iOS issues with SQ4, Blade Runner, etc.

[TheQL]

Hi there!

I have built my own iOS release following these instructions mostly: https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?titl ... mVM/iPhone

I have changed the call to create the XCode project because I wanted MT32 support, that seemed to work fine:
../scummvm/devtools/create_project/xcode/build/Release/create_project ../scummvm --xcode --enable-fluidsynth --disable-bink --disable-nasm --disable-opengl --disable-theora --disable-taskbar --disable-libcurl --disable-sdlnet

All in all I was quite happy, playing Monkey Island, The Dig, Indiana Jones 4, Sam & Max, it just worked!

• Then I wanted to try Blade Runner (Windows/German). I know this is fairly new and not even fully tested for Win/Mac, but what the heck. Give it a go! It starts with an error, "Could not initialize color format." When you hit "OK" you get either really messy graphics or the screen stays black. I didn't think that much of it, as it's still in testing. But then problems just kept getting more and more.

• Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers (CD/DOS/German). Same error. Once you hit OK the intro looks ok, but the error appears which each scene change. So it's unplayable.

• Then I tried Simon the Sorcerer (CD/Windows/German). That seems to crash when digital audio is played. So directly in the intro when the table/candle reaches Simon, boom, dead.

• Ok, let's try SQ4 (CD/Windows/English), boy was I happy when it worked and I could finally play something again! The game is pretty annoying with all the dying possibilities, but that's Sierra, isn't it? Then I hit the roller skating scene where the time cops are chasing me. I got blasted each and every time, instantly. I googled a little and found out that there are several timing issues in the game caused by fast CPUs. Suggesting to tweak DOSBox settings or use Mo'Slo or whatever. But I was using ScummVM, where timing issues are supposed to be all fixed. But no chance! So I started wondering, maybe this is just iOS! I ported my savegame to my Mac and tried there. It was still annoying, but easy enough to manage! So, once again, issue with the iOS version.

Now I am curious, can anybody give me some advice? Should I open issues on GIT for each and every problem? Are there better build options or newer libraries, the supplied ones indicate iOS7 as target? I only built my own .ipa (archived project and extracted .ipa, didn't install directly on device) in the first place because the buildbot only produces 32-Bit binaries but we require 64-Bit for quite some time now. Any help will be greatly appreciated! And sorry for the long post, but I figured splitting this post up wouldn't help much either...

Thanks!

[criezy]

It is a known issue that some color formats are not supported on platforms for which we use OpenGL ES instead of OpenGl, which includes iOS. There is a pull request to add color conversion in software for 32 bits RGBA / ARGB colors. I have not tried it but it might solve the issue you are seeing with Blade Runner and Gabriel Knight.

The issue with Simon the Sorcerer sounds like it might be something completely different. It would be good if you can report this bug on https://bugs.scummvm.org/.

The SQ4 issue seems strange because as far as I know those timing issues should indeed be fixed in ScummVM (and you imply that they are when playing on macOS). You might want to check that you are using the latest code from github as many of the issues were fixed recently. And it would be good to report that issue as well.

[TheQL]

Thanks! I might try to merge the PR before building and see where that gets me.

I will double check for Simon and SQ4, but my code base was a fresh git clone, last commit being:

commit 488a93d10275fb3ea36c4a288f363eb92dd93cfa (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Lothar Serra Mari <serra@scummvm.org>
Date: Sun Jul 28 14:00:21 2019 +0200

SCI: Add detection entry for debug version of Codename: Iceman

This special debug build was salvaged by Clint Basinger ("LGR")
from an IBM PCjr that was previously owned by Ken Williams from
Sierra On-Line.

EDIT: One more thing, because the platform only supports OpenGL ES --disable-opengl isn't an option I should fiddle with, I suppose?

[TheQL]

Sadly no improvement on Blade Runner. I started fresh and did this (just to be sure I didn't mess up with git):

Code: Select all

# git clone https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm.git
# cd scummvm/
# git fetch origin pull/1766/head:glcolor
# git checkout glcolor

And from there went on with the usual process of setting up the xcode project. Build ran smoothly. I set the build target to iOS 12.2, for what reason ever. Worked with my previous builds. I also had to disable "Enable Bitcode".

Installed on device, started the game, same error.

EDIT: Ok, from a comment on github the iOS code seems to have its own path for OpenGL ES. Not quite sure how to proceed yet.

[TheQL]

In the end I have opened 3 tickets:

https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/11036
https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/11037
https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/11038

[criezy]

Thank you!

Unfortunately we do not have an active iOS maintainer, so it may take some times to get all of those fixed. But at least now we are less likely to forget about them. I will try to take a look at some of those myself this weekend. There are a few other things I would like to look at though (mostly getting the Cloud to work in the iOS version), and unfortunately I have not yet found a way to have more than 24 hours in a day. Anybody with some programming skills is of course welcome to take a look as well and open pull requests though, so maybe we will find some new contributors willing to work on the iOS port (:finger crossed:).

[TheQL]

Sadly I won't be of much help, my dev skills are pretty mediocre and more on the operations side... Thanks for looking into it anyway! Will attach the save later or tomorrow, need to get a hold of my iPad first. I hope I haven't overwritten the save, but can probably quickly get to that area again.