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ATTN All Programmers - Help improve Daphne (Dragon's Lair, Space Ace)
benll64:
This is a request/challenge/interest check for all the programming geniuses out there (of which I am not one).
I've been trying for a few months to convince Matt, the author of the excellent Daphne emulator, to add a feature to the program. Unfortunately, he is either uninterested in further improving Daphne, or doesn't have any desire to respond to user requests; his answer was, "figure it out yourself."
I had asked if he could add the "-fastboot" option to the enhanced ROM sets for Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. For the unfamiliar, these are modified roms made by a guy over on the Dragon's Lair Project website named Dave. I, like a lot of people, prefer them to the arcade original roms for these two games. He re-sequenced the scene order so it actually makes sense, added the drawbridge scene back into DL, improved the transition timing between scenes, etc.
Here's a link to the enhanced roms for reference:
Dragon's Lair
http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/tech/enhancements/dle.asp
Space Ace
http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/tech/enhancements/sae.asp
However, there is one major drawback to using these enhanced roms - they take between 45 - 80 seconds to boot into the game. For a real, dedicated machine, that's not really a big deal. But, in an emulated cabinet setting, with all the other games in your setup launching from your frontend in a matter of seconds, it's kind of a deal-breaker. Your average end user just doesn't want to wait that long, and if you're not there to tell them otherwise, they'd probably think the game didn't work and give up.
Matt created a fast boot option in Daphne which reduces the boot time to just a few seconds, but it only works with the original romsets. So, here's my challenge to all of you programmer types - can you figure out a way to add the fast boot support option to Dave's enhanced romsets? If someone could figure this out, we'd have the best of both worlds - quick start up time coupled with the many, many gameplay improvements of the enhanced sets. I've talked with Dave, who did such an amazing job with these sets, but he's not familiar with the language Daphne was written in.
Any takers? I'm sure you'd earn the gratitude of lots of DL/SA fans...
spoot:
Is it as easy as changing the daphenet.loadinfo.ini file to have the "other" rom listed and it's corresponding options?
benll64:
Hmmm, I don't know. I have no idea what the file is, but I'll look for it and try this idea out. Thanks.
Any other thoughts out there?
spoot:
Dunno either, I did a very rudimentary browse of the code over lunch....but that option really seems to be done from that file.
keilmillerjr:
I have not installed or Daphne, but I did check out the source. I noticed the file frontend/DaphneLoaderInfo.ini. Here is a few little snippets to check out. Editing them hey might resolve your issue. It seems like you could just add your modified game as a new game and tell it to fastboot it. Try it. Good luck!
Line 5
[GameList]
NumberOfGames=30
Game1=Astron Belt (Hitachi)
Game2=Astron Belt (Pioneer)
Game3=Badlands
Line 99
;game info:
[Dragon's Lair (US rev. F2)]
DriverName=lair
ImageName=lair.jpg
CustomCheckBox1title=Fast Boot
CustomCheckBox1onvalue=-fastboot
CustomCheckBox1offvalue=
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