log.txt

v2.6  Development history and notes
-----------------------------------

Oct 30
 - began port to Win32.  Gutted all hardware IO routines in favour of
   class-wrapped style. (gfx.ShowPage, etc...)

Nov 2
 - finished the gutting.

Nov 3
 - Installed the message pump

Nov 6
 - Got most of the DirectX stuff working.  All that's left is blits and
   debugging.  Started inserting DirectInput code.

Nov 12
 - DirectInput code written, deleted, then rewritten twice. ;)
   It's now heavily based on vecna's Winv1.
 - More DirectDraw restructuring.  Should be sufficient now.
   Still some blits and primatives remain unimplemented.
 - Message pump rehashed.  Much better at maintaining co-operativity.

Nov 18
 - Most of the blits and primitaves are done.  Strange colour distortion
   with the 16bit RotScale.
 - Began mouse code.  Issues with keeping the cursor within the viewport in
   fullscreen mode persist.  No such problem in windowed mode.  ReadMouse()
   is now exactly the same as UpdateControls(). (it's kept for compatibility)

Nov 19 - ultra-ultra early in the morning (or ultra-ultra late at night,
                                           take your pick)
 - Fixed palettemorph.

Nov 21
 - Fixed a (silly) bug in HLine.  It works now. (RectFill too)

Nov 22
 - Tweaking.
   TODO: (as of the 22nd)
   *  There's a random bug that occurs where v2.6 just freezes.  It also stops
      processing messages, so, if it's fullscreen, you have to reset.  Stomp it.
   *  It doesn't work under Win2k.  Find out why.
   *  Write a custom blitter for when the screen and virtual screen pixel
      formats don't match, so that windowed mode works regardless of
      hardware.

Nov  25
 - More tweaking.
 - Implemented the line() function. (lucent and opaque, 8 and 16bit)
   Undertested, but apparently perfect.

Nov 26
 - Fixed the hicolour RotScale.
 - Implemented fixed addition/subtraction.
 - Implemented "vsync" in user.cfg.

Dec 4&5
 - Dumped MikMod for the time being.  GCC doesn't like it.  Imported MIDAS
   instead.  Seems to work alright, cooperates with the OS properly thus far.
 - Re-implemented the console commands, RV and SV.  No apparent problems yet.
   Strings aren't implemented yet, though.
 - Fixed my own unpress code. Oops!
 - Re-implemented mapline and tmapline.  Absolutely untested, though.
 - Started redoing the mouse code.  Again.

Dec 6
 - Finished mouse code.  Still some strangeness in windowed mode, but it
   should be okay, as long as the use doesn't depend on the windows cursor.
 - Co-operativity problems with MIDAS in DirectSound mode.  Added "safemode"
   option to user.cfg, since DirectSound is better, but doesn't always
   shut down properly when v2.6 is minimized.
 - Reimplemented mapline, tmapline, mask, changeall, and silhouette.
   Silhouette has been changed, however.  It's now:

   Silhouette(width,height,sourceimage,destimage,colour);

   Where width and height are the dimensions of the image, sourceimage
   is a pointer to the existing image, destimage is a pointer to a chunk
   of memory where the silhouette will go, and colour is the colour of the
   silhouette.  After doing that, you can blit it with copysprite/etc...
 - Added imagesize.  Returns the number of bytes for a specified image.
   Syntax  int i=ImageSize(int x1,int y1,int x2,int y2);
 - Re-implemented flatpoly and tmappoly.  Undertested, but tested nonetheless.
   No apparent flaws.
 - Re-implemented hicolour palettemorph emulation.  Slower than it could be
   most likely, but not bad as it is.

Dec 7
 - Fixed a bug that caused the console to not work.
 - Fixed Read/WriteVars, I think.
 - Fixed CircleFill
 - Corrected clipping in most blits.  It was one pixel short.
 - Double checked read/writevars.  Everything's cool, I think.
 - Fixed HookTimer

Dec 9
 **** RELEASE! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! ****

Dec 10
 - Removed a DirectDraw option in the ShowPage routine, since not all cards
   support DDFLIP_DONOTWAIT.
 - Fixed the fseekline bug. (again!)
 - Double checked readvars and writevars.  No apparent problems.
 - Fixed the user.cfg problems involving "sound_device" and other disabled
   options.
 - Rewrote part of CHRMAK16.  It should work better now.

Dec 11
 - Made b1, etc.. and up, down, etc... writable again.  Why not?
 - Got my hands on some PNG code.  Thanks to Praetor, and indirectly,
   AegisKnight.  Not ported into the engine yet, but noteworthy nonetheless.

Dec 13
 - Fixed a bug that caused writing to mx, my, or mb to also alter vctrace, and
   each other. @_x;

Dec 14
 - VERGE now manually frees all it's memory in when it finds memory
   corruption, or Sys_Error (or it's VC equivalent, Exit) are called.
   Unsure if it's necessary, but it doesn't seem to be doing any harm.
 - Tweaked preprocessor, you can now #define a (5+3) without it going
   ballistic on you.  Well, Ear did it first, so give him credit for this one.

 **** Revision 1 released ****

Dec 18
 - Fixed up the BMP code.  It should load up 24bit BMPs and bmps of odd widths
   now.
 - Fixed hicolour image loading stuff.  It now substitutes flat black for the
   mask colour again, like it should.
 - Tweaked file i/o.  The file io stuff now uses index handles, a la fonts.
   Much safer.  The only difference in implementation is that fopen and
   fwopen return -1 on error, not 0.  Consider changing this for
   compatibility's sake.  As a side effect, no more than 10 files may be
   opened simultaneously now.
 - Fixed fseekline yet again.  Actually tested it this time. ;)

Dec 19
 - Finished the file i/o stuff.  Everything returns 0 on error again.
 - Entities that are turned off with entity.on are no longer rendered.

Dec 20
 - Tried to convert tcopysprite to asm.  No luck.  Optimized it a bit,
   though.   (both 8 and 16 bit colour versions)
 - Fixed ReadVars and writevars, for real this time!

Dec 22
 - Incorporated aen's newer string routines.  Should be considerably faster,
   as they are no longer dynamicly allocated.
 - Added aen's console stuff, which is now linked-list free!  Joy!

Dec 23
 - Added PNG stuff.  Seems to work alright.  PNGs will not load in 8 bit
   colour yet.  Note that libpng1.dll and zlib.dll are necessary now. :/
   Also, I couldn't find the GCC libs for libpng, so if you want to compile
   it under ming, then you'll have to find them yourself. This build compiles
   under MSVC6.
 - The hicolour screenshot function was swapping the red and blue channels.
   Fixed it.
 - The entity wander code was ignoring the Delay property.  Fixed.

 **** Revision 2 ****

Dec 25 & 26
 - Played with ASM in the graphics routines.
   * Wrote an MMX enhanced memory copier for showpage.  Squeezes an extra ounce
     of speed out of it.
   * Made some attempts to convert the 8 bit CopySprite to MMX enhanced ASM.
     Failed, but proven possible.
   * 8 bit CopySprite converted to ASM.  No real improvement,
     left commented out.
   * 8 bit TCopySprite converted.  ~%8 improvement in framerate.
   * 16 bit CopySprite converted to ASM.  Not much improvement, but it's there
     Kept it.
   * 16 bit MMX CopySprite written.  Faster yet on MMX enabled systems.
 - Learned something.  Showpage is slow purely because of the DX stuff going
   on.  There's nothing to be done about it, really.

 **** Revision 2.1 ****

Dec 27
 - Converted the 8 bit ScaleSprite to ASM.  Superfast!

Dec 28
 - Converted the rest of the nontranslucent ScaleSprites to ASM.
 - added built-in variables, "zone.event[]" and "zone.chance[]",
   cuz Zara was yelling at me. ;_;

==================================== Notes ==================================

- v2.6 has to share with Windows, and that means you do too.  Put
  UpdateControls() in any process that takes up a considerable amount of time.
  (delay functions, etc...)

  I doubt it'd be drastic, but you could cause other applications to slow down
  if you don't.

- If you're multitasking to and from v2.6 often, it is advised that you put
  "safemode" in user.cfg.  This will add more stability, at the cost of a
  little bit of latency when playing sound effects.

- Some mods that play under MikMod don't play under MIDAS, the current sound
  system.  v2.6 will tell you, and refuse to play the mod, but it won't crash.

- The key[] array and last_pressed are only updated after an UpdateControls()
  now.

- HookKey no longer operates while other VC scripts are running, only when
  the engine itself has control.

- Putting "window" in user.cfg will run v2.6 in windowed mode.  There's no
  8bit windowed mode at the moment, however.  Trying to set such a mode up
  probably won't break anything, but it won't work either.

- If you get distorted/no image in windowed mode/high colour, try setting your
  desktop resolution to 16bpp and trying again.

- The new function Imagesize(x1,y1,x2,y2) returns the number of bytes an
  image would require, taking pixel depth into account.  It's meant for
  GrabRegion, mask and such, so use it. ;)

- Currently, v2.6 is dependant on midas11.dll for sound output, and libpng1.dll
  and zlib.dll for PNG decoding.  Keep them in the VERGE directory. (you can
  probably skip the second two if you have Sphere installed, but that's just
  an airy theory)

Special thanks to Zaratustra for the application icon.