SPLIT from WTF Series - Teh 227 patch debacle

[Semfry]

BTW Smirftsch, how much are you allowed to do with the source code (are there limits?) can you only patch Unreal, or are you able to, say, extend to Unreal Tournament or fundamentally change major parts of the engine?

[Raven]

I think the are more compatibility limits. It's just engine has to be backward compatible (everything previously released has to work on 227).

As for UGold it's juts copyrights. Smirf is not allowed to release patch that will make UGold form regular Unreal (I mean UPak). I believe that creating multiply installers takes a lot of time which can be used to fix bugs .

[Darkon]

Fortunately, the sound problems will be fixed in the next release because the OldUnreal team is working to create a "sound selection screen" (or something like that) when you go to install/startup your Unreal. Hopefully, this will encourage more to update.

Will that multimedia patch be included in the 227 btw? I don't remember if anyone asked about that before. But it would be w00t if there would be a sound selection screen, so you don't need to go into the preferences to set all that junk. For some -stupid- reason my screen garbles up when I go to preferences to set settings for S3TC.. but only if my resolution is higher than eh.. I believe 800x600. Dunno what the reason for that is (have that in UT.. and I think also in Unreal)... and no, I dont expect 227 to solve that issue.

Edit: Oh btw.. how about those maps that are 220 or something.. that are unplayable now. Would it be possible to play those again with 227? That would be nice..

[Raven]

Yes, 227 already have FMod and OpenAL sound drivers.

[jackrabbit]

Edit: Oh btw.. how about those maps that are 220 or something.. that are unplayable now. Would it be possible to play those again with 227? That would be nice..

Nope. I don't think this is possible.. there is a thread here that talks about it here

[Darkon]

Edit: Oh btw.. how about those maps that are 220 or something.. that are unplayable now. Would it be possible to play those again with 227? That would be nice..

Nope. I don't think this is possible.. there is a thread here that talks about it here

Thanks for the thread. It doesn't "say" that it's not possible.. but that they're trying to get it to work, at least with an easy fix (right?.. or am I confused with the other things they're talking about?)

Now as for sounds.. pre-224 (I think) Unreal had different sounds. Would it be possible to choose which sound-pack you want to use? Or should I still rely on the sound-mod that is somewhere hidden on one of my cd's? ( )

[Hellscrag]

Now as for sounds.. pre-224 (I think) Unreal had different sounds. Would it be possible to choose which sound-pack you want to use? Or should I still rely on the sound-mod that is somewhere hidden on one of my cd's? ( )

Now THAT might make me install Unreal again (as opposed to playing it through Oldskool). IIRC the sound mods had deficiencies/bugs.

[Buff Skeleton]

Now as for sounds.. pre-224 (I think) Unreal had different sounds. Would it be possible to choose which sound-pack you want to use? Or should I still rely on the sound-mod that is somewhere hidden on one of my cd's? ( )

Now THAT might make me install Unreal again (as opposed to playing it through Oldskool). IIRC the sound mods had deficiencies/bugs.

The original V1 Sounds Mod has no issues with Unreal. It simply doesn't change sounds that appear in SpecialEvents, since it isn't able to, but there are very few of those.

The version I adapted to work with UT has a slight bug where I had to disable the Amplifier sound effects, but that's about it. The mod is fine.

[ividyon]

[...]since it isn't able to[...]

As far as I'm aware mutators can also alter map-specific objects, so I'm sure mutator hacks for sounds in Unreal/popular maps can be done.

Though somebody has to volunteer for that, of course.

[Smirftsch]

Ok, epics patches do replace ini's. I can put up with that, but you see, my problem wasn't just with settings. This patch totally screwed up my unrealgold install. My resolution had jumped to something ludicrous that was beyond the capabilities of my screen. The sound was quite crackly and if not then it simply wasn't working. The unreal flyby zoomed by in about 10 seconds beccause the game was going so fast. When i exited unreal and restarted, the rtnp flyby went just as fast except this time my computer completely froze when i tried to get to the menu.\
This is beyond simple ini fixes.

For you - TheIronKnuckle - I can only say one thing: If you don't like it- fine. If you don't wanna use it - fine, but stop telling nonsense about it because you are simply not willing to give it a chance.

Are you blind? Read the posts that come before yours. I obviously gave it a chance: I installed your bloody trojan! It completely screwed up my unreal install. I had to system restore my computer. But thats something you obviously don't understand.
I am not telling "nonsense" about your patch. I tried to use it and the result is that i don't like it and don't want to use it. I have nothing against this patch and don't want to do a TESUK on you so i have no reason to spread "nonsense". This patch caused more errors then it solved and if you truely call yourself a developer then you should not brush my claims away as "nonsense". You should actually consider what i'm saying: Your patch is faulty. Do something about it.

To strange no one else EVER experienced such a bunch "problems". Some problems are known and the fixes for them are in the FAQ. Maybe you just had bad luck and you are suffering a few of them together.
But to call my patch a trojan will no help me or anyone else. So far for that. And that you call "feedback" ? If you would have posted your problems instead of arguing all the time some of these things would probably been solved already. Now it isn't working for you the only thing left for you is- I won't touch it again until 227f- BUT if you really discovered some new bugs with your system, nobody will be able to fix it without you to test it.
If I'd only get such feedback I'd really consider putting a trojan in it.

Besides 227 can be applied to UGold, but it changes some things and it will kill RTNP extension. This is written down plenty of times everywhere.

BTW Smirftsch, how much are you allowed to do with the source code (are there limits?) can you only patch Unreal, or are you able to, say, extend to Unreal Tournament or fundamentally change major parts of the engine?

In theory I have no "real" limits, some of the functionality in 227 are out of UT (just as HTTP-Redirect or the support for skeletal meshes).
But our goal is to make a patch which is
a) fix the bugs known from older versions
b) make it way more secure, especially servers
c) keep it compatible with older versions- means mods, maps, gameplay
d) comes with new features and enhancements to give more players and mappers a reason to continue playing or even come back

I think the are more compatibility limits. It's just engine has to be backward compatible (everything previously released has to work on 227).

As for UGold it's juts copyrights. Smirf is not allowed to release patch that will make UGold form regular Unreal (I mean UPak). I believe that creating multiply installers takes a lot of time which can be used to fix bugs .

The backward compatibility took maybe more time than anything else. 227 is completely reworked codebase, updated to work with new compilers and better optimizations. On some older systems we reached a FPS gain of almost 100%. Still everything "old" has to be working. So if someone is "forced" to use 227 because the server admins want to use the new anticheat, he should be able to use 227 as 226 before without any disadvantages. This for 227 don't forces the player to use new 227 features. Most settings are optional and old stuff can be played without any restrictions.
However, the biggest problem so far seems to be that people are not willing to see or accept that 227 needs indeed latest drivers on your system. The game itself is compiled on a new system with latest SDK's and development tools. Why?
To give it a maximal chance of running on new Systems and new OS even "after" Windows Vista.
OpenGL and D3D9 require latest drivers for graphic cards- unfortunately NVIDIA has a driver problem of some kind in drivers between 162.18 and 170 something in OpenGL. Seems to be fixed in the latest drivers, but there is a FAQ also for it.
If not working at all (old card, old system), you can try D3D8. If this is not working you can fall back to the old and UNTOUCHED (except re-compiling of course) renderers D3D or Glide (maybe with Zeckensack Glidewrapper).

Same for sound, OpenAL requires latest drivers- unfortunately again some onboard chipsets producing the most weird distortions.
This problem is known and that for in the new setup wizard for 227 you can chose which sounddevice to use. If you experience trouble with OpenAL you can use FMOD which is often more compatible with these chipset or again you can fallback to original galaxy (which was only fixed in reverb, but aside this untouched also).

The RTNP questions was asked a couple of times, its a sad story. I am simply not allowed to put RTNP into this patch. I need to make a new patch which is ONLY for Gold or Anthology users.
But this makes only sense if 227f is done, otherwise I would have to work on 2 projects- and sorry folks, thats to much for me.

Anyway, I'm wondering what some people think I am or what I get for that, whats my motivation.

I don't get anything for it. I'm working in my freetime, spent all the hours of work in it over the years without any payment or something like that.
I am not sponsored by Epic. They gave me the sources to help me doing what I do now. Beyond that I get only little assistance- new games are more interesting for them which is pretty much understandable. They paid me once a few hundred dollars as symbolic payment for my contract with them to fix Unreal, to make the 227 project.

If counting the hours I spent this would maybe mean a few cent/hour payment

I do not earn any money with my homepage either (except my donation button which hardly gives me enough money to even pay the page) - so indeed most of the time I also PAY to give you this support- and this now for over 8 years!

I'm just doing that because I love Unreal and had my best games in the game and the community. No other game I ever played reached that.
I just love it, that for I do it.
I'm no one special, I'm just an oldskool player like anyone else here, I just invested the time and the work which was necessary to make such a project- it already took me years to even get the sources, I'm one of you, I'm not Epic, alright?

Fortunately, the sound problems will be fixed in the next release because the OldUnreal team is working to create a "sound selection screen" (or something like that) when you go to install/startup your Unreal. Hopefully, this will encourage more to update.

Will that multimedia patch be included in the 227 btw? I don't remember if anyone asked about that before. But it would be w00t if there would be a sound selection screen, so you don't need to go into the preferences to set all that junk. For some -stupid- reason my screen garbles up when I go to preferences to set settings for S3TC.. but only if my resolution is higher than eh.. I believe 800x600. Dunno what the reason for that is (have that in UT.. and I think also in Unreal)... and no, I dont expect 227 to solve that issue.

Edit: Oh btw.. how about those maps that are 220 or something.. that are unplayable now. Would it be possible to play those again with 227? That would be nice..

Yes, as mentioned above already, the new installer contains a selection for it. In 227e people need to set it up manually if not working in the advanced options, which cause obviously problems. Was thinking the people would be more aware about this all. I didn't announce 227e yet somewhere else as Oldunreal itself so I assumed the people who are using it are used to play Unreal and are able to handle this.
But I need of course feedback especially from not so experienced Unrealers to prepare 227f for any case.
The soundproblem clearly shows that- easy to "fix" in most, if not all cases, but people are highly pissed off because of it although its documented well and the forum and the FAQ are easy to reach and it would only require a few minutes to figure it out.

227 contains already the multimedia patches and add a lot of fixes for it. D3D9 was added and FMOD and OpenAL fixed for many occasions. Nothing critical but some things needed definitely fixing there. Still in some very rare situations FMOD and OpenAL behave differently than Galaxy- but ironically because some things were fixed and poeple got used to the "broken" way in galaxy, because it was always like that

Pre 220 maps are a problem, because some variables seem to have changed. Without using hacks I see little chance and I have no intention to use more hacks than really necessary in 227. Some hacks were necessary of course to fix old bugs but still keep compatibility, it couldn't be prevented. But in this case it would be probably easier to convert the maps to >220. (For all NON-Coders: hacks in this case means some "ugly coding" not some bot or trojan or security issue).

Btw, the garbled screen problem is because of NVIDIA drivers probably- mentioned above somewhere and explained in the FAQ. You only need to set:
Open Advanced Options -> Rendering -> OpenGL Support -> UseVertexProgram True -> Restart Unreal (may crash when setting)

Edit: Oh btw.. how about those maps that are 220 or something.. that are unplayable now. Would it be possible to play those again with 227? That would be nice..

Nope. I don't think this is possible.. there is a thread here that talks about it here

Thanks for the thread. It doesn't "say" that it's not possible.. but that they're trying to get it to work, at least with an easy fix (right?.. or am I confused with the other things they're talking about?)

Now as for sounds.. pre-224 (I think) Unreal had different sounds. Would it be possible to choose which sound-pack you want to use? Or should I still rely on the sound-mod that is somewhere hidden on one of my cd's? ( )

There is a mod included in 227 which re-implements the old sounds,
OldWeapons.u - readme is in the help directory.

Uff.
Did I miss something?

[TheIronKnuckle]

Are you blind? Read the posts that come before yours. I obviously gave it a chance: I installed your bloody trojan! It completely screwed up my unreal install. I had to system restore my computer. But thats something you obviously don't understand.
I am not telling "nonsense" about your patch. I tried to use it and the result is that i don't like it and don't want to use it. I have nothing against this patch and don't want to do a TESUK on you so i have no reason to spread "nonsense". This patch caused more errors then it solved and if you truely call yourself a developer then you should not brush my claims away as "nonsense". You should actually consider what i'm saying: Your patch is faulty. Do something about it.

To strange no one else EVER experienced such a bunch "problems". Some problems are known and the fixes for them are in the FAQ. Maybe you just had bad luck and you are suffering a few of them together.
But to call my patch a trojan will no help me or anyone else. So far for that. And that you call "feedback" ? If you would have posted your problems instead of arguing all the time some of these things would probably been solved already. Now it isn't working for you the only thing left for you is- I won't touch it again until 227f- BUT if you really discovered some new bugs with your system, nobody will be able to fix it without you to test it.
If I'd only get such feedback I'd really consider putting a trojan in it.

Besides 227 can be applied to UGold, but it changes some things and it will kill RTNP extension. This is written down plenty of times everywhere.

Nah, look man i'm sorry, my previous posts were really trollish. Everything is working fine now after the system restore, so no permenant damage was done.
And I apologise for calling the patch a trojan, I failed to take into account the amount of work you have put into it when i said that. Considering i could reverse the damage cause by the patch I had no reason to act that way. The damage wasn't permenant, so i don't know why i got so worked up about it.
I am seriously embarresed about calling your patch faulty now, i didn't notice any warnings when was downloading it so it is totally my fault.
I apologise and take back any insults i have directed towards you and this patch.

I just want to make it clear though that i am NOT lying about my problems. I have no serious grudge against oldunreal, you or this patch and so i have no reason to spread lies about it.
I only reacted with swear words and flames because i was seriously annoyed that i had to go through the whole system restore process (You know how bloody frustrating those things are right?). I had just logged on and was severely pissed off when i made that post.
When you made out that i was lying i assumed a defensive argument.

I didn't install the patch for long enough to gather any real feedback. I know it isn't much coming from me but maybe you could implement the OSX background changer for the Uwindows menu? It's just that i prefer having "unreal gold" on the menu instead of "Unreal:oldunreal edition". And would it be possible to keep the unreal gold splash screen? That's probably one that can easily be fixed with ini stuff.
And one thing i noticed is that i couldn't get the unrealgold theme back on your new uwindows menu. I was only given the unreal tournament themes of ice, metal and gold. I really like the red and gold combo that unreal gold uses and i reckon it would be great to keep it available as an option.

Hopefully the patch works with unrealgold when it goes final, because i still can't stand the current input system

[Buff Skeleton]

[...]since it isn't able to[...]

As far as I'm aware mutators can also alter map-specific objects, so I'm sure mutator hacks for sounds in Unreal/popular maps can be done.

Though somebody has to volunteer for that, of course.

Yeah, that's what I meant by unable. You would have to manually find stuff like SpecialEvent32 and SpecialEvent9878432 and manually add them all to the list in the mutator, as far as I'm aware; a lot of extra work! Though I'm sure someone could figure out a better, automated way if they put their mind to it (if it was that big of a deal to them :p ).

[Smirftsch]

Nah, look man i'm sorry, my previous posts were really trollish. Everything is working fine now after the system restore, so no permenant damage was done.
And I apologise for calling the patch a trojan, I failed to take into account the amount of work you have put into it when i said that. Considering i could reverse the damage cause by the patch I had no reason to act that way. The damage wasn't permenant, so i don't know why i got so worked up about it.
I am seriously embarresed about calling your patch faulty now, i didn't notice any warnings when was downloading it so it is totally my fault.
I apologise and take back any insults i have directed towards you and this patch.

I just want to make it clear though that i am NOT lying about my problems. I have no serious grudge against oldunreal, you or this patch and so i have no reason to spread lies about it.
I only reacted with swear words and flames because i was seriously annoyed that i had to go through the whole system restore process (You know how bloody frustrating those things are right?). I had just logged on and was severely pissed off when i made that post.
When you made out that i was lying i assumed a defensive argument.

I didn't install the patch for long enough to gather any real feedback. I know it isn't much coming from me but maybe you could implement the OSX background changer for the Uwindows menu? It's just that i prefer having "unreal gold" on the menu instead of "Unreal:oldunreal edition". And would it be possible to keep the unreal gold splash screen? That's probably one that can easily be fixed with ini stuff.
And one thing i noticed is that i couldn't get the unrealgold theme back on your new uwindows menu. I was only given the unreal tournament themes of ice, metal and gold. I really like the red and gold combo that unreal gold uses and i reckon it would be great to keep it available as an option.

Hopefully the patch works with unrealgold when it goes final, because i still can't stand the current input system

Nvm - no hard feelings here.

But honestly there is only a incredible small chance that the patch can cause any system failure like that- the installer doesn't change anything within Windows- all files which are changed are within the Unreal directory. So no explanation for that at all. Visual Studio adds some things, like a check for older OS- which is related to the current incompatibility with Win98- but I see a lil chance here too that this could affect a System. You may want to run the installer with some monitor tool (there are some which watch whats done within an install) to confirm that.

Maybe something like:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96653.aspx or one of the other tools from:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... fault.aspx

For the UGold specific things- currently 227 "only" contains UMenu without the UGold "Look & Feel" - as well the default setting is the classic Menu as you noticed already.
But the UGold patch will have these presets different of course to fit UGold
For the "Oldunreal Edition" - didn't think anyone will have a problem with that. Maybe some kind of setting could be added to chose it.

[Darkon]

Thanks for the update.. also about the sounds, that all sounds great!
Now as for ST3D settings and all.. will there be a nicer way to do those settings? A lot of things that people come with are not even in my advanced preferences settings...

As for ugold menu... personally I don't care for it. It's pretty much just like UT. I like the old unreal menu, because it's animated... other than the animation it's too basic, that's true. Maybe an idea to replace the ugold menu background with the animated one?

[ividyon]

[...]since it isn't able to[...]

As far as I'm aware mutators can also alter map-specific objects, so I'm sure mutator hacks for sounds in Unreal/popular maps can be done.

Though somebody has to volunteer for that, of course.

Yeah, that's what I meant by unable. You would have to manually find stuff like SpecialEvent32 and SpecialEvent9878432 and manually add them all to the list in the mutator, as far as I'm aware; a lot of extra work! Though I'm sure someone could figure out a better, automated way if they put their mind to it (if it was that big of a deal to them :p ).

Something involving "foreach SpecialEvent" and "if ( SpecialEvent.Sound = [insertreplacedsoundhere] )" might do the trick, though the downside would be inserting every to-be-replaced sound manually. :C