Problems downgrading from glulx to z8 for parchment

[weevil]

I sent this to dan, but I'll echo it here in case anyone has any
advice:

I wanted to try out parchment tonight, but I can't seem to get my
story to compile to z8 as opposed to glulx. The problem is that I am
overflowing the maximum memory for for Z-machine format. I had to
increase my MAX_STATIC_DATA to 132000 when it was Glulx to get it to
work, and that's too big for Z8. I'm not sure what to do. Maybe
there's something I did wrong in my code that made it to where I had
to increase the memory to that large a size. I have some long text
lists in it, but it doesn't seem like they are that long...

Does anyone know of any common coding errors in inform that could
cause max_static_data to need to be raised really high to get the game
to work?

[Dannii]

I'm not really a big expert with Inform, but I know that even with z8,
Inform 7 uses a lot of space. Hence the problems Eric Eve had with
getting SnowQuest to the size where it still fitted into z8. You'd be
better off asking in raif, though you may not be able to do it without
cutting your game down considerably.

[Atul Varma]

Yeah, when I was debugging some problems with gnusto last year, I was
looking at the generated Inform 6 code created for a simple "hello
world"-style story file by Inform 7, and it was enormous. I guess I
can understand why so many folks want Parchment to support glulx
now...

- Atul

[weevil]

Yeah, as it is, if this is just a result of the size of my game and
not some programming error on my part, I don't know how I am going to
get it into parchment... which was part of the impetus to make it in
the first place :(

[weevil]

I guess that leads me back to hoping that parchment gets glulx support
eventually. :/

[Dannii]

I'm sure that there could be a whole lot of improvements made to I7
itself though. I've asked Graham if he could send me the source for
the ni compiler, but he hasn't yet. Maybe we can work on transforming
the auto.inf source?

[weevil]

They seemed to be hinting that there was an update impending on
r.a.i.f...

I haven't ever messed with the auto.inf file from a game.. do I just
build it from inform and it ends up in the exported files?

[Dannii]

Yes, but you have to pass inform the right arguments otherwise you end
up with a debug version.

The arguments to use were posted here:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/browse_thread/thread/995f5e575bdb5d57

[weevil]

Hmm. I have to admit I'm kind of mystified by that. I have the options
to release or release a debug version in the build menu, and I see the
progress tab after building...Where do I put the arguments? I'm using
the OS X app.

On Nov 12, 7:50 pm, Dannii <curiousdan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, but you have to pass inform the right arguments otherwise you end
> up with a debug version.
>

> The arguments to use were posted here:http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/browse_thread/thr...

[Dannii]

Oh, those arguments are for the command line compiler. The auto.inf
will be in the Build subfolder (though if you're using the Mac version
it tries to hide all the subfolders so I don't know how you get to
it.)

[weevil]

I found it, you have to view contents on the game project file.

What should I do with it? post it?

[Dannii]

To do what with? I don't know any improvements, only that we could
find some if we looked hard enough.

[weevil]

Well, considering that I don't know I6, I guess there's not much to be
done there.

[Dannii]

I've just made my first commit to quixe... it's still a long way from
being usable though.

[Dannii]

http://github.com/curiousdannii/quixe/commit/05873ddf98c28fbefb72cf20175b25840ff6c949
Which is there if anyone's interested. If you want to help, give Zarf
an email, I'm sure he's got other things we can be helping with too.