Potential new DraStic features?

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Exophase
Posts:1716
Joined:Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:08 pm
Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Exophase » Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:41 pm

Chex wrote:Okay I thought of one more (another video-related one). I like to play most games in single-screen mode, but certain games require both screens aligned vertically to be playable. This is especially problematic on Android where you have to either flip your phone/tablet to portrait mode or set them side-by-side (or tiny vertical) in landscape mode in order to see them.

DeSMuMe has this neat feature where you can set the screen mode to display "active screen", which automatically gives you the screen with the most information displayed on it. It's great for games like Sonic Rush or Yoshi's Island DS that are constantly switching between both screens, so that the app will switch screens for you and you don't have to have both displayed at once.
I like this idea, I just don't really know how to algorithmically determine what the best screen to display is. You say it's the one with the most information, maybe that means the most visible sprites (or most total visible sprite area?) That's one metric, I just don't know how reliable it is. For games like Yoshi's Island or Sonic you'd want to prioritize the screen the player's on, but there no good way to tell which one this is since they both scroll as you move.

Does the feature work pretty well in desmume? Does it ever glitch out?

chocolatecake
Posts:6
Joined:Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:35 am

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by chocolatecake » Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:37 pm

Exophase wrote:
Chex wrote:Okay I thought of one more (another video-related one). I like to play most games in single-screen mode, but certain games require both screens aligned vertically to be playable. This is especially problematic on Android where you have to either flip your phone/tablet to portrait mode or set them side-by-side (or tiny vertical) in landscape mode in order to see them.

DeSMuMe has this neat feature where you can set the screen mode to display "active screen", which automatically gives you the screen with the most information displayed on it. It's great for games like Sonic Rush or Yoshi's Island DS that are constantly switching between both screens, so that the app will switch screens for you and you don't have to have both displayed at once.
I like this idea, I just don't really know how to algorithmically determine what the best screen to display is. You say it's the one with the most information, maybe that means the most visible sprites (or most total visible sprite area?) That's one metric, I just don't know how reliable it is. For games like Yoshi's Island or Sonic you'd want to prioritize the screen the player's on, but there no good way to tell which one this is since they both scroll as you move.

Does the feature work pretty well in desmume? Does it ever glitch out?
Exophase,

Landscape 1:1 Mode allows users to stretch both screens 100% (50%+50%) to the bottom so there is no "black gap" at the bottom.

But Portrait 1:1 Mode does NOT allow users to stretch both screens to fill the "black gap" at the bottom.

Could you please update the next version, to allow Portrait 1:1 Mode to allow to stretch 100% (50%+50%) to fill the "black gap" at the bottom?

Thank you.

Exophase
Posts:1716
Joined:Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Exophase » Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:39 pm

chocolatecake wrote:Exophase,

Landscape 1:1 Mode allows users to stretch both screens 100% (50%+50%) to the bottom so there is no "black gap" at the bottom.

But Portrait 1:1 Mode does NOT allow users to stretch both screens to fill the "black gap" at the bottom.

Could you please update the next version, to allow Portrait 1:1 Mode to allow to stretch 100% (50%+50%) to fill the "black gap" at the bottom?

Thank you.
That is something Lordus would have to address, I'll ask him to take a look here.

chocolatecake
Posts:6
Joined:Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:35 am

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by chocolatecake » Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:47 pm

Exophase wrote:
chocolatecake wrote:Exophase,

Landscape 1:1 Mode allows users to stretch both screens 100% (50%+50%) to the bottom so there is no "black gap" at the bottom.

But Portrait 1:1 Mode does NOT allow users to stretch both screens to fill the "black gap" at the bottom.

Could you please update the next version, to allow Portrait 1:1 Mode to allow to stretch 100% (50%+50%) to fill the "black gap" at the bottom?

Thank you.
That is something Lordus would have to address, I'll ask him to take a look here.
That would be lovely, thank you.

Chex
Posts:10
Joined:Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:04 am

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Chex » Thu Feb 27, 2014 12:11 pm

Exophase wrote:
Chex wrote:Okay I thought of one more (another video-related one). I like to play most games in single-screen mode, but certain games require both screens aligned vertically to be playable. This is especially problematic on Android where you have to either flip your phone/tablet to portrait mode or set them side-by-side (or tiny vertical) in landscape mode in order to see them.

DeSMuMe has this neat feature where you can set the screen mode to display "active screen", which automatically gives you the screen with the most information displayed on it. It's great for games like Sonic Rush or Yoshi's Island DS that are constantly switching between both screens, so that the app will switch screens for you and you don't have to have both displayed at once.
I like this idea, I just don't really know how to algorithmically determine what the best screen to display is. You say it's the one with the most information, maybe that means the most visible sprites (or most total visible sprite area?) That's one metric, I just don't know how reliable it is. For games like Yoshi's Island or Sonic you'd want to prioritize the screen the player's on, but there no good way to tell which one this is since they both scroll as you move.

Does the feature work pretty well in desmume? Does it ever glitch out?
It works fine for games like Sonic Rush and Yoshi's Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIZse8uPpI

Also, some sad news regarding online: http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... F0227.html

So, unless DraStic can open up its own server somehow (or have some kind of p2p feature for offline multiplayer), I guess there's no point in implementing online at this point... kind of a bummer. :cry:

Exophase
Posts:1716
Joined:Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Exophase » Thu Feb 27, 2014 6:40 pm

Chex wrote:It works fine for games like Sonic Rush and Yoshi's Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIZse8uPpI
Thanks. It looks like when it transitions from one screen to another it actually shows parts of both screens. Are you sure that this is a feature of the emulator and not something done in video editing? I'll have to try doing it on desmume.
Chex wrote:Also, some sad news regarding online: http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... F0227.html

So, unless DraStic can open up its own server somehow (or have some kind of p2p feature for offline multiplayer), I guess there's no point in implementing online at this point... kind of a bummer. :cry:
Well that does suck. Not sure what Nintendo's thinking here, probably not a great publicity move on their part.

Shouldn't affect ad-hoc multiplayer though, and that's probably all there was any chance to support anyway, since Nintendo would have just blocked us on their servers. At the very least, blocked the emulated MAC address. Since people are interested in trading Pokemon more than anything else there'd probably still be a big demand for it.

Chex
Posts:10
Joined:Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:04 am

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Chex » Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:25 am

Exophase wrote:
Chex wrote:It works fine for games like Sonic Rush and Yoshi's Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIZse8uPpI
Thanks. It looks like when it transitions from one screen to another it actually shows parts of both screens. Are you sure that this is a feature of the emulator and not something done in video editing? I'll have to try doing it on desmume.
It doesn't actually transition like that in the emulator, but it works more or less the same (to see it, go into View -> LCD's layout -> check "one LCD" and "main first")

Exophase
Posts:1716
Joined:Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:08 pm

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Exophase » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:31 am

Chex wrote:It doesn't actually transition like that in the emulator, but it works more or less the same (to see it, go into View -> LCD's layout -> check "one LCD" and "main first")
Okay, this is what the help file says, should be current since it's from SVN:
This powerful menu controls how the NDS screens will be arranged into the window. Vertical and Horizontal will choose to stack them in the specified manner (vertical being traditional and default and horizontal being wide-screen). One LCD shows just one screen--whichever one is "first" (top) as described below. "Top First" means that the top screen is First and will be displayed on top. "Bottom first" means that the bottom screen is First and will be displayed on top (effectively switching the usual ordering of the screens for this game). "Main screen first" selects the main graphics engine (the one with 3d on it) to consider as first. This option will help you track the action and discard the useless status screen in many games. "Sub screen first" is added for the sake of completeness and you may occasionally find it helpful. Please note that these last two options may not work well in the case of dual screen 3d games, as the screens are always toggling around.
So it just picks the main engine (DS games can swap which 2D engine is displayed on which screen), it doesn't do any analysis to pick the screen based on activity. This is easy to add, and if it helps for some games that's good, but I doubt that all dual viewport games actually swap the engines when the player moves between them. Only the main engine can display 3D, so I bet games that use a polygonal player like Sonic will do it, while pure 2D games that don't even use the 3D engine for compositing - like Yoshi's Island - probably don't.

Lordus
Posts:517
Joined:Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:05 pm

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by Lordus » Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:33 pm

chocolatecake wrote:
Exophase wrote:
chocolatecake wrote:Exophase,

Landscape 1:1 Mode allows users to stretch both screens 100% (50%+50%) to the bottom so there is no "black gap" at the bottom.

But Portrait 1:1 Mode does NOT allow users to stretch both screens to fill the "black gap" at the bottom.

Could you please update the next version, to allow Portrait 1:1 Mode to allow to stretch 100% (50%+50%) to fill the "black gap" at the bottom?

Thank you.
That is something Lordus would have to address, I'll ask him to take a look here.
That would be lovely, thank you.
It will be possible in the next version.

xperia64
Posts:309
Joined:Fri Feb 28, 2014 7:41 pm

Re: Potential new DraStic features?

Post by xperia64 » Fri Feb 28, 2014 7:44 pm

Two features:
2xSai filtering
NAND save chip emulation for WarioWare DIY. Its in the latest DeSmuME.

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