Sonic Background Scrolling Screensaver

The file paths are only relevant to the build process for the SMPSOUT DLL, which is where they're from, the screensaver only uses them to get the song names. Custom songs are supported the same way they are in S&KC, by adding a songs_cust.ini file with the same format as the other two.

 

Backslashes must be escaped, so either double all the backslashes or use forward slashes. Also, you can use a relative path, which if I'm understanding your directory structure, would leave the path as simply "File=TestTrack.bin".

 

I've added Green Hill Zone, which is unfortunately limited vertically like EHZ and S2CNZ.

I've also fixed the screensaver so that custom music works.

 

Redownload them, I changed how background colors are handled.

 

Two new zones today: Marble Zone and Spring Yard Zone. Marble Zone won't display animated torches properly unless you update the screensaver (it's actually a bug in SonLVLAPI.dll).

Edit: added Star Light Zone because why not.

 

With Scrap Brain Zone Act 1 and Scrap Brain Zone Act 2, I've finished all the levels in Sonic 1.

I've also updated LZ/SBZ3 to allow three settings for water: None, Partial, and Full. GHZ has been updated to add an option for the Title Screen palette (you should delete the GHZ folder before updating it). I've also made the level list in the config dialog a bit larger.

 

The problem with running at more than 60fps is that everything that's not strictly camera-based would move faster, unless I rewrote a whole lot of code. I could do it, yes, but I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile.
Also would your CPU even be able to handle that?

Josh: Maybe someday I'll go back and figure out a way to extend these levels vertically in a way that looks natural.

 

So, funny story: I wanted to see what framerate I was actually getting, so I added an FPS display, and even though I had it set to 60fps, it wasn't going over 32fps. When I looked at the documentation for the Timer class, it said "Because the Timer class depends on the system clock, it has the same resolution as the system clock. This means that the Elapsed event will fire at an interval defined by the resolution of the system clock if the Interval property is less than the resolution of the system clock. The following example sets the Interval property to 5 milliseconds. When run on a Windows 7 system whose system clock has a resolution of approximately 15 milliseconds, the event fires approximately every 15 milliseconds rather than every 5 milliseconds." Guess how many milliseconds a frame lasts at 32fps.

So, I ditched the timer for a loop with a high-resolution Stopwatch, and now I get 62fps on every level... except Marble Zone, for some reason.

The FPS counter is now an option in the config dialog, though it may be a bit glitchy at first fixed. I've received a report that the screensaver now runs slower on Linux, so sorry to any Linux users.

 

On your first suggestion, allow me to quote myself:

The second is something I have considered since the beginning, but I don't know how such a setting would be presented, and there's the issue where not every level can scroll vertically, or to the same amounts. Additionally, the screensaver program has no idea about how tall each level is. I could add an API, but then everyone would have to redownload all the levels when they update the screensaver. Furthermore, some levels tile indefinitely vertically, like SBZ2.
For the third, HLSL would require rewriting the screensaver to use Direct3D.

 

Well I don't know how to do any of this stuff with D3D, or anything about OGL. Maybe if the scrolling was done in software and the image rendered with 3D hardware acceleration (level backgrounds aren't usually that large, GHZ and MZ being notable exceptions)? Although, according to what I've read, GDI+/GDI might be hardware accelerated already?

Also, I've been tweaking some levels to use a new API (that means you need to update the screensaver too) that makes GHZ and MZ a lot faster. GHZ hits 60fps now and MZ is like 55fps on my machine. Other levels were updated, but they weren't particularly suffering from slowdown. I plan on using this new method for most of the levels eventually.

Also also, 60fps YT vid:
http://youtu.be/uhKCxyNZ1Vs
+ - Yes, it's upscaled 800x600 video, my computer can't record at 1366x768 and maintain 60fps.