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Author Topic: Additional Platforms?  (Read 8289 times)

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lewellyn

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Additional Platforms?
« on: August 29, 2012, 10:57:15 PM »

I hate for my first post to the forum to come across as "needy", but things are what they are.  :-\

My main concern at the moment is that I want to use WME Lite on a platform not supported by BASS (the actual platform, aside from "Not a supported BASS platform", is irrelevant at the moment aside from knowing that it's a POSIX OS using the GNU toolchain, as I have a couple of platforms on my future agenda which may fall into this category). I have been in contact with BASS about this platform and was essentially told to take a hike. I guess they saved me a couple thousand euro (the "as many products as you want" license), in exchange for a monkey wrench being thrown into my plans! ;D

I mean, I could do a silent game, but that wouldn't be terribly entertaining.  ::) I didn't see any hooks in the source where I could plop in a different sound library. I realize that the sound library has been changed before, which is why I was hopeful that it'd be relatively easy to figure how to swap BASS out with something else. (I haven't really figured out what I would replace it with, as first I probably should get a handle on what's required.)

Am I missing something obvious? Are there plans to target WME Lite at other platforms (which would require thinking and planning around this)?

I'm, of course, willing to do the work to actually port WME Lite to the platform I have in mind (and of course send patches if I actually meet any success). However, it's not something I want to embark upon if there's no hope whatsoever of sound. ;)

I'm hopeful Mnemonic has some input, but I was wondering whether anyone else using WME Lite was looking at their alternatives to the perceived iOS/Android mobile duopoly. I know which basket I'm putting a lot of eggs in, so I was curious if anyone but me would actually benefit by me attempting to get WME Lite running on new platforms. Alternatively, would my work be better spent on something else that would benefit WME users? ::rock
« Last Edit: August 29, 2012, 11:11:41 PM by lewellyn »
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Spellbreaker

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Re: Additional Platforms?
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2012, 03:11:37 PM »

Hey ;)

In the very near future, WME is part of ScummVM, so your game would run on every plattform that ScummVM supports ( which means virtually everything existing ;)

http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=5088.0

Because of this I don't think there are any plans to port WME Lite to more Platforms.

As for License Issues, this is not a problem I guess, since some platforms sell retro-games based on ScummVM and/or DosBox for example to make them run on newer OS Systems, Mac and Linux and so on.

As for the WME Source itself, I think Mnemonic will answer you ;)

Greets, Spellbreaker
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lewellyn

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Re: Additional Platforms?
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2012, 08:44:39 PM »

ScummVM doesn't yet support the platform I have in mind. ;) (I am working on that but since there is some "moving target" stuff in the SDK and ScummVM is "big", I expect it's another couple of months before I can have something to show people, let alone distribute.) Well, there is a half-hearted port wandering around, apparently without source, and I am working on a proper port. It is just one of the things on my plate teaching me about the "fun" that is OpenGL/ES. :)

WME Lite, itself, however is a much more manageable target and has better licensing for mobile development (there is still lots of vagueness as to what is allowed and required in terms of fulfilling source code requirements, as you cannot usefully provide source via app stores). Aside from that, I am interested in creating new content using WME; ScummVM is specifically not designed for that (they even mention it on their FAQ).

So, really, WME Lite is probably what I should be looking at, which is why I decided to ask here rather than assume that I will have to finish my ScummVM porting and then write a game within the port's limitations (which are currently more than WME Lite's limitations, though this may or may not be temporary). :)

Since you mentioned DOSBox… The platform vendor has a port on their GitHub. Performance is atrocious, on-screen keyboard reaction is wonky, and their SDL hacks make me cry. It is out of the question for distributing content, in my opinion. :)
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odnorf

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Re: Additional Platforms?
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2012, 10:48:44 PM »

I'm afraid I can't help with the real question of the topic but I can address a few points raised.

WME Lite, itself, however is a much more manageable target and has better licensing for mobile development (there is still lots of vagueness as to what is allowed and required in terms of fulfilling source code requirements, as you cannot usefully provide source via app stores).

You don't have to provide sources through the same way (the app stores you mentioned) to comply with GPL (scummvm license). Any way is acceptable. Of course unless the app stores or the SDK prohibits the use of GPL (like nintendo SDKs).

Aside from that, I am interested in creating new content using WME; ScummVM is specifically not designed for that (they even mention it on their FAQ).

This is a very often asked feature for scummvm and this port will provide exactly that. Support for new content. Scummvm wiki says so. Implementation in scummvm will recognize new & unknown wme games that follow certain criteria. Adding official support for them should be pretty easy (as long as there are no bugs in the implementation ofc).
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lewellyn

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Re: Additional Platforms?
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2012, 12:11:19 AM »

You don't have to provide sources through the same way (the app stores you mentioned) to comply with GPL (scummvm license). Any way is acceptable. Of course unless the app stores or the SDK prohibits the use of GPL (like nintendo SDKs).
The GPLv2 states otherwise. But I really don't want this to turn into a licensing debate.  ::rock

Quote
This is a very often asked feature for scummvm and this port will provide exactly that. Support for new content. Scummvm wiki says so. Implementation in scummvm will recognize new & unknown wme games that follow certain criteria. Adding official support for them should be pretty easy (as long as there are no bugs in the implementation ofc).

I am aware that the wiki page for the engine says so. At this point, since the engine isn't done yet (at least I haven't seen it show up in the tree yet…), I'd have to say the FAQ overrules the engine's goals still. :)

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of ScummVM (else why would I be trying to get a quality port done to a new platform?) but WME Lite is in a generally workable state today. I also suspect that using ScummVM on a mobile device might have more overhead than WME Lite itself, just due to its nature.

Further, I haven't seen Mnemonic state that WME Lite will be discontinued in favor of the ScummVM implementation, so having a choice of two quality engines available is a good thing in my estimation.  ;D
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somaen

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Re: Additional Platforms?
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2013, 07:07:57 PM »

I also suspect that using ScummVM on a mobile device might have more overhead than WME Lite itself, just due to its nature.

What nature would that be exactly? ScummVM is in no way, shape or form an emulator, but instead a reimplementation of an assortment of engines.

That being said, WME is now in the ScummVM tree (available in the daily builds, but not in any stable release yet, as the last stable release happened in July last year, which was way before the completion of the port). It should be decently usable for day-to-day usage, but has yet to have any games flagged as "stable", mostly since that requires a decent amount of testing (I don't go about stating things to be STABLE without making certain that they work fairly well). Atleast one game should become stable rather soon though.

ScummVM _IS_ still a bit slower than WME Lite, but this doesn't come from emulation, but merely the fact that graphics are rendered entirely in software there at the moment (ScummVM has to support a wide variety of platforms, and thus can't simply use GL to accelerate everything everywhere, since there is variance in what is supported on various platforms).

As for creating games targeted at WME, I'd always suggest working with WME full/WME-lite while developing, as those are the reference implementations, whenever they do something different from what the ScummVM-port does, that is considered a bug in the ScummVM-port, and shouldn't be worked around in game-code but rather reported as a bug.
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