DescentBB

Tankie,

actually the new tech missions have a internal version id that should cause non-D2X-W32 program versions to refuse to load them. Obviously the guys at Parallax did not implement level version checking though ... so you can load these levels, and they will crash non-D2X-W32 exes. Btw, if Parallax had done their homework, older D2 versions would not need to crash when encountering my new tech - it's not that far off the standard data that D2 couldn't handle or at least ignore it safely.

I find it pretty amazing that Glide rendered levels should look better than OpenGL rendered ones ... can somebody provide some comparison screenshots?

Sirius,

I will look into this xname feature, thanks for the hint, appreciate it. That would be extremely useful here.

Edit: Done - DLE-XP and D2X-W32 will now use the tag "d2x-name" for D2X-W32 levels.

Diedel wrote:Being around is one thing - being willing to really create hi-res D2 textures is another story ...

I have sent him an e-mail already, asking him whether he'd be interesting in making them and seeing them in D2X-W32.

Man, that would be so cool. The textures he showed are plainly awesome.

Hooray! Just got an e-mail: Novacron would be more than glad to remake the D2 textures!

*thinks carefully* Uh... credit it to Jeff, I think he made the post.

But I agree, the xname thing sounds strangely like it was made for D2x specifically...!

The 'xname' tag was in the source code already, and is mentioned at that msn resource site, so I cannot use it. That's why I have introduced "d2x-name".

Tankie2 wrote: D2_3DFX still looks and plays better at 60 FPS and doesn't aggrivate my epilepsy nearly as often as any other Exe I've used.

I experience the 3dfx version as more laid back and cleaner in a matter of graphics, not nicer per se, but I can't tell why. But D2X has more features I like, so I use D2X.

Anyway, have you tried higher refreshrates. I dunno exactly what triggers epilepsy, but you could try it.
3D games run default at 60 Hz while 3dfx version might run at 70 Hz.

Now you can force refreshrates on nvidia cards using the control panel, or using a tool called "refresh force" (dunno if this still works, it's been years since i've used it)
Keep in mind that "rivatuner" will break d2x menu's, see known issues.

Diedel, thanks for the (faster) lightmapping, I love it. It's been a while since i downloaded the most recent version but even weapon lightning looks good too now, areas became pitch black on my ati firegl (e.g. green light on red texture), but not anymore.

One thing, I noticed missile explosions are not alphablended, would you mind fixing that?

With some recent NVidia or ATI driver you should be able to set a monitor refresh rate using the gfx card's control panel. I recommend at least 85 Hz, 100 is better, esp. if you have epileptic seizures. D2 will run at the selected refresh rate.

I usually play with 1152x864x32 @ 100 Hz.

Diedel wrote:With some recent NVidia or ATI driver you should be able to set a monitor refresh rate using the gfx card's control panel. I recommend at least 85 Hz, 100 is better, esp. if you have epileptic seizures. D2 will run at the selected refresh rate.

I usually play with 1152x864x32 @ 100 Hz.

I would a agree Diedel unless one is still using a CRT like me. Yes set it high but also make sure vsync is ON. I find I am MUCH more accurate with the placements of my shots if there is no screen tearing.

Setting the refresh rate only makes sense with a CRT. TFT monitors have no refresh rate/flicker like a CRT. I am using a CRT, too. Imo CRTs are still superior to TFTs in terms of image quality and image change speed.

Imo, if in danger of having epileptic seizures, you should

• Choose a high refresh rate on CRTs or use a good TFT monitor.
• Enable V-Sync.
• Choose a high screen resolution (1024x768 or above, depending on monitor size and max. resolution).
• Enable AA and AF to improve image quality.
• Don't play in the dark, but have some ambient light (and an extra backlight behind the monitor).

Diedel wrote:Hooray! Just got an e-mail: Novacron would be more than glad to remake the D2 textures!

Anything new since the e-mail?

Yes, he has already finished 500 textures. Not.

It's quite some work to redo all textures.

But there is something new on my side: I have already changed texture management in D2X-W32 so that replacement textures will be read from a subfolder named "textures" (who would have thought of that? ), and have tested the feature with two of Nova's textures from the PD BB, and it works.

Next thing to do will be to add a different animation storage system (all frames in a single image file, that will even allow to override animations with a a different number of frames than the original had).

I have a bit of a bug...

I have the latest version of D2X, ans windows XP.

My computer is a Dell (Something), bone stock with the exception of twice the RAM space and Hard Drive space. GFX card is unknown.

During the course of gameplay, if I ever tried to open up a menu, or hitting the F1 button, most of the time, the menu wont appear, but the mouse pointer will, and the current frame will freeze. After hitting ESC. the game will start going inbetween the current frame and the frame that was frozen on there. The only fix I could find was by going into the menu -wich would work normally again, most of the time- and changing the screen resolution.

This also poses a problem for the in game movies, such as the mine exit sequence, and then, if applicable, the robot intro movies.

No problems here.

RageTH wrote:My computer is a Dell (Something), bone stock with the exception of twice the RAM space and Hard Drive space. GFX card is unknown.

Do you really believe this is a hardware description I could use even the slightest way?

currently there is an issue when a d2x-w32 host no one else can join, unless they have d2x-w32 after 1.4.27 somewhere

I might debug this and find a solution (or conclude there is none), but for the time being the simplest solution would be for every D2X-W32 to get the most recent version (1.4.35 as I am writing this).

RageTH - only advice I can give is -
- Make sure your video drivers are up-to-date
- Check what other programs are running in the background alongside D2X-W32; try it without them
- Try a different screen resolution

Other than that, I'm not sure; this exact problem hasn't come up before as far as I know. However, there certainly is a cause regardless, but it is likely specific to something on your computer.

Just letting you know that lightmapping has slowed down compared to the previous release. (Rendering that is, not calculating)

Not that I mind but it could come in handy finding bugs concerning lightmapping.

My card it a firegl t2 128MB (render card) I'm pretty sure this card is based on the ati 9600.

Thanks for the transparency fix.

3803,

this is pretty curious, as I didn't change anything about lightmapping - just speeded up initial lightmap calculation. Well, as I think about it, I had disabled the shaders in one D2X-W32 versions, but re-enabled them in v1.4.35 as lightmapping didn't work properly w/o them in all cases.

Diedel wrote:Do you really believe this is a hardware description I could use even the slightest way?

Not at all... I was hoping someone might know a bit about Dells. This is really my Dad's computer, and I don't know that much about it. As soon as I can learn more, I'll post it.

BTW, To update, Will I have to Re-Download the whole thing, or is there patches I could D/L? Dial up in the South...

No, D2X-W32 doesn't have patches. It's also 600kb, so patches would have very little point anyway.

Even on a 56k modem, it should only take a minute or two...

Edit: Oh, and someone might, if they knew the model. Dell has put out no less than hundreds of different models of products over the years, so without specs we are really none the wiser.

Okay, here we go, I found something...

Dell Dimention 2400, running Windows XP, home version with Service Pack 2, version 2002.

Device Driver: Intel 82845g/GL/GE/PE/GE Graphics Controller

That's all I can tell you without cracking the case.

You might want to install a "real" gfx card in your computer. A GF FX 5200 would do for D2X-W32. Make sure to get an AGP card (that's the kind of connection to the motherboard), not PCI-e. You will have to open the case to install the hardware, but that should be none of a problem ... if it was your own computer, that is ... ... ask your dad for permission.

Diedel wrote:3803,
Well, as I think about it, I had disabled the shaders in one D2X-W32 versions, but re-enabled them in v1.4.35 as lightmapping didn't work properly w/o them in all cases.

The versions I have tried didn't suffer from very noticable performance-loss until 1.4.35. Possibly I haven't tried the first couple of builds in which those shaders where enabled. Oh well.

Certain explosions (i.e. the ones when spreadfire shots hit the wall) are transparent even though "Enable Transparent Explosions" is off.

Also, a suggestion I have would be an option to disable the difficulty slider for those who would want to (such as myself ).

Just don't use it.

Just wondering.

Is it possible to do better lightning for the weapons? I find that the current system is not quite accurate.

This comes obvious when flying backwards while shooting lasers. You can see that de lightning follows the ship in a jerky way without any interpolation...(from not lit, to lit at once) It's a bit hard to explain but the current lightning is just not that smooth.

I'm aware of other lightning code (by Lehm) that has been disabled due to buggy behavior. I was wondering if fixing this alternative (better) lightning still is a priority.

Please don't take this as an order, I kind of felt free of telling you what I would like to see.

The lasers appear instantaneously and light the level like a flash of lightning, they don't fade in gently. Maybe that is what you have observed. To make gun lighting look really good, it'd need to be lightmapped, too.

Seemed to have some problems when playing a network game via the tracker...

1) Through some NAT routers (I have a Nokia M1122) only the game host is visible; other players appear initially, then disconnect after a few seconds. Opening TCP/UDP port 28342 does not change this. Am I just missing some ports, or is there a more fundamental problem here?

I -suspect- that the deal is exactly the same reason Kali doesn't work over this router... but if there is any workaround it would be appreciated.

2) The headlight, in large rooms, seems to be useless most of the time. I suspect it has different behaviour from the standard D2 one as well... would it be possible to have maybe a toggle to choose between the two? In addition, in the same situation flares often don't light anything up at all...

Does problem 2 only occur in UDP/IP MP games, or is it a general problem?

I have no clue why other D2X-W32 UPD clients do not communicate with you, unfortunately. I would love to fix this problem, but I don't know how. I cannot reproduce this problem in a LAN, so I have no way to fix it, I'm afraid.

OK, problem 2 is a general problem. Just the way I phrased the lead-in to problem 1 made it sound somewhat wrong.

At least I -think- it's a general problem. Even more perplexing is that in most of my own levels I haven't been able to observe the headlight not working. If you need the level I can get it to you (but be warned, cheat-kill all robots first if you want to retain sanity getting to the problem areas).

Am I correct that D2X-W32 uses only one UDP port when running a game? If so, I believe I know what would be causing it. According to what knowledge I gained trying to get Kali to run normally when connecting directly...

Basically, some routers such as Netgear, and apparently my own, have problems that cause them to not realise UDP is 'connectionless' (from what I've been told), and thus will only accept packets from one source, I think. If they want to communicate with another player, they will open up a new connection which, in D2X-W32's case, the other player is not listening on.

If this is the case though, the only fix I can think of would be to force D2X to use one port for each player... or to use TCP/IP, if it would actually work with that. I'm not quite sure how that goes, but I do know all routers work with TCP/IP...

Incidentally, Descent 3 causes the same problems in peer/peer mode... but not in client/server mode. Perhaps because for C/S everything goes through the server, and the multiple-connection problem doesn't occur.

When I first networked my computers on broadband I purchased a Netgear router. Within 2 hours of beating my head against the wall trying to stay connected to Kali. I promptly returned the Netgear within 2 hours and exchanged it for a Gaming friendly Linksys... no more issues Ev-Ahr

To be honest, I had thought of such a solution too for Sirius already ... ... I mean, it's a bad joke if a router cannot handle UDP/IP properly. It might however be that some magic setting will make it work properly.

Sirius, how about contacting Netgear on that issue?

With D2x-w32 1.4.35 I've having problems with people not being able to join my IPX games on KALI. When they try to join they get an error that says the levels do not match and they get kicked out. Word on Kali is that the latest d2x-w32 broke backwards compatability. I'm trying to dig up old versions of d2x-w32 to see if I can verify this.

spud

I should have read BUBBALOU's post on the subject, sorry for the duplicate report.

spud

I took some demos in the level Sirius is talking about to demonstrate the headlight issue, and rendered them to XviD *.avi files, using Hypercam. I had to do most of them low-res to get non-dizzyingly low framerates:

clip2.avi (3.15MB) - This clip in a long hallway shows what the problem seems to be. Casting a headlight down large spaces seems to prioritize the furthest distances, rather than the immediate area. I had to turn off and on my headlight to make sure that it was on at all. This clip was taken at 640x480@10fps, b4 I knew what I was doing with Hypercam.

clip3.avi (1.68MB) - This clip takes place in a large room full of columns with 0 lighting. Columns nearest to my ship are completely black, and columns further along are more fully lit. I also flipped on and off the headlight to demonstrate that fact better.

clip4.avi (3.16MB) - This one illustrates the problem best. I'm in the same room as above, only this time I'm advancing through it. As I near columns, they gradually darken until I am very close and they are completely black - clearly counterintuitive to how a light should work.

Hope these are helpful!

Other than that, and the aforementioned can-only-see-host issue (in which I was the host and could see both players who joined, but they could not see each other), I still think d2x-w32 rocks. Thanks for the hard work thus far!

The clients not being able to see each other issue has surfaced here a few times already. I have had some UDP/IP games with several other ppl that worked fine, so I don't really know what to do about this.

I will check the level version mismatch problem.

I agree that the client-visibility issue is probably isolated to our case, alone.

EDIT: Whoops, the headlight issue exists also in D2X 2.5/2.6. I have yet to try it out in original D2

I just experimented in another level. The problem only exhibits itself when casting the headlight in rooms of certain length. Some seemingly large rooms are just fine. But once I move into a room that is especially long in at least one dimension, the headlight is no longer effective in immediate range. I can close in on a wall with the headlight on and it will be pitch black, but turning to face the lengthy expanse reveals fully-lit walls off into the distance.

However, since the issue has existed at least since the older versions of D2X (pre-W32 versions), chances of figuring this our are low.

The headlight problem you're talking about is the result of vertex lighting. The only things you can do about it are tesselate faces which light sources are close to (it's not the math that's so hard, it's that the engine's design does not lend itself well to something like this), or use a different lighting technique. The original D1 and D2 do this as well. I remember in some of the big levels in D1, I'd shoot flares at corners rather than in the middle of faces, because it provided much better illumination. By affecting one vert in this manner, the extra light got interpolated over the whole face, instead of affecting all verts a little and not doing much visually.

A cheap and lazy way to do it would be to store the location of each point where the headlight's center path crosses a face within range in a list, and hack something to render the face as four triangles instead of only two. This would produce some strange artifacts as well, but it'd provide *some* illumination.

Another, much easier way to achieve a similar effect would be to widen the angle of illumination based on face distance. If you're very close to a face, it will illuminate at an angle wide enough to light up the entire face. This would look kinda weird too, from other players' perspectives, but again it'd fix the lack of illumination.

Something bad has happened in the last issue of D2X_W32. It is no longer compatible with older cversions. I have instances of D2Xw32 not being able to see my host and when I try to join a w32 host I get messages that files do not match even when the files are uploaded from my missions directory. I think this is happening when the host starts the game before anyone joins, as if that locks it into D2X only mode by starting the game early. It might also be that once w32 has initiated d2x only and you drop back to the games list 3dfx and original version hosts are no longer visible? Perhaps a positive toggle for compatibility or D2X mode when w32 version starts up and/or D2X only older version flags in the game list would eliminate some confusion?

If you have an older version, try that one and see whether the problems disappear. If not, they're rather due to network/inet conditions.

Edit: I have tried a UDP game w/ both host and client on the same machine, using v1.4.28 and v1.4.37 (my newest version). No problems here, no spew loss, no level mismatches.

I wouldn't trust KALI, after the problems they had. Maybe they have bandwidth problems now.

If you are using a router, it might have problems allowing multiple senders on a single UDP port (netgear routers seem to have problems with UDP connections).
____________________

Something to water your mouths - this is a screenshot (1024x768) of D2X-W32 using some high res textures made by Novacron. The door frame doesn't look perfect yet, but that's a minor issue. The door animation is fully functional.

Legacy D2 games have been working as expected via Kali.

And Motor, I suspect it isn't an isolated incident, it's just whenever I join games everything falls apart.

I would contact Nokia about it, except last time I did so over the Kali issue I seemed to get nowhere (and had to wait weeks for a response), and these days they direct me to a $2/minute 0900 number...

And I would replace it, except doing that is relatively expensive and there is virtually no need, except for a number of applications I can count on one hand.

But I can always play through IPX.

Tankie,

what is your "last issue"? There is a version number in the main menu screen ...