Darwinia - feasability test

[alpine stratus]

Initial test of Darwinia port.

The new 'remake' version called Darwinia - 10000th birthday won't work, since it's 64bit. You need the old one which is 32bit.
Version that is known to work is 2.0.0.5.

I made the control scheme to resemble a twin-stick shooter, left analog moves the mouse while the right analog controls the map.
left analog moves cursor on ground, right analog scrolls the world.

Controls:

back = esc (main menu)
start = enter (skip/forward dialog)

a = mouse_right (shoot)
b = mouse_left (move)
x = space (deselect)
y = tab (menu for spawning units)

l1 = mouse_left
l2 = q (zoom in/camera down)
r1 = mouse_right
r2 = e (zoom out/camera up)
r3 = z (actual zoom)

up = 2 (second unit)
up = repeat
down = down (while in menu, shows map objectives, i think... scrolling down with mouse should also work)
down = repeat
left = 1 (first unit)
left = repeat
right = 3 (third unit)
right = repeat

left_analog_up = mouse_movement_up
left_analog_down = mouse_movement_down
left_analog_left = mouse_movement_left
left_analog_right = mouse_movement_right

right_analog_up = w
right_analog_down = s
right_analog_left = a
right_analog_right = d

deadzone_mode = scaled_radial
deadzone = 2000
deadzone_scale = 8
deadzone_delay = 16
mouse_scale = 512
mouse_delay = 16

The game seems to be too demanding for my RGB20s, but if it works fine on other devices i'll clean it up and ship it. If it works like crap on all other devices, we scratch it and move on. the game is kinda ok but slow on RGB20s, it was terrible due to extensive logging. if it works fine on other devices we'll ship it.

[alpine stratus]

file is too big for discord, so here it is https://ufile.io/hsaoz5yk
35mb.

for now, everything is included to test whether it makes sense or not. i'm also suspecting that heavy logging is slowing it down since i just noticed that my log grew over 3GB in size. logs have been silenced down from 3 to 1 for this test release.

issues:

• spawned units are white squares.
• the world tends to scroll uncontrollably, possibly due to low deadzones of teh right analog

[grim obsidian]

is that version available via steam depot or somewhere else?

[alpine stratus]

it's the (old) darwinia linux version. i used the GOG version, steam should work as well. (i think)

[torn fulcrum]

I'll look through my files later after some appointments I've got and I'll see if I can find this one to test.

[keen slate]

<@&1123159718874058882>

@alpine stratus have you tried using box64 wiiht the 64 bit version?

[keen slate]

deadzones you can control via gptk if you'Re using controls via gptk

[gloomy ivy]

cannot load the game

device: r35s
OS: ArkOS 12152023

[alpine stratus]

the archive i uploaded has everything. it's not release-ready or a release candidate. it's a smoketest version. honour-based "you'll delete it when you're done testing" sort of thing. 😄

[alpine stratus]

hm, i did not. i just kinda used the world of goo as a template. didn't even think about bumping box86 to box64 and make it work with the 16th anniversary re-release 😄

[alpine stratus]

i bumped em up a bit. it could just be that my device's right analog is going to shit, i dunno.

[keen slate]

I haven had luck so far hence my ticket with box64 but maybe its just goo making weird shit

[grim obsidian]

this one works for me on 353VS / Arkos

[alpine stratus]

its the same file i uploaded judging by the size.

[grim obsidian]

I havnt tried the earlier one

I guess it was just to link it on discord

[alpine stratus]

in any case, the rerelease also contains the old game, which is what we're running here. maybe i can build up on this to also include a box64 so it can run darwinia or darwinia 10k side-by-side.

[grim obsidian]

performance is reasonable on 353vs, though certainly its not able to run at default high preset very well 😄

select + start key combo doesnt work atm

[alpine stratus]

whats select+key? you mean start+Select to quit?

[grim obsidian]

oh sorry, yeah select start

[alpine stratus]

i think it worked fine for me. in fact, i'm pretty sure it did. thats how i quit the game the last time i was in it.

[grim obsidian]

I will run all the updates n stuff

[alpine stratus]

is the world scrolling for you uncontrollabliy?

[grim obsidian]

at one point it did start to wander at one side, after shaking with joystick it stopped doing that

im on latest arkos and portmaster, the select start still doesnt work, input stops working after that. Some other port had this issue as well, so I assume thats going to get fixed

[keen slate]

process name was different than the displayname

lol

@alpine stratus $GPTOKEYB "$BINARY_NAME"

nvm

yeah check via ps what the name is

[alpine stratus]

i extracted the binary name for two reasons:

1. so i can keep reusing this as a template
2. at some point it fucked me up that the game would crash on start because I had

$GPTOKEYB "darwinia.bin.x86" -c "./darwinia.gptk" &
$GAMEDIR/box86/box86 darwinia

[keen slate]

😛

[alpine stratus]

it's funny now, wasn't funny when i wasted 30+ mins until i saw the darwinia.bin.x86 / darwinia discrepancy

and the darwinia was a leftover from the initial remaster attempt which was just failing to run due to being 64bit :/

[keen slate]

😄

[alpine stratus]

speaking of box64... where can i copypaste it from? we need a #resources channel with some of this common shit pinned there 😄

or ok, maybe we is a strong word. perhaps it's better said I instead 😄

[keen slate]

normally from a working port 😛

[alpine stratus]

which one? 🙂

[keen slate]

"normally"

We don't have one yet

lol

[alpine stratus]

bow

[gloomy ivy]

forget about it, I've made any mess on my ArkOS build, tried with original ArkOS sd card and it works fine

performance is not 100% on r35s but is very playable

[alpine stratus]

the double sigsegv error looked similar to something I already had, and it had to do with fucked up libraries. once that was taken care of, it magically disappeared.

what about the spawned units? are they white squares?

[alpine stratus]

why no box64_license.txt ?

[gloomy ivy]

yesterday I was testing some things, so I've added armhf architecture, compiled box86, maybe I did something wrong with libraries....

[keen slate]

dev package 😄

[alpine stratus]

i think you fucked up libsdl, but i'll leave hunting through the logs as an excercise to the reader. just bump BOX86_LOG=3 and enjoy yourself 🙂

[alpine stratus]

i'll rename box86_license to box64_license and call it a day.

[keen slate]

yeah i only have it in box86 because after testing i'll copy the folder and rename the .sh and the folder

[keen slate]

all on your device?

RIP

i once compiled stuff on ark

after that it went on a neverending rumble

[gloomy ivy]

yes, already flashed the image again and installing the updates xD

[gloomy ivy]

I've already faced it some times with armbian, so I get used to start over again

[keen slate]

😄

[alpine stratus]

1. start+select definitely works.
2. controls have been fixed.

back = esc
start = enter

a = mouse_right
b = mouse_left
x = space
y = tab

l1 = mouse_left
l2 = q
r1 = mouse_right
r2 = e
r3 = z

up = 2
up = repeat
down = down
down = repeat
left = 1
left = repeat
right = 3
right = repeat

left_analog_up = mouse_movement_up
left_analog_down = mouse_movement_down
left_analog_left = mouse_movement_left
left_analog_right = mouse_movement_right

right_analog_up = w
right_analog_down = s
right_analog_left = a
right_analog_right = d

deadzone_mode = sloped_axial
deadzone = 3000
deadzone_scale = 8
deadzone_delay = 16 
mouse_scale = 512
mouse_delay = 16

switch to sloped_axial made a world of difference.

[keen slate]

this is only an issue on ark sometimes:D

[gloomy ivy]

I don't know what I did but the gsme locked

[keen slate]

pressed start + select

gptokeyb quits but not the game

[gloomy ivy]

Exactly

[keen slate]

Yeah the binary name needs to be checked via ps

[alpine stratus]

darwinia10k was put on hold for now.

[alpine stratus]

@here so are the spawned units showing up nicely on your devices or... are they white squares? trying to figure out if it's just a isolated issue or not.

[gloomy ivy]

sorry if I'm being dumb, but where do I put this? edit: I've figured out

[gloomy ivy]

Can you explain to me like I'm five years old?

[gloomy ivy]

when I put Engineer I saw a white block and my cam is just going away endlessly

it's kinda my right analog got stuck on left way

[gloomy ivy]

I don't know if there is character limit but the process here is called darwinia.bin.x8, replaced BINARY_NAME with it and works

[keen slate]

yeah something like that

that's why i said it

[gloomy ivy]

here worked bad with sloped, kinda "ultra high mouse sensibility"

[keen slate]

Make sure to update portmaster

@alpine stratus

[gloomy ivy]

latest version

[keen slate]

and the cfw 🙂

[alpine stratus]

should have renamed the binary to darwinia.bin.x86 but whatever works for you 🙂

[alpine stratus]

so it looks like units do show up as white squares, huh?

[alpine stratus]

did scaled_radial work better for you?

[gloomy ivy]

Yes

[gloomy ivy]

Yes, white squares

[alpine stratus]

alright, feel free to revert to the first controls. scaled radial worked like garbage for me, hence the switch to sloped_axial 🙂

[alpine stratus]

ok, so it probably is linked to the box86 libGL library. what's your OS?