DX Caverot test version

[Olly Betts]

In message <3A301AA7@Survex@pennine.demon.co.uk>, Andy Waddington on Survey stu
ff writes:
>Windows 2000 on 400 MHz K6-3 / 128 Mb / ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro 32Mb
>============
>  (recent clean install, Service Pack 1 added but not much else. OS
>  started by LILO)
>
>  from command prompt: "caverot.exe generated errors and will be
>  closed by windows."

Hmm.

>but dragging all.3d onto caverot.exe in NT explorer [...] works fine [...]
>not convinced it is using the 1600x1200 mode that it was started from - ah,
>indeed, the OSD on the monitor says it is running 800x600

The test version just asks for 800x600.  I'll add the ability to select a
resolution later.

>  Starting it from the command line in a command prompt window gives
>  "an application error has occurred ... Exception: access violation
>  (0xc0000005), Address 0x780264b5"

Seems to be a theme here...

>Non show-stopping problems:
>
>1) I left the W ME machine spinning Loser round [...], power management
>[...] shut the screen down. This seemed to have killed Caverot, [...] I
>didn't notice if there was a CaveRot icon on the bar...

This may be because caverot doesn't detect when you switch away and back to
it.  This is fixable though.

>2) On the laptop, either standby or suspend both have the effect that,
>upon waking up, you get the windows screen with the DOS box. There is an
>icon on the iconbar (or whatever Gatesland calls it) which you can click
>to get back the CaveRot display taking over the whole screen.

Is this the same if it is run from a file association, or from dragging the
.3d file onto caverot.exe?

>3) on neither W98 nor W95 (didn't try on WME, and command line doesn't work
>at all on WNT/2000) did caverot --help (or -h --h -help ...) produce any
>help.

I found the same on Martin's machine which I had a fiddle with at the CUCC
lunch yesterday.  I think this is because caverot is a GUI application and
so isn't able to write console output.  If anyone knows how to get around
this I'd love to hear.

>And --mode-chooser didn't do anything

The correct option name is `--mode-picker'.

>Since NT and W2000 prevent me starting caverot from the command line, how
>would I set about passing parameters to choose a 1600x1200 (or 1800x1440)
>display ?

You can set up a file association including command line switches.

>Alternatively, if its going to use 800x600, it could usefully do that in
>a window ... or maybe as my backdrop :-) [or wallpaper, in Windowspeak]

A windowed mode is trivial to add - I'll do that at some point.

Cheers,
Olly