EmuTron - new version 2.15

[PacManFan]

Hello everyone!
PacManFan here,
I've just posted a new version of EmuTron for everyone to enjoy. www.pacmanfan.com

In this version, there have been several major improvements. Software-based full screen rotation should work for everyone now. The framerate isn't all that great(10-12 fps on my 2.0Ghz)(*Your mileage may vary!).
I'm still going to put in hardware -based rotation as soon as I get a video card that supports it (Donation anyone?)
Here's an abrieviated list of some of the main features:

4/30/03
- Fixed Software rotation issues, still a little slow.

4/24/03
- Completed implementation of Pause /Resume / Launch2 functionality
- Fixed minor problem in ETConfig w/ manufacturers / catver ini not showing.
- Keyboard lights controlled through scripting language (Caps,Scroll)
   Num lock light does not work w/ the current version
- Major internal revisions to support multi-threading (FrameRate Increase %11 - %14)
- Added in the && op for key presses. Events can now be triggered by 2 or more keys
   being pressed together ex: SCAN_A && SCAN_B || SCAN_C

4/15/03

- added in True (1) and False (0) as default variable symbols in script

To sum this up, some of the better new features are: EmuTron can now pause and resume when you launch a game. With the new Launch2 command, you no longer have to write out a .bat file through the script. EmuTron pauses the video and the music when you launch a game, and resumes when you come back from a game. The transition is (almost) seemless.
This Launch2 command makes it easy for you to launch almost any emulator or program, and gives you the option whether to pause the FE or not.
I have also added in support for multiple keypresses in the script, You can now specify a combination using the || (OR) or the && (AND) between keys. This allows you to have multi-keypress combos to control hidden features in the script.
For all of you people with keyboard lights on your cab, I have added in 2 new functions to control lights through the script:

ToggleKBLight and SetKBLight

I made major revisions in EmuTron to increase speed and performance 11-14% faster now.

I added a few new pages to my web site. I've posted an arcade movie (mamearcade), and a few arcade - based mp3 files to use in your scripts(Or any FE for that matter).

I would like to see the scripts that everyone has been working on, so post some screenshots and send me your scripts so I can post them on my site.

As always, comments / suggestions / criticisms are welcome.

-PacManFan
www.pacmanfan.com

[Superdude]

Pac,
I did a clean install with the new version.  Everything I could not get working before works now.  IE Movies and Mp3s.  Great Job!  I will be testing heavily with this. Ill let ya know my progress.

[wee beastie]

superdude,  I tested zsnes using the Launch2 command, everything works great!  I'll report any successes or failures with other emus as I try them out.

PacManFan-  as always, thanks again!  I'll send you some of my scripts once I get them finalized.  As a side note (you probably already knew this), I tried changing my shell to EmuTron, and it doesn't seem to work.  Instead I just get a blank screen when Windows boots.  Needless to say, I changed it back to the regular Explorer.exe shell and everything is OK on my computer again.  So, I assume there is something inherent in EmuTron that it needs to run under the Explorer.exe shell?  Or, perhaps I'm just doing it wrong.  Anyway, Thanks again!

wee beastie

[PacManFan]

PacManFan-  as always, thanks again!  I'll send you some of my scripts once I get them finalized.  As a side note (you probably already knew this), I tried changing my shell to EmuTron, and it doesn't seem to work.  Instead I just get a blank screen when Windows boots.  Needless to say, I changed it back to the regular Explorer.exe shell and everything is OK on my computer again.  So, I assume there is something inherent in EmuTron that it needs to run under the Explorer.exe shell?  Or, perhaps I'm just doing it wrong.  Anyway, Thanks again!
wee beastie

Actually, I didn't know that. I'll have to try it out on my machine and see what's going on.
It might be a DirectX issue.
-PacManFan

[PacManFan]

Pac,
I did a clean install with the new version.  Everything I could not get working before works now.  IE Movies and Mp3s.  Great Job!  I will be testing heavily with this. Ill let ya know my progress.

Movies and MP3's should have been working fine for the past few versions. ET does have a limitation about playing only avi files with no sound though.

For a little fun, put this in your etoptions.cfg:

rotatemethod 1
And change the orientation to be somewhere between 0 and 359.
I'll probably make this into a bitmap rotate function soon.

-PacManFan

[wee beastie]

Just don't change your shell unless you know what you're doing, because you'll need to edit the file back using dos to get your computer working again.

Just a warning.  I assume you know how to do it, but I don't want you to lose all your work.

[shmokes]

I think safe mode will force you back to explorer.exe as a shell.  That makes changing back super simple.  Just turn on your computer and keep tapping F8.  When the boot menu pops up tell it to load into safe mode and then you can fix your Win.INI or is it system.ini, I don't remember; just go wherever you went to screw it up in the first place.

[Howard_Casto]

If you are using xp then this isn't an issue as each user can have a different shell and when going in as a guest of the default admin, it defaults to explorer.  


Btw PMF just by conicidence I was trying dxlaz as a shell last night an had a smilar issue.  Turns out that directX takes a split second to initilize and if you call it immediately then it will bomb out.  All I did was put in a split second delay and it did alright, you might want to try something similar.  

[PacManFan]

Thanks for the tip HC, I'll try it out. I'm on w98 BTW.
-PMF

If you are using xp then this isn't an issue as each user can have a different shell and when going in as a guest of the default admin, it defaults to explorer.  


Btw PMF just by conicidence I was trying dxlaz as a shell last night an had a smilar issue.  Turns out that directX takes a split second to initilize and if you call it immediately then it will bomb out.  All I did was put in a split second delay and it did alright, you might want to try something similar.  

[wee beastie]

If you are using xp then this isn't an issue as each user can have a different shell and when going in as a guest of the default admin, it defaults to explorer.  


Btw PMF just by conicidence I was trying dxlaz as a shell last night an had a smilar issue.  Turns out that directX takes a split second to initilize and if you call it immediately then it will bomb out.  All I did was put in a split second delay and it did alright, you might want to try something similar.  

HC's programming knowledge astounds me sometimes.  Good troubleshootin' tex!!!

[wee beastie]

PacManFan,

One quick question for you.  If my primary (background) rectangle is (0,0,640,480) can I define a rectangle outside of that such as (640,0,1280,480) so I can have a new "background" image slide (rather animate over) into the screen?  Does this question make sense?

wee beastie

[PacManFan]

Try it out, I think so, I'll have to check my drawing code to see how the clipping is performed. Either the image will not display unless it's entirely inside the screen rectangle, or it will display partially clipped. I'll have to check.

-PacManFan

PacManFan,

One quick question for you.  If my primary (background) rectangle is (0,0,640,480) can I define a rectangle outside of that such as (640,0,1280,480) so I can have a new "background" image slide (rather animate over) into the screen?  Does this question make sense?

wee beastie

[wee beastie]

PacManFan,

I forgot to mention.  I redid the standard background image for EmuTron and saved it to my server.  It's the same layout as the original background image, but it's cleaned up a bit and I used a different color scheme.  If you want to check it out go here:

http://www.useless.net/~nick/bacground2.bmp

Just thought you might be interested.

wee beastie