Topic: Chocolate Descent (beta 1 available)

[Ionized]

Looks really nice. As a Linux ppc64le user when is Linux support likely to land?

[SaladBadger]

Sorry for the late response, but linux support is coming along. You can get in game and all of that, but bits of important code right now (such as directory iteration) isn't present yet.

Also I totally forgot to post that build here...... ooooops... Sorry about that, but the project is still alive and kicking.

[VANGUARD]

cool 

Linux User here as well, KUbuntu.

[SaladBadger]

If you want to test, you can try building it from source (github link in OP). I'm curious how it goes on other distros, since at the moment I only have my personal Arch box to do my Linux dev work.

There's still work to be done to get it to be a clean, standard unix-y application like getting the filesystem to work relative to a user-owned directory rather than sticking everything in the working directory, as well as making the code try both DESCENT.HOG and descent.hog for convenience, and there's a couple of problems with the build environment (Descent 1 and 2 cannot exist in the same directory due to file conflicts, but the current CMake setup puts the freshly built executables in the same output dir), but it's functional for now.

edit: I think Descent 2 support is pretty broken ATM since the game tries to load files with lowercase names but encodes uppercase names for the PIG files in the level files. Ugh. I need to work on the solution to get it trying to load both lower and uppercase filenames.

[SaladBadger]

Well that was a mess, but it works now. For data files (mostly PIGs, HAMs, HOGs, MVLs, SXXs, and the like that are external), the game will now attempt to load the upper case filename, and failing that, will try a fully lowercased filename again. Things that are generated by the game are not affected by this ATM and must be named with the correct casing generated by the game (usually lowercase). I might look into imprvoing that later down the line.

[Kaiaatzl]

Just curious where to get the builds... the memory stick where I was keeping the working builds I had before has apparently vanished off the face of the Earth, and the build in the OP doesn't seem to have been updated since last year.
Github links are well and good but I don't have the ability or the know-how to compile a build myself -- and if you tried to guide me through it I'd definitely and repeatedly get it wrong XD  I can apparently never understand simple instructions

[SaladBadger]

I think things are stable enough that I can get another build out tomorrow or so. I haven't done many formal builds, for the most part I've just given people them when they asked, but having some new nice formal ones would be nice.

[SaladBadger]

Alright, here's the newest build, which I'm calling "beta 1" because really may as well:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Mi-rUThMtKLGCitk6V7Czcb3cJ6UQrQ8

[SaladBadger]

well that was a fun way to spend two days. I don't know how reliable it is for practical network play yet (especially over the internet), but it's there if anyone really wants it. Heeh.
I'm starting to get to a point where I feel I can call chocolate "feature complete", something I wish I had a year ago, but eh. Remaining features involve being able to move the filesystem so if you want to install the program in /bin/ on Linux you can do so, and a crash handler so that if this mess crashes on someone else's computer I can get something to help determine what happened. Also some under-the-hood changes to allow more closely emulating the effects that happened in Vanilla when you did something undefined, like loaded a map with no reactor.

[Kaiaatzl]

Hey, so, I have a couple suggestions or questions.
Don't want to call them "requests" because it's entirely up to you whether to do anything with the information or not.  I just mean to make you aware of stuff that's going on concerning the Descent 1 and a half mission pack.

Xfing and I would both like there to be a DOS-like experience of the mission set for players who want it.  Unfortunately, we recently discovered the original version of Descent 2 is going to be out of the question for us for a few specific reasons, the most relevant pertaining to having enough music tracks for 54 levels in either a midi or audio format.  As it is it looks like the mission experience is only going to be possible on DXX-Rebirth, which is not something we want.
So we'd like to come to this project.  But if we're going to do that there's a few (probably simple) things we need it to be able to do.

First and most importantly is that by default in DOS and on this version, the game only supports SNG playlist files with up to 24 "gamexx" entries.  If there's more than that, music in the game doesn't seem to play at all.  For obvious reasons, we would need to be able to run an SNG with closer to 60 in-game tracks plus entries for title music, briefing, and etc.  Rebirth and XL already support extending the playlist because it was previously required for The Enemy Within (and later on for Plutonian Shores).
And secondly, while most of our levels so far are functioning flawlessly in the "beta" release, there's at least one where the POG textures aren't loading properly.  We're looking into the issue ourselves but it's possible we might get stumped and need to come to you.

I might come find you on Discord as well as making this post-- I just like to have a record of what I've already said for future reference, 'cause on a project that's taken this long, it's very easy to go forgetting something.

[SaladBadger]

Hmm. Part of the problem is that one of the goals of Chocolate itself is not really to expand any limits, but to be honest, I have been considering a "crispier" fork with limit expansion and increased modding features, higher resolution software rendering (320x200 and 640x480 and the like will still be supported as is, too), and stuff like that. If there's enough interest in it, I can perhaps look into it.

[Kaiaatzl]

It would be nice to have that for Descent 1.5-- all the other limitations in Chocolate are ones X and I can work around.
And Rebirth is nice, but it has its downsides when it's the only thing you can support.