P-sprint for Lua

[Arwin]

Hi Peeps,

I finally got round to something I wanted to do ever since Shine added bitwise operations to Lua: port p-sprint to it.



Some info on the original p-sprint:
http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=2913

Link to the p-sprint lua version topic and download:
http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=4626

Feel free to ask questions here also, I'll be watching this topic.

Yours,
A.

[Kable]

I still dont understand why people would prefer this over normal keyboard input such as in the PSPUAE or C= 64 Emulators...

[Arwin]

That's pretty easy to explain, as there are a fair few reasons:

1. Speed.

If I take CaSTaway as an example (Atari ST emulator - beats the C64 and Amiga emulators easily btw). Try typing "Ken sent me" and pressing Enter in Larry I. You have very little time to do it in the game, and you can't do it fast enough on the OSK in CaSTaway.

Let's ignore for a moment capitals and such. Here's what I need to do, assuming I start at 'h'

2xright,cross: k (3)
5xleft,up, cross: e (7)
2xdown,4xright, cross: n (7)
down,cross: space (2)
2xup,5xleft,cross: s (7)
up,right,cross: e (3)
2xdown,4xright,cross: n (7)
2xup,2xleft,cross: t (5)
3xdown,cross: space (4)
up,3xright,cross: m (5)
5xleft,2xup,cross: e (8)
1xdown,9xright,cross: enter (11)

total presses: 69!

now p-sprint:

right,triangle: k (1)
triangle,triangle: e (2)
circle,triangle: n (2)
cross: space (1)
square,square: s (2)
triangle,triangle: e (2)
circle,triangle: n (2)
square,triangle: t (2)
cross: space (1)
right,square: m (2)
triangle,triangle: e (2)
start: enter (1)

total: 20

That's a difference of 49.

2. ease of programming

p-sprint was designed partly for programmers. It's really, really easy to implement in your programs.

3. full feature set

p-sprint has almost all functions and keys a normal keyboard has, including the possibility to easily make ctrl-shift-alt combinations. For instance, here is how you would type a capital H:

hold circle, press up, release circle, press square (3 presses)

and here ctrl-shift-v:

hold up, press square, press triangle, release up, press triangle (4 presses)

Note that these take only one extra press compared to a real keyboard! This is very typical of p-sprint: typically it takes less than 2x the amount of presses on a real 102 PC keyboard.

4. useable without osk

Actually quite nice to be able to have something that you don't need an onscreen keyboard for, so that you can play a game exactly like the way it looks on pc. Some software doesn't have that much space to begin with, and it's nice to be able to see the full screen without the extra need of an osk.

It also makes porting software to the psp a lot easier.

Those are the main advantages. There may be others. But you'll find it's definitely worth learning.

To make that easier though, I want to make a trainer.

[lanerzb]

Are you able to download Lua and this program with the 0.9 Loader on a V2.0 PSP?

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by lanerzb

Are you able to download Lua and this program with the 0.9 Loader on a V2.0 PSP?

Yes, it works with the latest Lua on a V2.0 PSP with the 0.9 loader. In fact, I do it just like that. I've also tested it with TTLDE and that works too, which is nice.

You should boot up Lua Player from the menu, and then start p-sprint from there.

Mind you, the program right now is just a test. You can type and see what letters you've typed, what modifiers (ctrl+alt+shift) you pressed, what group you selected, what the name of the key is, the keycode, and the keyid. This is mostly useful as a demonstration of how to use p-sprint in your own code. I will try to make some cool little lua programs later that also use p-sprint, a trainer being high on my list. For now, this is mostly of interest to other people who want to use p-sprint in their own lua programs.

[lanerzb]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Yes, it works with the latest Lua on a V2.0 PSP with the 0.9 loader. In fact, I do it just like that. I've also tested it with TTLDE and that works too, which is nice.

You should boot up Lua Player from the menu, and then start p-sprint from there.

Mind you, the program right now is just a test. You can type and see what letters you've typed, what modifiers (ctrl+alt+shift) you pressed, what group you selected, what the name of the key is, the keycode, and the keyid. This is mostly useful as a demonstration of how to use p-sprint in your own code. I will try to make some cool little lua programs later that also use p-sprint, a trainer being high on my list. For now, this is mostly of interest to other people who want to use p-sprint in their own lua programs.

Alright I downloaded the Lua Program from the home page. When I start it up it wont work? Im about to get the P-sprint Ill check that out.

[lanerzb]

When I try and boot my Lua player it gives me a bunch of Jibberish and then Says Error: No Script File Found
Press start to Restart

I got it working now :P