Suggestions for ports #2

sleve_mcdichael

Oh. It's 500 MB large. This might take a little while... :)

sleve_mcdichael

@sleve_mcdichael said in Suggestions for ports #2:

function _update_hook_supertuxkart() {
    # to show as installed in retropie-setup 4.x
    hasPackage supertuxkart && mkdir -p "$md_inst"
}

This doesn't appear to be necessary, I commented it out before installing and it still shows as "installed," with the $md_inst dir and retropie.pkg created inside of it.

sleve_mcdichael

SuperTuxKart, the module worked fine, even if the game itself was a bit dodgy on my hardware. First, it gives me a warning about "OpenGL version appears to be too old (requires 3.1 or better)", but it runs anyway. Full gamepad support out the box. Track Oliver's Math Class ran at a smooth 45-60 fps for the entire race (staying near the high end most of the time) on the default "level 3" graphic settings.

But it went downhill from there. Framerate got pretty bad on Cocoa Temple, range 11-27 fps. Turning video settings to "custom" and disabling literally everything (well, the one thing that was still left from the minimal "level 1" settings) improved that slightly, but still pretty bad (12-35). Most of the race is spent in the lower-mid range of those spreads.

It spiked my temperature pretty quickly too, not enough to throttle it but it got within about 6C, even higher than N64 does, and I only played it for a few minutes.

Looks like it could be a great game if the system can handle it, but it might still be a bit too meaty for RPi4.

These next are not likely performance-related:

Sometimes when I finish (well, fail) a race in "story" mode, it will kick me back to the Race Settings screen and then I'll be back in "single-player."

One time I paused it and walked away for a few minutes & when I came back the gamepad wouldn't respond, only the keyboard.

sleve_mcdichael

I ended up removing it. The 600-some-odd MB of supertuxkart-data et al did not go with it.

Investigating, it seems autoremove is only invoked in the getDepends function* in helpers.sh, and not in aptRemove.

I see it's also used in a couple other places in scriptmodules/supplementary so I would imagine it's okay but I would still ask, @mitu, is this "safe" to put in a "regular" scriptmodule, and the right way to do this?

function remove_supertuxkart() {
    aptRemove supertuxkart
    apt-get autoremove -y
}

*(and even then, I guess only if you invoke it with ./retropie_packages.sh {package} depends remove because xorg and it's depends were not removed, either. But at least they're not 600MB.)

Drdave79

@ExarKunIv Anyone else install Shadow Warrior and the keyboard doesn't respond? All of my other games under ports work fine. But SW either freezes or has no controllability. It actually works ok under DOS GAMES though. I just have a problem with the scroll lock. So I'd rather have it working under ports.

Thank you.

ecto

@Drdave79 Make sure, that you don't enable fullscreen mode. For some reason this happens because the game looses focus. It should work in windowed mode.
You probably have to either delete (careful: make a backup) sw.cfg(or whatever it's called) or edit it's content to enable windowed mode. I don't remember where it's stored, though. Sorry.

ExarKunIv

@Drdave79 @ecto is correct on that, but i will go back and take a better look.

Drdave79

@ecto Deleting the .cfg file didn't do anything. These are the only options for screen mode in the .cfg file

;ScreenMode
; - Chained - 0
; - Vesa 2.0 - 1
; - Screen Buffered - 2
; - Tseng optimized - 3
; - Paradise optimized - 4
; - S3 optimized - 5
; - RedBlue Stereo - 7
; - Crystal Eyes - 6
;
;ScreenWidth passed to engine
;
;ScreenHeight passed to engine
;
;
ScreenMode = 1
ScreenWidth = 640
ScreenHeight = 480

Drdave79

@ExarKunIv I tried a different copy of the game and got the following error on launch:

There was a problem initializing the Build engine: Failed to load PALETTE.DAT!

The other version loads at least, but frozen on game menu.

sleve_mcdichael

Looking at Shadow Warrior. It's Doom/Duke Nukem with ninjas? Yes, please!

Is it normal to have no background music if I don't have the hq ogg music files? I get sound FX but no bgm. I've tried withtimidity as in the install script, with libfluidsynth-dev as in the repo's instructions, with both, and with neither.

Music works fine if the ogg tracks exist in the roms/ports/shadowwarrior dir in zero-padded 2-digit lowercase format e.g. track02.ogg-track14.ogg (you have to rename the capitalized Track##.ogg files if you got them from the GOG version.)

Expansion packs may be enabled, as described here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/20369/jsfw-source-port-for-shadow-warrior-now-available

Using the GOG "Classic Complete" version as a reference:

Make an account on gog.com, "buy" Shadow Warrior Classic Complete (it's free), download the offline backup version to your PC. The .exe is a self-extracting archive. Run it and extract to the location of your choice (click on "options" to change the install location.)

For Wanton Destruction: copy the file WT.GRP from the install folder to your Shadow Warrior data dir on your Pi (roms/ports/shadowwarrior). Launch the expansion with "$md_inst/sw -gWT.GRP" (no space after -g) and select episode "Code of Honor (registered version)" in the in-game menu.

For Twin Dragon: in the install folder, in the dragon subfolder, zip up all *.MAP *.VOC *.ART and *.ANM files into a dragon.zip. If you just copy the whole folder onto your Pi, you can do it there with the 7z command:

cd /{install dir}/dragon
7z a dragon.zip *.MAP *.VOC *.ART *.ANM

Then, move the dragon.zip file into your data dir, launch with "$md_inst/sw -gdragon.zip" and select the registered-version episode.

@Drdave79 said in Suggestions for ports #2:

There was a problem initializing the Build engine: Failed to load PALETTE.DAT!

I got the same error when loading the "Special Edition" CD-ROM files (from...sources.) Fortunately, the "Classic Complete" edition is free on GOG and that version's files seem to work (but see above, no music until I add the hq ogg tracks -- I wonder if this is specific to this version since it is distributed with the HQ tracks already? I haven't tried any other sources, yet. There's another CD-ROM in "that place" that I can try, but I won't have a lot of time for tinkering for the next week or so.)

@ExarKunIv I have some questions about the install script and make params if you can answer them, or can refer me to someone who can. I see it is a recent addition to the RP-Extra repo, did you write this script or import it from somewhere else?

Is timidity necessary? It is not mentioned in the build instructions on the repo. libfluidsynth-dev, however, is (though optional). Is this a substitution, or...? I'm not getting any MIDI background music with either, or both, but the ogg tracks work fine (see above -- may be related to the specific version I'm using but likely won't be able to test this anytime soon.)

(freepats isn't mentioned upstream either, but I already had that one installed from other ports, and I didn't mess around trying it without.)

What is OPTOPT="-march=armv8-a+crc -mtune=cortex-a53"? I didn't understand this part so I tried compiling without it, and it still works (I think so, anyway, but I've only played the first levels for a few minutes.) What was its purpose?

(After more searching, it looks like these are setting it to build for a specific target architecture. Is this right? Won't it break if they are using it on another platform?)

Drdave79

@sleve_mcdichael That's the version I'm trying. The one from GOG. Freezes every time I launch it from ports. I copied the entire folder too.

Secondly, I copied the 13 track files to the shadowwarrior folder and renamed them with a lowercase t. Still no music. In fact, music is grayed out in the shadowwarrior menu.

sleve_mcdichael

@Drdave79 in my testing so far, I've actually built it straight from the repo without using the scriptmodule, yet. I see it is using XINIT: yet it doesn't install X (xorg). Does this even do anything, then? I've just been launching it with ./sw. Try removing XINIT: from your emulator command in emulators.cfg?

Drdave79

@sleve_mcdichael Did a search in the emulators.cfg file. No XINIT found. I did the initial engine install from retropie extra ports.

I'd be fine playing it under the MS-DOS section, but scroll lock keeps turning on messing up the controls and my compact keyboard doesn't have a scroll lock key.

sleve_mcdichael

@Drdave79 what is your /opt/retropie/configs/ports/sw/emulators.cfg? Is it not:

sw = "XINIT: /opt/retropie/ports/shadowwarrior/sw"
default = "sw"

? I just mean remove the XINIT:{space} from the first line so it reads:

sw = "/opt/retropie/ports/shadowwarrior/sw"

Drdave79

@sleve_mcdichael said in Suggestions for ports #2:

sw = "/opt/retropie/ports/shadowwarrior/sw"

THAT DID IT! I was looking at the wrong file. Both game and music are working now under ports. Thank you SO much @sleve_mcdichael !!

ExarKunIv

@sleve_mcdichael i made that one, but that was like the first one i ever made back like 1 year or more ago. it all came from a post here someone had about SW, and the compile part came from some where that is outdated most likely.

All my scripts are made just for the Pi3 or Pi4 only, as i don't have anything else to test them on, let alone time to mess with anything else.

i had a Pi3 when i started writing the scripts then i got a Pi4 half way through them all.
since the old ones still worked i just let them alone.

cleaning the ones i made are part of my TODO list as i know there are depends missing like XORG from SW and others have things they dont need

sleve_mcdichael

@ExarKunIv does it need xorg for something? I had it running without, though I didn't play for more than a couple minutes so there's a good chance I might have missed something.

quicksilver

@sleve_mcdichael the two reasons I can think of that you would want to run a game using xorg on a pi 4 running retropie are if the game doesn't scale to the full screen properly without it (some sdl1 programs have this issue with the pi 4) or the program only supports full desktop OpenGL. Looking at the shadow warrior GitHub it looks like it supports OpenGL ES and sdl2 so I wouldn't think XINIT should be needed.

ExarKunIv

@quicksilver @sleve_mcdichael
Yes it supports both. I believe the settings I have for it to conplile is for opengl.

Or that a what the person that posted those commands said it would do.

I would have to look for the old post and see if I did add those commands or not in my script.

But even if I have them in there. Does not mean that it is doing it or not.

I think I have the same thing with my blood port. I have it set for one but it can be used with or without xinit.

sleve_mcdichael

@ExarKunIv said in Suggestions for ports #2:

but it can be used with or without xinit.

If it works fine without, then we should do without, yeah? Why install/use an additional software that isn't necessary? If it doesn't serve an identifiable purpose, I say cut it.