THE 227 question...

[Smartball]

Sometimes, regardless of what you have the max players set to, the maximum amount that can actually be handled (clientside) depends on the mod you're running. The original Unreal scoreboard only sets aside slots for 16 players (if you had more than that you'd probably notice a ton of script errors in your log while displaying the scoreboard. Then again the only server I had ever seen with player counts typically that high was Phil's Painful T3...ahh nostalgia). EDM is only designed to display up to 32 players. I think UTF can display an infinite number of players, but that's up to Wolf to comment on :p

Regardless you should check the capabilities of the mods you run (if any) before setting the max players so high.

[Shivaxi]

ive never heard of that...but i run jcoopz1 when i did 100 players and i did it with CooopG3 too

[Smartball]

You can set the capacity to whatever you want - I'm talking about what will happen when the actual number of players in the server exceeds the mod's capabilities. Setting the max players to 100 and only having a few players in it doesn't matter.

[Shivaxi]

oooooohhhhh...ok

Yeah Smartball is right...setting it to like 10000 wouldnt have an effect on the FPS in that server...only when like 10000 ppl join would u be seriuosly lagging lol...my server can hold up to about 40 players and still have really good FPS and Ping...and thats talking like really good internet connection...so i wouldn't do 64 if i were you Kajgue

[jackrabbit]

Im pretty sure that is also depends on resolution and clipping size. For example, if you had a clipping region of

ClipX = 10;
ClipY = 10;

you would only beable to display one "RegFont" letter on the top left of your screen. Now the default I believe for the minimum clipping region size on for the unrealscoreboard is 500X 500Y. So, in theroy you would need to get all of those 64 players to fit in a clipping region of 500. I could do the math, but im too lazy. Plus, you would need to consider the header, trailer, scores, pings, and possibly ID's.

So, really the question is not how many players you can have on your server, but how many players can fit in a clipping region of 500 imo.

[Bane]

It's not an issue of screen size, it's an issue of implementation. The Scoreboard is set up to display a maximum of 16 players. The arrays are size 16. Anything else will log a lot of errors into the log (because they didn't check for array out of bounds). I honestly don't know why they chose to do it that way. Iterating over every single PRI would limit playersize only by the memory available to the server. Screensize would become a problem, but all that would happen is that the last couple of people will get 'drawn' off the screen and just not show up.

[Kajgue]

Sometimes, regardless of what you have the max players set to, the maximum amount that can actually be handled (clientside) depends on the mod you're running. The original Unreal scoreboard only sets aside slots for 16 players (if you had more than that you'd probably notice a ton of script errors in your log while displaying the scoreboard. Then again the only server I had ever seen with player counts typically that high was Phil's Painful T3...ahh nostalgia). EDM is only designed to display up to 32 players. I think UTF can display an infinite number of players, but that's up to Wolf to comment on :p

Regardless you should check the capabilities of the mods you run (if any) before setting the max players so high.

I eventually intend to have the scoreboard deducted from my server entirely, as, if the gametype/format is concerned it would be utterly useless; and take away some elements of fun in some cases (I'll spare you the justificational details).

Tested my internet speed, came slap bang in the middle with 1.72 mbps and an upload speed of 394 kbps.

Well I may be corrected on this, but I'm sure it's been said that the 227 patch will enhance and optimise Unreals netcode; meaning I can hope to have that amount and run smoothly for all connectees at the same time.

[TCP_Wolf]

The limit is not really the scoreboard, although yes, it -IS- by default limited to 16 but that was not an arbitrary choice. Unreal appears to start being choppy when there are more than 16 connections (regardless wether true players or specs). I have participated in "3 way clanmatches" that had 12+ players and several specs and the problem was quite evident back in the days.

I believe it was Shambler who once traced it back to a function which gets called exceedingly often as soon as the "limit" is reached. Has something todo with carcasses although that is probably not the ultimate source of the problem. It's a native bug but I have lost trace on these threads to determine if it was mentioned or solved.

[sopa_de_letras]

Would it be legal to make U1 and UT cross compatible?

If compatibility is an issue, wouldn't it be easier to simple port Unreal Gold content to make it net compatible regardless of the client's game version?

I'm using that aproach in my map pack for UT, since s3tc is confusing and has net compatibility problems, I'm breaking every map in a second, s3tc only version.

[Smirftsch]

legal? No.
Possible? Theoretically yes, but at least one of the versions wouldn't be compatible anymore to the older versions.
Unreal Gold contained a lot of bugs anyway, and I never got the UnrealGold code. So currently the patch works fine for Unreal, can be used for UGold, but you will lose Napali if doing so. So it isn't that easy in any case.
I still need to find a way to keep Napali usable, to make a patch for UGold which doesnt kill UPak. There are some uscript solutions out there which claim to make napali compatible with Unreal, so that there is no UPak.dll needed anymore, but didnt try them yet.

[sopa_de_letras]

Are you working in the U1 original source code itself?

By porting I meant porting maps and game content. Porting maps is easy, but I guess porting weapons, pick ups and monsters would need new code from scratch.

[Smirftsch]

oh, if you are looking for a way to play unreal with UT, then checkout Usaar33's oldskool mod.
It's a great piece of work and allows you to play completely Unreal with UT, including weapons.

[Kajgue]

Forcing my server to accept 64 players is fine, though at the start of every new map it goes straight back to 14.

How's it going, Smirftsch? I can't wait untill i'm able to play with gold aswell as retail.

Having (No gold, sorry!) attached to your server name never seems to cut it at delivering the message, players spend about 15 minuites downloading all this stuff to find it doesn't work.

[Smirftsch]

there are many news, I'm just fixing the last bugs which appeared in the last version during tests. Almost done now, waiting for a new set of meshes and script fixes (yes there are many improvements and fixes also!) from bozo and asgard for the final version. One weird problem with the titan appeared in coop, yet the cause unknown.
Will make a complete announcement soon.
UnrealGold is still a problem, Epic doesn't seem to have the sources from UGold, so I lack the Upak extensions. Makes me a slight headache, not sure yet how I can make a complete patch for UGold without completely breaking compatibilty to older Ugold Versions, or losing Ugold extensions when installing the patch (making UGold to classic Unreal).
Still i hope someone @Epic who may can dig it out somewhere, but I have very lil hope.
So the first testrelease will probably still lack UGold support.

What do you mean with "Having (No gold, sorry!) attached to your server name never seems to cut it at delivering the message, players spend about 15 minuites downloading all this stuff to find it doesn't work." ?
Don't get it.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

there are many news, I'm just fixing the last bugs which appeared in the last version during tests. Almost done now, waiting for a new set of meshes and script fixes (yes there are many improvements and fixes also!) from bozo and asgard for the final version. One weird problem with the titan appeared in coop, yet the cause unknown.
Will make a complete announcement soon.
UnrealGold is still a problem, Epic doesn't seem to have the sources from UGold, so I lack the Upak extensions. Makes me a slight headache, not sure yet how I can make a complete patch for UGold without completely breaking compatibilty to older Ugold Versions, or losing Ugold extensions when installing the patch (making UGold to classic Unreal).
Still i hope someone @Epic who may can dig it out somewhere, but I have very lil hope.
So the first testrelease will probably still lack UGold support.

What do you mean with "Having (No gold, sorry!) attached to your server name never seems to cut it at delivering the message, players spend about 15 minuites downloading all this stuff to find it doesn't work." ?
Don't get it.

Good to hear about the patch.

By the no gold on the server.. he means you can connect to any server, regardless of version and you find out its incompatable only AFTER you download every single file the server has to offer. It is very annoying -.-

[Kajgue]

I'm saying that message is attached to my server name, and gold users STILL try to connect.

[Zombie]

That's why many of the 226f servers over the years have had a tiny generic UPak.u file installed as the first server package. All 226b(Gold/UPak) players will have a mismatch when they attempt to join while the classic versions can join fine. It gives a benefit to the gold players too because they won't crash like they normally would when passing login.


-Zombie

[asgard12000]

Will make a complete announcement soon.
UnrealGold is still a problem, Epic doesn't seem to have the sources from UGold, so I lack the Upak extensions. Makes me a slight headache, not sure yet how I can make a complete patch for UGold without completely breaking compatibilty to older Ugold Versions, or losing Ugold extensions when installing the patch (making UGold to classic Unreal).
Still i hope someone @Epic who may can dig it out somewhere, but I have very lil hope.
So the first testrelease will probably still lack UGold support.

You dont actually need anything from Epic to rebuild Upak apart from the models.

As far as I know the Upak.dll is only for the predator (dunno what legend were thinking here)..
So if the predator is recoded so it doest need it, thats that

Altho I dont see the point to rebuilding Upak, if both games are compat.

[Smirftsch]

aint that easy, m8. The game is netcompatible, and both are able to use more or less the same .u files (aside core and engine at least). But this doesn't mean that you can use any kind of dll from another version. So upak isnt availible. From what I've seen, upak contains some kind of pathnode iterator, which is used for the predator and some other creature. So upak.u at least needs to be rebuild to fit into the whole package. But I'm having nothing out of the upak package. No textures, no classes, no models, not the dll stuff. While most of these things can be exported easily, models are causing still trouble when exporting them iirc? Not sure who made this custom package, but maybe he can help me with that, although still the legal status then is questionable.
And the dll stuff can't be exported- only maybe decompiled. The problems of doing that are a whole different topic...

[Shivaxi]

Yikes...man this really suks...this is gonna mean that im gonna have to take my RTNP server down once 227 is released :-/

[asgard12000]

Yeah its never that easy...

But erase the Upak.dll file , also erase the pathnode iterator or blank it out, you dont need either of those files.

The predator is recoded (already done it) and the rest has to be rebuilt.

Unfortuately if Epic doesnt have the models it makes it harder, I have about 90% of them but they were extracted and some may not be in good condition.

The whole thing is a pain in the ass. With all the modded vers of RTNP who really needs it?

I know of at least 3 and Im involved with one of them

[Cheese]

I can make a non-dll version of Upak if you want.. It's not very hard to do with Upak, I've ripped stuff straight from the mod many times.

[Smirftsch]

for the offer, I may come back to it.
But unfortunately I have still no answer from Epic about the legal status if doing so, since it would provide full ugold functionality to "classic" unreal itself.
Sure there are many mods out which do the same, and nobody seems to care about it. But I'm bound to a contract which could cause me a LOT of trouble...

[Kajgue]

If you ask me, I think it takes the piss that epic are so unreceptive towards your efforts. You're putting your free time into supporting their game, reworking a new version and fixing all the bugs which Epic left in; the least they could do is answer your questions.

[secondattempt]

Smirftsch : [ But unfortunately I have still no answer from Epic about the legal status if doing so, since it would provide full ugold functionality to "classic" unreal itself.
Sure there are many mods out which do the same, and nobody seems to care about it. But I'm bound to a contract which could cause me a LOT of trouble... ]

thank you Smirftsch for jumping through the hoops.