No more official releases for Wii port?

Axel · Post by **Axel** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:17 pm

It is sad for me to see that the Wii port is unofficially dead. I think it is a shame since the Wii console feels like home for ScummVM. The ability to use the Wiimote from your coach to point and click on your TV is unmatched by any other console so far.

There are of course the nightly builds available compiled automatically by the build bot, however, it is not the same as having the latest official build knowing exactly which games it supports and what new features were introduced in that version.

I know by first hand that Wii Scene is almost dead already; there has not been new application releases for months and it already started to slow down since a couple years ago. Nevertheless, there are older consoles and platforms that still receive continuous support for their ScummVM ports.

I really hope Dhewg could delegate the building of official releases for Wii to someone else if he is not able anymore to maintain this port due to his current time constraints because the Wii is now one of my platforms of choice for playing ScummVM.

Thank you!

woodoste · Post by **woodoste** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 8:47 am

I agree with you.
I'm using nightly builds to get last updated version so I hope I don't miss anything.

ScummVM games run smmotly on Wii and Wiimote controls are perfect.

47iscool · Post by **47iscool** » Tue May 13, 2014 5:07 pm

woodoste wrote:I agree with you.
I'm using nightly builds to get last updated version so I hope I don't miss anything.

ScummVM games run smmotly on Wii and Wiimote controls are perfect.

Speaking of smooth, the video rendering/scrolling on the Dreamcast port is smoother than the Wii for some reason.

What I mean is, when the character is moving or the cursor is moving it slightly skips a frame or two on the Wii.

Post by **digitall** » Tue May 13, 2014 5:27 pm

The Wii port is not dead... The buildbot toolchain has been updated and the builds produced work fine.

However, you are correct that we have not had a release build for v1.6.0 from the porter.

The exact platforms which are released do vary for ScummVM from release to release, as was indicated in this article:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/01/m ... g-alive/2/

"The list of supported platforms changes from one release to the next, since many ports are maintained by just one or two people, and they may be busy with other (non-ScummVM) priorities, or they may struggle with platform-specific issues. The PalmOS port, which is no longer maintained, was long a headache for the engine developers as well for as the porters. Among several issues, PalmOS has a limit of 64KB for code segments, which means that some code files have to be split."

I have mooted the idea of Porter teams on the scummvm-devel mailing list, but we find it hard enough to find even one motivated and capable developer per port... especially with the more obscure platforms, which also by their non-standard and/or constrained hardware cause more problems... and thus releases are sometimes omitted for technical reasons.

I think this was the case for Wii for some time as the toolchain had a number of issues. I have been working through trying to correct these.

Post by **digitall** » Tue May 13, 2014 5:29 pm

Oh and the same goes for the Dreamcast... which I have also been working on recovering and updating. It is a very constrained hardware platform though and the toolchain is tricky to get setup.

We have recently closed a number of outstanding issues though, and it has shown up some useful non-portable code which we have corrected.

47iscool · Post by **47iscool** » Tue May 13, 2014 9:34 pm

I'm not complaining or anything, just saying it feels smoother on the DC. I thank everyone for all of the hard work they put in developing and porting ScummVM to other platforms as it's one of my favorite programs. I use it on my DS Lite more than any other homebrew program on the system.