Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Flex on September 06, 2005, 04:04:34 am
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Hi gang,
It is useless to say I'm in love with FS1/2 from the beginning right? :)
Now I decided to play them again and check a couple of campaigns. Problem 1 - finding freespace:
First I got HotU version - 219mb. Low graphics, no sound, no voices, etc, I found I can't live that way - even my 3 years old computer can handle almost everything FS can throw on it so why there is a low-res ver at the first time? Hell ok, decided to "update" and after a day trying to get to the ftp above I gave up and downloaded the three bins over torrent (2.19gb). Then moved over fs_open since it is just great. Downloaded (13mb) the newest build, 124mb reworked graphics & effects, found out fast that it can't play the mov files so yet more 134mb in the movies.
Total of 2732mb!!
Is this bandwidth waste needed?
I have done some calculations and made an new install based on the nullsoft system (superb compression) including:
FS2 core, music, voices, everything without the mov files, high-res
fs_open 20050613, all enchansements to the effects, textures, backgrounds, etc
fs2 movies in avi format
In other words - everything is in and maxed out. The compile process takes more than an hour so can't tell the exact size of the result but according to some tests it'll be around a CD size. This is 4 times less than what I have downloaded and nothing is missing!
So my first question - why don't host such a compact install so the new users just double-click and after 2 "Next"s to have the game ready to play instead of reading faqs and forums, digging vb files and wasting bandwidth?
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My second question is more an idea and comes as a sequel to the first one - splitting the fs2 core from the campaigns. I can't tell (someone should help me with the different files, I don't want to reinvent the wheel) how much will be the core itself without the main campaign but it'll be pretty small, especially without the videos and various animations. So the idea is to distribute the core alone and add a program to manage the campaigns. About the program in question:
- Fetching the campaign list from some server (http://fs2.kissifrot.com/ for example)
- Showing the campaign description, progress, version, credits, rating, linking to the discussions about it, etc
- Downloading and installing new campaigns
- Checking for new versions of campaigns and apply patches to them (so not having to download 200mb again)
- Ability to rate campaign over a couple of aspects (gameplay, stability, models, music... ideas?)
I can do it, but first I want oppinions of the people and need someone to back me up at the server side.
Comments?
PS: Almost forgot - same thing for maps so you can download a small core and just get whatever MP maps you want fast & easy
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You should only need about 1.2 GB for *just* Freespace 2, without any fs2_open files or move.
Just having a 'core' isn't really feasible though, since a lot of the campaigns build on the main FS2 campaign. You'd end up downloading the same stuff over and over again.
You could take out a lot of the voice files, and the mission files, but I think that's about it. That'd save you maybe 100-200 MB.
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I've been thinking about splitting the engine from the game for a while. It's perfectly possible to do right now. In fact TBP already ships as a stand alone with no FS2 content.
Personally I'd like to see TBP, FS2, BSG and all the other total conversions that are being worked on run out of the same folder without the need to waste time copying builds of FRED and FS2 to each folder. Unbuddling may be needed for that but so far I can't see any reason why.
As for a program to manage the campaigns. Why reinvent the wheel. We already have some of the functionality in the launcher. Why not put it all there as I suggested on this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,34826.0.html) thread.
The reason why that's not been implemented is cause RT is busy and I'm still learning C++. If you could build a campaign manager you could probably implement the idea on that thread and kill two birds with one stone.
As for the bandwidth wastage, MatthewPapa did put up a single CD download which is Multiplayer ready over on Game Warden. We're keeping it hush hush cause the problem is that if the fact gets out that something like that is available people turn up and suck GW's bandwidth dry. If you can convince HotU to put up a single CD version of the game though I suspect everyone would thank you.
Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Just having a 'core' isn't really feasible though, since a lot of the campaigns build on the main FS2 campaign. You'd end up downloading the same stuff over and over again.
Actually if you make the FS2 files act like a seperate mod and configure the mod.ini files correctly there is no reason you can't do that.
Look at the way I've configured the Shrouding the Light mod.ini file. All you'd need to do is place the FS2 retail VP files into Freespace2\FS2 and add ,FS2 to the end of the secondary mods list.
Do that with the mod.ini for every campaign and you're done.
The question is whether it's worth it. There are some good reasons to do it and quite a few reasons why we shouldn't. We should just get the community to talk about it and settle the matter once and for all.
Aldo said something interesting a while back. Something along the lines that we should stop being a freespace community and become a freespace engine community.
I tend to agree.
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WMCoolmon,
Without ripping a bit of FS2 and the whole campaign + videos the size is 652Mb... this is quite comparable to the 2.8Gb download I wasted. I saw the mp build which is 1 cd too, but it is "only" mp, I guess I can drive it to below 400mb if cut the SP part.
karajorma, thanks will take a look, this launcher is newer than one I have :)
My primary concern however is why ther is a 2.8gb pack when you get the same for 650mb
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Originally posted by Flex
WMCoolmon,
Without ripping a bit of FS2 and the whole campaign + videos the size is 652Mb... this is quite comparable to the 2.8Gb download I wasted. I saw the mp build which is 1 cd too, but it is "only" mp, I guess I can drive it to below 400mb if cut the SP part.
karajorma, thanks will take a look, this launcher is newer than one I have :)
My primary concern however is why ther is a 2.8gb pack when you get the same for 650mb
No, the MP build is the fully functional game; all the VP files etc.
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I get your point Flex but the main reason is that the 3CD version is a full FS2 RETAIL version. As such it uses an enormous amount of space on things like the MVE cutscenes (They're half a gig on their own for instance). If people can't or won't run FS2_Open it's ideal.
The problem with removing the core of FS2 from the campaign itself is that at the moment it's no use whatsoever to do it. There's only one total conversion that has been released and TBP is a stand alone and therefore doesn't need an unbundled engine.
That said it would be very nice to have an FS2_Open install that did everything for you and which didn't require you to have FS2 already. If you can get an install that allows you to play the main campaign with all of FS2_open's features and do it in 650MB you should be able to get MatthewPapa's interest :)
The problem is that you've got a lot of data you need to include. And I can't see how you're going to compress that into 650MB. Here's a picture of the contents of MP's 1 CD download. How can you add the media.vp files to that and still take up the same amount of space?
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Compression :)
Here's the list
bastion.avi
colossus.avi
endpart1.avi
endprt2a.avi
endprt2b.avi
flags.lch
FS2uninst.dll
fs2_open_T-20050613.exe
intro.avi
launcher.ini
Launcher5.exe
mono1.avi
mono2.avi
mono3.avi
mono4.avi
mv_core.vp
mv_effects.vp
mv_models.vp
mv_music.vp
mv_textures.vp
patchw32.dll
pxo.url
Readme.txt
Root_fs2.vp
sparky_fs2.vp
sparky_hi_fs2.vp
squadwar.url
stu_fs2.vp
tango2_fs2.vp
tango3_fs2.vp
Uninst.isu
total: 1 346 109 262 bytes
As you can see, it is pretty huge extracted but pretty small compact so it is perfect for distribution.
I have not cleaned unused files like these urls and adding the HLP and some others and have not created shortcuts but it's a 5 min work on the script.
2 questions: should I built it completely (and if yes, some comments on the shortcuts I have to make, additional options like desktop shortcut, etc)? And second - I can't host, when ready I can give the script and/or the whole package but can't host it.
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That's some pretty impressive compression then :)
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yep, nsis rulz :)
I'm sure I can put the retail ver updated to 1.20 with everything included in around 1 CD too, but need an answer if someone is going to help me host this and generally if someone likes the idea or not, otherwise it is pointless.
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Seeing as how it might mean less bandwidth used I can see MP being interested :)
Especially if you make sure that Multiplayer works properly :)
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Link me to this compression software and I will check it out. 625 mb seems almost unrealistic though..... but i could be wrong
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you could get it off my ftp server...... when my computer gets back up.
my video card blew and I'm not able to turn it on, so when it get sback up Ill let you know and you can come get it off me.
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Originally posted by karajorma
In fact TBP already ships as a stand alone with no FS2 content.
Wrong. There are still some FS2 files remaining, most notably interface art.
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652 not 625 :)
Where I can send you the script? PM me with some email or somewhere I can upload it? I can post it here too but it is somewhat big and will make the topic harder to read. It's not worth start learning the language, just to check and see for yourself :)
The "compiller" is at http://nsis.sourceforge.net/download/, free, open source
The also free and open source "IDE" for it is http://hmne.sourceforge.net/
When you get the script just double-click on the nsi file and press ctrl-f9 for compille and relax an hour :)
This is full-featured install system with uninstall, not self-extracting thing so it can do whatever you want to do
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Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Wrong. There are still some FS2 files remaining, most notably interface art.
I was refering to the fact that you don't need FS2 VP files to run it. :)
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email the script to [email protected]
(take the -nospam- tags out obviously)
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Sent, happy compiling :)
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Got it, this looks promising. I will keep you guys informed.
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If we include the standard EXE files and make installing the SCP stuff optional we might be able to pursuade HotU to take this in the place of their current rip.
It would certainly increase the popularity of the game as we don't have to worry about bandwidth with HotU very much. :)
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There is a problem with this approach - standart retail is pretty huge. nsis will surely able to bring it around 800-900mb in size along with movies but that's huge too. Without them... you can make the retail with high-res textures and the multimedia in for let's say 300mb which is close to the HotU version but miles ahead in quality and completeness.
Whoever needs the retail ver now? Speaking that scp and the additional vb files are much more beautiful, the movies are with higher quality...?
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Thing is that HotU exists to preserve old games so that they don't die out. I'm not sure how they'd feel about a bastardised version of the game (Which is why I said that the SCP stuff should be in the download but optional).
As for including all the retail movies etc. that's not what I was on about. I simply meant taking what you have now. Adding the retail 1.2 versions of the launcher, FRED and FS2 and making the installer script only install SCP extras if the user asks for it.
Do that and you might have something that HotU are interested in.
The other thing is that although MatthewPapa can change his version every time the SCP has a major revision I'm not so certain HotU would be so willing. Especially as they prefer people to use bitTorrent. That means that a lot of people downloading their version would after a year or so be downloading it with a VERY outdated version of FS2_Open.
For HotU it might be simpler to just include a URL to here or my FAQ or something like that. After all if we don't we're back to wasting bandwidth on stuff that becomes obsolete the second you get to HLP.
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Thing is that HotU exists to preserve old games so that they don't die out. I'm not sure how they'd feel about a bastardised version of the game (Which is why I said that the SCP stuff should be in the download but optional).
lol. I respect them for that btw not letting a nice games die.
As for including all the retail movies etc. that's not what I was on about. I simply meant taking what you have now. Adding the retail 1.2 versions of the launcher, FRED and FS2 and making the installer script only install SCP extras if the user asks for it.
Do that and you might have something that HotU are interested in.
I can, no problems, will w8 what MP will say about, I can write the scripts but prefer not to upload the result image but instead MP to make it on his side :)
The other thing is that although MatthewPapa can change his version every time the SCP has a major revision I'm not so certain HotU would be so willing. Especially as they prefer people to use bitTorrent. That means that a lot of people downloading their version would after a year or so be downloading it with a VERY outdated version of FS2_Open.
True... it's not that hard to make a program that checks for updated fs2_open main & launcher, it is a normal practice the programs to get updated, that's what the updates stands for :)
The problem is with the vp files if they decide to update them - 100mb is not something I would like to download. Small difference patches will solve but that'll require a help from the scp
For HotU it might be simpler to just include a URL to here or my FAQ or something like that. After all if we don't we're back to wasting bandwidth on stuff that becomes obsolete the second you get to HLP.
Yep, almost full retail ver for HotU - the movies, they'll surely like it :)
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I don't think we want the SCP to be getting into the habit of patching media VP files. For a start after a few cycles it will become a mess where you have to download 4 or 5 patches and apply them sequencially far better to simply download them each time there's an update (It's only 2-3 times a year anway at the moment).
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Heh. Looking at the SCP downloads now, there is no way I can get the files and versions without parsing some html code. There is a way... with the help of SCP (providing some some autogenerated ini file with the most current stable version, most current nighty and links, as well as the media files version), either SCP of me to build an autoupdate utility, and upon some big modification (of the media files for example), the hosted here iso to be rebuilt?
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Update software sounds nice but I wouldnt really know how to write it...
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I can do, no problems, just need a reply from scp (don't know who to refer) how should we handle the info file (some ini for example) and what is best for both scp in terms of easy handling and me to check it. If you are open to the idea, lets get it done :)
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My idea is basically along the lines of what I posted in that other thread.
The launcher checks for new versions of a file called default.ini on the SCP site (or whereever). This is a text file containing details of all the mods available. It also contains details for a folder called media_VPs which surprise, surprise contains the media VP files.
When the media VP files are updated we update the default.ini file to state that there is a new set of Media VPs available. The launcher can then connect and download them for you.
The beauty of this system is that it means the launcher can also handle mod delivery without any changes to the launcher. All that would need to be updated is the default.ini file (Which points to the location of the download). :)
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Yep, that will do the work too and means PR will have some more homework :)
Even better if the launcher itself does it since no additional programs will be required. 2 options has to be in effect :
- check for media files update (default on), you can exclude for saving yourself a 100mb :)
- check for nigty builds (default off) - if turned on, the current nighties will be installed.
PS: there will still be needed a 3rd program for the updating the launcher itself, but it is very simple
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PR?
I think that getting the launcher to check for new builds might result in more hassle than it is worth to be honest. New official builds is one thing but most of the coders upload to their own personal webspace when they are putting up builds so it could become a bit of a nightmare to manage.
The launcher itself doesn't need a program. We can simply get it to open a link to the new launcher in a web browser and leave it upto the user to do that. I don't think it's worth the hassle unless it's very simple to do (That said FS2 Retail does exactly the same thing with its launcher when you patch from 1.0 to 1.2 and it is convinient).
Doing this sort of thing would definately have the effect of making FS2 look a lot more professional.
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It's not a big deal :)
Even a "news" about a new buld and address/discussion will help too.
What's the story with the official builds? From my point of view - the "official" tends to be most outdated and buggy build available and it is used by people until the say to themselves well... movies does not work, opengl results in a black screen, alt-tabbing crashes the game, the gamma is increasing when you decrease it and so on... and get to the forums to discover a place they can get the "nighties" built by one or another and after some tries to live happily. And if they dig long enough some of them can find higher-resolution movies, ligh-res textures, new effects and music, all goodies that are common to the veterans here but a newbies like me does not know they exist at all.
In that terms... wouldn't be better the "official" version to be updated more often? Still, the deep beta nighty test builds to remain, but after something proves stable, or just better than the official one, it goes the top?
I want freespace to look more professional too... and maybe gather some more attention because it is wonderful game and lot of work has been put from the V and all the community. The current way of "take that from this site, combine with this torrent, download the update from this site..." is definately confusing. My colleague, big fan of space sims saw the hotsu one I have just downloaded and said "graphics sucks, this is too old". 3 days later, when I had all parts gathered (those 2.8Gb) he saw me playing and said "what is this, why you haven't told me about!". Now he planned his holiday to be free to play the "new game". I new about fs2_open before, was a matter of time to find it, but he didn't and this illustrates clearly what is the first impression of FS2 and what *should* be after so much work involved.
Just my $0.02
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The last two official builds have had problems. That's why the SCP keeps pushing back the next launch so as to avoid the problem. The official build should be as stable as possible because when the code freeze is over things are going to destabilise pretty quickly.
The simple fact is that having release and development branches is something that often gets discussed but the problem is that we lack anyone with the time to do take care of it. As a result we end up with people who are brand new to FS2_Open being told to use a bleeding edge build. That's not something people should have to do.
The problem with news of a new build is that someone has to update the default.ini to tell people that it exists or we have to have a new file telling the game where to look for new builds. I like the idea of default.ini but if we ask too much of it things become a chore and it won't get used.
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Well... managing a single project with many developers all around the world is a challenging task indeed. As far as I know in such situations all work on their tagged builds, and a good commits gets occasionally merged with the dev branch... but it still requires extensive testing after the merge and is human error prone.
To be honest the problems with the current official build were the reason I came here crying for help quite soon after my first tries so it was kinda good :)
Skipping the default.ini will not be good... a "new" version could be detected by either datestamp (sigh) or some filename format. I can't count on the first way to be stable. The second looks more promising and best of it, does not rely on human to edit some file to let the people know.
a structure as follows:
scp/downloads
--fs2_open3.6.6.zip
--fs2_open3.6.6.txt
...
--mv_core1.0.2.zip
--mv_core1.0.2.txt
--mv_models1.3.5.zip
--mv_models1.3.5.txt
This may do work for the default.ini-less updates. The launcher looks in there and compares. The text files are the changelog in fact, the launcher should update only files present in the system i.e. although a new mv_cell file is out, if the user does not use the cartoonish textures, no need to download them. I refer "zip" as a general compression, 7z can be used for example too since it offers better compression than even winrar, + it is free and + I think it offered a small decompression prg/lib, just ideally suited for the purpose.
This if the launcher downloads and extract the files by itself. The other way is a simple nsi script that finds the freespace2 folder and updates the file, while the downloading is left to the user - best compression, automatic install.
The drawback - linux users will not be able to run the exe.
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That might work well for official builds but unofficial builds use a variety of names and are in a variety of places.
Now that I think about it though downloading new builds through the launcher might not be the best way to handle it to be honest. The posts on the forum that most people get them from can easily warn the user about certain problems etc in a way that an automatic download (where the readme is almost automatically ignored by most people) can't.
With Mods the laucher has a nice explaination screen for each mod so any issues can easily be entered into the mod.ini by the creator. Expecting developers to do the same with builds though would be something of a waste of time for them.
I'd say sticking to mods and the media VP files for now is probably the smartest idea.
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Yeah, but if ignoring the nighties? You said that the current situation with the buggy official build is not common so if the officials are stable enough to be the recommended version should the automatic update, no matter if the user pays attention to the readme or not will do work?
Supposing a new officials will be as often as new media files - 2-3 times per year. Nighties are quite a different story, I pointed to them because the official is of a bad quality compared to them but if this is not the common case, then what about launcher updating only to official releases (+mods & media vp files)?
A single-cd (or may became a bit more with the high-res movies) FS2_open with automatic updates and mod support will be just killer game :)
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3.6 and 3.6.5 were pretty unstable. 3.5.5 on the other hand was so stable that there are people still using that version of FRED.
From what I can see 3.6.7 will hopefully be pretty stable too. If you look at the current CVS builds you'll notice that it's been a while since anyone mentioned any huge bugs. The builds that come out after 3.6.7 on the other hand will be a nightmare of stability problems. Everyone has been sitting on their hands for months now and Bob is about to do a massive overhaul of the texture system which will undoubtably cause problems for weeks or months afterwards simply due to the scale of the change.
Thing is that bleeding edge builds shouldn't be used by the average user but due to the lack of programmers we can't really branch which means we get an official build for the majority and recent builds for those willing to take a risk.
I do agree on how having FS2 able to look after itself would be a killer idea and working on the launcher is my number one priority after I can finally get some free time to sit down and finish learning C++
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Heh, you'll have problems if you haven't played C up to now. There is no one playing with the laucher now?
I'm with ultra limited time too, working on 2 places for almost 16 hours/day including the weekends but FS is just too great and willing to make sacrifices and help out :)
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Random Tiger works on it when he has time but he tends to get busy and drop out for months at a time. Given that the launcher works pretty well at the moment no one gives it much priority but seeing as how I do a hell of a lot of troubleshooting I figure that spending a few manhours adding automatic delivery and installation to the launcher will save me double that in questions like "I've downloaded this mod. How do I installed it?" :D
Plus I'm guessing that the launcher code is much cleaner than the spagetti code of FS2 and would be a nicer place to take my baby steps in a different language :)
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As kara said, mediaVP patches isn't practical. I tried it once and it didn't work too well, as naming had to be counter-intuitive and it was just a pain for me/people to keep track of if VPs were patched or not.
I've played with the idea of a selective download system that will compare the files between local and remote VPs, and then rebuild the VP files with the proper files, but I'd need an easy way to get the files from the server. Compressed VPs would be FTW if I could download individual files from them.