CompoKit

CompoKit is an all-inclusive environment with (almost) all tools required for hosting PC demoscene competitions.

Contents

A CompoKit installation mainly consists of third-party tools:

• File Manager: Total Commander, 7-Zip and CKLaunch, a custom launcher tailored for running compos
• Video Player: MPC-HC
• Audio Player: XMPlay with OpenMPT Plugin and additional plugins for SID and YM, TrackMeister
• Image Viewer: XnView, CompoView, PixelView, GLISS
• 3D Model Viewer: Foxotron
• ANSI Viewer: PixelView, ACiDView, Sahli, AnsiLove
• Emulators:
  • DOS: DOSBox, DOSBox Staging and DOSBox-X
  • C64: WinVICE
  • ZX Spectrum: Speccy
  • Amiga: WinUAE
  • Fantasy Console: TIC-80, MicroW8
• Text Editor: Notepad++
• PDF Viewer: SumatraPDF
• Audio/Video Tools: FFmpeg, youtube-dl/yt-dlp, Capturinha
• Music:
  • a selection of nice, not too bombastic demoscene music for use as background music during graphics compos ...
  • ... and a few proper bangers for grabbing the audience's attention before a compo
  • downloaded from scene.org archives and (where necessary) SoundCloud
  • see music/download.txt - suggestions or pull requests to extend or improve the list are highly welcome!
• Full-screen typer: typr
• Scripting Language: Python (only installed on demand)
• Manual: a comprehensive document that describes everything a compo organizer has to do

The following applications are not included for bloat or licensing reasons, but may be required for full functionality:

• Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge (for WebGL demos and Sahli)
  • must be installed system-wide (in C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome, C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome, C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Edge or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge)
• Pico-8 (to show .p8 cartridges)
  • just unpack pico8.exe and the data files into a directory called pico-8 next to (not inside of!) the bin directory

Features

• Most programs and their configuration files are contained in a single directory, bin.
• As far as possible, the programs are set up in a "portable" mode that eliminates or minimizes interference with possible pre-existing system-wide installations of the same programs.
• Where applicable, the tools are preconfigured for use in compos. For example, images and videos open in fullscreen mode, and media files don't start playback until a key has been pressed (so that the video source for the bigscreen can be switched in the meantime).
• All tools are automatically downloaded and unpacked using a PowerShell script. No special software needs to be pre-installed.
  • This script, setup.ps1 (and its batch wrapper, setup.cmd) works like a small package manager, including "-reconfigure" and "-reinstall" options.
• The script setpath.cmd can be used to add CompoKit's bin directory to the PATH in command-line sessions.
• The script shell.cmd starts a command-line session with CompoKit's bin directory in the PATH.
• Contains a script (play_shuffled.cmd) to generate shuffled playlists of whole directories and play them back, using the Balanced Shuffle algorithm.
• Contains a tool to play jingles: jingleplayer
• Contains a tool to control Lightware and Extron DVI/HDMI crossbar switches ("matrices") with macro support, running on e.g. a Raspberry Pi with a numeric keypad: dvi_matrix_control
• Contains tools (for both Windows and Linux/X11) to quickly switch between 1080p50 and 1080p60 video modes on the "beamslide" PC: vidmode
• Contains tools to export data from the PartyMeister party management system into various formats:
  • vote results into a text file that's a blueprint for results.txt
  • slides to PNG in a useful directory structure
  • timetable to the XML format used for the CCC (C3VOC) streaming service

Installation

Just run setup.cmd. This will download and unpack all essential programs (except FFmpeg and youtube-dl) into the bin directory.

You may also have a look at bin/setup.ps1 before and update the version-dependent download URLs to the newest releases of the various programs.

To get all the music files (i.e. populate the music directory with all the stuff listed in music/download.txt), run bin/download_music.cmd.

Special Configuration Options

Some of the tools are pre-configured in non-standard ways:

• CKLaunch
  • medium-contrast "dark" color scheme with Segoe UI font
  • file associations pre-configured to use all the tools CompoKit provides
• Total Commander
  • medium-contrast "dark" color scheme with Segoe UI font
  • search files in the current directory by simply typing letters (no Ctrl or Alt required)
  • F2 key renames files
  • Passive FTP by default
  • single-instance mode
• MPC-HC
  • starts in fullscreen mode
  • starts paused (press Space to start playback)
  • doesn't leave fullscreen mode when playback is complete
  • Q key quits (instead of Alt+X)
  • uses the Sync Renderer to minimize framedrops and judder
  • no Direct3D exclusive fullscreen mode (questionable if it would have any benefits on Windows 10; may become extremely problematic when codec errors occur)
• XMPlay
  • starts paused (press P to start playback)
  • OpenMPT plugin is used by default for MOD, S3M, XM and IT formats
    • MOD files use 20% stereo separation and Amiga low-pass filter instead of interpolation
    • S3M, XM, IT use 100% stereo separation and 8-tap interpolation
  • OpenMPT pattern visualization is configured with maximum font size
  • SID is configured for Mono output with 8580 digi boost enabled
  • single-instance mode
  • no title information bubbles in fullscreen mode
• TrackMeister
  • starts in fullscreen mode
  • starts paused (press Space to start playback)
  • MOD files are played back without volume ramping and very low stereo separation
• XnView
  • medium-contrast "dark" color scheme
  • shows only image files in browser, nothing else
  • all toolbars except menu and status bar disabled
  • no image info overlays on thumbnails or in fullscreen mode
  • starts in fullscreen mode, exit with Esc
  • toggle fullscreen with Enter key
  • Cursor Up/Down keys change frames/pages in multi-page documents (pages in TIFF, layers in PSD, ...)
• Sahli
  • a little script _run.cmd is put into the Sahli directory that launches Sahli in Chrome/Edge
  • a manual is provided
• typr
  • a _run.cmd script is put into the typr directory that launches typr in Chrome/Edge
• SumatraPDF
  • English language (regardless of system locale)
  • page layout set to "single page, don't save for every document"
• DOSBox / DOSBox Staging
  • provided config files dosbox.conf and dosbox-staging.conf set fullscreen with correct aspect ratio, maximum speed (core=dynamic, cycles=max), 48000 Hz sample rate from all audio sources (including GUS and Covox), and UART mode for the MPU-401 MIDI interface
  • CKLaunch is configured to interpret .dosbox and .dosbox-staging files as DOSBox(/-Staging) configuration files and runs them with the dosbox(-staging) -conf option
    • This can be used to provide an entry-specific DOSBox configuration: Rename the .conf file to .dosbox or .dosbox-staging and make sure the entry is auto-started:

      [autoexec]
      mount C: .
      C:
      whatever.com
      

• WinVICE (C64, VIC-20, Plus/4 only)
  • version 3.1 is used, because it's the last non-bloated pure Win32 version
  • scanlines disabled, brightness adjusted to compensate
  • fullscreen mode set to 1080p50 (make sure that mode exists before using Alt+D!)
  • no confirmation on exit
• WinUAE
  • installed in "portable mode"
  • comes with kickstart13.rom
  • configuration file a500.uae is provided with
    • all settings for maximum Amiga 500 compatibility (with 512k slow RAM expansion)
    • 20% stereo separation
    • launch in fullscreen mode with aspect ratio correction, no GUI
    • exit with Ctrl+F11 enabled
  • wrapper script runa500.cmd provided to run a single Amiga executable ("onefiler") by preparing a dh0: directory with a suitable startup-sequence and running it
    • CKLaunch is configured to run .a500 and .amiga files through that, so simply renaming Amiga 500 4k/64k intros from .exe (or whatever) to .a500 makes them runnable
• TIC-80
  • .tic files started via CKLaunch run fullscreen and without the startup animation
• Python
  • standard "portable" installation in the subdirectory bin/python
  • wrapper script python.cmd in bin runs Python from there
• Chrome/Edge: special settings when run through bin/Chrome.cmd and Sahli/_run.cmd scripts and CKLaunch's default configuration
  • fullscreen mode
  • --allow-file-acces-from-files
  • uses private profile directory (%TEMP%\cklaunch_chrome_profile)
    • clean "freshly installed" profile, no user misconfiguration possible
    • forces new instance if Chrome/Edge is already running with the default profile
• Firefox: special settings when run through bin/Firefox.cmd script
  • uses private profile directory (%TEMP%\cklaunch_firefox_profile)
    • clean "freshly installed" profile, no user misconfiguration possible
    • forces new instance if Firefox is already running with the default profile
  • if no filename is specified, opens the about:config page with the setting that needs to be disabled to allow file-based demos to run