Integration with OpenEmu

The Pezman · Post by **The Pezman** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:36 am

Hey all. Long time fan, first time poster.

I'm a Mac user of two years now, and I've recently discovered (and started working on) the OpenEmu project (http://openemu.sourceforge.net/). OpenEmu provides a robust, standard graphics/sound/multimedia interface across all emulation cores, and perhaps most significantly, Quartz Composer plugins can be written in order to create cool effects (see http://vimeo.com/5250388 , http://vimeo.com/2843751 , http://vimeo.com/2843555).

I want to assist with development, and add support for more systems. I was talking with the developer of Boxer (http://boxer.washboardabs.net) to integrate his program with the system when I remembered ScummVM. Hopefully, integration would be relatively painless, and I'm prepared to perform and facilitate any work required. But I think this would be beneficial for everyone involved, and open up new ways to enjoy these classic games.

MeddlingMonk · Post by **MeddlingMonk** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:54 am

ScummVM isn't an emulator. It's an interpreter.

BJ_Wanlund · Post by **BJ_Wanlund** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:55 am

Still, MeddlingMonk, I think the word "interpreter" is only used to skirt the whole "emulator" stigma, and could very easily be integrated within OpenEmu. I like this strictly for the potential it offers to many of us Mac users who for too long have had emulators that either didn't work or didn't work as flawlessly as we would have liked. I may have to check this one out, because it seems like the perfect sort of thing for those of us on Mac systems, especially given the previous situation for emulation for Mac.

BJ

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:07 am

MeddlingMonk wrote:ScummVM isn't an emulator. It's an interpreter.

Does that make a difference, from OpenEmu's point of view? I can't figure out from those web pages what it does with / needs from the various plugins.

peres · Post by **peres** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:52 am

ScummVM already runs on MacOS, so it is certainly feasible. You could write a new backend for ScummVM using the services provided by OpenEmu, then use it to run ScummVM from your frontend (look at the backends/platform/ subdirectory in the trunk). Of course, you would have to chase our upstream development, but you wouldn't need any permission to do that.

I suppose this is what you meant by "integration". If not, please explain what you have in mind.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:52 am

As peres says; in addition of course you would have to comply to our license, the GPL.

BTW, you may want to give a link to your project, too (I am surprised that you link to lots of videos, but not to your project's homepage, which would seem more important

.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 7:04 am

OK, some searching lead me to http://openemu.sourceforge.net/

OpenEmu seems to be BSD licensed, so you'd have to be careful to avoid license clashes; depending on how your "plugins" work, it might be doable, though.

BTW, to avoid bad blood with the authors of the "cores" you are using, I would recommend mentioning on your "Authors" web page that those are "just" the authors of the GUI; and that many other people were involved in writing those cores. Likewise, in your app, you should definitely make sure to offer an about dialog for each plugin. Not just out of fairness towards their authors, but also because you need to be able to display the license text somewhere.

@BJ_Wanlund: Funny, I never knew that there was an "emulator" stigma. I used many good emulators on MacOS 8&9 and later Mac OS X

. But ScummVM still is not an emulator -- although that doesn't mean it couldn't be fitted into OpenEmu. While I think that the name "OpenEmu" is a bit limiting, I am not going to complain, given that I work on a project called "ScummVM" in which "SCUMM" related code only makes up a fraction of the actual codebase these days

.

As to whether OpenEmu will improve the "situation" for emulation on the Mac, I have no idea about that. I never knew there were issues with it in the first place

.

daemoncollector · Post by **daemoncollector** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:54 pm

Hey guys, I'm the lead dev on OpenEmu. I'm unsure of how well ScummVM could fit into OpenEmu, but I don't see why it would be out of the question to add.

Also, as far as "bad blood" with the developers of the cores, we do let every one know what we're doing. Good point about making it a little clearer on the website, will be taking care of it soon.

- Josh

Qbix · Post by **Qbix** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 6:19 am

daemoncollector wrote:
Also, as far as "bad blood" with the developers of the cores, we do let every one know what we're doing. Good point about making it a little clearer on the website, will be taking care of it soon.

I hope you mean with everybody, the users of the project. They should understand that you 'merely' make a GUI and not the emulation itself.