DescentBB

Sound is ok on an Athlon XP 1800+ system (Win2K pro) with on-board Soundblaster support, too.

I have an old ISA Soundblaster 16 and an nForce2 SoundStorm, the sound during explosions is very crackly and full of static on the SB16, not so much on the soundstorm, but it is there. Using -sound11k helps a lot, but if I listen for it I can still hear it.

Some good news, since making the slider for framecap, it actually works! Before, my FPS was locked at 76 no matter what number I entered, as long as it was above 76. When I entered anything over 100, my FPS set to 10 (I have v-synch disabled, my refresh was at 100 Hz anyway). Now, it works! Thanks!

And picky details- is there any way to have the joystick deadzone slider adjust by 5% instead of 10% 0% is really twitchy, and 10% is a little slow. Or will -deadzone 5 in my .ini override this?

As a deadzone of 90% doesn't make sense, I could limit it to 50 percent in 5% increments.

What is your current frame rate now?

my framerate is whatever I set the slider to, up to 110 FPS. If I set the slider to 120, I still have 110 FPS, but that's plenty fast. Not sure if it's a hardware or software limit. This is w/ a Radeon 9800 pro 128mb, Athlon 3200+ XP, 1Gig RAM so it should not be hurtimg for processing power. I have a slower machine (Celeron 1200, nVidia Ti4200 64mb, 396Mb RAM) that I'll try this on later tonight and see what happens... I'm at work right now.

New version of d2x-w32 available, where the joystick deadzone can be set in 5% increments. No new version no.

Diedel wrote:Sirius,

can you get more specific about "object bitmap rendering faults"?

Suspected it might not mean much to you.

Basically, what object bitmaps are are a mapping table that tells Descent 2 to use a different texture on a robot from the default one at a particular index. However, from observations it seems D2x-W32 - and probably standard D2x as well actually - don't use them.

I could give you examples of levels which use these features if needed.

Are you talking about custom robot texturing?

Almost. You don't have to use these 'object bitmaps' for that, but a lot of the time, and for more exotic texturing, you do.

The reason for this is basically as follows...

How Descent 2 determines the textures on a robot depends on the start texture number and the number of textures. From this it reads a certain number of textures off an ordered list of bitmap names; like rbot01, metl012, or something to that effect. The robot can then use any texture within that 'sub-list', so to speak, and uses a number to indicate which one (where the number corresponds to texture # [itself + start texture number] in the master list).

I'm not exactly sure why the programmers chose to work the system this way. It DOES save a little bit of space in the polymodel, but only a miniscule amount, and it has one big drawback; it greatly limits flexibility of texturing. You can only use the textures you want for a robot if you can find them in that list reasonably close to each other - within 16 or so (I don't remember the maximum number of textures a robot can use but I think it was fairly close to that, if not .

To get around this, you can use 'object bitmaps' in HXM or HAM files which basically override an entry in the master texture list and cause it to point to something else. However, D2x seems to ignore these.

I guess for more information DNet has plenty of information on that side of things...

Sorry sorry for wrong info - I've always fiddled with -sound22k and -sound44k (oh silly me). The option -sound11k sounds a bit ugly but I can live with that and no crackling is noticable.
Music issues: only title song is played in main menu. After entering first level, midi stops playing at all, even after coming back to main menu.
Play custom midi = crash to desktop.
(Maybe I'll try MS Wavetable instead of default SBLive software 8MB SF bank).

Diedel: in case you're not sure what I meant by custom assignable keys to weapons, I mean this: http://www3.telus.net/murd0ch/d1xkeys.png

"I know exactly what you're speaking of." (Morpheus)

cool.

I must say that D2 is finally playable for me again with all candies it brings! Thank you Diedel. Looking forward to all new improvements.. (maybe 22k sound but it is not essential)

D2X-W32 even starts with 44K sound enabled, what does that help if the game sound has been stored with lower precision?

You should really look into my improved CTF code - playing CTF with D2 should be a real blast now. I have fixed some problems with it when playing internet multiplayer games just recently. Just make sure every participating player uses D2X-W32, because other D2 versions don't support D2X-W32's "real" CTF.

What I think would be a great addition is to have a window on the right and left side of the screen so you could see in those directions without turn to look. you should be able to resize the windows and maybe repostion them also.

Yeah, I'd like to give that a go... unfortunately finding people who play with D2x W32 and want to try CTF isn't as easy as it might sound.

Edit: I should note that I suspect the sound problems are actually an issue with the interface between D2x and the SB Live... it wouldn't be the only time I've heard that card stutter in a game. It's a shame since it's a pretty good sound card, too...

By the way, would it be possible to alter the 'sensitivity', so to speak, of keyboard commands? Since I use the keyboard for banking (long story) it gets a bit weird to have the joystick work the way I'm used to, but banking flip me over in what seems like half a second flat...

Tigeron,

are you asking for windows to show what's happening on the left and right side of the ship, like the already existing rear view?

If so, I will definitely not implement it, as for me this would be a kind of a cheat. You should do some watching your environment while flying around.

Sirius,

banking with the keyboard did not flip me over in like no time ... can you explain that more detailled?

More on the Framecap slider- w/ version 1.1.20, the slider goes all the way to 150, however, anything over 120 simply unlocks the framcap, and I get about 500-800 FPS!! There is no difference between having the slider at 130 or 150. far too fast to control. Didn't the original D2x code limit the framecap to 120?
Great work on the joystick deadzone, %5 is perfect!

Diedel:
Yes I guess right and left views would be a cheat.

Better leave that out then as we don't need any of that.

One thing I have noticed and this seems to be a left over from Bradley Bells version is that if you select a socket other than 0; play the game, exit the game and start a new one, you will be starting on socket 0 even though the menu says other than socket 0. This is so for postive or negative socket numbers. You must completely exit D2x or D2x-W32 and restart it to have the game on a socket other than 0.

example: start and play on socket 3 or -3.
exit the game then select Multiplayer again.
under other options you will still see the socket selected as 3 or -3 but when the game is offered it is on socket 0.

CTF bugs:

Scoring is fixed.
Returning of flags to base unfortunately still doesn't work on others' screens. Not sure why not. But it does appear you can't score unless the flags are in the right places as far as all players are concerned...
For some odd reason, since earlier versions players are now spawning at the opposite team's start points... after all, I haven't changed the level since then...

Something I found in a coop game- the player messages are very dark- almost black- and are unreadable unless you have a light texture to read them against. Is there a way to change the text color? I vaguely remember having that option in D1x...

The pain never stops ...

The return flag stuff cannot be too hard to fix. I had already implemented a new multi player message for this event, just had no time to test it.

The latest version of d2x-w32 crashes on me. I've found it keeps running in the background if I don't close the "encountered a problem, etc" window and I can play it, but I've got no sounds, only midi music. It seems to be a problem with the sdl file. I swapped in the sdl file from d2x 0.2.5 and it works, but there's a delay of nearly a second in the sounds. Playable, but annoying. So I tried the sdl file from an older version of d2x-w32 but it still crashes. The older version of d2x-w32 I found has the exe dated on 2/10/05 and that version works fine. Only problem with it is the screen resolution changing for meunus, etc.

Any ideas why the newest version doesn't work for me?

No idea.

Did you change the framecap?

I have found a problem with framecap > 127, which I have just fixed.

Actually, it's no longer an issue. The newest version you just put up seems to work just fine

Though I don't have an pics of the robots during the briefing screens.

Put a semicolon in front of "-nomovies" in the file d2x.ini in your Descent 2 folder.

Wow Diedel, I just downloaded and played your latest version of D2X and am truly impressed. Kickass! ...Which is what makes me feel like such slime to point out bugs and make feature requests...

As a matter of bug reports, although I don't primarily use the keyboard, I noticed that when I held down the alt key, for strafe toggling, my current rate of rotation was maintained while the alt key was held. This can be produced by rotating with the arrow keys, holding down the strafe toggle key, and releasing the arrow keys. Normally, rotation ceases when strafe toggle is held, because the arrow keys are now used for strafing. Also, I noticed that the turning acceleration seemed a lot faster, although the maximum velocities seemed fine. I believe in Descent3 this was referred to as keyboard ramping. Whatever the case, it makes it difficult for precision aiming with the keyboard. The keyboard isn't my controller of choice either, but I still like to use it when screwing around, and I don't doubt that others use it primarily.

As a matter of feature requests, I was wondering if it were possible to add a feature to specify the default drive to look for the audio CD. I like keeping the D2 disc as a virtual drive (that naturally comes after my real CD-ROM drive in regards to lettering), but it seems as if D2x only looks in the first CD-ROM drive. Would it be possible to add a parameter in the D2x.ini file that could specify the default drive to look for CD audio data?

I will look into the strafe toggle issue, and maybe come up with a solution for keyboard ramping.

I will not add music playback functionality though.

This version (1.1.28.0) would bounce me back out of a game and back to the socket that was displaying the game
that i tried to join through Kali. Never actually made it into the game.

Also I tried hosting a flag game through kali and was bounced back to the menu instead of the game starting. in both cases above, the other player was not using D2x-w32. I think he was using 3dfx.

Loaded version 1.1.24.0 back up as that was the latest that I had. It would not let me drop a flag when entering the goal. I was the red team. the blue team could drop their flag with no problem. This has most likely been fixed in the later versions.

In an earlier post (this thread above) I had a problem with rehosting a game on a socket other than 0 after playing a game. The problem was solved by me installing the Vertigo series. Yes I had thought that I installed it but I had not. So everyone....be sure to install yours.

In Hoard Mode you are unable to kill or inflict any damage to your oponent.

Anarchy and Flag seem to work normally.

Tested through Kali.

When I shut down 1.1.31 or any version for that matter, the exe continues to run in the background. That is to say, if I go to the task manager, it is still there. I to close that instance before starting another.

I also found that if I disable the 22K sound, the scratchyness goes away now. Thanks!

I'm really impressed Diedel, I'll be playing D2 more often now!

Socket bug should be fixed now.

Duper,

strange. Cannot reproduce. Your OS?

Jeff,

sorry, will not work on music stuff any more. All I might do was to add stuff improving in-game sound.

Tiger,

we have confirmed this bug in KALI. I need to check this in a LAN where I can debug into the IPX stuff.

Speaking of IPX, We were playing on a LAN last night w/ ver. 1.1.31 and kept having disconnect problems. After about 10-15 min. of playing coop w/ IPX, players would spontaneously disconnect. We switched over to UDP/IP and did not have any more connection probs.
Thsi was just 2 player coop, LAN is a router w/ 4 ports, Effeicient Networks 5861. No other LAN games have connection probs (MOHAA, 007, Jedi knight, C&C, D1X, D3, RTCW, etc...)

I wonder what I screwed up with IPX ... though I cannot remember having made any changes there ... does anybody have the D2X-W32 1.1.24 source code?

Diedel wrote: Duper,

strange. Cannot reproduce. Your OS?

I'm using XP-Pro. all patched up. I've always had this problem with D2x.

Here's my system:

mobo: Shuttle AK32A (VIA KT266A, VT8366A/VT8233)
CPU: Athlon 1800+
VID: XFX Nvidia 6600GT (drvrs:67.66)
M: 512meg Mushkin DDR 2100 cas 2.5
Sound: SB Live! 5.1 (sb0100)
OS: XP PRO
HD: Maxtor 7200 60 Gig (Quantum drive)
IE 6
Dx 9.0c

A small little thing I discovered -- the "strafe toggle" issue is still present with the "bank toggle." As far as I know though, these are all of the toggle-like keyboard commands.

I tested the bank toggle when fixing the strafe toggle, and it worked here ...

Tigeron,

re: Hoard mode

I couldn't reproduce the problem in a LAN, so it will be pretty hard to fix it.

Just a suggestion Diedel:

Maybe your service provider offers free dial up accounts or lacking that, maybe get a free or trial dial up account to use for testing. That is assuming you have more than one computer. That is the way I do my testing through Kali. I cannot move around very well with my laptop but it does allow me to get into a game to do a little bit of testing.

I have connected two computers (DSL) in an IPX game through Kali using a hub and/or router. You can do this if you execute the Kali Proxy executable before actually starting kali. This would require you to have two Kali browsers though. The exe should be in the Kali directory. And if I remember you need to setup one of the Kali browsers in "Settings" as a proxy server.


PING:

It seems that I cannot ping any of the other players nor can they ping me in a game. Deaths and kills are registered ok but not being able to ping me bothers some players. Again this is :IPX through Kali. Latest version tested was 1.1.37.