DescentBB

Contents removed, thread abandoned.

D2X-XL Official Forum

found my problem with cameras. the default option is cameras off. that's why my camera wasn't working. pebcak'd again.

Larry,

D2X-XL has a smart weapon switch. If enabled, it will select the Helix for the Spread and the Gauss for the Vulcan. Disable in the gameplay options menu.

Hack,

if you create a scrolling high-res texture by stringing the frames together in a single frame, don't replace an animated texture with, but use a single-framed (non animated texture), or you will have to replace every animation frame with your replacement animation and still may have problems.

Diedel,
When using a "NEW" water texture. Will it still use D2's water sound effect with that texture? If not, I can see what HACK is trying to do. By replacing D2's "old" water with a "NEW" water texture so he can keep the sound effects. Yeah?

Hm, I see. I will check replacing a water texture with a high res "stringed" animation, and if it doesn't work, I will change D2X-XL to handle it properly then (i.e. not switch to the base texture's other frames).

i'd rather not setup a mine with weapons to find this out:
what does the smart weapon switch do?

If enabled and you have a Helix, the Helix will activated instead of the Spreadfire cannon when switching to the Spread. Same goes for Gauss and Vulcan.

Diedel,

I seem to be having problems connecting to the default tracker to link up with others. I tried several times to join a tracker game only to have no list. And I know there has to be atleast a -few- people playing during the evening or day.

I have given up on Kali because of the numerous NAT errors that come up (even though my ports are correctly opened). So i turned to d2x-xl's tracker for a last hope. Everyday I put a little more time into d2x-xl to try and figure out what it is im doing wrong. I tried hosting a game once to see if anyone would join, and my computer sat there for 30 minutes with no joining players

Im using a NETGEAR WTG624v2 wireless router with ports 28342, 2213, 6666 forwarded to my box address. I have read else where that DHCP should be turned off and Static ips should be entered manualy. Unfortunately I cannot do that because I share my wireless with a trusted friend downstairs of my apartment. It would be too much of a headache.

I have also read up on the threads MD-2389 (Thank you by the way MD-2389 for the fast reply) mentioned in his reply here: phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=8624
which was very helpful, but still didnt seem to solve my problem.

I have tried unpluging my router and directly connecting to the cable modem from my network card, but still nothing changes.

If there is anything you can think of to suggest, im all ears.

Must play Descent2!!

-DiscoWay

NM my problem, I found a suitable workaround by setting 1st texture->water1-2 or -3, then setting second texture->water1-1. That gives the intended effect and you'd never know I had done it like that.

Disco,

the VEX tracker address is 65.222.118.40:9424, so you may need to open UDP port 9424 on your router/firewall. I have added that info to the D2X-XL tracker manual page.

Well shoot, Thanks for the input anyways Diedel. After opening that port, It still will not give me a read out of the players in game from the tracker. Still seem like something is misconfigured. Perhaps it is my cable modem.

Think im going to try it on campus with laptop to prove this theory.

-DiscoWay

Disco,

you can start 2 D2X-XL instances on your machine (make sure to start them windowed!), and have one be the host and the other the client (chose 28343 or 0 as client port), and see whether you cannot connect to the tracker, or whether the tracker is empty.

I could add some code to display an error message if no tracker is found within a certain amount of time.

Diedel,

I tried as you said and opened up two windowed instances. With one i hosted game on tracker w/port 28342. The other i used port 28343 to search for my hosted game on the tracker, there was nothing there. Seems that something (router/cable modem) is preventing me from communicating with the tracker. That is so very odd. I remember seeing a thread somewhere on here about a cable modem blocking UDP port because of a built in firewall. Man, I hope that my Comcast Motorola SB5120 isnt doing that. =\ Sad days for an old D2 player.

Once i figure this out i'll be sure to post my results back here.

Thanks again for your help Diedel,

-DiscoWay

Strange it is!

I started a direct UDP/IP link. I was able to have 192.168.0.2 to host, then i had my laptop connected to the network at 192.168.0.3 to connect to the .2 host and the game showed up on the join list!

If i try to host a plain old ipx game on the network and try to search for it with the laptop instance, nothing shows on the join list. I also tried this on the multicast UDP/IP and saw no listings.

So it seems I am only able to do direct connects with another person. But finding listings off a tracker or even over the network seems to be out of the question for me. I'll keep lookin around.

-DiscoWay

Good Luck!

I assume that both computers in your last comment were on the same side of the firewall/router/modem, ie on an internal network. I can get that too quite well and have good games with my sons, but I can't get OUT of the internal network!

But keep trying, one of us may crack it yet!

To test a tracker, what sense does it make to establish a direct UDP/IP connection?! None, right?

Start both the host and client as UDP/IP via tracker and see whether the client sees a host.

Please note that there are TCP/IP ports, and there are UDP/IP ports, and make sure to open UDP/IP ports.

If you use IPX (only makes sense in LAN, btw), make sure all participants have the IPX protocol installed and bound to the network adapter (if your OS requires and explicit bind).

Diedel,

Yea i tried what you mentioned before (said in previous message) and it didnt work. But, I think I may have found the culprit. It was the Windows Firewall. First i set my router's DMZ to my computer's IP 192.168.0.2, to make sure it wasnt the router. Then i turned off the windows software firewall and now i can see the tracker games just fine.

But it looks like I have a new problem. I can connect to internet games just fine. Once i get into the game, after about ten seconds of seeing and hearing dogfighting everything just stops dead still. Then one by one each player disapears from the game and all the sudden im all alone in a game.

Its not a port issue now because i have my computer bypassed from the router.

Im getting closer! Now i just need to figure this out.

-DiscoWay

Disco,

does this also happen in your LAN, or when you have several D2X-XL instances running on a single machine and taking parts in a multiplayer match hosted by one of these instances?

This just happens on the lan. I was able to see only one person's game, kept lagging out almost immediately. Something else i found odd was the inability to host games. When i host on the tracker with the DMZ machine I open up a second instance (using another port 28343) and look for games on the tracker, my game doesnt show up, just the one game i cannot seem to stay connected to shows in the joins menu. So far this is the only game i have seen on tracker to test with.

Anyways, yea, i'll keep crackin at this problem to see if i can further squash it.

-DiscoWay

Disco,

try to connect w/o tracker (by entering the IP addresses). I have had run several tests with up to 4 participants in a UDP/IP LAN mp game, and have never noticed any problems with players dropping out. There was a bug in multiplayer where a player had to kill the bots whose destruction by another player he could not see (due to being too far away or so), but that bug has been fixed.

What type of routers do you guys use? I hear people saying wireless routers are crap and that you should stay away from them. I heard another friend say to just buy a wireless bridge, if i need wireless.

I think i may actually buy a new one, just need some direction is all. And im also curious to hear success stories of people who can play D2 through the tracker server. I can play from the University network on my laptop without a problem. So it has to be the router dropping random packets.

Diedel, I still havent tried connecting to other people directly on the net yet. I only know of one other person who would help me with that, but he wont be back for awhile. Perhaps i can find someone I vortex to help out.

Anyways, yea new router im thinkin.

-DiscoWay

Another possibility is to try changing the channel on your wireless base station/router (if you haven't already done so). Depending on what other base stations and cordless phones are in the area, RF noise can become a problem.

Also, how many wireless networks can you see in your area? I think problems start to show up when there are more that 4 or so.

Read this thread about wlan problems and a possible solution.

I wouldn't buy a wlan router if I could avoid it.

Kaelan,

I dont use the wireless much, except for a friend who lives below me, but what i was thinkin is to use the wireless router as a wireless bridge, connect it up to a new non-wireless router that doesnt have problems routing UDP packets. Its odd really, when im at home and i DMZ my computer, it still cannot route UDP packets correctly for some reason. Yet when im on campus, i dont have any problems at all. I can host and join a tracker game without UDP packets dropping.

What im looking for is just a router that is non-wireless and works with Descent2 without UDP routing issues. I gotta get D2 workin or im gonna die.

Diedel,

Thats a good thread, ill be sure to have a few of my friends reference and read up on it. That sucks you had to drill a hole in your wall. Damn you could of had it all professionaly done before the house was built. I suppose you still could, but it would be kind of expensive.

-DiscoWay

in toggle options, "use macros". what's that ?

You can assign 4 messages to function keys that you can send in multiplayer games by simply tapping the function key.

How does the 'zoom' feature work? I have a key bound to it, I have "smooth zoom" selected in gameplay options, but I have no idea how it actually supposed to work.

spud

It works only with Vulcan/Gauss being primary weapon, and should enlarge the central part of your view.

If smooth, continuously enlarge until maximum while key pressed, continuously zoom out until regular view reached when key subsequently released.

Otherwise switch to next enlargement factor each time the key is hit until max, switch back to regular view with next hit.

I've searched high and low on the forums and in the D2X-XL manual, but didn't find anything on this, so I might as well post about it. Feel free to rag on me if I didn't search well enough for any one of the these.

I'm running D2X-XL, version 1.5.52 on Windows XP, on a Radeon 9000. I also have the latest Omega drivers installed. For the third problem, I have a D-Link DI-624 Wireless Router. The game runs fine, except for the following:

- If you have camera views turned on, it will crash when you try to look at a wall that's supposed to be a camera screen. (I had this confirmed by building a test level with a camera screen and camera as well as testing some of the levels that have D2X map features like cameras, heh.) Of course this is solved by turning off the cameras, but considering their possible tactical use in multiplayer, it'd be nice to have it working.

- In Descent 1 play, if you have the rear view turned off, escaping from a mine crashes the game when it switches to the escape camera view. Likewise, with the rear camera on, it crashes as soon as you touch the exit.

- Oh, and I can't see any games on the VEX tracker. I currently have both ports 9424 and 28342 opened up.

Probably not relevant, but I have Descent 2 and the Vertigo missions installed, and copied the contents of Descent 1 over to the D2 folder.

1. Can't install the standard Catalyst drivers, as I get an INF error. I remember bypassing the INF error before somehow, but I just can't recall it. I tried the DNA Drivers instead though, still the same problem.

Edit: About the tunnel problem, I was wrong about the rear camera thing. Instead, the game now crashes just as the mine explodes when the ship escapes.

2. Yeah, I have the ports opened up on UDP.

Then probably nobody is offering a game on the VEX tracker. See my tracker man page for a test procedure.

Tried the solution there, and it worked. Guess no one was hosting a game on the VEX tracker.

That leaves just the camera and D1 mine escape crashes now...

Camera bug fixed. Was a real bug in d2x-xl I built into it when adding the new camera code. Get v1.5.54.

Is it possible to have d2x-xl search a specific drive letter for the Descent 2 CD? Let's say instead of Drive D, I could set it to search drive E.

d2x-xl doesn't need the CD.

oh, I know that, I just wanted to listen to the redbook audio tracks on the cd while I play. The MIDI tracks are great, but I also would like to listen to the redbook audio occasionally as well.

Try to remove '-nocdrom' from d2x.ini. I had misinterpreted that switch: It disables Redbook audio, and does nothing else.

I tried that, but it won't detect the cd from my secondary cdrom drive (it's actually just a virtual cdrom drive where I mount my d2 cd image). If I were to insert my cd into my actual cdrom drive it works, but I don't want to wear out my D2 cd

I guess for now, I could change the drive letters around to make the virtual cdrom drive the first one.

CD ROM access is controlled by the SDL (a standard library handling all kinds of devices OS independantly), and SDL enumerates the drives, so all I could do is to offer an option to set the CD ROM drive number - I don't know how to map a driver letter to the corresponding number.

Edit:

Just checked the SDL doc - there is a way to do it. Just wait a few minutes.