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Please read the 'New Features' section for update details.
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TITLE
Games Master System
(GMS)
VERSION
2.1 (Released October 1998)
AUTHOR
Paul Manias (pmanias ihug.co.nz)
DESCRIPTION
The Games Master System is a developers kit that is aimed at
enhancing the functionality of the Amiga OS, with emphasis on games
programming. It is based on the Amiga shared library standard,
so will work with any programming language such as C, Assembler,
E, Basic etc.
The system can be ported across to other platforms besides the
Amiga, and in future GMS programs could be run on other platforms
without recompilation (CPU's must match or they have to be
emulated).
Here are just a few of the features:
- Object Oriented kernel design.
- Publicly available source code.
- Fast blitter functions, including CPU assisted blitting.
- In-built proportional fading functions.
- Sound support, includes intelligent channel play-back.
- Music support for the .mod standard.
- Support for raster/copperlists with built-in special FX.
- Automatic XPK decompression.
- External structure and object pre-processing, allows user
editing of program data.
- Support for automatic picture remapping and resizing features.
- Screen support includes double/triple buffering, and
invisible chunky emulation.
- Full resource tracking.
- Support for all kinds of input devices (joysticks, joypads etc)
- An official system debugger is provided.
- A user preference program that allows editing of things such as
default screen dimensions, resolutions, mode promotion etc.
- Multi-tasking and screen-switching is supported.
The system has a very modern design and includes full resource
tracking and safe task destruction features. The debugger is
incorporated into the system itself, so there is no need for
special patches or debugging tools. Functions are written
with garbage protection features and where possible, software
based memory protection. GMS can recover from many programming
errors that usually result in software failures.
Full documentation and over 70 demo sources in C, Assembler and
E are included within the developer archive.
NEW FEATURES
New Functions:
SetPenShape(), PenLinePxl(), Idle(), GetContainer(),
AddResource(), FreeResource(), SetContext(), FindField()
New Modules:
Music
New Demos: c/misc/3DShape.c, e/misc/dprintf.e, amos/3dstarfield
amos/circle, amos/line, amos/linez, amos/loadiff, amos/moire,
amos/snow, amos/drawpixel, amos/pixeltrail, c/audio/playmusic.c
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
A full installation will take up 2 megs of space on your hard
drive. KingCON or any other enhanced shell with a scroll back
buffer is desirable for running IceBreaker.
Support is given for E, SAS/C, StormC, DiceC, DevPac and PhxAss.
AVAILABILITY
GMS is available on all up to date Aminet sites, for example:
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/misc/gms_dev.lha (799k)
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/misc/gms_user.lha (275k)
Developers will need both archives, Users will only need the second
archive.
PRICE
Developers are required to pay a licence fee when a game is released.
Costs start at $20US for shareware games. Freeware developers do not
have to pay this fee.
The user package is shareware based. On registration you will get
an unrestricted version of GMSPrefs, access to e-mailed updates,
bug fixes and so on. The cost is $20US, and the registration will
last for 2 years.
DISTRIBUTAILITY
The gms_dev.lha and gms_user.lha archives are freely distributable,
provided they remain unchanged. The Games Master System is (c)
Copyright 1996-1998 Paul Manias / DreamWorld Productions.
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