Head over Heels from 2003 - Would it work on Retropie?

duglor

@Folly @Lolonois Does this mean it should be/could be/ will be/might be added to anyone who wants it, their pi? or should we/anyone wait for sound improvement or no it should not be used?

Folly

@duglor

Not to be rude or anything but all the information is in the posts ;-).

Summarised (using debian 11 (or 10)):

headoverheels doesn't work yet on the pi using allegro4 (starts in menu and can be controlled but has an issue not being able to control/play the game) (sound is ok)
headoverheels does work on the a normal x86_64 pc using allegro4 (sound is ok)
headoverheels does work on my virtual x86_64 machine using allegro4 (but has issue with sound that does have some hick-ups)
@Lolonois is busy trying to update the module-script and use allegro5 and test that (hopefully it will solve the problems and using it could make the game run faster)

Lolonois

@Folly Thanks for validating this. As I learned from your other post the audio issue happens on x64 with liballeg4 and not on arm/Raspberry Pi.

Folly

@Lolonois said in Head over Heels from 2003 - Would it work on Retropie?:

audio issue happens on x64 with liballeg4 and not on arm/Raspberry Pi

Right, in a vitual machine x64 only to be correct, a normal x64 pc has no sound issues.
Btw.
All above tests have been done with your old module-script using allegro4.

If you want I can try it on a mac M1 with VMware Debian 11 aarch64 too.
I just tested your new module-script using Allegro5 and removed the flags so I could install on aarch64, but it doesn't work and hangs with the patch.

I did not test your new module-script on other computer yet.

Lolonois

@duglor I would say it is usable and smoothly playable on a Raspberry Pi 4. But keep in mind that a) the scriptmodule is experimental (and the build on arm hardware) and b) the allegro 5 implementation started by Doug Mencken is not optimized.

@Folly thanks for your summary and testing the different setups.

FWIW: Optimizing for the Allegro 5 game engine is a major project as the framework concepts have been changed from polling based (allegro 4) to event based (allegro 5). Thus it implies a lot of not only rewriting but also redesign to make a good match to the allegro 5 approach.

As with any open source project I don't give any statement if/when I will optimize this, but the sources are there for anyone interested and whoever feels to join me (and maybe even has sound allegro5 knowledge) is more than welcome.

Folly

@Lolonois

Seems quite some work.
Btw.
Also tanks for all the work you already did.

If I could I would help you however, sadly, I do not have the required knowledge.

Lolonois

@Folly said in Head over Heels from 2003 - Would it work on Retropie?:

If I could I would help you however, sadly, I do not have the required knowledge.

Thanks, and no worries. At the moment I did not even consider starting that endeavour.

Lolonois

@Folly said in Head over Heels from 2003 - Would it work on Retropie?:

I just tested your new module-script using Allegro5 and removed the flags so I could install on aarch64, but it doesn't work and hangs with the patch.

Hmm. Hangs at the build or hangs on runtime? If it hangs at runtime: Does it also hang without applying the patch (the patch fixes only the flickering first screen when the game starts).

Folly

@Lolonois

I didn't describe it very well.
Will add a log when I can.