Author Topic: Dragon King Video Card Poll and Bug Report Thread (Read 19678 times)

Howard_Casto · « **on:** June 01, 2003, 09:09:54 pm »

This is also a thread to keep track of known bugs.

If you find a Video card that doesn't display graphics properly Please Post the Card Model if it's not already listed in the thread.

If you find a bug please post the error number and description, at what point (or what you did) the error occurred and any other useful info.

Solutions won't be posted here and also don't clutter the thread with "me too" posts. This is just something to keep track of issues so I don't get confused.

When its been up for a while I'll post my findings and solutions to bugs.

When you have a problem the best thing to do is email me. But if it's already mentioned here refer to it with the same name and/or description that's given here.

***NOTE******
"I see the intro video and then it goes blank" is NOT a bug. That's due to your video card not supporting dk or the fact that you haven't proprely configured your video card settings in the frontend.ini
**************

Thanks and good luck everyone!

BobA · « **Reply #1 on:** June 02, 2003, 10:06:53 am »

When generating the master list the process stops before the list is created. The message from listgen is always Runtime error 62, Input past end of file. Always stops at the same ROM lastmisn. Any idea what I might be doing wrong with listgen?

Thanks
BobA

Jakobud · « **Reply #2 on:** June 02, 2003, 06:08:01 pm »

I still get that '76' error when starting it. Even after I leave the Additional AW dirs thing blank as suggested elsewhere. Howard if I were you I could create a very basic default ini setup that doesn't look for drive mappings of G and E and stuff like that. I am willing to bet that 90% of folks cabinets are using only one partition/map (C). Its just a suggestion. Might help narrow down what is causing some errors.

GSXRMovistar · « **Reply #3 on:** June 02, 2003, 06:34:38 pm »

Okay I've updated to 0.6 and I'm now getting a new error. Starting with a fresh install I start RD and get this error "Timer1 Subscript out of range", RD then hangs and i have to kill it off.

Running it after that I get the same error "Timer1 Subscript out of range" but then followed by "Run-time error '401', Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed"

Clicking okay to this closes the app down. Also is there an easier way to restore the hidden taskbar after RD crashes other than rebooting?

Thx.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #4 on:** June 02, 2003, 11:05:53 pm »

"File Not Found" Bug located....

On some systems winzip is not retaining the file hierarchy when it extracts dragon king.

Temporary solution: Make sure your root folder for dragon king contains a "lists" folder. Make sure that inside your "list generator" folder you have a "dats" and "catvers" folder.

Upon next version I'll check and make them if they are missing.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #5 on:** June 02, 2003, 11:22:42 pm »

"Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed" bug located...

Cause: Dx and the message box are fighting for screen space....

Temporary Solution: Setup the masterlist ahead of time by going to your "\list generator\" folder and clicking on the exe. When you go into Dk again your masterlist will be in place and the auto-setup will be bypassed. You will have to go into the menu and "refresh list" to finish the list generation process.

GSXRMovistar · « **Reply #6 on:** June 03, 2003, 05:05:01 am »

I tired that Howard but I still get the "Timer1 Subscript out of range", clicking okay just closes the app down.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #7 on:** June 03, 2003, 08:20:13 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on June 01, 2003, 09:09:54 pm

When you have a problem the best thing to do is email me. But if it's already mentioned here refer to it with the same name and/or description that's given here.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #8 on:** June 03, 2003, 08:24:31 pm »

Listinfo "input past end of file" bug found....

Cause: You have a history.dat in your mame folder which uses a different format from the one I personally use.

Temporary Solution: Remove your history.dat

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #9 on:** June 03, 2003, 08:26:57 pm »

Ati Card Issue with rage 128 chipsets.

Symptoms: No display and/or crashes shortly after startup.

Temporary Solution: None at this time. I'm working on it.

***Update**** As of dk 0.7 rage128 cards "almost" work. to check it out:
in the frontend.ini
turn on rage128
set your texformat to 0
turn on software or partial hardware modes for the render mode

AlanS17 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 04, 2003, 12:08:58 am »

I've got a Matrox G400. Works well for MAME but doesn't work so well for Dragon King.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #11 on:** June 04, 2003, 06:26:49 pm »

Quote from: AlanS17 on June 04, 2003, 12:08:58 am

I've got a Matrox G400. Works well for MAME but doesn't work so well for Dragon King.

This is a bug report page, not a comment report page. Could you please be a bit more specific?

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #12 on:** June 04, 2003, 06:30:25 pm »

Alternate Element Bug

Alternate elements won't display.

Cause: Me.... I forgot to activate them.

Solution: Me getting my lazy arse in gear and updating the skinner and exe. (This will happend within the week).

**Note: Since the new theme format is expandable this won't effect current skins so don't worry about a format change. **

AlanS17 · « **Reply #13 on:** June 04, 2003, 11:39:05 pm »

Quote from: AlanS17 on June 04, 2003, 12:08:58 am

I've got a Matrox G400. Works well for MAME but doesn't work so well for Dragon King.

Sorry. Good point. All I get is a black screen. I get all the prompts to install and the parsing seems to complete, but then every time after that it goes to black. Can't see a thing. That's with the Matrox G400 and Win98 at 1024X768 resolution. When I push buttons I can hear a dragon.

I tried earlier on my other computer with my ATI 128 (or something like that) in winXP and had slightly better, though still failed, results. It finished parsing and then I got a flash of a dragon on the screen, but then it went to black again. Again, when I push buttons I heaar a dragon.

Pyronious · « **Reply #14 on:** June 05, 2003, 06:58:38 am »

I have DK working with a Radeon 9700 Pro. However, it is running at about 5 - 10 fps and keyboard input is VERY sluggish (I have to hold down a key for half a second before DK recognizes it and responds).

System:

Windows XP / Pentium 4 / 1.6 GHz / 512 MB RAM

Any settings I should try changing to get better responsiveness? It should respond instantly to a keypress, yes?

Patrick

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #15 on:** June 05, 2003, 08:11:38 am »

Guys this is the final warning... this is NOT a place to ask questions, it's a place to report bugs. Have you read the first post? Did you notice that I have yet to answer anyone?

DarkWolfNine · « **Reply #16 on:** June 05, 2003, 08:18:33 pm »

Howard,

I have tried DK 0.7 with my ATI All-In-Wonder 128 (Rage 128) with the first settings you mentioned above. I sit with the same white bar over the text that says parsing listinfo.... I tried with the following settings:

in the frontend.ini
rage128 = 1
texformat = 0
RenderMode = 64 (partial)

I will next try w/ RenderMode set to entirely Software (32 I believe)

***** Update ***

I tried the following above but with 32 for software rendering instead.

same thing happens. white bar over parsing mame for listinfo... after about 6 seconds or so...

I did CTRL-ALT-DEL and chose End-Task on the Enhanced List Generator becuase it was NOT RESPONDING.. And then I waiting a little bit longer, and the dragon screen came up , and then to the screen but in huge fonts was a message that the MasterList wasn't created.... or something to that effect. I had to exit from there. But at least it points toward the ListGenerator.

anyway, thanks for your great work, and I hope this helps.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #17 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:10:14 pm »

I had the rest of this thread removed due to a few people getting off-topic.

Please don't take it personally, as this is here to help determine possible bugs, not to solve people's setup issues or have a place to bash all of my hard work.

Perhaps my wording was not specific enough in the first post, so I'll explain again.

This is a poll about video cards and a bug report/update thread.

This means:

no comments
no questions

and don't expect a reply from a bug report that you included a question with (notice i just said no questions)...

If you are having issues then you have to contact me or post another thread. If you find what you believe to be a genuine bug (or compatibility issue with a video card) then post it here. Otherwise do so somewhere else.

Now I am very busy for the next two weeks (except for today) so don't expect any solutions for a while.

A big thank you to everyone who has been posting bugs and keeping a positive outlook on progress towards getting them fixed. I'll let everyone know when I "return" so that progress reports can get started again.

Kane · « **Reply #18 on:** July 04, 2003, 05:36:27 pm »

Quote

same thing happens. white bar over parsing mame for listinfo... after about 6 seconds or so...

I did CTRL-ALT-DEL and chose End-Task on the Enhanced List Generator becuase it was NOT RESPONDING.. And then I waiting a little bit longer, and the dragon screen came up , and then to the screen but in huge fonts was a message that the MasterList wasn't created.... or something to that effect. I had to exit from there. But at least it points toward the ListGenerator.

Howard- I have the same issue. I am running Windows 98SE- 1.1ghz Amd T-bird .7 of Dragon King and I've tried Mame .66 ans .70.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #19 on:** July 05, 2003, 01:37:10 am »

I'm going to break my own rule here and answer this one.

Generating the masterlist takes time on some pcs. To get an idea of how long it takes open up a command prompt, go to your mame dir and type:

mame.exe -listinfo <test.txt

However long it takes to finish is how long it will take dk to make that part of the list because this is exactly how dk does it. It will say "not responding" the whole time the listgenerator runs and obviously if you close that app the masterlist won't be generated properly, thus the error.

Kane · « **Reply #20 on:** July 05, 2003, 08:07:09 am »

hmmm, ok I'll give it a shot. Thanks

Paul Olson · « **Reply #21 on:** July 08, 2003, 06:16:36 pm »

Howard - The toggle snaps option doesn't seem to be turning itself off if I am displaying both titles and snaps. I left it on bcause the comments said that it would disable automatically. It would work fine at first then after navigating the the games list for a while, both elements will display titles. I disabled the toggle in the .ini and everything works fine.

Paul

bdp · « **Reply #22 on:** July 16, 2003, 12:20:29 am »

Howard,

The listgen for Dragon King is crashing for me with Mame 71u2.

I get "input past end of file" when it reaches the "nss" roms (nintendo super system bios). This is with a complete rom set (over 4,000). Get "input past end of file error". Have we hit a limitation?

Tried both inside and outside of the frontend, same error.

Please advise.

BDP

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #23 on:** July 16, 2003, 12:38:16 am »

there isn't any such bios as the nss bios

You are running a hacked version of mame. Ensure that they have said bios listed as a

"resource ("
and not a ....
"game ("

in the listinfo.dat. If it's listed as a game then the people who hacked it screwed up and you should jump on them.

There isn't anyway of fixing this leave not calling the hacked version your "mame" but rather a secondary emulator.

**edit**

The "u" builds of mame are for developers only and shouldn't be used on any fe or cab as they are glitchy. I really wish they'd stop releasing those. I thought beta versions were gone for good.

bdp · « **Reply #24 on:** July 16, 2003, 07:58:06 am »

Howard,

Thanks for the speedy reply.

I didn't hack any extra roms in there, but whatever it has, yeah, this may be something they added.

Where is the listinfo.dat located and is that a file I can edit? Maybe I can make manual entries for these files. Is it possible I'll be able to get this working or will I need to go back and edit the MAME source?

I think "nss" just came up in the listgen window as

/???/??? and that may be the problem.

Thanks again.

BDP

bdp · « **Reply #25 on:** July 16, 2003, 06:58:11 pm »

Howard, okay I found it, and it's listed as a resource.

Any idea why it still doesn't work? I mean I realize this is a hacked version of MAME, but really it should work anyway I'd think if the listinfo is correct, right?

If I remove this entry from the listinfo.dat, will that work? Or do I need to recompile mame without this driver perhaps?

BDP

bdp · « **Reply #26 on:** July 16, 2003, 07:50:19 pm »

Get this Howard...

I checked the listinfo, and the nss resource didn't have a YEAR! I bet that's what it is! Everything else does.

So it looks like your listgen crashes when a rom/resource doesn't have a year associated with it.

NOW I just need to figure out how to associate a year! Probably will hafta do a source mod somewhere.

BDP

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #27 on:** July 16, 2003, 11:25:09 pm »

I reworked the listgen based on what you said, from now on the list gen will never have to be updated. Next version the bug will be fixed.

bdp · « **Reply #28 on:** July 17, 2003, 12:27:40 am »

Way cool! FYI though -- Actually I put the year back in, and it still crashed. The only solution was to remove all the new BIOSes from the info.c source code file. I'm not sure what your listgen didn't like about those new bioses, but something somehow threw it off.

So if you only fixed the year thing, if those bioses are in .72 you might have a prob. Not sure. But you might have got it anyway.

Thanks as always for the great support. I have a question about snapshots too but I'll start a new thread for that.

Spaced Invader · « **Reply #29 on:** July 29, 2003, 09:53:10 am »

Howard,
I have a GeForce 5200 (128MB). On launch the FE would play the intro.mpeg then go to a black screen. I checked the ini, saw your note on textures, changed TexFormat=22 (default) to TexFormat=0 (auto), launched, and it ran perfectly. Great Program!!!

Your INI is well commented. I just posted this for your information and for those who don't read setup files.

GSXRMovistar · « **Reply #30 on:** August 13, 2003, 05:25:37 pm »

A version 0.8 bug found:

When running DK with my own skin I get the following message at start-up "Run Time Error 91, Object variable or With block variable not set"

The app then crashes back to the desktop, although if I run DK with your standard skin first and then select mine from the menu all works fine, Strange

------
Updated to 8.1 and all sorted now, cheers Howard.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #31 on:** August 13, 2003, 06:31:27 pm »

Bug found and fixed. It's a major one, so expect a new version within the hour.

Btw the bug is caused by not having an intro sound. Put a **start.mp3** in there and it'll fix it for now.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #32 on:** August 13, 2003, 06:46:27 pm »

Fix is up, thanks for the info.

GSXRMovistar · « **Reply #33 on:** August 16, 2003, 07:20:36 am »

Howard, just been trying out your favourites tagger, very cool btw, and I've notices a small bug.

Under the options for re-defining keys it appears the favourites tagger and print game list keys are swapped. That is if I assign

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #34 on:** August 16, 2003, 08:50:36 pm »

K, I'll switch it for next version. As it's not crucial I won't worry about it for now.

Homebrew · « **Reply #35 on:** September 01, 2003, 05:49:50 pm »

Just switched from .5 to .81 (completely new install, didn't try to upgrade or anything) and noticed that DK will not load, just freezes if there is a custom.lst present, but only if the custom.lst isn't empty. An empty custom.lst present causes no problems. I was using the custom.lst to add PC Games to my game lists.

GSXRMovistar · « **Reply #36 on:** September 03, 2003, 02:47:04 pm »

Got another one for ya Howard

When bringing up the info for a Mame game everything is fine, you can cycle throught the mameinfo.dat, artwork etc..

But when I attempt the same thing under different emus (N64/PSX) it displays the main info page but when I attempt to cycle through it crashes out with the following error "Run-time error '424': Object Required".

Then returning to DK I find that all the game lists are gone and I need to create them again.

Valence · « **Reply #37 on:** September 04, 2003, 02:38:02 pm »

I have a Matrox dual head 450. Gets through the install. You see the intro dragon and then the screen goes blank. XP, 1Ghz, 750MB Ram.

Sshado · « **Reply #38 on:** September 16, 2003, 03:07:27 pm »

Quote from: Valence on September 04, 2003, 02:38:02 pm

I have a Matrox dual head 450. Gets through the install. You see the intro dragon and then the screen goes blank. XP, 1Ghz, 750MB Ram.

Just thought I would post what I saw on his F.A.Q. page about this:

Q. When DK starts up I see the intro, hear a nifty little sound and then I get a blank screen. What am I doing wrong?

A. Your video card is probably not a Radeon 7500 and thus you need to set your settings manually. In the frontend.ini set the TexFormat to 0, The Rendering mode to 32, and you should be golden. Rage128 cards are having issues at the moment. Geforce 2 cards and Radeon 7000 cards need the render mode set to software (32).

crashwg · « **Reply #39 on:** January 09, 2004, 01:39:33 am »

On-board "S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR"
Win XP
Athalon XP 2000+

Start up, black screen for about 30 seconds,
"Run-time error 'S3': File not found"

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #40 on:** January 09, 2004, 09:16:43 pm »

read directly above your post

PacManFan · « **Reply #41 on:** January 09, 2004, 10:50:36 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 09, 2004, 09:16:43 pm

read directly above your post

You are such a child sometimes...

-PMF

SirPeale · « **Reply #42 on:** January 10, 2004, 01:20:08 pm »

Howard -

It appears that a lot of the comments in "frontend.ini" aren't commented out at all. Is it supposed to be that way?

I've noted that the comments more or less indicate that screenshots are supposed to show, but they're not. I've got an NVidia TNT card, and I've indicated the paths in "dirs.ini" accordingly. I tried using "RenderMode=128" and 64, but 32 is the only thing that will display anything at all.

Also, I can't alt-tab to select another window/program after exiting.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #43 on:** January 11, 2004, 12:04:13 am »

TNT is a very old card... it isn't designed to run with it, so I wouldn't expect it to run in anything but software vertex mode.

These types of specific problems are most likely configuration errors, not bugs. Please pm me or start a new thread so I can help you. (p.s. I'm going to need a screenshot)

Buddabing · « **Reply #44 on:** January 24, 2004, 12:18:18 pm »

When running the dumba setup program, if you do not include a drive in the path to mame in the mame.cfg, a runtime error 5 occurs.

Running version 0.9 on Windows XP Professional

A workaround would be to assume that if the user does not include a drive letter in the path, to assume that the drive is the same drive from which the dumba program is running.

Also, you might include a version.txt in the main directory. If the original .zip file has been deleted, then it's easy to tell what version the user is running by just looking at the version.txt.

Thank you for your effort in developing your front end. I know it took a huge time commitment.

crashwg · « **Reply #45 on:** January 30, 2004, 08:25:17 am »

I changed the texformat to 0 (also 22 which works for me) and the rendermode to 32, and it loads up but it appears as if the text is just too small to read. Where I'm assuming that there is supposed to be text there is just "......" except some of the dots are a little bit bigger.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #46 on:** January 30, 2004, 09:45:57 am »

Without your systems specs this tells me nothing.

Halen · « **Reply #47 on:** February 02, 2004, 03:39:31 pm »

I've got a Rage 128 Pro running in XP. I've added the rage128=1 option to the frontend.ini file, and the FE will only run in software mode for me (32). However, even in that mode, all my text shows up as blocks, rather than in a font. Did I screw something up, or is it time to give my Rage 128 the boot?

I was using Lazarus, but since it bombs out now in the roms scanning process, I thought I'd move on to the current iteration of the modern FE.

screaming · « **Reply #48 on:** March 06, 2004, 12:33:48 pm »

Howard,

I'm starting to evaluate some front ends to use in my cab, and DK is a serious contender. In doing so I'm working on making a new skin to use to help me understand what features are available for each front end. I'm pretty big on configurability, so that lends a lot in favor of DK. There are just a few more features I would like to see...

I've been testing for a couple days and here's what I've come across. Some of them are bugs, some of them are feature requests and some of them might just be my own ignorance.

My computer is running Windows XP with plenty of free hard drive space and plenty of memory. All of these happen regardless of the resolution I'm running, as far as I've been able to tell.

Anyway, here you are in no particular order:

DK:
- The list of games lags BIGTIME with the default skin. When I press the down arrow nothing seems to register, so I press it a few more times and then it will jump down a few games. When I created my own and made a list out of game names instead of marquee images it got better, but still lags enough to make it annoying.

- What's the 'shift key' in the keyboard input options for? I searched the docs, faq and arcadcontrols and didn't come up with anything.

- Setting up DK: Some of us that aren't 'in the know' might think that it's okay to take out a whole variable out of a config file if the variable is empty. Now, *I* know that it's not a good idea to do that just so you can reference it later in case you want to add something, but not everyone else believes that. Maybe DK should have a set of defaults programmed in case someone does this (or at least won't crash)?

When you take out 'Additional AW Dirs' line in dir.ini you get 'Run time error '9': subscript out of range' error when you run DK.

When you take out 'roms' line in dir.ini you get 'Run time error '62': Input past end of file' error when you run DK.

Other lines do this too, but it's either one of these two errors.

- Transparent GIF didnt work for logo (nothing showed up when I ran DK). I HAD to make a transparent PNG. Not necessarily a bad thing, but docs say transparent GIFs work. And yes, I changed the logo= line in dirs.ini to reflect the GIF instead of PNG.

- I would like to display a graphic on how to navigate through DK with the joystick and buttons. In order to save screen real-estate in the main window, having an image display when you open DK would be helpful (sort of like a splash screen). Either that or have a DK info screen to show an image. The skin I'm working on incorporates such a graphic, but if there were an info screen that was either emulator specific and/or DK specific then I'm sure I could find a use for it.

Most of these below have to do with bugs in the skinner, but some of them might just be limitations in DK and therefore should be considered a feature request.

SKINNER:
- Not in the task order (not in alt-tab list or task bar). I find this extremely annoying.

- Load up default skin, right click 'middle of list', change to normal, re-position, save skin (new format) gives you an error: Run-time error '340': Control array element '1' doesn't exist. Open skin back up again after crash and old list position shows up on the bottom. Right click on it and get ERROR: Run-time error '340': Control array element '105' doesn't exist. You have to check 'list' under view menu to get it back. I've been able to reproduce this error.

- Uncheck 'Enable Old Save formats' option doesn't save when you reopen skinner. SIDE NOTE: IMO, the skinner should either save in both formats automatically OR get rid of the old format. I think having the seperate option might confuse people, unless there's a definite need for everyone to have that distinction.

- Title snapshot options don't seem to be loading correctly. I can edit the layout just fine, save it and it will show up in DK, but if I go back into the skinner the title snapshot position and size parameters are set back to 0, 0, 15, 15.

- Path properties:
- Font size in path not set-able. It's only dynamic based on the size of the window and the amount of text in the Path Caption.
- Space (%) doesn't work in path caption. For example, '1#6#2%3#3##11##9##' produces '2%3' on the third line when I select a game in DK.
- Can't do text + variable in path caption. For example, have it output 'Game Name: PacMan' in DK. Having a system similar to audio CD rippers would be cool. Something like '%1\nGame name: %2 (%3)\n\n%11' would be totally workable.
- Path doesn't show up in Elements menu and is only available when you right click the element in the layout. I assume this is because you can't set transparency options specifically for the path (do they follow the same options as the list options? If so, that should be specified.).
- Showing what the 0-12 #s mean on the Path properties screen would be helpful instead of having to look it up in the docs.
- Text alignment setting isn't being restored when I close and open the window.
- More control over the path would be nice. Instead of just specifying lines in mameinfo.dat, I'd like to be able to specify players, buttons, controls, etc individually.

- 'list' doesn't show up in layering. The layer order seems to only apply to images, but IMO should apply to all elements.

- Either have the overlay changeable per emulator, or put 'list' in the layer order.

- Text wraps funny on different screens depending on font size in Windows Display properties. I see this happen a lot with VB programs so I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but I can provide screen shots if you need them. I had to mess around and reboot a couple times just to find out that in the Element Options window it says 'Level of Translucency (Only works if Blend Mode is set to Translucent)'. It kept getting cut off by the element right underneath it.

- Font Scheme Options:
- 'cancel' doesn't close the window OR reset the form. I would expect that it did one or the other.
- Non-numerical characters in text fields produce ERROR: Run-time error '13' Type mismatch. Maybe implement sliders instead of text boxes for fields like this (but show the #).
- Additional font options would be nice in order to produce output similar to GL's game list (glowing borders around letters, etc). Could you implement the MS's filters here?

- What if the skinner size defaulted to size of loaded skin to get a better idea of what it will look like? Would that work?

That's it so far that I've come across...

/Steve

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #49 on:** March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm »

Umm I appreciate your feedback but 99% of those "bugs" are user errors. For example, why would anyone remove portions of the config file? Dk won't operate properly wihtout them anyway so what's the point of removing them. And for that matter, what's the point of supressing the error when dk would have to shut down anyway? Gif's are intentionly not supported... it's says so in both the faq and the docs. They will never be supported as they are an inferor (and now proprietary, meaning it costs me money to legally support them) format.

You aren't thinking smartly about some of the other things you suggested. For example you do have a "splash screen", it's the intro.mpeg.

The zorder for the list is fixed on purpose.... it's possible to alter it, but it'd be silly as the list always needs to be on top. You can make the overlay go on top of it though.

The rest of the stuff you mentioned is well documented. There's simply too much for me to go over here though.

You've gotta understand something.... dk is user friendly, but it doesn't handle fatal errors. The reason for this is so the user understands something is wrong and re-checks their settings, rather than bugging me about a broken feature that would actually work if they set it properly. All non-fatal errors and handled and fixed accordingly.

With that being said, I do appreciate your feedback. This just isn't a commerical program. I do it for free, so don't expect commercial "spit and polish".

screaming · « **Reply #50 on:** March 06, 2004, 09:11:52 pm »

Aaahh, just how I thought you'd reply! At least you're predictable.

It's your software, man. When I develop software, I want to make it the best it can be even if that means I have to compensate for other people's ignorance. I seem to take pride in catching the dumb things some people can do and handle those things gracefully.

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

For example, why would anyone remove portions of the config file? Dk won't operate properly wihtout them anyway so what's the point of removing them. And for that matter, what's the point of supressing the error when dk would have to shut down anyway?

When DK crashes and leaves me without my windows taskbar, that's a bug.

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

Gif's are intentionly not supported... it's says so in both the faq and the docs.

You're right. I was looking at the Extra Features for Lazarus. It's not anywhere in the DK docs, but it is in the FAQ.

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

You aren't thinking smartly about some of the other things you suggested. For example you do have a "splash screen", it's the intro.mpeg.

It's 10x harder to make a video of a picture instead of just a picture. I thought about making a video to show how my interface works, but I didn't think it was so hard of a thing to implement a splash or an emulator info screen.

What other things was I not thinking 'smartly' about?

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

The zorder for the list is fixed on purpose.... it's possible to alter it, but it'd be silly as the list always needs to be on top. You can make the overlay go on top of it though.

In my theme I would like the emulator logo to be on top of the list in the upper right-hand corner partially covering the last few letters of the top couple of lines in my list. So, does that mean you'll have overlays changeable by emulator?

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

You've gotta understand something.... dk is user friendly, but it doesn't handle fatal errors. The reason for this is so the user understands something is wrong and re-checks their settings, rather than bugging me about a broken feature that would actually work if they set it properly. All non-fatal errors and handled and fixed accordingly.

So when DK or the DK skinner crashes losing all my work, I'll know that it's all my fault and not worry about 'bugging' you. Gotcha.

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 06, 2004, 07:50:08 pm

With that being said, I do appreciate your feedback. This just isn't a commerical program. I do it for free, so don't expect commercial "spit and polish".

As a developer of open source software, I certainly realize the demand some users can have on a developer, even if that developer is working for free. Please don't consider my bug submittals and feature requests being a demand for anything, but rather helpful suggestions to help you make DK a front end that everyone will want to use.

I certainly don't expect 'spit and polish' from you. Thanks for the great front end, and I look forward to using DK for a long time. BTW, are there any plans in the works for either open sourcing DK or otherwise making the source available?

/Steve

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #51 on:** March 07, 2004, 02:21:22 am »

Quote from: screaming on March 06, 2004, 09:11:52 pm

Aaahh, just how I thought you'd reply! At least you're predictable.

It's your software, man. When I develop software, I want to make it the best it can be even if that means I have to compensate for other people's ignorance. I seem to take pride in catching the dumb things some people can do and handle those things gracefully.

If that's how you thought I'd reply then why did you post all of that crap? It's very impolite to purposefully "egg somone on". When a program crashes because a user trys to make it do something it's not supposed to do then it's user error, not a bug.... simple as that. Now if it crashes for no reason that's a different story.

Don't misunderstand me I'm always welcome to suggestions on things I could do better, but this is the bug report thread, not the suggestion thread. You have like two pages of info and it's all lumped together.

Btw the skinner and dk are two different animals. The skinner is buggy and probably does crash a lot,.... dk, however is uncrashable assuming you haven't deleted lines from the cfg files like you said.

If you want me to seriously go over your issues then your going to have to filter everything off and make a suggestions post, a bug report post and a questions post.

Please don't do it in this particular thread though as we've alreayd cluttered it up.

Khenemet Heru · « **Reply #52 on:** March 29, 2004, 09:19:14 pm »

Hey Howard, just wanted to give you some feedback on my issue with DK on my box.

This was a pretty non-standard setup, but I was trying things out on my Mini-ITX Via Nehemiah board before I started building. DK would load, start running, the intro movie would play, and then I'd get black screen and a dead 'puter - had to wait forever for it to force-quit to winXP.

The video card on that board is a built-in S3 with shared RAM, 64MB set in BIOS, which I found makes MAME suck wind anyhow... but no settings I tried would get me anything but that intro movie then black screen. I've since moved on to other things, but I thought I'd give you the report anyhow. I can get more info on the video chipset if you want it.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #53 on:** March 30, 2004, 09:36:35 am »

No need.... s3 is an old, dead card.... it'll never be supported.

nipsmg · « **Reply #54 on:** May 05, 2004, 01:55:36 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 07, 2004, 02:21:22 am

Quote from: screaming on March 06, 2004, 09:11:52 pm
Aaahh, just how I thought you'd reply! At least you're predictable.

It's your software, man. When I develop software, I want to make it the best it can be even if that means I have to compensate for other people's ignorance. I seem to take pride in catching the dumb things some people can do and handle those things gracefully.

If that's how you thought I'd reply then why did you post all of that crap? It's very impolite to purposefully "egg somone on". When a program crashes because a user trys to make it do something it's not supposed to do then it's user error, not a bug.... simple as that. Now if it crashes for no reason that's a different story.

Don't misunderstand me I'm always welcome to suggestions on things I could do better, but this is the bug report thread, not the suggestion thread. You have like two pages of info and it's all lumped together.

Btw the skinner and dk are two different animals. The skinner is buggy and probably does crash a lot,.... dk, however is uncrashable assuming you haven't deleted lines from the cfg files like you said.

If you want me to seriously go over your issues then your going to have to filter everything off and make a suggestions post, a bug report post and a questions post.

Please don't do it in this particular thread though as we've alreayd cluttered it up.

Errors should be trapped in any program gracefully enough so that if it throws an error and has to shut down, it will show the task-bar, etc.

A crash from an "index out of range" that fully crashes a program is purely and completely a lack of error trapping.. If it's an API error, they're trappable also.

Users are ALWAYS doing what they're not supposed to do. This usually results in SOME kind of array out of bound error. Either they're overfilling/draining a stack, or changing things in a way so that data isn't where it's expected. If there's one thing I've learned, it's NEVER to expect that a registry key/text file/INI key/Array element will actually be where you expect it, and to always error-trap to capture those few cases where it's NOT actually there. (I write code in a business environment, and we write a lot of our software in-house. I'm writing, for the most part, for computer illiterate people.. or those who THINK they know what they're doing, and screw more stuff up. Those are the most dangerous, actually.)

This is meant as constructive criticism, not an insult to your programming ability at all, because I love your FE.

--NipsMG

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #55 on:** May 06, 2004, 12:22:17 am »

Quote from: nipsmg on May 05, 2004, 01:55:36 pm

Errors should be trapped in any program gracefully enough so that if it throws an error and has to shut down, it will show the task-bar, etc.

--NipsMG

Yes, yes they should.... pay me my usual hourly rate and I'll be glad to implement this. Otherwise I'm not spending all of my free time trapping errors that are the result of the user.

No offense taken... I'm just telling you straight out.


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