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Gherkin

Doom Connector coming back in full swing!

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Doom Connector (the online multiplayer service for modern Doom ports) is back in development and will be completely revamped. We would like to have your input and have set up a forum HERE. Please register on that forum if you like and let us know what you would like to see or change in the new DC.
For the current Doom Connector website go HERE. Also the website will be changed completely upon the release of the new DC.

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It's been ages since I played on the Connector, but when I last did, I was unhappy with the amount of options available when setting up games with the peer-to-peer ports like ZDooM and WinDooM.

For instance, -nomusic, -extratic, -record and -maxdemo weren't supported in the ZDooM game setup. And spending hours trying to make ignorant newbies add such parameters to their Personal Arguments box isn't really an alternative.

Also, I believe the WinDooM games didn't launch with the settings I specified in the Connector. If I remember right, it didn't launch the game on nightmare skill, although that's what I had told it to do.

Guess I should be saying this in that new Connector forum, heh. Oh well.

Anyway, Gherkin, I'll see you next week in Rijen. Do you play any deathmatch?

N.C.

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Oh, yeah... It would also be nice if it was possible to play the original doom2.exe on the Connector. Currently it is only possible to play doom2.exe on IPX networks, through direct serial or modem connections, or on packet driver based TCP/IP networks.

Yes, there is a TCPSETUP.EXE for doom2.exe. It was written in 1994-1995 by some guy whose name I can't remember right now. In any case, this driver is useless nowadays, since noone is using packet drivers anymore.

N.C.

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I was unhappy with the amount of options available when setting up games with the peer-to-peer ports like ZDooM and WinDooM

With the new DC, the support for different engines will be coded in seperate DLL files, by me or by the engine author. There will be an SDK available which tells you how to write a support DLL and you can even email me for the source of existing support DLL's. Then, if you have anything to add, just let me or the author know.

Anyway, Gherkin, I'll see you next week in Rijen. Do you play any deathmatch?

Yes ill be there in Rijen, and no, actually i dont play deathmatch. I played some coop on DC, but thats all. The reason why I go there is just for the fun and to meet some other people in the Doom community, I dont need to win, hehe :)


Yes I have been thinking of doom2.exe support and have discussed it a lot. It all comes down that it is so complicated to emulate IPX over TCP/IP, I have no idea how to code that, and the only application who can do it are Kali and MSN Gaming Zone, but they hided their tools ofcourse :( The other way around is coding a doom port which just uses TCP/IP instead of IPX, but I am not really into the doom source code. If anyone has a good idea to support doom2.exe, I'd be happy to discuss it on the DC forum. I'd love to have this support too.

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Gherkin said:

It all comes down that it is so complicated to emulate IPX over TCP/IP, I have no idea how to code that, and the only application who can do it are Kali and MSN Gaming Zone,

AND ICQ of course, try to look at how sirdoom worked, may be clues there.

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The other way around is coding a doom port which just uses TCP/IP instead of IPX, but I am not really into the doom source code.


Hmm. Yeah. That probably wouldn't turn out any better than WinDooM v0.96, though, at least not without putting a lot of effort into it.

The other option would be to just write a new TCPSETUP utility which would support modern TCP/IP networks. Maybe one could use the IPXSETUP.EXE source code as some kind of base.

N.C.

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Back to the DC update topic:
I agree that there should be more options, or at least a field in which to enter additional switches, e.g. -nomusic or +set sv_cheats 1 in case you're playing with Dean (he's always wanted to play a coop with cheats - damn it, just remembered a dehacked patch I made years ago - lost it now. Do deh files work in ZDoom, or even csDoom/ZDaemon?).

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Well, there's been a Personal Arguments box in the Connector's engine config for ages. This is, however, pretty useless because:

1. launching a game shouldn't involve changing the engine config,

2. the Connector doesn't compare people's Personal Arguments before launching the game.

Even such a tiny detail as inconsistant use of -nomusic will cause consistency failures in ZDooM. And trying to convince newbies to keep going back and altering their engine config is not an option. You'll end up with a nervous breakdown.

Yes, deh or bex patches work in ZDooM. We used to play with railgun.bex on DoomServ a couple of years ago. I don't know about csDooM or Zdaemon, though.

N.C.

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Thanks. I always use -nomusic because it makes the game run faster on my shitty P2 350Mhz. I never realised it caused consistency failures on ZDoom. Does it do the same on csDoom/ZDaemon? If so, that's probably why so many people find that Internet games crash so often. There'll have to be a warning in the help files and maybe Bond can make the additional parameters field in IDE contain -nomusic by default.

Cool, what's railgun.bex do? I can guess, but you never know. Where can I get it from?

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The significant parameters should go in the Game Settings, but the independent parameters should go in such a private parameters box. For example, I like to run Legacy in opengl so I put -opengl in my private parameters box, but others may want to run in software. The private parameters should not be compared. I wonder why the fuck such a thing as -nomusic is significant to the game, but if it really is, it should go with the Game Settings.
When I start coding those Support DLL's I could use some help from some coders that have more experience with the game so that we dont miss such stupid details like these.

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Gherkin said:

I wonder why the fuck such a thing as -nomusic is significant to the game

MaTT [TiK] said:
I always use -nomusic because it makes the game run faster on my shitty P2 350Mhz.

:)

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the independent parameters should go in such a private parameters box.


Yeah, it's just that such things as independent parameters are (pretty much) non-existant in a peer-to-peer doom game. ZDooM and WinDooM are extremely picky with command line parameter consistency among the players.

Adding a private parameters box to the ZDooM and WinDooM game setups would be a good idea, though. And the Connector would of course compare these arguments before launching the game.

Support for easy demo recording is also a very important feature. Demos r001.

And yes, I agree with MaTT on the -nomusic issue. I really prefer not having my MMX/166 MHz piece of crap initialize the midi sound at all. I believe it speeds up the game.

N.C.

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Adding a private parameters box to the ZDooM and WinDooM game setups would be a good idea, though. And the Connector would of course compare these arguments before launching the game.

No, it should not compare everything in the private box, but the significant settings should be set by the moderator in the game settings (so not everyone has to write the same line in his private box, but the moderator just decides which parameters to use).

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MaTT: Here's a link to a zip which includes railgun.bex and railuzi.bex. They replace the plasma rifle. http://www.greensting.addr.com/railstuf.zip

While you're at it, check out the rest of Greensting's site... It has some good stuff.

Gherkin:

No, it should not compare everything in the private box, but the significant settings should be set by the moderator in the game settings (so not everyone has to write the same line in his private box, but the moderator just decides which parameters to use).

Ok, let's call it an Additional Arguments box then, or whatever. ...which would be added to the game setup, i.e. the moderator could type in whatever parameters he wants for the game. Or you could, of course, add some 20 checkboxes to the ZDooM setup instead. That's fine with me, too.

N.C.

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nc_ds said:

MaTT: Here's a link to a zip which includes railgun.bex and railuzi.bex. They replace the plasma rifle. http://www.greensting.addr.com/railstuf.zip

While you're at it, check out the rest of Greensting's site... It has some good stuff.

Thanks


nc_ds said:

Or you could, of course, add some 20 checkboxes to the ZDooM setup instead. That's fine with me, too.

Heh :D

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