Hello VorticonCmdr, and welcome to the Forums since I hadn't said that yet. 

I've spotted some graphics and sound issues, and apologies if this seems nitpicky; I read the documents to check what you were and weren't aware of. First, the EGA graphics. The terrain colors are slightly different to how they appear in-game, and the lemming and object colors are completely and totally wrong, and I can see exactly how this happened! Colors 0-7 in the palette ARE the standard colors (except color 7) shared across all graphics sets (though it is absolutely correct that they aren't the low-intensity CGA palette). That 16-byte copy you mention does NOT copy starting from the offset that you label "ega_custom" and copies through to the end of "ega_standard"; it copies from "ega_standard" through the array that you labeled "ega_preview", because those "ega_preview" colors are actually the colors used in the levels. The "ega_preview" entries in the dirt set example match up with the terrain colors seen in-game (screenshot below), and it only contains CGA colors, which is important since EGA does NOT support non-CGA colors in 200-line video modes, which Lemmings uses during a level; thus the "ega_custom" colors could not possibly be used in a level.



Now for the AdLib sound. It's pretty good overall, but the tick rate for the music driver isn't correct. player.asm's timing loop simply is not accurate to what the actual game does. As far as I know, in all cases EXCEPT when running VGALEMMI with the "For High Performance PCs" or "For an IBM PS/2 Machine" options selected, the game programs the PIT to fire at a rate of 72.8261 Hz, which it uses to help throttle the gameplay speed, and the music is also driven at that rate. (The aforementioned exceptions seem to synchronize with the VGA video rate(?) independent of the PIT, which results in the music playing very slightly slower, but I am NOT an expert on how the High Performance mode works, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Next, the Tandy sound. The actual game uses the same 72.8261 Hz tick rate to drive the Tandy sound as it does to drive the AdLib sound. Additionally, the PSG clock speed is also incorrect, specifically half as fast compared to what it should be. There's some significant sequencing issues in the Tandy player as well, resulting in extreme desync and misplaced effects, though I imagine you're aware of that even if I didn't catch any explicit mention of that in your document. I also notice, thanks to Lemmings Tune 18, that the software PSG is using more than 10 bits for the period of the square channels, as that tune attempts to play notes that would require an 11-bit period to play, resulting in garbage pitches on the real chip as the most significant bit is discarded. Don't ask me why the tuning table contains 11-bit periods in the first place.

Finally, the PC Speaker sound. First of all, I had no idea there were unused sounds in the PC Speaker driver, so it was very cool to listen to them. However, the sounds seem to play much too fast. This is easiest to hear with Patch 12, which is triggered in-game when a lemming explodes (recording below). Unfortunately in this case, I'm not entirely sure what the tick rate should be; the driver certainly isn't getting called at 72.8261 Hz, as that would make the sounds play even faster. Sorry!



Hope this is helpful at all!

Hi guys!

I've been playing Lemmings since the 90s, and a couple years ago I stumbled upon WinLems and started building custom levels and experimenting with it, even rebuilding and reimagining some of the ONML levels and a few from YouTubers.

I can't think of a better place to share some of my .dat files, and I'd love to know if there are any other WinLems builders here that would like to share some levels too!

I attached some pictures to give an idea of my builds

        

After playtest, I can say that the level has some interesting twist in it. It has a regular solution which is quite open-ended, and three talismans which makes it almost 4 levels in one.

Bronze talisman is a neat solution that took me too much time to find.
Silver talisman is a strict timer one, it has at least 2 solutions and is not that hard.
Gold talisman has a more lenient timer but requires using more parts of the level, I found a neat solution too which requires using those blockers effectively, there are certainly other ones as UGO said mine was not exactly intended.

In the end it is a pleasant level with many things to think about, good job for a first try 

Thanks for the update WillLem. I must confess I get very confused with all the different versions of Java, why can't they just make one! lol.

Thanks for updating the menus and yes I can confirm that it is now fixed and looks great.

All the best my friend and thanks again.

Hi Simon, thanks for the great feedback. To be honest 2-player came after the fact I noticed that I now have everything needed to implement it. You gave me a lot to think about.

Glad to know it's all sorted.

I've posted in the release topic to let users know they need to update to Java 26 - in some cases, this alone won't do it and it's necessary to first uninstall the old Java version. The wonders of Java!

@manic23 - Let me know if the menu icons and text appear correctly for you following this update.

All best.

Java Exception Issues

Hi all.

The codebase for RetroLemmini 3.2.1 has been updated to Java 26.0.2. It is strongly recommended that you update your Java version in order to run RetroLemmini.

Download the latest version of Java here.

I'm aware that one or two users have been met with a generic Java exception when running RetroLemmini 3.2.1 from the .jar executable:



Thankfully, the fix for this is easy:

1) Go to Windows > Settings > Apps > Installed Apps and search for 'Java'
2) Uninstall all Java SE Runtime Environments and Development Kits that show up in the list
3) Re-install the latest version of Java from the link above

This should fix the problem. If it doesn't, please PM me or post a topic to let me know.

All best,

Will

Hi! I believe that the first Github link should point to VorticonCmdr/lemmings, not to the github.io.

Networking mode against myself works in Chromium after enabling the HTML-in-Canvas global option, which is disabled by default.

On your readme, you explain how you support efficient rewind in singleplayer by taking savestates and recomputing. This is the most performant solution that we know. Lix was the first to do that in multiplayer, then NeoLemmix implemented it for singleplayer, and then Lix offered it in singleplayer.

Your multiplayer assignments during netplay have significant delay, over half a second. I think that such input delay is a problematic way of combatting lag. Clones (another Lemmings-like) and Starcraft do it like this, too, but it's more acceptable in Starcraft (where commands should happen ASAP) than in Lemmings (where it's a problem when commands happen too early). Have you considered instead to rely on the efficient recomputing from singleplayer? When the local player receives a delayed command from the opponent, the local player inserts it into his own history, then recomputes. I suspect that recomputation makes it harder to catch cheating, but it makes for better flow.

There is a third, novel way of combatting lag: Neon Swarm (Lemmings-like in Lockstep Arcade) makes terrain modifications and blockers immediate for the local player, and has a ~1-second delay before they materialize for the opponent. From the local player's view, his own young builder bricks are semitransparent until they're old enough to affect everybody.

Do you strive for exact 1991 Lemmings 1 two-player physics, bugs and all? Then you can't use such immediate local impact with delayed remote impact, and I'd suggest savestates and recomputation instead. It really depends on what exactly you envision. E.g., the 1991 physics have a possibly unwanted first-player advantage because his lemmings spawn before the second player's lemmings.

-- Simon

Thanks for trying Lix in these emulators! Happy to hear that it's running smooth in Gamenative.

For Winlator: Allegro 5 (Lix's graphic/multimedia library) allows for a choice of backends (OpenGL, Direct3D, ...) by supplying a config file allegro5.cfg, but I haven't done that myself yet. Maybe that's useful for Winlator. But you don't have to investigate because you've already found that Lix runs well in Gamenative, and you've chosen to focus on that.

I've never designed for phones nor tablets. Some parts of the Lix UI would need a serious redesign for the world away from mouse and keyboard.

-- Simon

Really looking forward to it