Dragon King??? Please move this to SOFTWARE.

[MYX]

I have read the the DK FAQ on the Lazarus site, but I would like to know about the features. The Lazarus has quite a bit of stuff, but it seems thin as to explinations. I have searched in several places, but I do not see a feature page that sort of sums up what is possible.

The reason I ask is because I started doing a full scale FE hunt last night as I am tired of trying to make MAMEWah do stuff, it probably was never intended to do. So, I checked out Atomic FE which is very cool looking and I have read a bit about the ins and outs of it, but I want to see the whole scope. I am staying away from MALA right now as I do not want to buy a replacement chip for the LEDWiz. So, back to my thought, Does anyone have somewhere they can direct me about DK.

[loadman]

I am staying away from MALA right now as I do not want to buy a replacement chip for the LEDWiz.

What if I gave you one?    :-)

So, back to my thought, Does anyone have somewhere they can direct me about DK.

Surely our good friend HowardC could help you withat that?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=57027.0

[MYX]

Wow, you really are the MALA evangelist, arn't you.  You are welcome to do so... But, again, like Randy said and has been discussed, It is either on or off. I have 5 RGB LEDs and wish to change the colors from my default (blue) to like red and green on games who's had it, which I can do with solid on off, but I also want the ability to get goofy and make purple, teal, or orange buttons if I like. I have looked at MALA and saw

[loadman]

Wow, you really are the MALA evangelist, arn't you.]Wow, you really are the MALA evangelist, arn't you.

He  he   I was only kidding anyway.  My wife would kill me if I gave stuff away. But....  I can lend you one to try, if you want (send me a postal address)

Any idea if it has alpha support for the FE? I like the Atomic FE's use of this

I don't do much graphic stuff, so I'm not sure? You can ask SWINDUS and/or download it and have a look.

The link you gave me has no details, just a link to Lazarus, which has little info.

I realsise that.  What I meant to say was that post was a better place to pose such a question as Howard (the author) would see it rather than in this main forum

[Howard_Casto]

Wrong forum to post this, I don't look at the main forum too often. 


There isn't a straight out feature list because it'd be several pages long.  You can get an idea of what dk can do by looking at the online documentation.  Also when you download it, the newly added features are included in the what's new. 

[gamecreature]

Any idea if it has alpha support for the FE? I like the Atomic FE's use of this.

MaLa currently doesn't support alpha channels but you can have objects with transparency.

[MYX]

Any idea if it has alpha support for the FE? I like the Atomic FE's use of this.

MaLa currently doesn't support alpha channels but you can have objects with transparency.

If it has transparency, then doesn't it have to have alpha?

[MYX]

Wrong forum to post this, I don't look at the main forum too often. 

Good Point, Can Someone move this to Software?

[headkaze]

Any idea if it has alpha support for the FE? I like the Atomic FE's use of this.

MaLa currently doesn't support alpha channels but you can have objects with transparency.

If it has transparency, then doesn't it have to have alpha?

I think gamecreature is refering to a single colour transparency often called a "colour key" which is used in DirectDraw or GDI+. An alpha transparency on the other hand refers to a 256 level transparency which is treated like a normal RGB channel. A colour key is not stored in the image's data, whilst an image with an alpha channel has this information stored in the image's data. Direct3D can use alpha transparency textures which obviously gives a better blending of an image with it's background. A colour key as used in DirectDraw results in the "jaggies" effect or "pixelation" around the edges because there is no gradual blending with the background.

[Howard_Casto]

Dk supports true alpha channels as well as color keys and around 8 other color blending techniques.  Aside from 3darcade I don't think any other fe does this.  I don't care for color-keying, but it does have it's uses, such as when I took the black background of the nes cart images and cleaned them up then then displayed them in the nes skin with a black color-key.  Now the carts don't have a background in the skin, but look normal outside of the fe.  Imho this is the only good use for such a blending technique and unfortuantely, unless you are using directx that is pretty much what you are limited to if you want any kind of speed.


This is the primary reason I switched form gdi rendering to directx8.  In all honesty, if you aren't using these effects then there isn't any reason to code your fe in anything other than plain old gdi.