Introducing DREAMM 1.0 beta

[Udvarnoky]

The two GrimE games aren't really missing, though. They fall explicitly outside the purview of DREAMM, which is dedicated to the SCUMM games. Since it emulates an x86 machine, supporting EMI would be a totally different project in the most literal sense.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't EMI already still work natively on modern Windows machines? (I know the GOG version runs on mine, and I don't think Lucasfilm did anything to update it, but I could be wrong.) Since Windows is the only platform DREAMM runs on, it would be a moot point for EMI. For getting EMI working on other platforms or jazzing it up with retroactive enhancements, ScummVM is the (eventual) answer since the ResidualVM project got folded into it.

[Thrik]

I feel like what you’re talking about belongs in a thread more specifically about ScummVM, Zaxx.

 

I don’t think it’s fair to get too into the weeds about perceived ScummVM shortcomings when this is a different tool built for a different job — authenticity.

 

As you say, you’re probably not the target audience.

[Torbjörn Andersson]

On 6/8/2022 at 8:20 PM, Aaron Giles said:

 

No, that was my predecessor, Eric Johnston. He did quite a lot of Mac customization to make the games run nicely on the early Macs. I took a more straightforward "as-is" approach to porting, which I could do because Macs of my era were high-end 680x0 or PowerPC based and had better graphics options than the equivalent-era PCs.

 

I also always felt like Mac support was on the edge of being cut 😬, so I worked hard to make sure all the games I worked on required no intervention from the original teams.

 

Well, I'm grateful for them. I didn't get to play them back in the day (my Mac Plus should have been able to handle Loom and Last Crusade, but I was too busy playing Infocom games; I have no regrets), but now they are how I can at least play one 16-colour version of Last Crusade, or see that scene in Fate of Atlantis that for whatever reason has three different versions. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for anyone else back then, I guess), both versions of The Secret of Monkey Island in the picture are 256 colours.

 

(I did see the Mac version of Full Throttle in an on-line auction not too long ago, but someone else wanted it more than I did. Oh well.)

[Thrik]

I’ve split some posts in here out into a new thread.

 

 

I don’t think it’s fair to bog this thread down in debate about what ScummVM should and shouldn’t do, its priorities, etc.

 

Please keep this discussion focused on DREAMM, ideally taking into account its scope and goals which Aaron has very clearly laid out on the website.

[ThunderPeel2001]

This is fantastic, I hope it makes its way to MacOS one day! 

[Thrik]

The good news is that it seems to run nicely on Mac using Parallels, even on an ARM Mac (M1, etc).

 

 

 

Someone still needs to try CrossOver, which is more like (well, is) WINE rather than running the entire Windows OS like Parallels does.

 

I haven’t been able to bring myself to fork out for that too… yet.

[Jake]

It worked on my Steam Deck, which uses Proton for Windows executables, so I suspect it’d work in WINE.  

[Lagomorph01]

1 hour ago, Thrik said:

 

 

Wow! It's so long since I saw that screen! I completely forgot about the 3D acceleration joke! 😄

[BillyCheers]

1 hour ago, Thrik said:

But why the heck is the bookmark (or the whole book) the wrong way round? 🧐

[Elle]

Good eye! But wasn't it always like that? I can't remember.

[Thrik]

Ribbon bookmarks do exist like that, no idea if there’s any historical context to it. 😅

 

It was always like that, as demonstrated by this screenshot from 2009:

 

 

If you look at the picture upside down it doesn’t look right, so it doesn’t seem to be flipped.

[Lagomorph01]

1 hour ago, BillyCheers said:

But why the heck is the bookmark (or the whole book) the wrong way round? 🧐

I remember asking myself the same question. Anyone want to contact Bill Tiller? 😉

[Serge]

2 hours ago, Thrik said:

Ribbon bookmarks do exist like that, no idea if there’s any historical context to it. 😅

 

It was always like that, as demonstrated by this screenshot from 2009:
 

If you look at the picture upside down it doesn’t look right, so it doesn’t seem to be flipped.

 

Yeah, you can be pretty sure that DREAMM won't introduce such changes. 😂

 

But that aside, I've seen maybe one ribbon on a real book (late 1800's) that was attached to the bottom. In some ways, it's more practical - the end doesn't get creased under the book, and it's slightly easier to remove it from the pages if the book is large (downwards rather than upwards). 😋 However, as far as I'm aware, book ribbons weren't even a thing in the 1700's anyway (not making an appearance until around 1850). But then, neither were grog machines or audio books-on-parrot.

[OzzieMonkey]

Would it be possible to adjust the mouse sensitivity or implement an option to allow users to change it themselves? I've found that it's not very strong on my computer and not very smooth; is vsync enabled by default or anything?

[Aaron Giles]

16 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Would it be possible to adjust the mouse sensitivity or implement an option to allow users to change it themselves? I've found that it's not very strong on my computer and not very smooth; is vsync enabled by default or anything?

 

The mouse tracks movement across the actual window the same as it does any other window you're running. Those coordinates are then scaled to the screen and reported to the games. Sensitivity adjustments don't make sense in this model, because any sensitivity is controlled by your configuration in the OS. Also, if I applied a sensitivity correction, behavior would be strange as you entered/left the window because the mouse pointer wouldn't track with your system's mouse pointer.

 

As for "smoothness", that's down to the games. They poll the mouse at their own frequency and update it as they see fit. That being said, there was an issue with DREAMM on some systems that would cause updates to be missed; hopefully this aspect is fixed in the next beta, so give it a try and let me know if it feels any better to you.

[Aaron Giles]

Hey all, thanks for giving DREAMM and try and for the great feedback so far! I've just released a new beta (1.0b3). Give it a play and let me know if it fixes any issues you encountered.

 

Changes:

• Added Hercules mode support for Maniac/Zak/SoMI.
• Add integral scaling (Alt+I), on by default, which only stretches game screens horizontally by integral amounts.
• Improved scaling logic to support 3x and 4x scaling in software to reduce jaggies and improve smoothness.
• Improve overall smoothness of video updates.
• The most recent configuration settings are now used for new games.
• Report missing EXE files even when running from the command line.
• Fix problems locating munt DLL when running from the frontend.
• Fix long hangs/crashes in Sam & Max CD version.
• Fix mouse wrapping at far edges of the screen.
• Fix Unicode error when asking if you want to remove an entry.

 

New beta here (it's linked above but links are pretty subtle here):

https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/

Edited June 11, 2022 by Aaron Giles

[cinnamon]

During the Loom EGA intro the messenger nymph that travels to Bobbin is moving very fast, and the screen scrolling at this point is also too fast. I am running beta 1.0b3.

[Jake]

I thought that part always played super fast! Maybe I’m misremembering?

[cinnamon]

That part does play fast but in this case with latest DREAMM it's almost instantaneous.

[Aaron Giles]

10 hours ago, cinnamon said:

During the Loom EGA intro the messenger nymph that travels to Bobbin is moving very fast, and the screen scrolling at this point is also too fast. I am running beta 1.0b3.

 

Interesting. I'd have to dissect the scripts to see if there is any upper limit to the speed in that section or if it's just "as fast as possible." DREAMM does only minimal throttling to ~60 MIPS, which is way more juice than the game actually requires, so if the game runs that scene "as fast as possible" then it will go quite fast.

[ATMcashpoint]

In that case I wonder if the scene of Guybrush nailing Stan in the coffin in MI2 would be affected as well. The latter was a case where IIRC the programmers (mainly Tim Schafer, if memory serves) turned off the frame-rate limitations ("min-jiffies") to make the animation play as fast as possible. Something similar might be going on with the LOOM intro.

Edited June 13, 2022 by ATMcashpoint

[s-island]

MI2 is safer in that respect. Both the animation where you nail Stan in the coffin and the one where you replace the flags at the spitting contest are run at 30 fps. The only place where the game sets the framerate to unlimited is when the wheel at the alley casino starts spinning. The script then lowers the framerate to make the wheel spin slower until it stops.

[Serge]

@s-island is correct - and indeed, in the Loom intro, min-jiffies is set to 0. Which is "as fast as possible".

[Jake]

Loom speedrun 144fps uncapped let’s go

[cinnamon]

3 hours ago, Serge said:

@s-island is correct - and indeed, in the Loom intro, min-jiffies is set to 0. Which is "as fast as possible".

This explains why I remember the scene to be much slower on the original Schneider PC I had played it but then later on faster PCs it played a lot faster than that.