Thanks for lending your poor PowerMac to ALPHA testing of MaCthugha. Once again this is an *early* Alpha, meaning there are plenty of things that still need to be done, changed, fixed, rethought, tested, broken, fixed again, and plenty of CPU setups that I haven't had the chance, nor the resources, to test. This version has been tested on a PM 7100/66 sys 7.1.2, 7100/80 sys 7.5.1, 8100/110 sys 7.5.1 and 9500/132 sys 7.5.3, some with cache cards, some without, PM internal video, PDS video card, A/V video card, and some PCI video card. So far so good, though networking apps (especially Netscape, surprise surprise) will occasionally eat themselves after MaCthugha exits.
WHAT THE HECK IS MACTHUGHA?
http://www.afn.org/~cthugha
WHAT THE HECK IS MaCthughaDP?
A version testing double sized pixels. Bigger display, slower, and less display modes (mirror, tile, kaleidescope)
IMPORTANT:
Since you have lent yourself and your computer to this behavioral experiment, I request that you e-mail, snail-mail, call, or smoke signal me with your results. I'd like to know what your setup is-- processor, speed, memory, # of monitors, type of video card(s), system version, type of music, what frame rate you got on average (lower left corner of screen), and perhaps system extensions and control panels installed if MaCthugha crashes your system. Tell me what you like and dislike about it or any suggestions you might have for me. Source code will become available on specific request or once this goes final.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
•A PowerMac. Wouldn't be worth seeing on a 68k Mac as Apple hasn't ever made one that ran any faster than 50mhz. Cthugha-L ran at an average of 7fps on a 486DX/66. So, no 68k version, unless someone decides to make the Cthugha ASIC. Plug the card in and run a little app and 30fps Cthugha running concurrently with all other system apps. Maybe someday.
•8mb of RAM minimum 16mb recomended, though I don't think there is a PowerMac in existence with less than 8mb. The more memory available the more extensions you can load (palettes, tabs, pictures). If you have more than enough memory (57mb) and you get a Not Enough Memory error, try increasing MaCthugha's memory partition by getting info on MaCthugha from the Finder.
•A monitor capable of 256 colors. Once again, I don't think any PowerMacs don't have this available.
•A monitor set at 256 colors. Currently MaCthugha walks the graphics device list looking for an 8 bit deep screen and spews and error if it can't find one. Otherwise, it stops at the first one it finds. So, if it runs on a monitor you don't want it to run on, open the Monitors control panel and change the depth on that screen to something other than 256 colors.
•A CD in the CD-ROM drive and already playing, or sound input hooked into the microphone port. The Sound control panel should also have the appropriate sound input device set. Turn Play Through on if you'd like to hear it coming from your Mac.
THE TWO CONTROLS:
Both are done via the mouse. Until I get keyboard support functional you can lock the current display configuration with a single tap of the mouse button. The fps meter should then have an L next to it. Tap the mouse button once more to unlock it and force a config transition. So, two quick taps of the mouse button should force a transition if you hate the current config. The second and more exciting control is Quit. To quit hold the mouse button down for 20 frames or 1-2 seconds.
SOME CONSTANTS:
Unfortunately I have a bunch of things as fixed constants, like buffer size and sound source. These are also to change with the coming of the BETA.
FOR CTHUGHA(-L) USERS:
There are a couple of things that you won't see in MaCthugha and one thing you won't see in Cthugha(-L). The things you won't see are PCX pictures. I haven't figured out yet why they aren't loading correctly. I also disabled FFTs, as the only thing they affected was the palette, and I personally hated the effect. It seemed rather random. Also there were three wave functions that display the sound wave using precomputed trig tables, and for some reason (also unknown) they did not work properly. Something you won't see on other versions of Cthugha is the ability to read a tab file created for different buffer sizes. So, no matter what your graphics buffer size or tab file size, MaCthugha will read it. It has some strange effects on some tab files, but works properly for the most part.
