Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: papaschtroumpf on October 09, 2003, 01:09:06 pm
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Is there a simple to use, freeware, (possibly open source) graphic library that can be used to write cabinet oriented software?
I can't seem to find a free slot or video poker software to run in my cab, and I'm itching to write one, but I don't want to spend the time writing a graphic engine.
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I'll look around too. I'd be interested in helping, even though I've never programmed on a PC before.
I'd really like the software to talk to an interface that can control the lights in the buttons. Maybe with something like this?
http://www.polydroids.com/specs/3200000.html (http://www.polydroids.com/specs/3200000.html)
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Your best bet is to download currently available applications and see what they use. Some freeware graphics libraries require the author to give them credit in the FAQ.
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I think what you are asking for is a game maker program, not a graphics library. I say this because almost every single graphics library is free. There are also many free graphics engines out there, but regardless you have to know how to program in C or some other programming language to do the backend stuff.
Now there are some game maker programs, the most noteable is called "game maker". However the full versions of these programs are usually not free and they aren't very cabinet friendly. (Can't redefine keys, some of them rely on mouse input, ect...)
I'm not discouraging you, I'm just trying to make you aware that there isn't an "easy" way to make a game. It still requires a bit of programming knowledge and some hard work.
But with that being said. It's video poker right? You don't need a graphics engine. You can put up images of cards and simple stuff like that with the built in windows gdi and any programming language. You could do it quite easily in vb, visual c++, java or ect... Since you aren't dealing with high frames of animation or anything like that, simple blitting to the screen should suffice. Also you could probably do something like that in shockwave or flash. It's not as "programatic" as visual studio languages if that's what you are worried about.
Hope that helps.
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Check out SDL:
http://www.libsdl.org (http://www.libsdl.org)
It is a graphics library, but also has support for input methods (e.g. joysticks) and a few other goodies.
Read the license before you spend too much time with it though (in case it isn't your cup of tea).
In the end, by all means give it a whirl but -- as a professional software developer -- be prepared for a learning curve, some frustration, and long hours before you get a product you're happy with. I write graphic-intensive applications all day (and have been for about nine years now) and still think twice about writing that next great {frontend, game, etc.}.
Good luck!
Matthew
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I think what you are asking for is a game maker program, not a graphics library. I say this because almost every single graphics library is free. There are also many free graphics engines out there, but regardless you have to know how to program in C or some other programming language to do the backend stuff.
Actually I am a programmer, so I do want a library that I can interface to (preferably in C), as you point out there are many and I was hoping for someone to say "hey, check out xyz library, I like it and it's great for cab oriented stuff".
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If your a programmer already..
why not just jump into opengl?
You have some 2d support that isn't so great... but easy to add your own wrapper on...
but just gives you some fun new stuff to learn.
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I wrote a wrapper library around DirectX a few years back, so I think I'd go that road before OpenGl because I have at least a bit of experience there. Unfortunately I was not allowed to retain the source code by my emplyer, so I would have to start all over again, which I'd rather not do...
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Well directX is what I use. Unfortunately there aren't any good engines that are direct-x based that are free. There are a lot of third-party freeware librares out there that are good, but they are open gl based. Like you I'm not too comfortable with that and as I thought you were a novice I didn't even mention that route.
Game maker that I mentioned is very nice.... some severe limitiations though.
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Actually I am a programmer, so I do want a library that I can interface to (preferably in C), as you point out there are many and I was hoping for someone to say "hey, check out xyz library, I like it and it's great for cab oriented stuff".
I use Allegro (http://alleg.sourceforge.net). It is cross-platform; the same code will compile on DOS, Windows, Unix (including, but not limited to, Linux), QNX, BeOS, and (limited support for now) Macintosh. It features:
- Cross-platform support for DOS, Windows, Unix, BeOS, QNX and MacOS systems.
- Drawing functions including putpixel, getpixel, lines, rectangles, flat shaded, gouraud shaded, texture mapped, and z-buffered polygons, circles, floodfill, bezier splines, patterned fills, masked, run length encoded, and compiled sprites, blitting, bitmap scaling and rotation, translucency/lighting, and text output with proportional fonts. Supports clipping, and can draw directly to the screen or to memory bitmaps of any size.
- DOS graphics drivers for VGA mode 13h, mode-X (twenty three tweaked VGA resolutions plus unchained 640x400 Xtended mode), and SVGA modes with 8, 15, 16, 24, and 32 bit color depths, taking full advantage of VBE 2.0 linear framebuffers and the VBE/AF hardware accelerator API if they are available. Additional video hardware support is available from the FreeBE/AF project (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/).
- Windows graphics drivers using DirectX in fullscreen and windowed modes, plus routines for drawing onto GDI device contexts.
- Unix graphics drivers for X, DGA, fbcon, SVGAlib, VBE/AF, mode-X, and standard VGA.
- BeOS graphics drivers using BWindowScreen in fullscreen and BDirectWindow in windowed modes.
- Hardware scrolling and triple buffering (where available), mode-X split screens, and palette manipulation.
- FLI/FLC animation player.
- Plays background MIDI music and up to 64 simultaneous sound effects, and can record sample waveforms and MIDI input. Samples can be looped (forwards, backwards, or bidirectionally), and the volume, pan, pitch, etc, can be adjusted while they are playing. The MIDI player responds to note on, note off, main volume, pan, pitch bend, and program change messages, using the General MIDI patch set and drum mappings. DOS version currently supports Adlib, SB, SB Pro, SB16, AWE32, MPU-401, ESS AudioDrive, Ensoniq Soundscape, and Windows Sound System. Windows version supports WaveOut and DirectSound interfaces and the system MIDI drivers. Unix version supports OSS, ESD, and ALSA sound drivers. BeOS version supports BSoundPlayer and BMidiSynth interfaces. All versions provide software wavetable MIDI playback.
- Easy access to the mouse, keyboard, joystick, and high resolution timer interrupts, including a vertical retrace interrupt simulator in the DOS version.
- Routines for reading and writing LZSS compressed files.
- Multi-object data files and a grabber utility.
- Math functions including fixed point arithmetic, lookup table trig, and 3d vector/matrix/quaternion manipulation.
- GUI dialog manager and file selector.
- Built-in support for 16-bit and UTF-8 format Unicode characters.
I use it for DOSCab/WinCab jukebox, and I believe that a couple of frontends use it as well. MAME itself uses Allegro for some functions (although possibly only for the DOS version).
Check out http://www.allegro.cc for the Allegro user community.
--Chris
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Sounds great!
DosCab/WinCab sounds nice. I'm currently using Arcade Jukebox and this looks similar. One feature thta I wish I had in a jukebox is the ability to select an album (from a list showing only album titles, or even pictures) and then select a songfrom that.
Not "True" jukebox functionnality, but I have about 100 CDs that I ripped to MP3, so finding a song can take a long time.
I'll check out allegro, sounds like what I want.
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DosCab/WinCab sounds nice. I'm currently using Arcade Jukebox and this looks similar. One feature thta I wish I had in a jukebox is the ability to select an album (from a list showing only album titles, or even pictures) and then select a songfrom that.
Not "True" jukebox functionnality, but I have about 100 CDs that I ripped to MP3, so finding a song can take a long time.
That's more like a modern CD jukebox; if that's your bag, take a look at http://www.virtualmusicjukebox.com/, which should do exactly what you want. This is the second request I've had for an input model where you select an artist or album first and then a song with the classic jukebox interface, though, so it may be worth looking into (I'm working on an update for DOSCab/WinCab jukebox right now)...
For now, you can set the SongSort=Artist option, and that should help you narrow in on a song pretty quickly.
To me, part of the whole jukebox experience is browsing through looking for songs you like; of course, on your own jukebox, they're all going to be songs you like...
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Well I didn't want to let this out yet as I never know when I'll get it finished but I have such a jukebox program in the works. It has a classic jukebox mode, a media center mode and a shoutcast "radio" mode. You can sort by any data available, including things like year, genre and anything else that might be in the tags. You can also set the naviagtion buttons to skip to the next song by any of those sort methods as well. Also it supports looking up album and artist art via the net, and it will support looking up video artwork via the internet movie database (which also carries a good deal of aw for video games and television for some reason.) Unfortunately it's all completely backend at this point. It doesn't have a gui or sound engine yet, I'm just trying to get the skins, network interfaceing, and data formats finished.
Look for it sometime early next year.
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I am using DosCab on my cabinet. I have put together the configuration files to run it from GameLauncher using a .bat file.
I have not actually done it yet, but I am going to setup the .bat file so that it copies the doscab songlist.ini from the CD. Then I will set up my .mp3 CDs so that they each have their own songlist.ini file. That way I can have more than one cd set up with different artists.
It not as good as what you are looking for, but works for me.
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If I understand you correctly, this means that you need to go back to the front end to play a different CD, is that right?
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If I understand you correctly, this means that you need to go back to the front end to play a different CD, is that right?
The version I'm working on right now will allow multiple music roots to solve this sort of problem....
--Chris
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Papaschtoumpf,
Yes, I would need to exit to the front end to change cd's.
It is a "work around" until something better comes along.