Messages

Has anyone successfully compiled Raknet? Might be interesting to build the empty shell and lobby system just for giggles.

Unlike previous versions, Windows 7 doesn't come with the Intel Indeo codec that most of the shell AVIs use.  I just decompressed the videos in VirtualDub on my Windows XP laptop before upgrading to 7.  The main downside is the files are now huge. 

Couldn't they be recompressed using a more common codec? Does BZ care what codec is used?

Eddy

Are we talking pre or post 1.4 flash cannons? Hahaha

Flash cannons were a great concept, too bad 1.4 didn't allow them to be real weapons.

Eddy

Gamespy supports a handful of games, I can't see them adding support for BZ.

One of the big advantages of Gamespy or any modern game server is tying it back to a real identity like your Gamespy ID. So when someone breaks the rules (http://www.gamespyservers.com/rules/), there are real consequences for behaving badly.

I believe the same model could be used with Raknet and could support BZ, BZ2 and other games but its a daunting task...

Eddy

I have the same problem with the new exe running it on Vista64.  I have an nvidia 8800GTX and 1.4 and BZE all work pretty well with it.  Other video cards have caused all sorts of problems, so I have to agree that problems are mostly caused by the video card. Do you get any graphic glitches in Windows 7? My chat text weirds out sometimes and I can't see the numbers in the radar (like navs or units). You can see some of the glitches in these videos.

http://www.bz911.com/bze1.wmv
http://www.bz911.com/bze2.wmv
etc...

Watch the gui windows, some of the graphics will turn into white blocks.

Eddy

Nielk1

I liked your post on freeforums. I thought it was actually constructive and showed a willingness to see 'our' point of view. But my reply and Spork's which were both answering the questions you posed were removed.
When I questioned this removal on the grounds of hypocrisy. I too joined the hallowed hall of banned Battlezoners.

On a more constructive note, I am still interested in helping Ultraken in testing BZ on Windows 7, As I am one of the relative few it seems who can play BZ1 on 7.

Sorry to hear you got hit with the ban hammer.  Did you do anything special to get BZ working in Windows 7?  I'm going to install Win 7 tomorrow and I'll want to install BZ.

Eddy

Hello Folks,

The BZ911 server is down with a hardware failure. The server is being replaced and should be back within the hour. This affects BZ1 and battlezoneclub.org.

Eddy

Lets hope a new BZ1 patch paves the way for cleaning things up. One of two things would happen. A: 3 way split. B: Some people from both parties join the new BZ and it becomes secondary to that of one of those parties. (IE a community that plays more than one reliably).

There will always be a faction wanting the game as is. They enjoy tweaking/cheating and won't be happy with any version that prevents it.

Eddy

What was the name of that side scrolling helicopter game? Man, I was soo addicted to that one.

It could be on a per server basis, that's better than nothing

This will be a challenge I'm sure...

Eddy

While we're discussing updates to BZ1, I'd like to bring up the problem with Anet and the lack of a identity system.  Since there's no true game indentity, there is no consequences for bad behavior at the player level. All modern games create unique identities, eliminating the ability for someone to "pose" as another and to simply change names.

There's been discussion on and off about a bolt-on security system at the server level but this is far from perfect. The real solution is a different lobby shell but from what I have gathered, anet is deeply entrenched in the code and would be difficult to rework.  What about the Heat interface? Does that gives us another way to create a lobby outside of anet without major code rewrites?  I have the SDK development kit but it's hard to understand how it works with BZ.

If a shell could be created using the same methods Heat used (emulate the Heat server from BZ's point of view), could a lobby shell be created supporting unique identities?

Eddy

I know exactly where the crash happens, just not why.  Execution of the Execute Buffer fails deep inside the D3D library, presumably indicating a problem with D3D itself but it's certainly possible it's getting passed bad data from the application.  Execute Buffers are just terrible, though, so I'm more inclined to just chop out that entire system in favor of the far-simpler D3D9.

Seems like D3D should provide some sort of error logging but other than the general application crashed log entries, I didn't find anything specific to D3D in the event logs.

Replacing it seems like the logical choice - fix the problem and make it more current in one move.

Eddy

The playfish acquisition mentioned in the gaming news clip is real. EA bought playfish for $300M. When I read what playfish does, I thought "What the ...!?!"  Is that the future of gaming? If it is, just shoot me now.

http://www.playfish.com/press_releases/?release=09_11_2009

Eddy

Sound like a good approach, if you need any testing done with your test application on different hardware, I'm sure you'll find volunteers here.

Can you add some debug code to help isolate where the conflict is?  I do a lot of embedded system programming and when I have a similar problem, I add debug logging throughout the program until I find the problem. I'm sure that's a lot more work in a program this size, but it can provide a lot of good information.

BTW - The crash occurs right at the point of launching the hardware 3D view. I didn't mention that in the previous post.

Eddy

I finally got around DEP, I had to turn it off in the boot options. With DEP off, the new exe causes an unhandled exception regardless of the compatibility mode or render.cfg settings if hardware is enabled. Software mode works only in a window but seems to work fine. The framerate is over 300 with everything set to max. Full screen software mode will work for a few seconds then freeze.

Test system is Vista64 with 4gig of RAM and nvidia 8800GTX. Stock BZ and BZE work fine with this setup.

Eddy