Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/10/27/19:32:39
On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 23:26:18 GMT,
quake AT megsinet DOT net (exph) wrote:
> I am currently making a simple front end for mame as
> as a project to increase my knowledge of allegro and djgpp.
I did my front ends with a batch file. ;-)
> My question is how should I go about showing .pcx
> screen shots for the games when you have one
> highlighted? If I read the pcx from the hard drive every
> time I need one you won't be able to navigate the
> menu smoothly because the disk will be thrashing.
Two words: Disk cache. Do it that way, and SMARTDrive will handle
caching for you.
Or you can implement your own:
> Mame runs just under 2000 games now so there is no way
> I can load that many screen shots into memory. Should I
> cache as many screen shots as memory allows and just
> read the hard drive when I need one that isn't cached?
That's what web browsers and SMARTDrive do.
> One other quick question. Would it be better to shell
> to mame or to simply terminate my program and have
> it run once mame is done with a simple batch file?
I don't know how the "terminate and relaunch in batch"
method would be done. Most front-ends are shells.
> Does shelling decrease mames performance?
Not if you call allegro_exit() then spawn*() then allegro_init().
Shelling from a DJGPP program uses a bit of extended memory, but
Windows or Linux will handle swapping out your front-end and swapping
in MAME. If MAME was made with DJGPP, it's even better.
> For those of you who have gotten down to this point
> thank you very much for taking the time to read this ;-).
Organize your games into categories (tris, pac, space-shooter,
gun-shooter, brick-and-ball, one-on-one fighting, final fighting,
etc.). Store each category's 160x120x8 bit snaps in a datafile. The
user expects a second or two of swapping when switching categories.
--
Damian Yerrick
Mail me from the link on my web site:
Pinocchio's Brother <http://yerricde.tripod.com/>
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