AGS: Donna Avenger of Blood doesn't start because of a avi video without extension

[i30817]

Warning: i'm using a libretro core, but not the outdated one, but one that uses current scummvm code and uses a 'platform' backend as the libretro part, so all the 'engine' code is current (sort of, i built it last week).

Anyway, this AGS game is failing, because upstream behaves slightly different.

​https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/issues/1758

Upstream skips the video without showing any message if it can't play the video. Since AGS does not support AVI for a long while now, it just skips the video (it's no big deal in this game, and the video is kitsch anyway).

Scummvm crashes to debugger.

As mentioned in that bug report, upstream is allowing ogv videos to play without the extension (and in this game the video is a extension less file named 'terminus' in the root of the game dir), so users could re-encode the video to 'fix it'.

But i believe that scummvm should follow upstream here and videos it can't play shouldn't crash the game to the debugger. Log a warning, sure.

[i30817]

The game is here if you want to test it: ​http://www.mediafire.com/file/u6ejdv1g96itha5/DONNA_AoB_1.5.zip/file

As mentioned in the linked bug report, renaming the terminus file is 'enough' to make scummvm not crash. In-engine, ags reports a missing file and continues.

[tag2015]

I can confirm this behavior on Win10, latest git.

Sorry to hijack this bugreport, but since you are using retroarch could you please help us with bug #13722 related to maniac mansion deluxe?

[i30817]

That guy appears to be using the original libretro core which is significantly different. And even more, for the xbox.

I did the only thing i could, point the persons interested to the backend i'm using (which allows the use of scummvm git HEAD, if you follow the build instructions) and the buildbot of that backend; but i'm not at all sure it can be built for the xbox, since the buildbot only has windows, linux, android and macos.

Best i can do.

[i30817]

Though i can confirm i can't see pauses using that backend. Although this is not surprising imo, since the code and platform i'm running the game on is different.

[i30817]

One thing about this issue though. I believe scummvm could support AVI 'with less consequences' than upstream.

Upstream is used for commercial games, so supporting AVI means that new games might end up with AVI videos.

Scummvm is not use for commercial AGS games, so supporting AVI (maybe with a version check) shouldn't harm much, if a AVI decoder already exists and is portable.

[tag2015]

Scummvm already supports AVI containers, but if the video is playable depends on the codec.
Unfortunately with the current implementation there's no way to "clearly" detect if a video is fully supported or not and eventually skip it.
However, since this game is quite well known and the video doesn't really add anything to the game, I added a small workaround to skip it.

Since the video playback shortcomings are generalized, I think this game-specific bug can be closed.

[necros2k7]

latest winx64 build crashes to debugger, regression?

[tag2015]

I can't reproduce the problem. Please provide more information, where does it happen?

[necros2k7]

@tag2015 Just after start
"ScummVM 2.9.0git2603-g5dcd2ddecd2 (Mar 17 2024 04:37:42)
Console is ready
Debugger started, type 'exit' to return to the game.
Type 'help' to see a little list of commands and variables.
ERROR: Unknown tag 'PrmA' found!"

[tag2015]

Could you try removing the game from the gamelist and adding it again?

[tag2015]

I can't reproduce the issue, anyway I made the workaround more robust and should work even if your game is a different/older version or gameid

[necros2k7]

Detects now and plays ok! Thanx