Gob/TODO

Status

The engine now runs with graphical output, partial input is implemented, there are some minor graphical glitches and unimplemented features. It was played successfully up to 5th screen with no crash. Probably whole game is completable. The code is not endian-safe, JoostP is looking into this as time permits.

Problematic places

• map_loadDataFromAvo() in map.cpp. These are plain calls to memcpy() so all read data is not endian safe and moreover it could read wrong size if sizeof(structure) is used in length calcualtion. All structures should be unwind, i,e, read element by element and FROM_LE_XX wraps applied.

• data_readData(). Same as above.

• int32 *gob_curGobStateVarPtr and all gob_*Ptr variables. They all map directly into data, and have to be fixed.

Showstoppers/Overall bugs

• Lack of keyboard input doesn't let enter screen code.
• Lack of character output. Cutscenes and screen code miss text.
• Screen is not wiped out properly between fade in/fade outs
• Fade out leaves yellow background
• Menu cannot be called due to deficient keyboard input

More on Endianness and Alignment

Assignee: Carthag. I am going to work on this, this Sunday. I will initlally confine myself to game.cpp, and then start migrating the changes to wherever the files are accessed.

It crashes now in game.cpp function game_loadExtTable() at data_readData().

This is all bad. Whole game tries to read structures directly without parsing them. Problems which it arises:

• sizeof(struct) is bigger than sum of sizes of its elements on most systems due to alignment. This is why it crashes now

• Endianness is not honoured

What we should do here is get rid of both data_openData and data_readData() and write function with this prototype (give it proper name):

  MemoryReadStream data_getData(const char *filename, const char *chunkname);

It will read whole named chunk and return a stream of it. So code using it will look as follow:

 chunk = new data_getData("intro.stk", "intro.tot");
 foo.a = chunk.readUint32LE();
 chunk.read(foo.b, 20);
 delete chunk;

MemoryReadStream will track end of chunk by itself, so no additional code is needed.

All places should be revisited and rewritten as every one will cause problems.

This will let us get rid of file_open() too which is an implementation of an ugly idea.

Update

sev: As a temporary solution I fixed that with such code:

 data_readData(game_extHandle, (char *)&game_extTable->items[i].offset, 4);
 game_extTable->items[i].offset = FROM_LE_32(game_extTable->items[i].offset);
 data_readData(game_extHandle, (char *)&game_extTable->items[i].size, 2);
 game_extTable->items[i].size = FROM_LE_16(game_extTable->items[i].size);

which is ugly, difficult to read but feasible until proper object-oriented implementation will be done

Main and long-term goals

• Make thing work
• Convert it to C++ classes. This should be done on per-file basis and keep in mind that we should make it to resemble original code al little as possible.
• Endianness fixes

File-specific tasks

gob.cpp

• Write proper game detection. (MD5-based?)

map.cpp

• See FIXME comment. All calls to map_loadDataFromAvo() should be made endianness and alignment-safe.

sound.cpp

• Has yet to be written from sound.asm

text.cpp

• This file should be removed and is not currently required for compilation but we need to inspect which variables does it set and to which values and convert them to our Config Manager. We should support all video outputs and at least PC speaker and Adlib.

util.cpp

• Implement keyboard input functions
• Finish mouse input (movement and left-click already implemented)

video.cpp

Assignee: JoostP is working on these

• Proper video initialisation
• Implement pDrawSprite, pFillRect, pDrawLine, pPutPixel, pDrawletter, pDrawPackedSprite functions from the VGA driver (lvga.gdr)
• Classify
• Add support for other rendering modes (EGA/CGA/Hercules)