One issue that may require cooperation between CnCNet and XWIS

[Eisengeist]

Definitely on the back burner as it seems polishing RA2/YR and Dune2000 support are current priorities (I'd also like to see a few of Iran's things put back into CnCNet's RA such as preventing the chinook from flying away with GNRL and Crusher=yes/no), but regarding Sole Survivor...  If people associated with CnCnet have been working on fixing up the game and XWIS has gotten server set up stuff for other C&C games direct from EA, perhaps someone can could get Sole Surviver stuff from EA and hopefully they could be persuaded to release that free iso same as other older C&C's.  Otherwise maybe C&C recreations such as OpenRA or RA++ could keep that game in mind which is practically totally composed of TD resources.

 

Too much drama lately.  A few people need to chill out.  Simmer now down!

[MattAttack]

Too much drama lately.  A few people need to chill out.  Simmer now down!

 

Amen brother.  I was about to suggest changing the name of this website to: www.xwis/vs/cncnet/YRandTS/hatecirclejerk.com :ranting:

 

And I never got a chance to play SS back in the day, so I love the idea!

 

[Jacko]

And I never got a chance to play SS back in the day, so I love the idea!

 

+1 to that

I thought Sole Survivor was a cool idea but I haven't had a chance to play it either

[tomsons26]

XWIS is a WOL emulation, it doesn't run actual WOL software or have the actual WOL files. Hence why the World Domination Tour for example doesn't work.

If Olaf had the needed files for Sole Survivor or at least the needed info to emulate it then we would have seen Sole a long time ago already.

[fir3w0rx]

I think if it were released when people actually had the internet to play it (which was required) , then it would still be played today, like the other classics. The people that did have the internet only had 28.8bps modems anyway so it probably wouldn't have been that much enjoyment

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEb4I5y93uA

[Eisengeist]

I got to play it when there were only CTF games and nothing else.  There was usually somewhere from 9 to 16 people per a team (usually 20-30 players per a game), and then at some point it dwindled to a few people.  I never got to see free-for-all, football, dinos only, or any other mode.  I think a flag was surrounded by four obelisks and four advanced guard towers.  Offline practice isn't that interesting since you just specify how many computer hunters to go up against from 1-10.  Beyond 4 isn't very reasonable since they're already powered up and gang up on your single unit before you can get powered up (multiple levels of each)  There's a choice of announcers: standard EVA, the Commando, a game show announcer, and one called 1-900-Kill-You that sounds like a phone sex line.  You have all TD land units including viceroid and dinos (so that's new icons for them), except no engineer since they'd be pointless.  Infantry can't be crushed and are tougher.  Some maps have teleporters.

 

The crate effects in most of its 29 mega maps (126x126) are:

[Crates]

IonFactor=400

Density=50

Armageddon=1

Radar=20

Unshroud=5

Reshroud=5

UncloakAll=10

Kill=0

Teleport=20

Stealth=50

Bomb=9

Heal=150

AddRange=100

RapidReload=100

AddSpeed=100

AddWeapon=100

AddStrength=100

 

I think density is similiar to RA's crate minimum setting.  I think Ion factor is just upping the threat of ion cannons, possibly sometimes triggering it.  There's also CrateTimer=300 of which I've seen the values 30 and 300.  Not sure what that is.

 

Unfortunately I can't even play practice mode under windows 7 without it crashing early on.  I still have an old Win 98 comp to play it though.

[tomsons26]

Unfortunately I can't even play practice mode under windows 7 without it crashing early on.  I still have an old Win 98 comp to play it though.

Start the game, quickly open up the Task Manager and set the process Affinity to only one CPU core, that should solve that issue,might still hang/crash but should work on next run.

This is a long known bug, the CnCNet exes are forced to one core on C&C and RA by default.

[Nyerguds]

I'm fairly sure Win95 compatibility mode forces the games to 1 core automatically.

[Eisengeist]

Unfortunately I can't even play practice mode under windows 7 without it crashing early on.  I still have an old Win 98 comp to play it though.

Start the game, quickly open up the Task Manager and set the process Affinity to only one CPU core, that should solve that issue,might still hang/crash but should work on next run.

This is a long known bug, the CnCNet exes are forced to one core on C&C and RA by default.

Thanks! It works now.  Except some colors are still messed up.  Videos and title screen look bad.  Parts of icons, miscellaneous scenery, and stealth look messed up.  I do have it patched up to 1.05.

 

Found from a txt file that shift+s takes a screenshot.  Otherwise you have second to click the screenshot button when time is up.  Colors look correct in screenshots though.

 

With a good high res patch you could take an opportunity to take a few screenshots to capture a whole map to recreate for RA or Red Dawn whenever the map gets revealed.  Otherwise I don't know any other way to view maps.  Format seems to be combo of an .ini & .bin like TD but XCC mixer labels the .ini parts as RA maps.

[Blade]

The main problem as I understand it with creating a new sole survivor server is that you need a deterministic game server that makes the same calculations as the game itself would in any given situation so that it stays in sync with all players clients. This means you have to reverse engineer all the games core logic and no one has gotten around to that. The other option would be if you could make the game act as a server itself, but it seems even the code for that is incomplete or at least not understood well enough that anyone has made it work yet.

[tomsons26]

Thanks! It works now.  Except some colors are still messed up.  Videos and title screen look bad.  Parts of icons, miscellaneous scenery, and stealth look messed up.  I do have it patched up to 1.05.

Well you can also try copying the ddraw.dll and ddraw.ini from TD to the Sole folder.

If it doesn't work at first tweak the settings in ddraw.ini, i only tried it in windowed mode tho.

 

With a good high res patch you could take an opportunity to take a few screenshots to capture a whole map to recreate for RA or Red Dawn whenever the map gets revealed.  Otherwise I don't know any other way to view maps.  Format seems to be combo of an .ini & .bin like TD but XCC mixer labels the .ini parts as RA maps.

Sorry, you can't really remake them spot on in TD nor RA.

The Sole Survivor maps are out of the max map size limits of the two games.

Actually it seems that they are the same res as RA maps.

 

Afik the only converter made is by the OpenRA people and that's for their engine only.

 

Nyerguds made map renders a long time ago.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cncstuff/mappics/multi-ss/

 

[rabidsnypr]

it would be really nice if sole survivor came on the cncnet servers. and i never used xwis because i could never get their stuff to work. cncnet > xwis because they simplified their software and it works. Doesn't take 5 years to get help on their forums either.

I'm glad cncnet exists and I'm glad i am not without cnc online multiplayer because of them.

 

 

[Eisengeist]

Well you can also try copying the ddraw.dll and ddraw.ini from TD to the Sole folder.

If it doesn't work at first tweak the settings in ddraw.ini, i only tried it in windowed mode tho.

....

Nyerguds made map renders a long time ago.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cncstuff/mappics/multi-ss/

Thanks!  Now it looks right.  Looked fine in full screen with no tweaks.

 

And awesome maps renders. 42 looks really cool in game.  Some of these would be good to recreate in RA or Red Dawn.

[Nyerguds]

I made a TD version of 32.

[Eisengeist]

Woah, that's a crazy map design.  I'm trying to think of a name for or the location of those ancient giant images on the Earth.

 

I'd like to see that map.  But I guess it has to be a shrunken or just a portion of it at 64x64?

[Nyerguds]

Nazca plains

 

Incidentally...

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/junk/ss-nazca.png

[Eisengeist]

Cool, where can I download that?

 

Also is there any kind of TD to RA map converter?

[MattAttack]

Cool, where can I download that?

here in the TD multiplayer map section

http://cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=447.0

 

BTW, what was the res SS was originally played at?

[Nyerguds]

The screen resolution is 640x480, but the actual play resolution is 640x400, plus an 80-pixel status bar at the bottom.

[SiRaLeX]

I don't see why XWIS would cooperate with CnCNet.

 

XWIS is making good money running as it is. Why would they help a competitor? Think about it - it doesn't make any sense. They're not a welfare organisation. They don't run RA2 because they're good people.

 

XWIS would prefer you to not even know about CnCNet. This tells more than enough about the quality of the CnCNet services, IMHO. Once there's a ladder for YR, XWIS will probably be ****ed. They're on their last legs, no matter how many serials you pump into their pockets. They're even unbanning perm banned cheaters. Think about it. People who have been caught maphacking 3+ times. Who thought that was a good idea?

 

 

I'm fairly sure Win95 compatibility mode forces the games to 1 core automatically.

That's correct.

 

[fir3w0rx]

I don't see why XWIS would cooperate with CnCNet.

 

XWIS is making good money running as it is. Why would they help a competitor? Think about it - it doesn't make any sense. They're not a welfare organisation. They don't run RA2 because they're good people.

 

XWIS would prefer you to not even know about CnCNet. This tells more than enough about the quality of the CnCNet services, IMHO. Once there's a ladder for YR, XWIS will probably be ****ed. They're on their last legs, no matter how many serials you pump into their pockets. They're even unbanning perm banned cheaters. Think about it. People who have been caught maphacking 3+ times. Who thought that was a good idea?

Yeah I read somewhere (forgot where) that xwis.net earns on average $500 (US) p/month. I found it interesting that cncnet is willing to cooperate, to the point that hifi would even give full control of it to Olaf, while Olaf who can probably port his ladder and all it's features over night to this server, doesn't even want to talk about it, not openly anyway. I also read (somewhere a while ago, forgot where now) that xwis.net will expire and be due for renewal on Feb 16 next year... maybe it won't have to be renewed?

 

I do love xwis / strike-team, but what people don't understand is that neither xwis nor cncnet have to 'die' because they can work together.

 

But back on topic...

@SiRaLeX Again out of curiosity, if you wanted to, are you be able to make a client for Sole Survivor to connect people here on cncnet? If you are, roughly how long would such a project take?

[SiRaLeX]

Yeah I read somewhere (forgot where) that xwis.net earns on average $500 (US) p/month. I found it interesting that cncnet is willing to cooperate, to the point that hifi would even give full control of it to Olaf, while Olaf who can probably port his ladder and all it's features over night to this server, doesn't even want to talk about it, not openly anyway. I also read (somewhere a while ago, forgot where now) that xwis.net will expire and be due for renewal on Feb 16 next year... maybe it won't have to be renewed?

They don't have to pay for renewal or the server. EA covers all those costs including staff, for them. Those estimations are based on page views if the page would contain ads. XWIS doesn't show ads. They do get donations too though.

 

AFAIK they make good money from every serial being registered to XWIS for providing support/services.

 

 

But back on topic...

@SiRaLeX Again out of curiosity, if you wanted to, are you be able to make a client for Sole Survivor to connect people here on cncnet? If you are, roughly how long would such a project take?

No. Heck, I don't even have a clue what Sole Survivor is other having heard its name a couple of times. Apparently some sort of FFA C&C where you control 1 unit... sounds funny. Other than that I've never seen it.

 

[Rampastring]

Yeah I read somewhere (forgot where) that xwis.net earns on average $500 (US) p/month. I found it interesting that cncnet is willing to cooperate, to the point that hifi would even give full control of it to Olaf, while Olaf who can probably port his ladder and all it's features over night to this server, doesn't even want to talk about it, not openly anyway. I also read (somewhere a while ago, forgot where now) that xwis.net will expire and be due for renewal on Feb 16 next year... maybe it won't have to be renewed?

 

I do love xwis / strike-team, but what people don't understand is that neither xwis nor cncnet have to 'die' because they can work together.

Note that while hifi might be willing to cooperate with XWIS or give control of CnCNet to Olaf, the rest of the CnCNet staff might not be as friendly towards XWIS. That includes me. The way I see it, XWIS has basically sat for 10 years, not doing any real improvements to the games, while CnCNet has built a simple, superior download-and-play service with the spawners and clients that offers more options for the players in an easy-to-install package that (usually) requires no messing around with compatibility settings and such to work. The reason why XWIS is dying and CnCNet is rising in popularity is simply that CnCNet has been and currently is superior.

 

Another thing that concerns especially me is mod support. XWIS never cared - while CnCNet has embraced mods like DTA by including us on their site, posting content about us on Facebook and by providing us with unique channels. To be honest that's pretty much why I've adapted DTA's client to YR as well - CnCNet has been a great service, if they were hostile towards mods I'd have told the rest of the staff to build their own client.