ParaJVE : Parabellum's Java Vectrex Emulator   

Official Home of ParaJVE ... A travel through the programming of a freeware Vectrex emulator in java!

Thursday, October 22, 2009  

Beta-testing has started...

A quick post to let you know that the beta version has been uploaded, and is now available for users that applied for beta-testing (download site).

If you want to help with the testing, it's never too late : send me an email with your name & surname at vectrex@orange.fr, and I'll provide you with a beta key ASAP. 

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Friday, October 16, 2009  

Beta-testers needed...

As said earlier, the next release is nearly there ; but for once I would need some beta-testers in order to help me to tweak the new display settings.

The new version comes with a so called "glow shader", whose purpose is to display a glow halo around the vectors. This shader is optional (because not all 3D cards support OpenGL 2.0 or more), and it is highly user-customisable.

When modifying these user settings, the display performances could be impacted (depending on the window size and the 3D card used, for instance). Also, the visual rendering will vary from one system to another, depending on the monitor attributes (LCD or CRT, brightness, contrast, etc...).

I'd like to bundle several predefined settings (what I call "profiles"), for the users to chose, depending on their preferences.

That's why I'd need some of you to run the emulator on your computer(s) and monitor(s), tell me what profile is good/bad in their opinion (both visually and performance wise). If you feel like it, you could also create your very own profiles (the emulator comes with an embedded editor) and send them back.

With these pieces of information gathered, I can hopefully have a good idea of what is the most user-adapted default settings, and what profiles I should include in the final bundle.

Here are a few pictures of the shader parameters editor:



The beta will be Windows only, and should be available in a couple of days. If you're willing to help, please drop me a line.

Thanks!

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All coding done!

This is it, the programming part for the next version is now completed...

I still have to build and test the emulator both on Linux and Mac OS X. The documentations also need to be updated. And more importantly, the new display settings still need to be tweaked a bit (more on that in the next post).

Following is a comparison of some screens taken on the old and the new versions. Hopefully, you'll find that the full overlays redesign, along with the addition of the glow shader, will make the new display look better! :-)


version 0.6.0

version 0.7.0

All this to say that the release date is quickly closing in! 

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