Notices

If someone can, and if it's legal, it'd be appreciated if someone could post the data files too so we can play more than just the demo.

Actually I am a lot closer than I thought, I went back and played the original game and there ISNT any mouse control. So it isnt broken. (I decided to go and try the original because I couldnt find any code to handle mouse input) though it does look like it could use a mouse...

So it is just down to the midi and sound effects and done!


-John

Coming to think of it, since the Amiga doesn't have MIDI playback hardware, the game for that platform must have had either its own synthesizer or stored the music in some other format. Either would probably result in a simple "play sample X at rate Y at time Z" mechanism but it's possible that the Amiga version does not have a stored MIDI stream but must have some samples.

But I guess it depends on what the lotr engine code supports.

Joe.

There is a custom Makefile in the original source just for Amiga OS4 and from what I can tell it is all about the sounds. probably you are correct about the lack of midi play. (the original engine author has packaged binaries for Linux, Windows, and Amiga)

I am stuck because when I launch the game on NIT I get a syntax error from timidity.cfg, however if I launch timidity on its own and load the midi file that lotr was just trying to play I can listen to the entire thing perfectly. I am looking for a different voice or some new way to write the timidity.cfg to make it work that way.

-John

I had a brief look at the data directory yesterday. There were some files with a .mod extension - possibly SoundTracker files? A player for those might be easier to port than timidity and would probably be smaller in size, too. (It'd be cool if MilkyTracker can read them )

I haven't had a chance to investigate further (will do so tonight) since I got home quite late and then spend most of my time trying to get the disks to read error-free (haven't been entirely successful yet).

well... I have the sound working now, but you are going to have to really want to play this game.

This makes everything work with one exception. for some reason you can not select which of your party to control. As I work on that, I thought I would put together a tarball so I can get some testing done on it.

While I will try to find a smaller set of patches, right now to have sound and music you have to install timidity and the EAWpat patches (about 40mb, but the only ones I could find that worked)

I have a tarball of everything you should need (including the EAWP patches) except for timidity which is available in extras and the orginal data which you will have to supply and copy into /media/mmc1/share/games/lotr

If you untar from / it will all go to the correct locations other wise copy around the filesystem as needed..

Timidity installs a soundfont in /usr/share/timidity (GMGS.sf2) and if your only using timidity for lotr you can delete this as lotr can not use it.

Timidity HAS to be installed before you untar lotr as I need to over write the timidity.cfg in /etc/timidity with the new patch info.

The tarball will put the exec in /home/user and the EAW patches will go into /media/mmc1/eawpats

It will also pop a couple icons into /user/share/icons and a .desktop file into /usr/share/applications/hildon.

When I get the final controls fixed and find smaller patches that work I will put together a deb. Until then you can test it with this.

please let me know what blows up when you try it out.
Enjoy,

-John

http://www.n8ftl.com/maemo/lotr-0.6.4-armel.tar.gz

In way of an update, I have added code to have a WM icon show up so that you can minimize and restore the game while it is playing. Once I get the toon selection problem solved I will add this to the tar and repost. Then I will build a deb for it.

Thanks!

-John

Ok so all that is left to do now (well according to me anyway) is to find a smaller set of patches for timidity and I can package it up and post it for download.

Sound - check!
music - check!
movement - Check!
Select party members in gui - Check!
fn+[key] - Check!

Actually plays pretty well.

So now, off to find a better (well smaller) set of patches and figure out how to package this so that it uses as little internal memory as possible.

-John

Ok so I think this is what I am going to have to do.

I will post a link to Timidity (though you can install it from maemo.org)

Then I will make a tarball for the EAWpats which you can extract to MMC1 if you want to use sound.

Lastly I will make a deb for the lotr engine and config files. This will be installed last or be the only install if you do not want sound.

It really seems to be the only way, the deb would be over 40 meg otherwise and I really dont wan't it that large. I will shave all the excess out of the EAWpats to make it as small as possible but it really seems the way to go.

Should have that all ready tonight and posted by tomorrow morning.

-John

Ok it is finished, I have updated the original post with these instructions and here you have it...
Take a look at my original post in this thread to see more information, manuals and walkthroughs...




Step 1*: install Timidity from Maemo.org or app manager
http://maemo.org/downloads/timidity

Step 2*: Remove the soundfont from /usr/share/timidity (for space, you dont need it after step 3)

Step 3*: download http://www.n8ftl.org/maemo/lotr/EAWpats-lotr.tar.gz and extract it from / (it will install it on /media/mmc1/ in EAWpats. You can (if space in / is an issue) extract this from the MMC and simply move it to the proper location when it is finished. This collection of patches is about 32MB and can probably have a lot of patches deleted if you only want to use timidity for lotr, but leave them if you want to play other midi files with timidity.

Step 4: download lotr-0.6.4-ARMEL.tar.gz and install it from / it will copy the engine files, the timidity.cfg, the .desktop file and the icons

Step 5: install the original game data (not the exe files) to /media/mmc1/share/games/lotr/

Step 5a: if you are using an N800 (or 770, though I have NOT tested it on a 770) you will need either a BT keyboard or a software keyboard that works in SDL games. A great keyboard and layout can be found from here: http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...d.php?p=218041 (Thanks Addison!)

Step 6: click on the icon in Extras and play the game...

* These steps are only necessary if you want to hear the midi music from the original game. Sound effects and such will work without it and the game will play without it. Simply skip to step 4 and continue.

I will make a deb file of just the engine and desktop files this weekend and post it as well.


-John