124 replies to this topic

[barxfan]

Give it time

Is that screenshot real and does that mean that we will be able to play Magic 7, Bar-X 7 and Bar-X 10 one day?

Thanks

[Guitar]

Is that screenshot real and does that mean that we will be able to play Magic 7, Bar-X 7 and Bar-X 10 one day?

Thanks

It is a real screenshot, but I must admit it doesn't run a game yet. It starts to boot up and gets stuck in a loop, it needs a hefty amount of work. However it will run MK1 Bar-X only, so magic 7's etc is a definate no, and will remain that way for the forseeable. For me its about preserving techs of the past, and I do not want to rile up Electrocoin as they are notoriously protective of their resources (Not that I blame them for one second, they are a pretty small fish in a large pond if you compare them to IGT so its because of their protectiveness they have remained afloat).

I think that they may well let the MK1 Bar-X slide as its the oldest of the games, and isn't current any more because it was an unsecured tech. From an emulation standpoint I think I'm covered legally but they may well ask the sites not to host the artwork or ROMs, I really don't know, it worries me slightly. I know they came down harshly on some other companies, but we're not profiting from their work, so its a bit different.

But MK1 is as far as I am prepared to go for the moment. If you want MK2 or newer, I would ask CW very very nicely and be prepared for disapopointment.

However as it stands the screenshot is real, but is not running Bar-X in terms of the game, it does seem to be trying to spin the reels but that's as far as it goes.

[Dougsta]

Weres the artwork for this and what game is it,clubber?Nothing on the repro for it apart from 3 sets of roms.

There was a clubber and a 3-reel version. Great machine.

I'm very willing to create some good quality classics for FMEF. All I need is a copy of the emu, a few pointers on how it works and off I'll go.

Been looking forward to something new to do.

[hold the bells]

Guitar

Good for you, look forward to seeing more on the 31st

Just make sure you keep your laptop in view at all times until then:)

[Guitar]

Guitar

Good for you, look forward to seeing more on the 31st

Just make sure you keep your laptop in view at all times until then:)

What laptop? I only have a desktop

[Johnnyafc]

What laptop? I only have a desktop

be heavier for someone to 'break in' nick it and steal the code etc etc lol

[Guitar]

be heavier for someone to 'break in' nick it and steal the code etc etc lol

Too bloody heavy, I just carted round a mates for a few days.

[Guitar]

Update Blog 6/5/2011:

With a mere 25 days to go till release its probably time I wrote an update.

Well, for those of you that haven't downloaded the previews to see for yourself, its been a bit manic...

The DX Tools are finished and working, some nice finishing touches to be applied but the tools themselves are in and working.

Classic tools, well I thought these would take a day to do, maybe two, and today represents day nine. A combination of Hard Drive deaths, power cuts, and a slowly developing hatred of all things classic based (mainly caused by the power cuts and HDD deaths), have made them a laborious task, but the light at the end of the tunnel is growing larger and they just need to be included in the load/save functions now. To be honest the classic tools will probably get looked at again after release for a few improvements, but they are there, they are functional, and they do what they should (just).

Speed has been a major improvement factor from Issue one to current build, with an approx 45-50% imrpovement in some cases I've even surprised myself at the relatively meager machines it will run on.

The final release will include 6 builds, selectable at run time, Play, Edit, & Debug as 3 different Modes, fairly self explanitory. And each of those 3 modes will come in a Normal, and Safe build. Visual Basic has different compiler options relative to speed, size of exe, and optimisations. Some of the optimisations can result in the program crashing unexpectedly on some systems, especially in the first few public builds as testing on a massive scale simply isnt possible with a testing crew of 6. However it has been tested as working on XP, Vista, Windows 7 in both 32 and 64 bit formats, and it seems to work. Though Synth Sound support isn't in yet so whether it works in win 7 is still unknow at this time. Anyway back to point, the normal will use the fastest optimisation possible and the safe mode will only use the known safe optimistions, at the cost of emulated speed.

NEC sound is going in after the classic tools, as mentioned earlier a little later than planned. This is the sampled sound chip for use in Coinworld and Crystal based games.

After that its time to write the Layout wizard which will allow you create new layouts easilly, whether a classic > DX conversion, or a new classic layout, the emu will help you along the way with some helpfull tools and options which allow for making a new but good layout as quickly as possible. Some of these ideas are new and will likely need refinement even after public release, feedback is the key, "its shit", isnt usefull, "It doesnt work when I try to do x" or "Why does it do X this way, its much easier for the designer if it does it this way" is very usefull.

I'll freely admit i have all the artistic talent of a breeze block so it will be important to get layout designer feedback once the layout tools all work, it would be nice to think I'll get everything right first time, but its not going to happen.

Which reminds me, Skins, no not the channel 4 sitcom, the layout editor in the emulator has to be made from scratch. I.e. you cant just drag in a textbox and a picture label etc, you have to draw a textbox, then code it to do everything a textbox does etc. So part of that means I have had to draw up the menus and editor and other graphical user stuff myself. Now if you remember my previously mentioned breeze blocky artistic skills, I will be inlcuding the option to add skins to the emulator to make it look a bit (lots) nicer. So some of the more artistic amongst us can make it look much better if the need takes them, and can be distributed the same way layouts are.

Coming back to layouts for a moment, the aim of the emulator is allow for Higher res layouts in future. As I'm sure I mentioned before, the layout supports scaling and scrolling, simultaneously, at any resolution available on any given hardware.

Cameras with silly amounts of MP are available now so it really would be nice to see the average layout sizes getting bigger. Some of us have 1080*1920 portrait mounted monitors they want more layouts for :shifty: .

Enough rambling, more coding to do.

[Johnnyafc]

Look forward to trying out the classic tools

[Guitar]

Look forward to trying out the classic tools

Well, don't expect miracles, just making them functional was bad enough.

24 days to go i can't wait,looking forward to what the new emulator looks like,But thinking of myself now i can't wait to play frank n stein and aladdin

A version will go out ~10 days before release to layout creators, hopefully. That way we might have a few games to play.

[samson81]

I cant wait until tomorrow..

The release of Guitars new emulator roll on the 31st may

[fuzion]

Looks great tommy will that be released tomorrow? and I'm also looking forward to playing blues boys which is an all time fave of mine. Use to play the £10 ver in a shoddy arcade in grimsby and it would give a good £50/70 streak then a few after boards.

LOL Not Ceasers Palace by any chance was it.

J

[fuzion]

Now how the hell would you know that haha. It was next to Yorkshire bank at riby square. I remember when I turned 18 I got a credit card from the bank next door and it was bank arcade bank arcade lol for weeks untill i maxed the card. Took me months to pay it off. I remember the woman with glasses who made the chips, she never smiled but was ok when the machine didnt payout she tried to get it sorted.

When I worked in that area I used to pop in now and again, cheap food and a nice cup of tea. I remember the Blues Boys very well too. I'm sure it was the only one in the area on 20p £10 jackpot. Pretty sure it was when they had stuff like Sinbad, Mad House, Crystal Maze etc they had both versions if I remember correctly.

J

[hitthesix]

Same here,already got some base art preped ready to go,when i've sussed the design tools out

 albON.PNG   2.11MB   63 downloads

Now that looks excellent tommy, this was the last machine that i owned, and was so easy to force.
looking forwards to playing it again.