Feature and bug fix requests (1 Viewer)

Squega

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October 21, 2008
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I've been a long-time user of this plugin. I have a few bug fix requests to make and a feature request.

First, the bugs:

1. The initial load of the plugin is insanely slow. I store a lot of roms (and disc images) on my file server and simply point the my emulators plugin there for roms. I did some testing and found that the plugin thrashes the file server hard drives a lot during this. I looked at the source code briefly and from what I can tell the plugin basically grabs everything from the database and then loops through all listed files and does some kind of file lookup on each. I've clocked the time of this initial load repeatedly and have timed it at as little as 1 minute to 5+ minutes to even causing MP to freeze. After this initial load if I re-enter the plugin the load time is much faster.

2. When viewing roms via the interface directories are never alphabetically sorted. So if my roms directory is a listing of folders containing the roms, then all of those folders will be listed in some wierd random order that cannot be changed properly in the frontend. Whatever code sorts the roms seems to not work for directories. This is a problem because trying to find a game amongst 600+ without a proper sort order is infuriating. :)

3. When pressing a number key to skip to the section of roms beginning with that letter the first entry selected gets automatically executed and the emulator is opened with that rom. This is a problem because, for example, when trying to get to the 'S' section in a list of over 600 roms it is very cumbersome to have to hit the page up or down key more than 30 times in either direction when I could have simply pressed the 7 key 4 times and proceed from there.

Now the feature request:

Would it be possible to make this plugin suspend MP's rendering while an emulator is open? My Programs did this and I was used to this feature before switching to this plugin. I ask this because certain emulators initialize DirectX in a way that causes MP to switch to safe rendering mode and causes me to have to close and re-open MP to fix the problem. I know about the option to disable MP's DirectX exclusivity to fix this problem (don't remember the name of the option right now) but then videos start to tear and display other minor anomalies which is irritating. I believe that the Moving Pictures plugin has code that suspends MP's rendering during HD movie playback, so modern code to do this is available. I could be wrong on which plugin does do this though.


If you're too busy to work on these items Chreekar then I would like to help out with development. I do have experience with .NET 1.1, so if you could bring me up to speed with your code then I would be more than glad to help out.

Sorry for the long-winded post. :D
 

Chreekar

Community Plugin Dev
November 11, 2006
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No problems, I like that you have suggestions - especially when they are so well described. I haven't worked on the code for some time, and unfortunately I don't see myself having the time to do any work in the near future either. If you would like to contribute, you are more than welcome :)
 

Squega

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October 21, 2008
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With Chreekar's help I was able to get setup and I managed to fix bug 2 and 3 on my first post and added in the feature request to suspend MP's rendering while the emulator or PC game is running. I have been running with these fixes on my MP setup for a couple of days now and I feel it's ready to be committed to the repository. I'm waiting to get the write permissions to do this.

Just wanted to let people know that these fixes are coming soon. :)
 

milpool

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January 25, 2009
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Thank you Squega, I look forward to your update. I am especially interested in the suspend MP's rendering option as I hadn't run into the bug until I started playing with Kega Fusion. I have tested Nestopia, epsxe, mame, visualboyadvance, and zsnes and haven't had the error with any of them so far (with limited tests). I am not even close to being a developer but if you need anyone to help test the features I am using MP 1.02.
 

Squega

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October 21, 2008
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@squega I too need the ability to suspend MP to play my games, is your fix now available?

Thanks

The code has been committed (it's in the SVN repository) but not built for a release of any kind yet since it's not quite ready. Chreekar and I are hashing out a couple of details on the upcoming release where this code will be included. If you can wait about a week or so a new version of the plugin will be available with this functionality.
 

Chreekar

Community Plugin Dev
November 11, 2006
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We have a test release on the SVN server now. We would really appreciate if someone could help us with testing it out and see if there are any errors when doing any of the mentioned features in the first post of this thread. :D
 

TioSolid

Portal Member
March 21, 2009
38
2
Im planning to create some new features for this plugin too. Never played with C# (Im mainly a VB .net coder) but I will see what I can do ;)

Im wanting to add:
- Individual patches for the image folder for each emulator;
- Editable patch for emulator images;
- Support for clrmamepro XML files;
- Mounting ISOs with deamon tools (easy if you already have DT installed);
- Support for running an app before the emulator starts and when it finishes
- support for avi preview videos (not high priority but would be a nice feature);

let me know what you guys think
 

Squega

Portal Member
October 21, 2008
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Southern California
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Im planning to create some new features for this plugin too. Never played with C# (Im mainly a VB .net coder) but I will see what I can do ;)

Im wanting to add:
- Individual patches for the image folder for each emulator;
- Editable patch for emulator images;
- Support for clrmamepro XML files;
- Mounting ISOs with deamon tools (easy if you already have DT installed);
- Support for running an app before the emulator starts and when it finishes
- support for avi preview videos (not high priority but would be a nice feature);

let me know what you guys think

That sounds like a great feature set. Those items should certainly make setting up emulators much easier (and without batch files). I have an avi preview file for many of my games and it would be nice to be able to see those pop up with those games.

Don't worry about not knowing C#. Before this plugin I hadn't touched anything .NET in 3 years, but I managed to catch on fairly quickly since the plugin is fairly well paid out. I'll be happy to help you get setup if you have problems. :)
 

TioSolid

Portal Member
March 21, 2009
38
2
That sounds like a great feature set. Those items should certainly make setting up emulators much easier (and without batch files). I have an avi preview file for many of my games and it would be nice to be able to see those pop up with those games.

Don't worry about not knowing C#. Before this plugin I hadn't touched anything .NET in 3 years, but I managed to catch on fairly quickly since the plugin is fairly well paid out. I'll be happy to help you get setup if you have problems. :)

Thanks very much. Im at work right now but as soon as I can start VS I will mess around with the source :)

Drop me a MP with you MSN if possible so we can stay in touch if needed
 

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