Some AGS issues

[tomexplodes]

Been playing through Yahtzee's various AGS games and I've noticed a couple odd things. In 5 Days a Stranger, I was able to complete the game basically perfectly, no issues, but at the credits, the music hung on one note for a long time. Otherwise no problem. Oh I should specify, special edition, commentary turned on. Same thing with 7 Days. Occasionally characters weren't facing the right way in dialogue or cutscenes, and there was one instance where the welder was coming out of a door as I tried to go in and the game just locked up. I'm up to Trilby's Notes and so far no issues.

I did boot up Trilby: Art of Theft, though. The Z key on the keyboard is supposed to use the taser umbrella, the X key is supposed to hug the wall. Neither button does anything. Spacebar works, the arrow keys work, but that's it.

That's all I've got.

EDIT: Latest daily build for Windows 10 64bit available at this very moment is the one I'm using.

[dreammaster]

I'm currently in the final stages of porting the updated version of AGS to ScummVM.. it should be merged within the next week or so. Amongst the many bugfixes it has, I know it at least fixes the keys in Art of Theft, which was broken in the version of AGS I first ported at the end of last year. If we're lucky, it will also fix the other problems you noticed as well

[tomexplodes]

Fantastic! Loving the support for this, especially for older games with poor scaling and some of which are even difficult to get running on a modern OS. Keep up the good work!

[daniele82]

I'm currently in the final stages of porting the updated version of AGS to ScummVM.. it should be merged within the next week or so. Amongst the many bugfixes it has, I know it at least fixes the keys in Art of Theft, which was broken in the version of AGS I first ported at the end of last year. If we're lucky, it will also fix the other problems you noticed as well

COOL !!
I hope the slowdown problems of some games have been fixed!

[criezy]

It might be a bit better, but the overall issue remains. Note that the issue is only in non-optimised builds, so release builds should work well on most devices. Even the more demanding games work well on my 10 year old iPad when I build ScummVM with optimizations, but some of those games look like slideshows with debug builds.

The main performance bottleneck is with the pixel blending functions. There is some room to improve those even in debug builds, and this had been on my plans for some time. Sadly I am a bit starved of free time lately so I had to put that on hold.

[daniele82]

It might be a bit better, but the overall issue remains. Note that the issue is only in non-optimised builds, so release builds should work well on most devices. Even the more demanding games work well on my 10 year old iPad when I build ScummVM with optimizations, but some of those games look like slideshows with debug builds.

The main performance bottleneck is with the pixel blending functions. There is some room to improve those even in debug builds, and this had been on my plans for some time. Sadly I am a bit starved of free time lately so I had to put that on hold.

We hope to have some great news in the future!
Thanks for the reply.

[daniele82]

I tested the latest version on my game..seems the slowness is gone. there is only a slight slowdown on the walking character but at least now you can play.

[daniele82]

I correct myself the character goes slow only if I use big sprites as for example in the ZAK2 game.

[daniele82]

I correct myself it is not the sprites but the resolution. 900x600 game resolution slows down the game.

[criezy]

As indicated before, we already identified the pixel blending as one of the main bottleneck. And the more pixels needs to be blended, the slower it is. So it makes sense that bigger sprites or bigger game resolution would result in games being slower since they would have more pixels to blend. Having more sprites on screen would also have that effect.

[daniele82]

As indicated before, we already identified the pixel blending as one of the main bottleneck. And the more pixels needs to be blended, the slower it is. So it makes sense that bigger sprites or bigger game resolution would result in games being slower since they would have more pixels to blend. Having more sprites on screen would also have that effect.

Unfortunately I can't lower the resolution on my next game. can't it be solved?

[dreammaster]

Unfortunately I can't lower the resolution on my next game. can't it be solved?

As has been mentioned previously the rendering bottleneck is only particularly egregious for nightly debug builds, not for Release builds (which will include the next official release). Though any performance improvements will still likely have some small benefit for the release builds as well.

If you're concerned, I'd suggest taking the time to follow the instructions here to setup and compile your own release build of ScummVM to measure the performance.

[daniele82]

Unfortunately I can't lower the resolution on my next game. can't it be solved?

As has been mentioned previously the rendering bottleneck is only particularly egregious for nightly debug builds, not for Release builds (which will include the next official release). Though any performance improvements will still likely have some small benefit for the release builds as well.

If you're concerned, I'd suggest taking the time to follow the instructions here to setup and compile your own release build of ScummVM to measure the performance.

I am pleased to read this answer. Thank you.