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I have a brilliant idea.... too bad i'm too dumb to pull it off.
Howard_Casto:
I've ben struggling for ages now on how to make the data in the controls.dat project really useful. The viewer is nice, but the truth is you really need to see the layout as you are playing, which is impossible as windows' version of mame uses dx exclusive mode and toggling between the two would cause issues to say the least.
So an idea pops into my head. Mame uses png files for the artwork system and the artwork system can display/show bits of the artwork via code. Why not take advantage of it?
So the idea is you prerender the layout and mame will display it on the screen when you press a key. Mame is already setup to do this (kinda) But I'm not good enough with the mame code to finish the job.
Here are the issues:
Mame already supports al default piece of artwork (named mame.zip) that'll display whenever the individual game's artwork is missing. There is the first major problem. The image would have to be added to the game-specific artwork and work independantly of it.
Also different games have different aspect ratios and the artwork system gets it's coordinates based on those ratios instead of fixed pixel values. The png image would have to work independant of those ratios so that it wouldn't look squished on vertical games, ect.
Finally a new input key would have to be added so you can toggle the view of the layout. This is by far the easiet part. Just figure out where the ui inputs are defined and add another function.
I know this is too much for me to handle right now, so I'm asking is anyone else up the task. If your not interested in the controls.dat keep in mind that this function could be used for any png file related to the game being played.
The only drawback I can see is memory consumption. As you know turning on the artwork system takes a small amont of resources. Other than that I think it would work great.
So.... any takers?
Minwah:
Great idea Howard...
Would the image be able to be displayed 'over' the game? I mean I use an arcade monitor so this would only be really useful for me if the controls artwork image could be displayed full-screen.
I don't have the know-how either to help much on this tho :(
Howard_Casto:
Yeah, I also use low res monitors so I agree. Fullscreen is the only way to go. I suppose it could be color-keyed though so that only the text and buttons were visible and the background part was transparent.
That kinda stuff is trivial though as the artwork system already supports such features. If somebody would do the hard work I could monkey with the rest.
I've been thinking about it though.... in theory I could toggle between mame and the viewer. The viewer would just have to be "always on".
Minwah:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on July 13, 2004, 07:14:41 am ---I've been thinking about it though.... in theory I could toggle between mame and the viewer. The viewer would just have to be "always on".
--- End quote ---
You mean the current viewer? That would be just as good, as long as it wouldn't use much CPU (guess it wouldn't as it would be idle most of the time).
Lilwolf:
Because of the low resolution, and how most people like to use their full video realistate.. I like the middle ware idea better.
Or the other idea I was thinking (that would be easier to implememnt... I think... Is use the historical.dat.
Mame can pull it up as text.
So modify mame so you can pull it up with a keypress.
Then its all an exercise of creating text art... And then adding the additional help and history files into one large super-history .dat