My beginner questions - please help

Hi.

I create this thread as I might have several questions while finishing my game. :) I'll always post in this thread.

Here are my questions. I'd be thankful if you helped me.

1) Vista compatibility. Is it sufficent to select "run as administrator" to make my game Vista-ready?

2) Colors. My game is in 32768 colors. My logo has more colors. If I add it the colors are reduced and it doesn't look that good. Can I increase the colors of my game? Or will this slow it down much? Optically there is no difference.

3) Joysticks. MF2 supports joysticks but only one of my gamepads is recognized. I think only the one with ID1 in the Windows settings. How can I play with more gamepads?

That's it for now. :)

hi Leander,

1) Absolutely not unless i am very much mistaken you do not have to run as administrator. I have vista and i havn't had any trouble at all with MMF2 or TGF2. :grin:

2) If there is no difference optical difference, then for now i would keep it the same. :)

3) If you are making a game with joysitcks as your ONLY control, don't as not everyone has a joystick, if not then i don't think there is a way around it. If there is someone else please post back. ;)

Thanks.

Ad 1) I didn't mean MF2 but games. E.g. I create a game and give it to a friend who has Vista. And it should work there. So what should I select to get it to work?

2) The graphics of the game are not better on higher colors BUT my question was if there is slow down. When I leave the game at 32000 the logo looks bad but if I change it it'll be just for the logo. What about the slow down?

3) No, not only control. People can play with keys or joysticks. But the problem is that only one gamepad is recognized by MF2. But more players should have the option to play with a gamepad.
I used the default joystick option built in MF2. There are some plugins, too. How can I get it to work?

4) NEW QUESTION:

I would like to have an animated logo in my game. Which format? I can save it as avi, fli, mpeg...whatever. My avi file is good and small but it's compressed with DivX6.6. So this logo / intro will only work if users have DivX6.6. installed I think.

Which codec should I use? What's the codec that everyone has AND the file is still small?

1) i sometimes use xp to make my games and i always test em on vista when they are applications and they work without run as admin.

2) it will not slow it down that much if you change.

3) go to the runtime properties (under application properties) and edit the default controls

4) I would try using an active object instead of video objects.

Thanks.

Ad 3) I know. But I always get the message that the gamepad is not connected. Only one is recognized. The others are connected but MF2 only finds one gamepad.

4) Active object...ok but I can't get the animation into MF2. I created the intro in Ulead Video Studio.

3) sorry i can't help you on this one :(

4) ok, how long is the video? if it is short then just put the video in full screen mode and press the print screen button and paste the pictures onto active object frame 1, frame 2 etc so you get an animation. so print screen, then pause, then paste, then play, print screen etc. hope this helps

4) Save as an mpeg and play using direct show.

is that how you do it?

Well I certainly wouldn't print screen every frame of a video!!

If its saved as an mpeg (which is compressed to my knowledge), it will have a small filesize and can be played by direct show.

1) Run as Administrator will ONLY allow he computer's administator to run the .exe OR a standard user that puts in an Admin username and pass.

2) The higher the color settings the slower your game will be if you are using scrolling and the bigger the file size will be. I use 256 colors for all of my games that scroll. If I have a title page that requires higher color I run it as a separtae application.

1) Run As Administrator will allow your application to work on Vista as on admin accounts on XP, but it should never been used except for programs that really need to write to system directories. Also if you select this option, Vista will display a confirmation dialog box whenever the user wants to run your application.

You should use the As Invoker option if possible. Limitations of this option : you cannot write to system directories, including Program Files, i.e. you cannot write to the install directory of the application. If you have to write config files, you have to write them to a sub-directory of the user's Application Data folder (you can retrieve the pathname of tha App Data folder with an expression of the File objct).

If you really need to write to the install directory of the application and don't want Vista to display a confirmation dialog box, you can use the "None (virtualization)" option. In this mode, when you write to a system directory Vista creates the file to a virtual directory in the user's app data directory and displays it as it was in the other folder. This is the mode used by all the applications not designed for Vista.

The recommended mode is As Invoker though. If you don't write to the install directory of your application and/or don't write to system registry keys (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT), then you must use this mode.

Let me know if this explanation is not clear.

Thank you. Yves, the only thing that is saved is the highscore object. So I can use "as invoker".

Video => my intro is just an animated logo. It's 10 seconds in lenght. It's this kind of "[logo] presents".

Is there a way to add DivX 6.6 to my game so each user can play the intro? He shouldn't need to install it, it should just work.

I could also convert it to DivX standard (all versions). Does this work on all system? What are the default codecs that come with WinXP?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yves

If you really need to write to the install directory of the application and don't want Vista to display a confirmation dialog box, you can use the Compatibility Mode option.

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You are talking about the 'None (virtualization)' option from the Execution Level setting right?

You should not use DivX because it's not installed everywhere, even the standard version, and you have to install the DivX codecs, you cannot "include them" in your application.

Can't you convert your video to WMV?

Quote:

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You are talking about the 'None (virtualization)' option from the Execution Level setting right?

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Yes, I didn't check the name of the option, sorry, I've modified my post. Thanks!

I can. I can also convert it to mpeg1. The avi with DivX6.6 has 670kb and is in brilliant quality. Others are not that good. I can also convert it to an animated gif with one mouseclick but the colors are messed up as it has too many colors (more than gif's 256).

Does somebody know the difference between mpeg pal dvd and mpeg 1? Which one will play on any Windows?

Yves, I can select "none (virtualization" AND "as invoker" (the third option would be "as administrator"). Which one should I select?

5) My game has samples and midi music. Which object should I use to set the volume of these two? Is there a better solution than the mixer object?

It should be like that:

Start of application: volumes of wave and midi should be saved.
In the game: volumes can be adjusted.
end of application: volumes of wave and midi are restored (reset to their volumes before the game was loaded).

Volume Object worked well for me in my last project.

Ok, I will try that, thanks.

This Directshow-object is driving me nuts at the moment. It works but not as I want it to work.
When my mpeg is over a picture should be displayed, instead of the video.

What it does:

It is either in the foreground and the picture isn't visible

OR

"If [negate] video is running hide window and display picture" does what I would like it to do BUT it closes the window...and leaves the picture open on the taskbar. It minimizes everything.

"If time position = ... " doesn't work at all. Nothing happens.

I tried and tried.

Please help me out.
Start of level: play video.
As soon as video has ended -> destroy video or hide it AND display picture at position where the video was.

Why? The video is good quality but when it has ended the last image isn't as perfect as the jpeg. So I want to replace the video with the jpg after the animation has finished.

Can you not do the event-

Compare 2 general values-
"Frame of video = last frame" --> destroy/make invisible video and display image.

Or is there no such condition? I haven't used it before.