CD-i Mouse video!

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:00 am

Hey everyone, I normally try not to spam my videos, but I think this one is fairly relevant.

I just finished putting together my overview of the CD-i mouse. What originally started off as a basic video overview of the mouse and packaging itself, ended up turning into something much more involved! Anyways, I hope you enjoy..

http://blip.tv/gameplay-and-talk/the-cd-i-mouse-5552896

*PS: I finally found a DVC cart on eBay.. Woohoo!!!

K1ngArth3r · Post by **K1ngArth3r** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:44 pm

That's a great video

thanks for sharing!!

I need to go and get myself a CD-i mouse now! lol

Pleased you got a DVC sorted!, I'm looking for one for the CDI220 (I have 2 of the mini adapters though...typical).

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:51 am

Haha! Thanks man! The mouse is definitely a nice peripheral for the platform, a must-have in my opinion.

After I uploaded this video to GameTrailers.com (http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/ ... use/360465), I was expecting it to be trolled pretty well, as a lot of videos are there. Interestingly, it has been getting some positive feedback in relation to the CD-i itself:

"Wow a CD-i related video that didn't talk about how much it failed. Nice."

"Nicely done review. Never knew how good that mouse was."

"that mouse isn't half-bad looking, and i'm impressed by philips's mandate to require all software to be compatible with all peripherals, thanks for this educational review"

"I have to try the mouse. Alien Gate still is a boring game though

"

(That last comment is funny

)

It's great to see a positive outlook on the platform for a change!

As far as my DVC K1ngArth3r, yeah, I am excited to receive it. It says it was shipped from eBay yesterday, so I'm crossing my fingers it's here in the next day or two for my days off work this week. I have about seven games I own to try with it, not including some, er.. trial games, if you will.

It's perfect timing, too! Halloween is just around the corner, and I haven't rolled through The 7th Guest in a while. I think I know what I am going to be doing come October!

Post by **Bas** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:31 am

That's a very nice and professional video, Austin! Thanks, also for the link at the end of the video

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:50 am

Thanks, Bas!

opt_fr_ · Post by **opt_fr_** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:18 pm

nice vid. I like the visual effects at the end.

cdifan · Post by **cdifan** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 6:53 pm

Very nice video.

The fact that Alien Gate plays so good with the mouse is because it was developed on one, I think the touchpad / gamepad didn't exist yet and SPC certainly didn't have one. They did have a roller ball controller though, which is reportedly the best pointing device for playing Steel Machine.

Regarding Dimo's Quest, I had the same problems playing that on CD-i Emulator which for years hasn't had anything *but* mouse support. You get used to it, though, after a while I could get through the first ten or so levels without much problems.

One reason why touchpad/gamepad control is often so flakey is technical; these devices don't send simple "left/right/up/down" information but they encode it as relative cursor movements (3 pixels to the left, etc) which the ROMs translate to absolute cursor positions and the game then has to translate back into directions, occasionally having to reposition the cursor to take account of screen boundaries.

These information packets are sent serially at 1200 baud, which gives a polling rate of at most 1200 / 30 = 40 Hz as each packet is three bytes long. That is already slower than the usual frame rate of 50 or 60 Hz and as real-time processing of this information is expensive cpu-wise it is often polled at the frame rate or a whole divisor thereof which adds to the complexity and unresponsiveness. There are ways around this but they are complicated and probably used seldomly (it requires driver call interception at the system level).

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:06 am

opt_fr_ wrote:nice vid. I like the visual effects at the end.

Thanks! I like that effect, too, and the great thing is that it's really easy to do. I take an existing video clip that has a decent amount of motion to it, and add a linear blur effect to to the max it can go. I then slap a black and white plugin on top to give the grey look, then toss a brightness/contrast plugin to make it look a bit darker. It takes about a minute to do (if that) but the spacey effect looks pretty cool, in my opinion anyway!

The video clip prior to those effects is actually taken from Viewpoint on the Genesis/Megadrive. But of course you will never be able to tell.

cdifan wrote:One reason why touchpad/gamepad control is often so flakey is technical; these devices don't send simple "left/right/up/down" information but they encode it as relative cursor movements (3 pixels to the left, etc) which the ROMs translate to absolute cursor positions and the game then has to translate back into directions, occasionally having to reposition the cursor to take account of screen boundaries.

Ah, yes. I thought this was the reasoning for it, but I never would have been able to explain it appropriately, haha!

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:47 am

Finally got around to watching your vid ... very nice!

I'm gonna grab me a CD-i mouse asap.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:59 pm

Definitely do it Trev.. If I remember correctly, aren't you still using the basic wired controller that came with the 450s? If so, the mouse will improve your experience on many games by a long shot. Get one while they are still available cheap!

opt_fr_ · Post by **opt_fr_** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 1:54 am

Austin wrote: *PS: I finally found a DVC cart on eBay.. Woohoo!!!

Congratulations !

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:32 am

opt_fr_ wrote:Congratulations !

Thanks!

CDinteractive.co.uk - Home of the CD-i Forum

CD-i Mouse video!

CD-i Mouse video!

Re: CD-i Mouse video!

Re: CD-i Mouse video!