python-ps3 now has a working bootloader and new example game

python-ps3 0.2.7 is a fairly major release milestone - all the bugs that I know of are now fixed and all the items on the TODO list are feature enhancements.

There has been a substantial reworking the the PPU->SPU communication which resulting in much higher performance and I have fixed a serious memory leak in the streamed audio routines.

The biggest feature is the bootloader release, as incorporated into pubble 0.2.8. More documentation will be added on how this works, but the upshot is that it's easy to distribute additional games or demos as a single file which can be installed on a USB memory stick. The bootloader automatically detects these archives and adds them to the boot menu.

The bootloader neatly wraps up an entire mini-Linux installation and doesn't require any permanent installation, so is ideal for use when the hard disk is allocated 100% to the game OS. I'm using an up-to-the minute 2.6.23 kernel and everything works as far as I know (even bluetooth and rebooting!)

Finally, the last piece of the puzzle... I have been working on pubble (a puzzle bobble clone) for some time and I have provided an pre-release version along with the bootloader. it's best to consider this as an alpha release at present, but it has been played a lot by myself and my friends and all the major kinks are worked out (I think). There are a few things I'd like to finish off before releasing properly, but it's almost there.

Hopefully this game will be enough to encourage more people to use the library. There's been a small but steady number of downloads but there's nothing like a good game to encourage people over!

Happy coding and happy playing!

Cheers,
Ralf.