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Steam preloader

Started by TurfIt, August 20, 2016, 12:08:58 AM

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TurfIt

The Steam preloader appears to be lacking a working default selection. Launching it the first time, Fullscreen and Freeplay are checked, no resolutions selected. Hitting play results in the preloader closing, and then nothing. After selecting a resolution, then play results in Simutrans actually launching.

However, if something other than auto is selected, then deselecting fullscreen still results in fullscreen. Very confusing. I'd expect selecting a resolution without fullscreen to choose the window size.

Deleting Steam.dat from the Simutrans userdirectory goes back to the default selections, however it now launches full screen without a resolution selected... Maybe some other fluke?

Also, fullscreen mode seems to incur a 20% performance hit - perhaps not the best default.

And, Steam is only recognizing the game as running when in the preloader. Hence Steam cloud sync doesn't work sanely. Any newly saved games aren't synced until the next launch of the game. And any files deleted come back again the next time you launch!

Sourcecode for the preloader?



HaydenRead

#1
Definitely needs work... I can supply the source although the Steam API is required to compile. I thought I had set the defaults to fullscreen and free play off. Definately resolution should be hidden / removed if not fullscreen. I will look into the game Sync settings.

Thanks for your feedback. I altered it rather quickly to resolve various issues that had been raised. There are a number of fixes and improvements that could be done.

Not sure if it should be added to a sub-directory of the existing svn or stored elsewhere as only those with steam API access would be able to compile it.



Just as another issue to raise... what command line options would it be good to have available through the launcher?
Currently has
-fullscreen
-res
-freeplay

Should -log -debug be added?
How about server related options?
Or -screensize and somehow detect available sizes?
How about -fps -nomidi -nosound -addons -noaddons -objects -load and any other command line switches?

prissi

#2
As peoples third most not essential complain after graphics appearance was the music, maybe a mute music/sound switch would be nice too. Server I would defer, since this will often involve fiddling with router settings and would require more settings in simuconf.tab.

However, one could have a switch which loads the pak64 (respectable when available) the pak128 tutorial scenario.

I would put the steam code in a folder steam; the nsis installer code is in nsis ...

EDIT: Now the simutranspreloader crashes completely. How can I enable debugging this?

HaydenRead

#3
Ok, got the issue of steam detecting close to early sorted (but not yet uploaded to Steam).

Looking to make a few other changes before uploading the updated version to Steam.

Some thoughts:
At the moment paksets from the workshop are downloaded, then copied to the application folder... Adding pakset selection to the preloader would allow paksets to be run from where they are...
Should there be limited options on the main screen, with a configure option for additional options, if so which options should be on the main screen, and which under configure?

So the complete list of options that I can think of (and where I think they probably should go) are:
Fullscreen / Windowed (Main)
Midi / No Music (Config)
Sound / No Sound (Config)
Freeplay / Regular Play (Main)
Set resolution both for Fullscreen & Windowed (-res forces Fullscreen, but -screensize does not force fullscreen) (Config)
Select Theme (from themes folder) (Unsure)
Select PakSet (Unsure)
Enable / Disable Log/Debug (Config)
Load / Don't Load Addons (Config)

I have also posted this for discussion on the Steam Community