The Leylines Beta Version
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| Author | Topic: The Leylines Beta Version |
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Babelicious
Member # 3149
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written Thursday, July 3 2003 17:15
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Problems with the Linux version that I noticed within a minute: 1. It forces fullscreen and doesn't let you switch virtual terminals. Bad. 2. The redraw is horribly slow and leaves mouse trails on the title screen. 3. On the options screen, the mouse is nearly unusably slow. It literally takes ten seconds to cross the screen. 4. Hitting "webpage" crashes it. More to come later. By the way, my machine is an Athlon 2000+ MP with 512MB PC2100 RAM and a GeForce 2 GTS, so I doubt insufficient hardware is an issue. Edit: 5. Leylinux requires the SDL_mixer library in addition to libSDL. 6. The version of libSDL required is 1.2; you might want to mention that. Some people still have 1.0, and I don't believe the two are API-compatible. 7. It's good etiquette to mention that your Linux release is for i386. Linux is available for many platforms. Edit 2: 8. More information on the mouse pointers: The cross pointer (title screen, game itself) is slow, in a "perfectly usable but trifling annoying" manner. About a third as fast as my pointer in regular X. The circle pointer (credits, options) is obscenely, unusably slow; it's barely a third of the cross pointer's speed. Some thoughts: I think perhaps your rendering needs a bit of tightening. I assume you're using double buffering, but are you trying to use hardware surfaces where available? I notice you've compiled for i386, but do you really expect anyone with a 386-class processor to play Leylines? Definitely go for -mcpu=pentium -march=pentium -O2 as arguments to gcc. SDL is nice, but it needs a lot of coaxing to produce adequate speed on many platforms. I've worked with the beast more often than I care to count; if you want, I can give you some pointers. You can contact me as MBoehX on AIM, crypto (at) desperance (dot) net on MSN, or by email at varelse (at) desperance (dot) net. Once the performance issues are ironed out, I can test for play issues, although I imagine that they're the same for Linux as for Windows. Thanks for being one of the few indy game developers to support my preferred platform! - Matt [ Thursday, July 03, 2003 18:03: Message edited by: Varelse ] Posts: 999 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Friday, July 4 2003 02:58
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Ydna -> 1. noted (and fixed) 2. oops?!?! I'll check this asap! 3. true 4. Not really, not even with a ballista. Plan ahead! 5. Hm... if it is the same name, then it should save directly. If not, it should prompt. 6. Noted 7. I'll check that. 8. Wizards can actually hit the ships with their lightning bolts. I do believe galleons are too strong, but there will be other ships. Omlette -> Yes, please send me the save. I'm assuming you have Queues enabled? Turning them off will evade this bug for now. 2. Also weird, do you have a save? Objection: There are two ranks, front and back. Clickin on a unit will change it from front rank to back, or back to front. Easy, no? Score: I think it is, yes! Varelse -> Noted. I'll discuss it with the linux porting dude. Thanks for the suggestions, I have little experience optimizing for linux myself! -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 517
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written Friday, July 4 2003 05:04
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I don't have a save from the end of the game, and I'm sending you the other one now. About the combat, does the vertical position of units make any difference to what happens? -E- -------------------- Let them eat cake! Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially. Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Monday, July 7 2003 04:32
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1. Thanks 2. No -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 16
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written Tuesday, July 8 2003 17:14
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Small/Harmless bug concerning fortresses: 1.It seems you can build up to four fortresses in a single city if your producing an engineer each turn and they in turn make a fortress as soon as they can. Its nearly impossible to tell if you have a fortress in a city, only a slight change in graphics and not being able to build one at that city are the only clues. I dont think engineers should even be allowed to build fortresses at cities anyway. Also it would help if you put something mentioning the extra defense point attained from a fortress when you highlight the square. -------------------- You know, Scorp, there's a good reason you're not a moderator any more. Posts: 441 | Registered: Thursday, September 27 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 517
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written Wednesday, July 9 2003 08:47
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About the scripter: AoE2 is Age of Empires 2. The AoE scripter works by you defining a set of ifs, of preset types (if unit x gets to space y, if unit x dies, if player x has y units of resource z, etc). These are then named. The player can also define thens, (remove unit x, give player x y units of resource z, order unit x to go to place y, etc.) These are then linked together in blocks, so that 3 ifs cause 4 thens to happen. I've got to go, I'll explain the RM2K system later. -E- EDIT: I'm back. RM2K is actually quite similar, except it's structured like proper script, and actually much harder to use. What it essentially does is writes C-style script for you (or maybe it's more basic-style. Djur?) You can click on various buttons for the different commands, then select parameters and it inputs the actual code for you. RM2K is freeware, and you could download it and have a look here. -E- [ Wednesday, July 09, 2003 12:22: Message edited by: Omlette ] -------------------- Let them eat cake! Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially. Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Thursday, July 10 2003 02:38
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Varelse -> About your Linux suggestions... a window mode option would be easy to add. We're surprised that console switching doesn't work on your machine as it works fine around here. Maybe that would also be fixed by using a windowed mode. 5-7: we'll mention that, thanks. 8. The problem with hardware surfaces (afaik) is that using them requires root access. Which not everybody has. But we could probably add an option for that, too. And yes, it is double-buffered. Turtlewhipper -> Building fortresses in a city will not be possible in future versions. And you can't build multiples, but I guess you could waste engineers' time by having them build simultaneously (I'll see if i can remove that, too). Omlette -> I couldn't download RMK2, all their liniks are down. Anyway I'll see what I can do to simplify things, also I believe that giving a bunch of sample scripts would probably help _files/smile.gif) -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 3121
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written Thursday, July 10 2003 10:52
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Will the isometric guys have to have walking animations? -------------------- - WITH LOVE, THE OL' RELIABLE BOYLOVE, TO BE EXACT Posts: 761 | Registered: Thursday, June 19 2003 07:00 |
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Babelicious
Member # 3149
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written Thursday, July 10 2003 16:20
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Radiant: Hardware surfaces do not require root access with X Window 11R6 with the DGA extension. The most common Linux X server, XFree86, supports DGA. Posts: 999 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Thursday, July 10 2003 23:30
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Shangri-La -> First, what isometric guys? Second, no - unless you can find me some useful images. (and by some I mean fifty different images times six directions times at least four and probably eight frames; if you do the math you'll see it's not really feasible) I am considering unit voices, though (a la Warcraft) Varelse -> I was under the impression that DGA required root. Apparently I was wrong there. The next version will support that. (edit:) My Linux programmer assures me that DGA does require root access. Or is this system-dependent? Please explain. [ Thursday, July 10, 2003 23:34: Message edited by: Radiant ] -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 3121
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written Monday, July 14 2003 11:03
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quote:THESE isometric guys. I'd post a pic if I could find a free program for converting images.. Google is evil. [ Monday, July 14, 2003 11:06: Message edited by: The Happy People of Shangri-La ] -------------------- - WITH LOVE, THE OL' RELIABLE BOYLOVE, TO BE EXACT Posts: 761 | Registered: Thursday, June 19 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 517
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written Monday, July 14 2003 11:23
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Try MSPaint... -E- -------------------- Let them eat cake! Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially. Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Tuesday, July 15 2003 01:21
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I suppose I could raid the BoA graphics database and ask people if I can use those graphics. Point is I need over sixty different ones, and the BoE graphics database is a lot larger. But suggestions are welcome, I was unaware that a simple method existed of converting 2d graphics to isometrics. I still won't add animation because of time/space constraints though. (and I'm a lousy paint artist myself anyway) -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Tuesday, July 15 2003 04:13
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Varelse -> We just spent some time working on the Linux port. Probably most of your problems should be fixed by now. However, 1.We can switch virtual terminals here with no problems; probalby the problem is in your system setup. By the way you could run Xwindows twice and run Leylines in one and your other programs in another. 9.We now optimize for pentium-pro but that doesn't make a noticeable difference in speed. -O3 does, a bit. If you have other performance ideas please tell us. I could mail you the makefile if that helps. We've decided that HW surfaces probably aren't worth it. They don't seem to increase speed much; however we tested it on a computer where HW doesn't support transparency, and that causes horrible drops _files/frown.gif) -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 3121
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written Tuesday, July 15 2003 11:36
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quote:Either it's my MS Paint or just me, but it can't export to any other format than BMP.. -------------------- - WITH LOVE, THE OL' RELIABLE BOYLOVE, TO BE EXACT Posts: 761 | Registered: Thursday, June 19 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 517
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written Wednesday, July 16 2003 01:24
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Click file, save as, and then just type in a .gif or .jpg filename and it'll convert it. -E- -------------------- Let them eat cake! Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially. Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Wednesday, July 16 2003 01:59
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Actually older (i.e. most) versions of MS paint will only work with .BMP files; I believe the chance was introduced in win xp somewhere. But that's beside the point as BMP files are precisely what I need for the leylines graphics. Because GIF lacks color depth and JPEG is not lossless. -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 3121
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written Wednesday, July 16 2003 04:24
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You could use PNG for Leylines, Radiant. Oh, and a bug, I just (2 minutes ago) noticed. Sorry if it's said before, but in the senario editor, I started building a map (tiny, your damn registration thingy won. _files/tongue.gif) ), the terrain worked out well, but as I clicked on the cities-button, the game crashed. Reason, unknown. The options are correct, and even my KOMPUTAR is fully capable of running Leylines, so..-------------------- - WITH LOVE, THE OL' RELIABLE BOYLOVE, TO BE EXACT Posts: 761 | Registered: Thursday, June 19 2003 07:00 |
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Babelicious
Member # 3149
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written Wednesday, July 16 2003 11:53
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Still crashing on hitting "webpage," still unusably slow, still intercepts Ctrl+Alt+Fx as well as Super_L+x. I don't notice any difference in this build, I'm afraid. Running it on :1 doesn't help. (I have a second X server running for lower-res fullscreen games like Starcraft). I have a feeling that -march=pentium-pro -O3 is going to be the most speed you're going to be able to squeeze out of GCC. I don't think the Makefile would be of any help. All I can suggest is running gprof on a debug build. See where the bottleneck is. I don't believe it's on my end, because I'm developing a higher-resolution 24-bit game using SDL written in Python that's getting 60fps. Posts: 999 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Thursday, July 17 2003 02:24
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Shangri-La -> I believe you originally complained that you couldn't do anything else than BMP, then I told you that BMP was in fact all right. Anyway BMP works fine so I have no real reasons to switch to anything else at the moment. Varelse -> oops. I didn't put a new build on line yet. I'll do that soon, I promise. I'm not usre what a super-l-x is, but I assume you mean window switching? I think in Linux the game is best run on 800x600 mode (i.e. turn hi-res off). We'll give gprof a try though, and thanks for the suggestions. -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 3121
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written Thursday, July 17 2003 02:50
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I only said so because PNG kicks GIF and JPG in the ass. BMP's, fine, it just takes damn much space, compared to others.. And any fix to that problem I mentioned? I'd WUW to get making maps for you again.. -------------------- - WITH LOVE, THE OL' RELIABLE BOYLOVE, TO BE EXACT Posts: 761 | Registered: Thursday, June 19 2003 07:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Tuesday, July 22 2003 03:29
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Varelse -> We've found out the main reason for slowdown under Linux. Leylines runs in 16-bit mode. Most people run X in 24-bit mode. There you go. So a temporary workaround for you would be to reboot X in 16-bit; we're making a 24-bit version of Leylines for in the future. Shangri-La: Yes; I'll put it online some time this week. The funny thing about PNG is that it's basically the same as GIF (i.e. linear bitmap with Huffman-type compression) only it supports more than 256 colors and has no legal trouble. BMP is actually exactly the same but without the Huffman (and RLE doesn't count). -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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Babelicious
Member # 3149
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written Tuesday, July 22 2003 16:29
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No dice. I've already tried running it in a second 16-bit X server. Posts: 999 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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Master Jeweller
Member # 409
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written Wednesday, July 23 2003 03:09
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Darn. Hm. Any other suggestions? -------------------- Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. Pieter Simoons aka Radiant Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00 |
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