The Dink Network

FreeDink testers needed

August 1st 2008, 04:42 AM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Hi,

FreeDink is a port of the Dink game engine, so it can work under operating systems (e.g. GNU/Linux) and architectures (e.g. PowerPC).

After essentially 1 year of active development, I think I've now reached the point where FreeDink can run any D-Mod v1.08 improvements are supported, and there's also a "v1.07 mode" to play D-Mods that aren't upgraded yet (such as Eternal Suicide). DFArc2 was made portable too, and has a new checkbox for this mode.

I put a lot of effort into maintaining compatibility, including features that, well, weren't supposed to work, but still did (Seth magic ). The port also allowed me to add better windowed mode, which can support non-truecolor (e.g. for Lyna's Story or Cycles of Evil) and you can switch windowed/full-screen using Alt + Enter. I think the truecolor fades are faster/smoother too.

Now that the engine is more stable, I'd like testers to make sure FreeDink runs anywhere. Testing your favorite D-Mod would be nice too.

I prepared executables for Debian as well as Windows at:
www.freedink.org
(check "Give it a try")

There are also source code tarballs if you want to compile for other platforms.
(The site design is currently very raw, I plan to improve it ^_^)

I'm also discussing with Seth about redistributing the game data, so Dink could actually be packaged in GNU/Linux distros

Last but not least, here are some: screenshots.

Feel free to reply to the thread or contact me if you have any question
August 1st 2008, 08:52 AM
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Someone
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
Wow !! Amazing
I installed Xubuntu a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't tried FreeDink until now. MouseDink works great under it.

I wasn't able to install it with your instructions for Debian-based though (which includes Xubuntu I am assuming). When I tried to add the sources via the utility I got this error:

Failed to fetch http://freedink.org/snapshots/debian/./Packages.gz 301 Moved Permanently
Failed to fetch http://freedink.org/snapshots/debian/etch-backports/./Packages.gz 301 Moved Permanently
Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

and if I ensured it was in sources.list anyway it still wouldn't install:

paul@paul-desktop:/usr/share/dink$ sudo apt-get install freedink
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package freedink

So I had to compile the source code from freedink-1.08.20080731.tar.gz.

Also, full screen mode worked the first two times I ran it but afterwards it fails to change my monitor resolution. So it just looks like Windowed mode without the border and in the absolute left-top corner. This might have been due to running Seth's dink.exe under Wine (that can't run MouseDink properly, by the way). Swapping with alt-enter doesn't fix this, and the terminal doesn't report any error.

It's still mind-blowingly cool though
August 1st 2008, 09:17 AM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Thanks for testing

> When I tried to add the sources via the utility I got this error:

Duh, I removed the 'www.' part to make it shorter, but freedink.org redirects to www.freedink.org, and apt doesn't support http redirects :/ I fixed the instructions

I didn't test with Xubuntu specifically but indeed it's meant to work (for Debian distros >= 2007).

> it just looks like Windowed mode without the border and in the absolute left-top corner.
> This might have been due to running Seth's dink.exe under Wine

Hmmm, does it persist if you restart X / reboot the computer? Also, is the rest of the screen black, or do you still see part of the desktop?

SDL (the game library) will adapt to the screen resolution, by either switching the resolution, or centering the game in a bigger black screen (if direct resolution is not available). You seem to get something different so I wonder if the problem lies somewhere else (maybe, as you mentioned, Wine messing up the screen configuration or something).
August 1st 2008, 10:09 AM
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Someone
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
It doesn't blank the rest of the screen, I can still see the desktop. It is something to do with Wine. I rebooted and ran FreeDink in full screen successfully 7 times in a row, then ran Wine Dink, and FreeDink wouldn't enter full screen anymore. Wine Dink would still load in full screen, but the first time after this it crashed on the intro screen and the second time the Xfce taskbars were still visible. So it does look like Wine is messing something up.
August 1st 2008, 04:20 PM
knightg.gif
cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
Awesome. I'll go to the seaside, the next week, but after I return, I'll test it.
Edit:
I couldn't wait, so I gave it a try. It crushes in the start screen, when I make a mouse click anywhere, or I move the mouse over a button.
I use Kiwi(Ubuntu with GNOME + some extra stuff)8.04, and I installed the package. Here is some info that might interest you:

cypry@cypry11laptop:~$ freedink --window
Hi, I'm '/usr/games/freedink'
exedir = /usr/games
datadir = /usr/share
pkgdatadir = /usr/share/freedink
refdir = /usr/share/dink
dmoddir = /usr/share/dink/dink
dmodname = dink
userappdir = /home/cypry/.dink
Game directory is '/usr/share/dink/dink'.
Initting sound
initting sound
Audio hardware info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 opened=1 times
Requesting depth 8
INFO: Not using a hardware video mode.
INFO: SDL depth is 8
The family name of the face in the font is: System
The name of the face in the font is: Regular
The font max height is: 16
The font ascent is: 16
The font descent is: 0
The font line skip is: 1
The font is not fixed width.
The family name of the face in the font is: Liberation Sans
The name of the face in the font is: Regular
The font max height is: 19
The font ascent is: 15
The font descent is: -3
The font line skip is: 19
The font is not fixed width.
loading tilescreens...
Done with tilescreens...
Loading batch...
Loading dink.ini
done!
Loading hard...
done!
World data loaded.
LOADING main
Temp thingie is C
Loading script STORY/MAIN.C..
setting callback random
Dink started. Time to fight for your right to party.
LOADING START
Temp thingie is C
Loading script STORY/START.C..
Loading sounds..
getting QUACK.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=49852 bytes
getting PIG1.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=6175 bytes
getting PIG2.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=7057 bytes
getting PIG3.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=3039 bytes
getting PIG4.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=6273 bytes
getting BURN.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=41762 bytes
getting OPEN.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=11573 bytes
getting SWING.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=1462 bytes
getting PUNCH.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=4360 bytes
getting SWORD2.WAV..
info: frequency=8000Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=4668 bytes
getting SELECT.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=25664 bytes
getting WSCREAM.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=41914 bytes
getting PICKER.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=9072 bytes
getting GOLD.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=18758 bytes
getting GRUNT1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=9154 bytes
getting GRUNT2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=9778 bytes
getting SEL1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=43168 bytes
getting ESCAPE.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=72860 bytes
getting NONO.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=45428 bytes
getting SEL2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=38064 bytes
getting SEL3.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=76608 bytes
getting HIGH2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=302808 bytes
getting FIRE.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=157477 bytes
getting SPELL1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=34401 bytes
getting CAVEENT.WAV..
info: frequency=11025Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=72990 bytes
getting SNARL1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=36260 bytes
getting SNARL2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=17233 bytes
getting SNARL3.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=43414 bytes
getting HURT1.WAV..
info: frequency=11025Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=26447 bytes
getting HURT2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=28449 bytes
getting ATTACK1.WAV..
info: frequency=11025Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=14358 bytes
getting CAVEENT.WAV..
info: frequency=11025Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=72990 bytes
getting LEVEL.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=73528 bytes
getting SAVE.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=58640 bytes
getting SPLASH.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=58769 bytes
getting SWORD1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=16784 bytes
getting BHIT.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=14414 bytes
getting SQUISH.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=9240 bytes
getting STAIRS.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=17748 bytes
getting STEPS.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=39390 bytes
getting ARROW.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=28760 bytes
getting FLYBY.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=26644 bytes
getting SECRET.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=2 length=124164 bytes
getting BOW1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=13618 bytes
getting KNOCK.WAV..
info: frequency=12500Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=8447 bytes
getting DRAG1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=55752 bytes
getting DRAG2.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=136802 bytes
getting AXE.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=S16LSB channels=1 length=11486 bytes
getting BIRD1.WAV..
info: frequency=22050Hz format=U8 channels=1 length=34519 bytes
LOADING start-1
Temp thingie is C
Loading script STORY/START-1.C..
LOADING start-2
Temp thingie is C
Loading script STORY/START-2.C..
LOADING start-4
Temp thingie is C
Loading script STORY/START-4.C..
Processing playmidi command.
playmidi - cd play command detected.
Playing midi 1003.mid.
Killing cd...
running through mouse list..
August 2nd 2008, 03:25 PM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
dang, I didn't see there was something new as you edited your post

Could you try installing the 'timidity' package?
It appears that the sound component (SDL_mixer) can have issues if it isn't present (you can check TROUBLESHOOTING in the source if you want more info).
I think I'll make 'timidity' a dependency to avoid problems
August 3rd 2008, 06:07 AM
knightg.gif
cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
Yes, making timidity a dependence would be a good ideea. The game now works. I'll give it some proper testing after a week.
August 3rd 2008, 07:07 AM
dinkdead.gif
I tried it on Windows XP SP2:

If I just double click on the FreeDink icon then Dink runs fullscreen and works fine. The new DFArc works fine but seemed to take a long time to open the first time I used it...?

Both old and new DFArcs won't use FreeDink, if I set it in the options. DFArc 2 doesn't do anything when you click play and DFArc 2.1 gives an error message:
'Dink Smallwood failed! Error code 1.'

Windowed and non true-colour mode doesn't quite get it right, it's somewhere between true-colour and the Dink palette.

FreeDinkEdit - Used by itself or through DFArc2 it works but the colours are messed up, mixed blue/yellow/red so it's hard to see what's going on. Try and use it through DFArc2.1 and I get an error message:
'Error while running the editor'
I can't give it a proper test because I never use the normal DinkEdit.

That's it for now!
August 3rd 2008, 08:24 AM
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Someone
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
I installed Ubuntu today, so I tried it again. I installed it thru the instructions (apt-get; that works now). I had a problem that appears to be the same as what cyprus described (very long freezes related to loading/playing new sounds), and installing TiMidity fixed it. I didn't have that on Xubuntu though.

DFArc2 looks right in both Xubuntu and Ubuntu and the programs are automatically put in the right place in the main menu for both of them.

Some issues:
- Colours in dinkedit are messed up for me as well.
- freedink says it checked /usr/share/dink twice when it's run without a reference dir
- although when run directly freedink other default reference dirs (e.g. /usr/games/dink) work when run through Dfarc2, freedink claims "invalid refdir" if it's not in /usr/share/dink. Also Dfarc2 doesn't display DMODs in the reference dir if it's not that one (e.g. the main game). Note this is with "override the Dink .. dir.." OFF. (I put /usr/games/dink in there and turned it on as a workaround.)
- default editor in dfarc is "dink" and "download D-Mods" doesn't do anything
- running with debug mode in dfarc gives the error "Dink Smallwood ('freedink') was not found on your computer..."
- additional D-Mods directory in DFArc options is very convenient considering limited/super user stuff so it would be nice if this was a freedink option instead (i.e. so freedink would also look in the additional directory if given -game dmod)

Freedink seems to be a perfect replica. I played bug mania, crosslink demo, a little bit of I Kara Gu and the original game and tested MouseDink and I can't tell any definite difference. A couple of things felt different but they probably weren't (e.g. I thought I could stop the hit animation in MouseDink before it competed by clicking away, but I might have just forgotten how it was).
August 4th 2008, 07:21 PM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Woah, thanks for the detailed reports Sparrowhawk and Someone!

I fixed some of the issues right now, and I'll work on the remaining ones asap.

> - Windowed and non true-colour mode doesn't quite get it right, it's
> somewhere between true-colour and the Dink palette.
> - FreeDinkEdit - the colours are messed up, mixed blue/yellow/red so
> it's hard to see what's going on.

> - Colours in dinkedit are messed up for me as well.

Hmm, I have troubles guessing what could cause this, but this definitely needs to be fixed.
Could you send me screenshots?

> The new DFArc works fine but seemed to take a long time
> to open the first time I used it...?

That's possible. Does that happen often?

(The current .exe is very convenient to download (no installer), but is a compressed executable that expands itself in memory when run (the technology's name is "upx"). Also it embeds a more recent version of wxWidgets (the component used to draw the button, menus, etc) which is bigger than in 2006.)

> - If I set the FreeDink executable:
> - DFArc 2 doesn't do anything when you click play

OK I see, DFArc2.0 gives the "-nomovie" to FreeDink (unless you ticked "Play introduction movie" in the options). "-nomovie" has no effect at all on Dink v1.07 (possibly had effect on the ooold CD version) - but it is nonetheless rejected as invalid option by FreeDink. I made it accept that option for compatibility.

> - DFArc 2.1 gives an error message: 'Dink Smallwood failed! Error code 1.'
> - Try and use the editor through DFArc2.1 and I get an error
> message: 'Error while running the editor'

OK, I'm using a portable function from wxWidgets to start programs,
but it's definitely not giving good results. I'll rewrite that part.

> freedink says it checked /usr/share/dink twice when it's run without
> a reference dir

FreeDink checks a set of 6 directories, some computed, some hard-coded (--refdir | . | exedir | $datadir/share/dink | /usr/local/share/dink | /usr/share/dink). Sometimes the computed are the same as the hard-coded ones. I thought it'd be best to always check them in that order, even if sometimes they are checked twice

> although when run directly freedink other default reference dirs
> (e.g. /usr/games/dink) work when run through Dfarc2, freedink claims
> "invalid refdir" if it's not in /usr/share/dink.
>
> Also Dfarc2 doesn't display DMODs in the reference dir if it's not
> that one (e.g. the main game). Note this is with "override the Dink
> .. dir.." OFF. (I put /usr/games/dink in there and turned it on as a
> workaround.)

I'm not sure I get it, could you give me examples?
/usr/games/dink should be an executable btw (not a directly), maybe that was a typo

> default editor in dfarc is "dink"

Oops, fixed

> "download D-Mods" doesn't do anything
(under Gnome)

Confirmed here. I'm using wxWidget's ::wxLaunchDefaultBrowser(), which apparently starts the 'epiphany' browser without checking if it is actually present... I'll have to try another way to find the preferred browser.

> running with debug mode in dfarc gives the error "Dink Smallwood
> ('freedink') was not found on your computer..."

Nice catch. FreeDink failed because it attempted to write in DEBUG.TXT before determining the dmod directory. This is fixed.

> additional D-Mods directory in DFArc options is very convenient
> considering limited/super user stuff so it would be nice if this was
> a freedink option instead (i.e. so freedink would also look in the
> additional directory if given -game dmod)

You can specify any absolute and relative path to '-game'. I usually do "freedink -game ~/dmods/pota". You can even do "cd /path/to/my/dmod; freedink --game ."

I uploaded updated versions at freedink.org.

(With the Debian repository you can just click "upgrade" in Synaptics )
August 4th 2008, 11:47 PM
fairy.gif
Someone
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
> Could you send me screenshots?
ok

> I'm not sure I get it, could you give me examples?
One of the refdirs freedink checks in is /usr/games/dink (at least for me). Since I used /usr/share/dink last time I put the graphics etc. in /usr/games/dink. Freedink works if I run it directly (i.e. thru the shortcut or the terminal) but if I run it thru dfarc2, it loads freedink and freedink says 'invalid refdir: /usr/share/dink/dink/graphics and/or [...]/tiles are not accessible.' Freedink also only shows DMODs in the additional DMOD dir and not /usr/games/dink. (btw I deleted the shortcut so I could create the folder and changed dfarc to run 'freedink' instead of 'dink'.)

So it looks like dfarc2 forces freedink to use /usr/share/dink as the refdir even though I have override the Dink directory off in dfarc2 options.

>You can specify any absolute and relative path to '-game'. I usually do "freedink -game ~/dmods/pota".
Yeah I know. It would just be less typing if it checked in the additional DMOD folder itself
August 5th 2008, 09:21 AM
fairy.gif
Someone
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
Yeah you're right, freedinkedit looks fine in truecolor (reply to email).

A couple of other things:
- freedink tries to write debug.txt in a protected dir (i.e. refdir/dink) instead of ~/.dink/dink where it probably should be

- Ubuntu uses PulseAudio to allow multiple applications to share sounds, but freedink doesn't work with it properly. So freedink sound doesn't work if another program that has used sound is open until it is closed.

Initting sound
initting sound
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:874 snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Mix_OpenAudio: No available audio device

I had to get a file to make Flash work with PulseAudio. Maybe that file can explain how to get it to work. File and related stuff here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio
August 5th 2008, 12:24 PM
slimeb.gif
DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
From an old experience, MIDI would not work because it tried to use Timidity through SDL or something while I want it to output to a normal MIDI channel, which I "forward" through to fluidsynth's MIDI port. I'm not in Linux right now, so I'll ask it here: has this been fixed to just use a regular MIDI port?
August 5th 2008, 02:24 PM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
> > Could you send me screenshots?
> ok

Cool (my bad, forgot to apply Dink palette in Dinkedit). I think this is fixed now. (rebuilt binaries pending)

> additional D-Mods directory in DFArc options is very convenient
> considering limited/super user stuff so it would be nice if
> this was a freedink option instead

I see what you mean now. I think it's best to keep freedink simple and flexible, and let the front-ends organize D-Mods as they wish (like, managing several additional D-Mods directories).

About --refdir, looking at your other post:
> Note this is with "override the Dink .. dir.." OFF. (I put /usr/games/dink in there and
> turned it on as a workaround.)

Now I got it. DFArc2 always specify '--refdir'. If the refdir isn't configured, it tries standard locations /usr/local/share/dink and /usr/share/dink. This is because the front-end needs to inspect that refdir to find D-Mods installed for everybody such as 'island', and list them.

DFArc2 doesn't ask freedink about its default refdirs. If you
used a non-standard refdir, then that's where you use
the "Override the Dink Smallwood directory" option.

At least that's how I designed it. Does that make sense?

Btw, you expect freedink to find /usr/games/dink/ as a refdir without using '--refdir'. I don't see how this could work for you
Which one matches "/usr/games/dink/" ?
. | exedir | $datadir/share/dink | /usr/local/share/dink | /usr/share/dink

> - freedink tries to write debug.txt in a protected
> dir (i.e. refdir/dink) instead of ~/.dink/dink where it
> probably should be

Yeah I haven't put much though in managing DEBUG.TXT and the verbose debug output yet. The plan is to make it possible to filter all the output (namely: information vs. real errors), and tell the user appropriately. For example: warn the user that the game couldn't be saved because they was no diskspace left, tell the developper that there's a broken sprite in the current screen, etc.

I think we can put this on lesser priority for now.

> - Ubuntu uses PulseAudio to allow multiple applications to
> share sounds, but freedink doesn't work with it properly. So
> freedink sound doesn't work if another program that has used
> sound is open until it is closed.

Apparently PulseAudio breaks several games, including ETQW and Wesnoth. That's probably not something I can help with right now :/

I saw people stopping/restarting pulseaudio as a workaround:

pulseaudio -k
freedink
pulseaudio -D

(Geez, it sounds like I'm lazying my way through bug reports
/me starts fixing yesterday's remaining bugs to show good faith )

DaVince:
> From an old experience, MIDI would not work because it tried to
> use Timidity through SDL or something while I want it to output
> to a normal MIDI channel, which I "forward" through to
> fluidsynth's MIDI port. I'm not in Linux right now, so I'll ask
> it here: has this been fixed to just use a regular MIDI port?

SDL_mixer can use both hardware and software sequencer. If /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg is present, it will use that first. You can remove that file if you want to use /dev/sequencer
directly

We also saw that there are some issues if /dev/sequencer is present but not functionnal, so best use TiMidity by default for common Dinkers, and just remove /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg if you know better
August 5th 2008, 02:45 PM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
I saw another work-around:

export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse
freedink

(see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libsdl1.2/+bug/216397)

Installing PulseAudio bydefault sounds a bit prematurate here. From the looks of it this should eventually integrate nicely. Well, anyway this isn't related to freedink itself.
August 6th 2008, 07:50 AM
dinkdead.gif
About windowed and non-truecolour, it probably didn't work because I wasn't using FreeDink, just the new DFArc

I'm not sure if you updated the Windows versions, but it still won't work in either DFArc.
Nope, sorry, it does work in DFArc2 with the play intro movie option selected. Still can't test windowed with non-tc though because the truecolour box greys out when windowed mode is selected in DFArc2.

Here's a screenshot of DinkEdit

DFArc 2.1 taking a longish time to open doesn't happen often, just the first time after downloading. I guess it would happen after rebooting as well but I haven't tried.

What else...
Alt+Enter doesn't do anything.
Alt+F4 doesn't do anything in FreeDink either, but Alt+Q still works.
The fades when going through doors (for example) are faster, but I think I prefer them as they were
The text looks different, a bit shorter/fatter perhaps? Not as 'clean' looking.
August 6th 2008, 06:07 PM
farmer.gif
Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Thanks again Sparrowhawk!

(I'm still working on the DFArc2.1 issues)

I just updated the Windows versions - I modified my autobuilder so it can easily generate .exe too So Dinkedit colors should be fixed now.

I notice too that Alt+... doesn't seem to work. I'll have a look.

Warp fades are a special case of fade_down() and behave differently indeed; in Dan's 1.08, it's different in truecolor (full fade) and non-truecolor (5 first frames only, as in 1.07). At a point one of my computers (the one with a low-end graphic card) was displaying Dan's fades very SLOWly, so using quick fades as in non-truecolor mode made sense.
However today I cannot reproduce the problem anymore, so maybe that doesn't make so much sense anymore
Do you remember which color mode you test?

The text is slightly different too, eagle eye Dink uses Arial as the default font, but this is a Microsoft font which I'm not allowed to redistribute because they don't allow it, and it isn't present in GNU/Linux distros for the same reason. So, I chose another font called "Liberation Sans" which is designed to have exactly the same metrics as Arial, so I could be sure there wouldn't be different line wrapping / hidden text / etc: text sprites still have exactly the same size. This isn't exactly the same shape as before, but at the same time this allows FreeDink to have the same look on all platforms.
August 7th 2008, 08:26 PM
dinkdead.gif
Colours are fine now

Testing warp fades, in 1.08 (Aural+) it's slower in truecolour mode. In FreeDink it seems the same (fast) whether truecolour is on or not. There's no problems either way, it's just my preference.

FreeDink opens in DFArc2 now but still not in 2.1.

DFArc2.1 now says < Pick a D-Mod instead of just a question mark! But I'm sure you know that

Out of interest, how can FreeDink use a font I don't have installed? Is it packaged with the game somehow?
August 8th 2008, 04:39 PM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
> Testing warp fades, in 1.08 (Aural+) it's slower in truecolour mode.
> In FreeDink it seems the same (fast) whether truecolour is on or not.
> There's no problems either way, it's just my preference.

OK. I could reproduce my problem with non-smooth fade (with v1.08 _true-color_ actually). Since fades are optimized in FreeDink I'll check what happens if I set wrap fades back to full fades.

> FreeDink opens in DFArc2 now but still not in 2.1.

dang :/ I'm experimenting with this part, more on that soon.

> DFArc2.1 now says < Pick a D-Mod instead of just a question mark!
> But I'm sure you know that

Glad it pleases you

> Out of interest, how can FreeDink use a font I don't have installed?
> Is it packaged with the game somehow?

Thanks for asking There's a nice trick.
Rename freedink.exe to freedink.zip for a clue 8)
August 10th 2008, 03:51 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Some fixes:

> "download D-Mods" doesn't do anything (under Gnome)

That's fixed in more recent versions of wxWidgets. I included the updated version directly in DFArc2.1 so it works for older versions too (my packages depend on an older version to support more distros).

> Alt+Enter doesn't work

Ah, apparently fullscreen toggle only works under GNU/Linux for now
(cf. SDL_WM_ToggleFullScreen)

> Alt+F4 doesn't work in windowed mode

This will be fixed in the next version of the SDL game library
(see this post)

> DFArc startup time:

Both DFArc rely on the same bundled .dll (wxwidgets). However DFArc2.1 uses a more recent version. When not bundled, it needs load 5MB of .dll, which is apparently why the startup time may be longer.
You can see a version with separate DLLs if you're curious.
August 10th 2008, 10:50 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
And another fix!

- DFArc and FreeDink -> "Dink failed!" error

There was a problem when the installation dir contained spaces - fixed. Now you should be able to run FreeDink from the new DFArc.

Note: a list of all DFArc changes are here:
http://www.freedink.org/snapshots/dfarc-NEWS.txt

I also renamed DFArc2.1 to DFArc v3 for clarity. It was becoming hard to follow
August 10th 2008, 08:52 PM
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Had a quick look:

FreeDink works from both DFArcs

If windowed mode is selected, DinkEdit & FreeDinkEdit also open windowed!

Something I meant to mention before, I think it's easier if in the options you choose which engine and editor with a drop-down box, like in DFArc2. It's a bit fiddly to copy and paste the names each time I change.
August 11th 2008, 11:24 AM
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DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
Well, looks like FreeDink completely and utterly crashes for me whenever I try to run it. I have an x86 system running xubuntu, and since short, Timidity++ as the MIDI daemon (even though I prefer fluidsynth for its much better timing, accuracy and resource usage). What happens is this:

- FreeDink starts fine, I see the loading screen and then the title screen. There is NO music. I am able to move the mouse around.
- I click, and the whole game locks up. If I'm running fullscreen I have to force-kill it and lose my mouse capabilities (thank you, X.Org).

This was tested under the Debian APT binaries, I'll compile from source later and see what happens then.
August 11th 2008, 12:03 PM
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cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
That was exactly my problem before installing timidity
August 11th 2008, 02:29 PM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Sparrowhawk: I dropped the drop-down list because dink.exe is not in the dink directory with Unix versions. However I think I see a way to fix it portably, I'll try to code that now

DaVince: TiMidity++ isn't exactly a sound daemon - technically FreeDink calls SDL_mixer which has a stripped-down, embedded version of timidity which is used to convert MIDIs to WAV on the fly.
Do you have a /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg ?
Also, can you explain me how to setup fluidsynth? I definitely would like to try out
August 12th 2008, 08:24 AM
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DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
FluidSynth IS a MIDI daemon (well, not really daemon but definitely running in the backgroun), and connects to port 14:0. So I guess allowing to change the MIDI output port in your application should suffice...

As for how do you set it up, it's as simple as gettin QSynth, a Qt frontend to it, and starting it whenever you need MIDI capabilities.

By the way, I have a /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg, even customized by myself to use less resources and a soundfont. Other applications accept this, but FreeDink plain crashes.

Also, in my opinion, SDL_mixer using Timidity++ is a bit annoying because it can introduce problems like this, but then again that's something to complain about to the SDL developers.
August 12th 2008, 05:17 PM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
OK. Apparently it connects to 128:0 for me. The default soundfonts in Debian have lots of instruments but sound a bit "off key". I didn't manage to connect qsynth to fluidsynth, even though I made them both use jack, so I'm not sure about what it does. I experienced similar latency issues than with timidity. I didn't know about it, nice to see another MIDI synth around

Now about SDL_mixer: whenever there is /etc/timidity/timidity.cfg, no matter how it is configured, it uses its internal timidity. I tried playing with some environment variables but this has lower precedence:
ftp://ptah.lnf.kth.se/pub/misc/sdl-env-vars (SDL)
http://osdir.com/ml/lib.sdl/2003-01/msg00396.html (SDL_mixer)
Anyway, w/o timidity.cfg SDL_mixer could use ext_midi #1 and I heard music (so technically it works). However, there is always the same problem, SDL_mixer blocks whenever another sound is playing. So when you start the game, the music plays, but if you click or move on a button, then the system will wait for the midi to complete (takes 20-30s) and only then unfreeze the game. Geez..

It'd be definitely good to report this to the SDL/SDL_mixer people.
Or preconvert MIDIs to Ogg Vorbis
August 14th 2008, 04:38 PM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
> Something I meant to mention before, I think it's easier if
> in the options you choose which engine and editor with a drop-down box,
> like in DFArc2. It's a bit fiddly to copy and paste the names each time I change.

Done
November 4th 2017, 09:07 PM
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I got this error out of the blue and now it says it no matter what. Did I brick the game? Error code 11. Even the editor won't start!! ;((;(;(