Release Heart of The Alien Redux


jedi23

Very Active Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2020
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This game uses SDL1.2 which means that the game doesn't run easily in fullscreen mode on a Pyra.
There is a possibilty to get a fullscreen mode nontheless by using sdl12-compat but there are sound issues when using the sdl12-compat libraries.

So the game runs in windowed mode with system SDL1.2 libraries, but I also added the possibility to run fullscreen mode with locally added sdl12-compat files for testing purposes.
In the Terminal, run
Bash:
 $ alien.sh -f
for fullscreen mode.

 
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There is a possibilty to get a fullscreen mode nontheless by using sdl12-compat but there are sound issues when using the sdl12-compat libraries.
Are you using gl4es along with sdl12-compat? because sdl12compat makes use of hardware acceleration and without gl4es to get 3D acceleration working you may have speed issues...

For example my Opentyrian launch script calls gl4es right before the executable:

Code:
binpath=/mnt/dbp/union/OpenTyrian_C4ALL/
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/mnt/dbp/union/OpenTyrian_C4ALL/sdl12comp/ gl4es $binpath/ot

That said I've seen some certain conditions with the pairing of GL4ES and sdl12-compat that causing segfaults. Would love to pick @ptitSeb brain sometime on it, but usually my time is limited.
 
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Yes, it's paired with GL4ES as well. Is this really due to GL4ES? Maybe a future release of sdl12-compat can solve this...
However, GL4ES alone still has it's limits and I would like to see updates as well. Some games just don't work with it. IIRC, some complex shaders are not supported yet...
 
Yes, it's paired with GL4ES as well. Is this really due to GL4ES? Maybe a future release of sdl12-compat can solve this...
Well I was thinking if you were not using GL4ES then maybe you were getting some audio shuddering if it was using software rendering.

Maybe a future release of sdl12-compat can solve this...
Well the good thing is once we move to bookworm, sdl12-compat is a deb package that can be installed and updated and we don't have to compile and bundle like we do now.
 
Sound issues when using the sdl12-compat might be caused by a bug I just fixed (in this commit). I also switched from SDL1 to SDL2 in the default branch. Version using SDL1 is available in sdl1 branch.
I tested your SDL2 version, but in fullscreen mode stays the game resolution very small and the rest of the screen is filled black.
In your updated SLD1 do the sound effects now work correctly, but it still occurs in fullscreen mode that the music in the opening sequence starts later. If this only affects the opening scene, it's bearable!
 
Good point, but on bullseye we have SDL2 v2.0.14 and the issue is still the same...
 
probably because of this: #if !SDL_VERSION_ATLEAST(2,0,12)

on pyra we have 2.0.9 version of SDL2
The version of SDL2 shouldn't matter, because there are two code paths doing the same (one for versions 2.0.12 or higher and one for earlier versions).

I tested both code paths on my PC and both do what they should, so I'm not sure why it doesn't work on Pyra.
 
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