From: James Vasile Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Advice needed: displaying many pcx images for emulator front end Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 04:22:39 -0400 Organization: Columbia University Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <381787e8 DOT 11350866 AT news DOT anet DOT com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup-cc2-45.cc.columbia.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu 941185316 1616 128.59.58.150 (29 Oct 1999 08:21:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: postmaster AT columbia DOT edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Oct 1999 08:21:56 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 X-No-Archive: yes To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com This is a really interesting question. I presume that if you list all 2000 games that your menu doesn't fit on one screen, that there is some scrolling. If I were tackling this problem, I'd cache pics for all the games currently viewable in the scroll list +/- one page worth of scroll. Also, catch keyboard hits in your pic load and display routines. If user hits a key, process it before continuing to load/display pics. That way if user pages through the list to the end, there will be little to no delay. This takes a bit of coding, but it's not too complicated. I think that C++ might be easier to do this in than C, but I've not done much C++. 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 a project to >increase my knowledge of allegro and djgpp. I assume most of you know >what a front end is but for those who don't a front end(at least for >emulators) is a program that lists all of the games you have and you >pick wich one you want to play. Much easier than having to fool with >command lines. I know there are many high quality front ends already >out but I want to make this one myself for fun. 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. 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? Help! 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? >Does shelling decrease mames performance? For those of you who have >gotten down to this point thank you very much for taking the time to >read this ;-). >exph