Home » PLAYER'S HQ 1.13 » JA2 Complete Mods & Sequels » Stracciatella Project (Platform Independent JA2) » Stracciatella resolutions mods..
| Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243526]
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Mon, 08 February 2010 16:14 
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 Mythrell |
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Messages:78
Registered:May 2008
Location: Mikkeli, Finland |
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Hi all, it has been a long time. 
How is the Stracciatella doing nowadays? I forgot about the whole thing for quite some time until someone dropped me an email asking about my 800x600mod, and now I'm kind of interested in possibility of continuing it.
My questions would be related to the SDL used in the Stracciatella, has anyone tried SDL_Resize or SDL_gfx to make graphics scalable to some (if not all) resolutions?
As my original idea of 800x600 mod was to a) make it full 800x600 and b) make use of that extra space, I don't really want to go thru the process of resizing graphics and all that ever again. Plus, using a real solution would be a lot better in the long run.
To my understanding SDL_Resize could be used for pre-rendering (resizing) all graphics during loading screens for different resolutions. I think that kind of solution could work quite well, but as always I do not have that much experience on SDL or "real" programming to say how it really would work.
So, if anyone has already tried it(or has the knowledge to say that it won't work), it would save me a long session of beating my head against a hard wall of C++.
Also other input would be appreciated as I haven't really checked what has been done with the source in last year or year and a half.
As always, thanks Tron for making JA2 Stracciatella, I've enjoyed it a lot during these years!
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Corporal
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243614]
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Tue, 09 February 2010 11:52 
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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SDL_Resize or SDL_gfx wouldn't that just 'blow-up' and stretch the pixels so they would fit the entire screen kinda like what the nvidia control panel does?
tron isn't gonna do the resolutions coz he doesn't want to change any of the vanilla files.
the other people in SMP don't think have the skills to do it. so I guess if you won't do it no1 will
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243644]
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Tue, 09 February 2010 20:08
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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I think direct x also has that, in my nvidia control panel on 3d properties you can scale resolutions
it looks like shit since it's not real.
Like in 1.13 1024 I can see a huge portion of the map, if I 'stretch' it with straciatella looks like shit.
but wouldn't be just a matter of ripping up 1.13 1024 files and putting them in straciatella?
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243647]
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Tue, 09 February 2010 20:36
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| Mythrell |
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Messages:78
Registered:May 2008
Location: Mikkeli, Finland |
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Thanks for the input, I guess that resizing sprites and specially the playground is not a sensible solution.
How about zooming? Is it techincly possible and if it is, with a result that would be any good? To limit stretching and other issues, you could opt to zoom less or more, what ever would work. In the end, theoreticly that's pretty much what LCD screen does to the game while in full screen mode and for me, it was still pretty nice. A little loss in graphics quality compared to much better playability in windowed mode would be a sacrifice I'd be willing to make.
If that is possible, other problem would be that I'd need something to work with. I can tinker with examples with trial and error procedure but I don't have the knowledge to create the code from nowhere.
Centurion, I know that, Tron has stated his goals many times when being asked to make all kinds of stuff to it (I'm pretty sure that I did my part too), I just wanted to thank him again on the original Stracciatella code. He did some hard work with that and I have all kinds of respect for him for that (not enough to leave it alone apparently ).
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243723]
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Wed, 10 February 2010 12:45
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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I think it was the russian 'wildfire' guy that made the 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions available and then the 1.13 guys ripped his files.
mgl if you've never played the game in 1024 I suggest you do so, seriously it is that good.
In the combat screen because you are able to see much more of the map your tactics are better and the game is more fun to plan and execute. Especially when you have militias and 2 squads and a big map with buildings -> just the fact you can see more of the map makes a better overall experience.
Another good point is that the higher resolution means the buildings, mercs, cars etc look much better because they look more detailed and not so bloated and 'pixelated'.
I'd say 1024 just simply makes the game not look so old and dated... I'm 100% sure it's one of the reasons 1.13 is so popular, ppl don't really like 100ap system or the broken A.I. but how are you going to play 640x480 in todays screens?
The 14" CRT monitor I had when I was in high school did 1024x768 just fine so I fail to understand how tron hasn't upgraded the resolution thus far. Seriously any monitor bought in the past 10 years is gonna make 640 look like shit, it's either a window the size of a stamp or a blown out ugly mess.
anyways back to the topic.
Just a dumb question: is it hard to update the existing 800x600 mods to the latest strac revision? I have no idea. In my head it's just like copy and paste and 1024 is just ripping files from 1.13 and putting them in strac...
[Updated on: Wed, 10 February 2010 13:17] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243820]
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Wed, 10 February 2010 23:47
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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"The map screen is mostly hard-coded in 640x480."
Actually in wildfire they have a 1024x768 map of arulco that fills the entire square... the reason they don't in 1.13 is because you can pick and switch one of the 3 resolutions
" Other values need to be tweaked to match higher resolutions. Gun ranges and sight radius aside, there may be off-screen optimizations that are designed for 640x480."
hmmmm.... play 1.13 and wildfire for hours @ 1024, everything works perfectly, need to check your sources there buddy
"Keeping the UI at its original size (in pixels) is fine up to 1024x768, above that it becomes increasingly difficult to manage inventory and make effective use of mercs' stat bars. So we either have to scale the sprites to a similar size (on-screen) or create new ones."
why would you go beyond 1024 in the first place? people with big ass lcd screens are playing 3d games not jagged alliance, besides a 1024 window is almost double the size of a 640 window so better thun nuthing that's wht I say
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #243826]
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Thu, 11 February 2010 00:43
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| mgl |
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Messages:255
Registered:December 2007
Location: France |
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CenturionJust a dumb question: is it hard to update the existing 800x600 mods to the latest strac revision? I have no idea. In my head it's just like copy and paste and 1024 is just ripping files from 1.13 and putting them in strac...
For the data it's copy and paste, but the data files don't make the game work with them. They are only pictures. For each picture that you add, move or resize, you must code its new location somewhere. For each picture that must interact with the user (through the mouse for example) that you add, move or resize, there is some code to update. You want to click on the sectors of the map of Arulco in the strategic screen ? Since it was moved and resized, you have some code to find and update. You clicked on a sector to play with the sector's inventory ? Since its picture is moved and bigger, you have to redo the code of the slots to allow you to pick up and put items in them. You want to hilite and click on the mercs roster, there is some code to find and update too, and there was extra work to do the same with the vehicles. Hopefully, the merc inventory was moved but not resized, it spared some work. Roughly, for each clickable thing that was changed, there is some code to update. And there is some code for non interactive things too, like the message box on the strategic screen, the text on the tactical screen etc. Even the red and blue progress bars of the loading screens in tactical were an unsuspected coding problem.
I didn't take the laptop part of Mythrell's 800x600 mod and it took me several weeks of free time to include his mod piece by piece to my working copy of straciatella (which has its own patches/mods too) and be able to compile it in either 640x480 or 800x600. And maintenance is a problem too, especially when the author of the mod leaves. If I remember well, Mythrell's mod is something like 40 source code files, not accounting the laptop. And in my case, I had to maintain my own bunch of patches too. The most reasonable thing to do was to remove his mod. And it took me several days of free time.
--------
Thanks for the info, The_Bob.
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #244427]
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Wed, 17 February 2010 11:53
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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"my working copy of straciatella (which has its own patches/mods too)"
oh I'm interested in knowing what other patches and mods you have for straciattella and what they do.
peut vous faire une liste rapide?
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #244886]
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Sun, 21 February 2010 11:07
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| mgl |
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Messages:255
Registered:December 2007
Location: France |
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MythrellEdit: http://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/sdl-opengl-hq/ . I guess this is what they use, it requires Open GL and thus would really add more hardware requirements. Not to mention that some of the most exotic platforms enabled by Stracciatella couldn't handle it no matter what.
It is (was ?) an interesting project which patches SDL. It looks like they add a new video driver with opengl backends (like SDL-1.3 does). It patches the SDL initialization function to set up a fullscreen mode at your desktop resolution but tricks the game to make it believe it's 640x480. Then the games does everything in 640x480 as usual and when it calls the SDL render screen functions (I think I saw SDL_GL_SwapBuffers() and SDL_UpdateRect()), the video driver applies a pixel interpolation function in 3 passes on the 640x480 surface from the game to scale it to your desktop resolution. I saw references to mouse too, so I think they also provide a mouse driver to convert mouse inputs with coordinates from the desktop resolution to the 640x480 mode that the game uses.
Did you try to patch your version of SDL with that and run straciatella with this driver Mythrell ?
I wonder what computer and video card you need to render each pixel of your desktop through 3 passes something like 30 times per second.
Centurionoh I'm interested in knowing what other patches and mods you have for straciattella and what they do.
Some of them are released on the forum. The first and hardest was to write another IMP creation screen with no quiz but check boxes to select your personality, abilities, hair, skin, vest, pants, need for sleep etc. It also lets you create more than one IMP and the sliders are not restricted to 85. It's the one which conflicts the most with Tron's updates on the laptop and is also the reason why I never included the laptop part of Mythrell's 800x600 mod in my game. Another one is the possibility to train militia on any sector on the surface, especially Tixa, where good battles with LAWs and mortars can be fought (it seems Deidranna wants Tixa as much as she wants the central SAM). Jake is patched to sell ammo for the CAWS if you recruit Maddog, the enemies use a wider range of colors for their clothes (they are roughly dressed like mercs), they have non-elite female fighters, they drop toolkits and mortar shells. Crepitus larvae drop jelly and some of the infants too, none of the mine runs out of ore, Enrico doesn't complain if you do nothing. I can't remember all of them. My favourite one is the armor attachment slot used to store items. I also lost or never finished an early Dimitri, Miguel and Carlos patch.
I use mods from other people too like Kaerar's guns replacement pack, recommended to everyone, and Shank's and Dynamo's cured faces.
I am currently trying to give stealthy mercs a powerful throwing knife attack if they are unnoticed but miss the "instant death" attack.
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #244998]
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Mon, 22 February 2010 23:02
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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"you'd need something like Radeon 9600+ to run that mod smoothly"
LOL I won't be able to play it.... me and lots of others with cheap laptops etc
it's a 10 year old game, if you can play 1.13/wildfire high res on any system doing that for straciatella would probably be a waste of time since nobody is going to use it
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #245072]
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Tue, 23 February 2010 15:36
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| Mythrell |
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Messages:78
Registered:May 2008
Location: Mikkeli, Finland |
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Ah, I see. Well, I'd still like to take a look, mostly I was interested on the overhead map because surprisingly most of the bugs seem to be there right now.
If you want to, you can send the source to madmantjh@yahoo.com, it's the e-mail I use most often.
I noticed the data filename change, I'm only happy about it. Most of the modified files already were lowercase (except for the loading screens which I will most likely remove in anycase, no sense of keeping big data files which you won't even see with any modern computer), I learned that lession in first two versions..
Centurion
it's a 10 year old game, if you can play 1.13/wildfire high res on any system doing that for straciatella would probably be a waste of time since nobody is going to use it.
That is why I will not actively pursue it, however that would be something worth a test run. I for one would be interested to see how it works (or doesn't).
At this point I can say that there will be no v1.13 style 1024x768 res mod from me, if there's no better solution the 800x600 will have to do. Someone else can freely adopt the mod, also I'm pretty sure that current SMP project will produce stracciatella based version with 1024x res mode as you can see from the latest UI update post on their relative forum.
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #245110]
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Tue, 23 February 2010 23:09
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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"Most of the modified files already were lowercase (except for the loading screens which I will most likely remove in anycase, no sense of keeping big data files which you won't even see with any modern computer)"
that is genius, I tried to delete the loadscreens.slf file but when I do it gives me a error black screen and shuts the game down.
While on the subject, if it's not too much trouble, the german guy who made straciattela made it so you can't delete any files from the data directory
now here's the problem: even in ja2 gold you could delete the speech.slf, npc_speech.slf and music.slf and the game wouldn't crash since you could turn speech and music off from the options screen
the german guy made it so the game will crash if you delete those files....
I would be able to play ja2 on my netbooks (and other ppl too) because of ssd drives being too small to waste on speech and music.
I'm waiting for your mod to finish JA2 for the first time, I've got a good game saved.
[Updated on: Wed, 24 February 2010 16:22] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Stracciatella resolutions mods..[message #247872]
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Fri, 26 March 2010 16:04
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| Centurion |
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Messages:80
Registered:April 2009
Location: E.U. |
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Got a few errors while compiling
something about aim policies and laptop gave me iux some shit like that
[Updated on: Mon, 05 April 2010 22:44] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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