Messages

I just tried the new build and it looks great!   The disappearing textures and the building/terrain issue are fixed.

I'll do more indepth testing this evening.

Eddy

Wally even used the same number of poly's as the in game pilot!

That was hilarious when I saw the pic's.  Did you actually make a tank too or was that someone else too?

Eddy
aka FirBirGir

I dropped in the new exe and I'm seeing a definite increase in frame rates, about 50% more if I had to guess.  I'm running it in Vista64 & 8800GTX video with no compatibility mode, launching it with /nointro

I made it half way through the second SP mission before it crashed. I'm seeing some disappearing textures on buildings and the same problem I mentioned before where the buildings and the terrain doesn't seem to mesh.

www.bz911.com/bzonetest2.wmv

I installed from the BZ1.4L installer.

From dxdiag:
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 12/7/2009, 20:57:08
       Machine name: EDDY-VISTA64
   Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.090803-2339)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
       System Model: P35-DS3R
               BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU           @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
             Memory: 4094MB RAM
          Page File: 3189MB used, 5216MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     DxDiag Version: 7.00.6002.18107 32bit Unicode

Players?  Or average age?   

Wally!  It's getting to be old home week around here!  Someone needs to wake up Mower and FON, and drag FPA out of wherever he retired to... 

Hey, post that pic of the homemade NSDF spacesuit you or Scrappy had... 

-Av-

Wall made that when Scrappy visited him years ago. That was too crazy

Eddy

Hey Wall, good to see ya!

Below is a video of some weirdness with models and terrain. Play it in full screen mode to see the disconnect up close.

http://www.bz911.com/bzonetest1.wmv

This was recorded with FRAPS at 60FPS, 640x480, Hardware Mode, Vista64.  I had no crashes or errors and I'm not running in compatibility mode. I do have DEP turned off for the entire OS though.

Eddy

I am getting 150+ fps with this build on Vista64.  I had compatibility mode turned on (XP SP2) and most everything was working. I then turned off compatibility mode off and I get a failed to create D3D object error. Now I have to reboot to see if  I can it running again.

I noticed in mission 2 that some of the buildings seemed disconnected from the terrain. As I drove around them, they seem to move around some. I'll make a video of it once I get BZ going again.

Code Select Expand

   Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.090803-2339)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
       System Model: P35-DS3R
               BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU           @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
             Memory: 4094MB RAM
          Page File: 3426MB used, 4980MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     DxDiag Version: 7.00.6002.18107 32bit Unicode

In the case of the Flash Cannon, I would try to preserve that "heat ray" effect as much as possible regardless of the underlying implementation.  No one uses that weapon in multiplayer anyway, so it's not like it would draw a lot of controversy. 

If it worked, people might. One of the benefits of a weapon like flash cannons is the "red-out" effect, which can blind a player. It's hard to shoot back a something when you can't see anything but a red screen...

Eddy

I got a couple of false positives right after the update. I made the connection and had it ignore the problems. Now it's working fine.

Eddy

Now you done it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO10s_HK6d0

For the 50th time, DeVry.

I'm attending DeVry as well, online though. Gotta love the virtual classroom.

Eddy

Hmmm, I hadn't given Hamachi much thought. That could be used to make private servers, or depending on the web interface for Hamachi, you could create login IDs to get onto the VPN, which would give you access to the server.

I'll have to look into this a little more.

Eddy

Regardless of the merits or flaws of Gamespy, it'd be a lot of work since I've never worked with a networking SDK like that before.  I also don't know if BZ1 would qualify for an Indie license since it was a commercially-released game at one point.  It's interesting speculation but it'd be a long shot at best.  (RakNet would have similar issues there as well.)

Which brings us back full circle, BZ1 did work with Heat Network. There's some sort of interface built into BZ1 to talk to an external lobby, I haven't been able to reverse engineer it so far. It seems to be buried in the anet.dll code (I think that was the one, dx?).  If we can simulate Heat Network, the BZ exe's won't need rewriting.

Eddy

Oh you've started trouble now!

In my opinion, BZ1 may be able to learn a lot from BZ2. BZ2 is probably the best balanced game ever when it comes to two races having separate technology.

But that balance wasn't achieved by bug fixes alone. Creating balance requires change, there's no way around it.  Folks are all for change as long as it doesn't affect their own gameplay. Some would be thrilled if splinters were nerfed, except those love to  spam bases with splinters. There are bugs, exploitable bugs and balance. Each one will invoke different reactions from the gamer population.

At the end of the day, we all have to make choices to have progress. There is simply no way to please everyone.

Eddy

They missed the mark when that weapon was rebalanced. High damage should mean high ammo usage and low damage should mean low ammo usage. But there's a point where damage is so low it becomes useless and ammo usage is irrelevant . Think of the pilot rifle with unlimited ammo. It's possible to destroy something with it but you'll be found before you get the job done.

Flash cannon damage should be about half way between where it was and where it is now. Then set the ammo usage to be comparable to other weapons like dual mags or dual SPs.

In BZE, I put flash cannons on the GTs and it looks awesome when they fire. They aren't really better than blast though, I lost more bases using flash than blast.

Eddy

Actually, they left out one word. It's not Flash cannons, it's Flashlight cannons.

Eddy