together (btw i use VGA-Box)

The last issue i recognized is that if you have more games on your disc, so that the list on the game selection screen is full, all entries that dont fit on the page have graphic problems, text and icon arent displayed correctly.

DCDayDreamer · Post by **DCDayDreamer** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 5:13 pm

Sonic-NKT wrote:Hi,
i am working on a new ScummVM CD for my dreamcast and i found out that if you have a game *.ico in the game folder it gets displayed at the game selection screen. But i only have one for Sam&Max , are there any more? can someone upload them?

Icons are available for most games, some might not be compatible with the Dreamcast though (you'd have to check which dimensions worked), maybe a Dreamcast icon pack available to download would be a good idea.

Sonic-NKT wrote:I found another problem with the simon games, they work but the screen is only on the top half of the screen, stuffed together (btw i use VGA-Box)

Is it just the Simon games that are causing this?

Sonic-NKT wrote:The last issue i recognized is that if you have more games on your disc, so that the list on the game selection screen is full, all entries that dont fit on the page have graphic problems, text and icon arent displayed correctly.

The latest version of ScummVM (0.12.0) will only display 10 games correctly in the menu, the 10th will have slight graphic corruption on the lower part of the text, any more entries will show up with corruption. Don't forget the Dreamcast is an old system without internal/external storage, a CDR should be padded with a dummy file for better performance with games that use a lot of audio, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for game data. If you're putting a lot of smaller games and/or demos on one CDR, you'll need to work with the hardware/software limitations, submitting a bug report might highlight a bug in the menu system.

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:45 pm

Ah thanks for the Info, will create several CDs then..

about the Simon games, yes it only happens with those, tested several old lucasarts games, and FM-Towns versions and alle worked normal.

about the icon, here are the infos:
Dateiname SAMNMAX.ICO
Dokumentart Windows Symbol-Bild
Dateigröße 766 bytes
Farbmodell RGB
Farbtiefe 4
Alpha-Kanal 1
Indiziert 1
Pixel (Höhe) 32
Pixel (Breite) 32
seems, like it would be from a windows version of the game, would be really cool to have more of those

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:15 pm

no news on this?
btw, found another bug i think, tried some FM-Towns Games and those have no sound on the dreamcast version of ScummVM. Not implemented or is it a bug. I also have a special version of Indi4, with english speach but with german subtitles, this works fine on PC/MAC but not on the dreamcast version (no speach), the Monkey Island 1 Version with enhanced audio tracks also does not have any sound.

LordHoto · Post by **LordHoto** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:20 pm

Sonic-NKT wrote:btw, found another bug i think, tried some FM-Towns Games and those have no sound on the dreamcast version of ScummVM. Not implemented or is it a bug. I also have a special version of Indi4, with english speach but with german subtitles, this works fine on PC/MAC but not on the dreamcast version (no speach), the Monkey Island 1 Version with enhanced audio tracks also does not have any sound.

Maybe you compressed the tracks/speech with a codec not supported by the dreamcast version? Usually the "About" dialog in the launcher should show something like: "Vorbis FLAC MP3 ALSA zLib MPEG2" under "Features compiled in:". I'm not sure if the Dreamcast uses a customized launcher though, so you might want to check the README of the dreamcast port.
Anyway if you compressed your audio files with a format not listed there, it's the reason why you don't hear any sound. You should then just rip the audio tracks from the CDs again and compress them with a supported format.

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:58 pm

Ah Thanks, that helps alot... ok dreamcast version is only compiled with Mp3 and zlib support and allmost all my games are compressed with ogg

Sonic-NKT · Post by **Sonic-NKT** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:15 pm

Ok, but back to the simon problem...
i tried some older versions of ScummVM and it is the same problem, i also tried connecting the DC trough VGA/S-VHS/Video no changes. This only happens with the Simon games and maybe others which use the same engine but i only have those too.

the screen is stuffed to the upper half of the TV/Monitor Output, but the pointer and also the Points which you can interact with are still positioned all over the screen,as if the output was normal. Doesnt seem like a huge problem, anything else works fine. but this makes the games just unplayable. Hope you guys can fix this in a next version.

Stryfe · Post by **Stryfe** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 11:21 pm

Getting this error in DC emulators as well, I figure this will be carried through to an actual disc for the DC as well.

Has anyone figured anything else out about this? Or, is it possible that an older version might be usable with StS 1?

BTW - I'm using the DOS Cd version; I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

DCDayDreamer · Post by **DCDayDreamer** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 7:03 am

I'm not exactly sure about this problem, but Quzar (a Dreamcast old-timer and coder) posted this info about the Dreamcast signal output via a VGA box:

"one of the biggest issues with games in forced vga is them displaying on 1/4 of the screen. This happens because the resolution of display changes to 640x480 but all the data is designed for 320x240."

The 'Simon The Sorcerer' series of games do work via a Dreamcast SCART cable without any graphic issues so it looks like it's an incompatibility issue with ScummVM on the Dreamcast via VGA.

zino · Post by **zino** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 6:17 pm

If I remember correctly Marcus doesn't have Simon avilable for testing. So sending him a copy would probably be the most productive thing to do if you can't fix it yourself. Ebay seems to have quite a few of them at resonable prices.

Stryfe · Post by **Stryfe** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:23 pm

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy for under 50 dollars US on Ebay, and that's before shipping.

But if it helps any, Simon the Sorcerer 2 suffers from the same technical issues.

I don't have access to a SCART compatible monitor, so I guess I'll have to wait, or maybe I could try modding my XBOX or PS2.

chrisis · Post by **chrisis** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:45 pm

Simon 1 and 2 are available on GOG.com, each for $5.99. They come with ScummVM for PC, but the datafiles can easily be used with any ScummVM version you want to...

DCDayDreamer · Post by **DCDayDreamer** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:42 am

chrisis wrote:Simon 1 and 2 are available on GOG.com, each for $5.99.

That's a bargain, do you know which versions of the games are available?

chrisis · Post by **chrisis** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:11 am

DCDayDreamer wrote:That's a bargain, do you know which versions of the games are available?

I haven't bought them myself, because I already own them on CD, but I know that since they come with ScummVM, they are compatible. And all GOG games are DRM free. Also both are the talkie versions, judging by the filesizes, I would say, that the voices are compressed though.
Btw., the Feeble Files is available too, as is Broken Sword 2.
Also you can get Lure of the Temptress and BASS for free there too (although both were available for free before right here from ScummVM).

mc · Post by mc » Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:01 am

@DCDayDreamer:

Having game data designed for 320x240 isn't really the
problem here, because ScummVM is supposed to always scale
the screen up to 640x480, both with VGA and SCART output.
It sounds like a rather strange bug.

@zino:

I used to have a demo version, but I lost it in a disk
crash. If someone buys me the games on GOG, I promise
to fix any problems for the next release.