[games_access] Game Accessibility Suite, and first prototype...

[Michael Ellison]

On Jan 21, 2008 4:30 PM, Eelke Folmer <eelke.folmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> So you basically run it in a shell ? I was thinking maybe you can kind
> of hook it up to a button on a controller that just slows the game
> down to a certain speed when tapped. (Kind of like the old turbo
> button we had on the 286/386) That way you can still play the game
> full screen and players can activate it runtime. I'm assuming you have
> to do a context switch to get back to the slowdown shell and slow the
> game down? the only problem I would foresee is that player using this
> tool already have a hard time interacting and would not really prefer
> an additional button. (Robert do you have any ideas on this? do you
> have an extra button to spare on your quad controller?)

What I'm doing is injecting a DLL into the game process and hooking
the timer functions that most games use to control their speed
(timeGetTime, QueryPerformanceCounter, GetTickCount, etc.). This way
it only affects the game, and doesn't slow down the processing - you
should still get good performance in the game, it'll just be slower.
Anyway, in the prototype I just set a registry key and inject the DLL
from the command line, so I didn't have any communications or
interface at all in it.

For an interface, I've written some test code for hooking into the
DirectX rendering pipe and tossing an overlay on top of the game.  So
you'll at least be able to see the current speed.  Right now I'm
debating between a heads-up display showing the speed and allowing
control via the joystick (e.g. left is slower, right is faster), or
just cycling speeds and giving some visual feedback per button
press... I like the first interface better, but unless I lock out the
joystick from affecting the game itself you might end up running
around in circles or off a cliff while trying to slow it down.  The
second wouldn't have that problem, but would be less natural IMHO.
Any ideas ya'll have on this would be *much* appreciated.

>
>
> Cheers eelke
>
>
>
>
> > > On 14/01/2008, Michael Ellison <devellison at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Greetings,
> > > >     Just wanted to post a note if any of ya'll are interested... I've
> > > > started an open source project on SourceForge.net to create a suite of
> > > > utilities to make modern Win32 games more accessible.  Currently
> > > > trying to figure out a good way to do external captioning with Reid,
> > > > and I have a few other utility projects going at the moment.
> > > >
> > > > I've finished my first prototype utility using the common libraries
> > > > I'm building up.  It is called GASThrottle, and should allow you to
> > > > slow down many modern games on Windows to 10%-90% speed.  I've tested
> > > > it with Doom 3 and Far Cry with great success, and others with mixed
> > > > results - e.g. it crashes BioShock ;( .  When I looked, I didn't find
> > > > much out there that did this for modern games that worked, although I
> > > > found a few that didn't and some that work *great* for old DOS games.
> > > >
> > > > If there is already a free utility out there that does this well,
> > > > please tell me :)
> > > > Right now it's just a command line app, but if it looks useful to
> > > > people I'll eventually make it all nice and pretty.
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, if anyone has ideas/suggestions on this or other utilities to
> > > > add to the suite, please email me or post in the project's
> > > > forums/tracker.
> > > >
> > > > Download page: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=212119&package_id=258851
> > > > Code Docs: http://gameaccess.sourceforge.net
> > > > Project URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gameaccess
> > > > Source Repository:
> > > > https://gameaccess.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/gameaccess/trunk/
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Mike
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > games_access mailing list
> > > > games_access at igda.org
> > > > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Eelke Folmer                           Assistant Professor
> > > Department of CS&E/171
> > > University of Nevada              Reno, Nevada 89557
> > > Game interaction design        www.helpyouplay.com
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > games_access mailing list
> > > games_access at igda.org
> > > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > games_access mailing list
> > games_access at igda.org
> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> >
>
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eelke Folmer                           Assistant Professor
> Department of CS&E/171
> University of Nevada              Reno, Nevada 89557
> Game interaction design        www.helpyouplay.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
> games_access at igda.org
> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>