RocketMan on 23/3/2008 at 20:27
I think this is pretty much what Displacer is doing right? I mean he's already churned out small fragments that can be modified to tailor the game. There was some talk of speeding up the anim rate for animated textures, which I think would be invaluable to FM creators. I don't know enough about programming but I'm guessing you wouldn't need to decipher everything to get something useful out of it.
Myagi on 23/3/2008 at 21:54
Quote Posted by Bjossi
An experienced programmer with a lot of free time could translate the end result of a decompile to proper compilable code, as far as I know at least. If decompiling would be enough to get the source code, we'd have started using it to our advantage a long time ago. :o
In theory, but what I meant was it would take insane amounts of time, even
if you hade some super decompiler it would take insane-1 amounts of time on a big complex program like this. In the end you'll realistically have certain parts roughly mapped out so you can do some smaller modification, in which case you might aswell work with a disassembly to try to make those smaller mods.
I was just refelcting that it often sounds like people think if you have "a" source you have "the" source, but even if you had a good decompiler the source you'd end up with would require only slightly less time investement than working with a disassembly.
A more realistic approach is to work with a disassembly to make "smaller" tweaks like changing resolution, that might be doable in a saner time frame. As RocketMan mentioned, allthough I don't personally know (or remember) what Displacer is doing.
TF on 23/3/2008 at 22:39
Maybe ask Timeslip if DDFix can do it?
ZylonBane on 24/3/2008 at 19:35
To get proper widescreen support, we'd have to change the field of view. And even if that were possible in the Dark Engine (which I strongly suspect it isn't), this would play havoc with every part of the engine that involves clicking on-screen objects. Also the GUI placement tables would need to be rewritten.
AxTng1 on 24/3/2008 at 19:48
What if the viewable area was kept the same, but we used the extra widescreen space to have notes/stats/inventory open all the time in an SS1 way? It may not need as much work (I clearly do not know what I am talking about)
Zygoptera on 24/3/2008 at 22:52
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
To get proper widescreen support, we'd have to change the field of view. And even if that were possible in the Dark Engine (which I strongly suspect it isn't), this would play havoc with every part of the engine that involves clicking on-screen objects. Also the GUI placement tables would need to be rewritten.
Well, the DE does support non 4:3 modes already, so
theoretically at least widescreen support (or more likely 'widescreen support') could be added, at least as much as it can be added to most older games. There's 1280x1024, which I never noticed any UI problems when using, and theoretically at least the 'true' widescreen mode of 640x400.
ZylonBane on 25/3/2008 at 16:05
Has anyone ever checked to see if SS2 actually does display more on the top or sides in 1280x1024 mode? The difference between 1.333:1 and 1.24:1 is so minimal that they might have just fudged it.
Myagi on 26/3/2008 at 02:20
No need for a ruler, assuming you didn't move the camera the y-fov is slightly bigger in the 1024 one (quite visible on the ceiling to the left), so they just hardcoded the aspect ratio.
That the HUD elements wouldn't be scaled to compensate for non-square pixels was to be expected as they are drawn in a pixel-perfect fashion, but that the 3D transforms were that hardcoded is a bit surprising.
