BOBII 2.10 MP

[Buddye]

First, the BOBII MP is released on 2.10 as a Beta. I may have bit off more than I can chew by starting to try and fix it as I had no previous MP coding or network experience but we had experienced BDG testers who were willing and able with network experience. It is a old implementation of MP and not polished for modern PC's. We are hoping some experienced MP players with some network knowledge can help us and we also needed an easy way for the BDG to test and play as well. It is only the first step of many steps. Most players without network knowledge will not find BOBII MP useful as it takes some experience and knowledge to set up and play(sorry, but first steps are necessary and we hope useful).

All modes (see BOBI MP Documentation link below) are present but I have a problem with Quick Missions (AI A/C jump which is a show stopper for it). I am not able to fix the problem as yet.

As Bader said the BOBII MP was developed before server software, routers, and firewalls so it takes some network knowledge to run BOBII MP with the current player's PC setup (router, firewall, virus software). We are trying to get some data/documentation together for players to play but most of our testers are busy with life's tasks and vacations.

Here is the old BOBI MP documentation so you can see what it should do:

http://www.shockwaveproductions.com/bob ... MP_Doc.rar

The BDG has tested the MP for 100's of hours and we have made code changes for stability and game play, fixed many bugs, and implemented debug software for the future testing. We are still gaining knowledge of the MP code, network, game play, and setup. Our bigest problem is we just do not understand modern MP and this is our first experience.

Our expectations are small for BOBII MP because of the old implementation and I see it as only a small step forward. The release will also help us decide if it is worth manpower to continue BOBII MP development.

[Billy-93]

When you say mp knowledge i have been online for ps3 like 2 years so if i can be of any use just let me know, no pc online knowledge but hey if you want me ask. Good luck with the release

[SeaVee]

To get BoBII's MP up to current standards is a very challenging task and is going to take alot of time and effort.

Buddye has described the main issues. The BDG has currently a collective inexperience with the requirements of computer coding in the the modern PC multiplayer environment. Also the original source code for BoB (which is the core foundation of BoB2) including the multiplayer code was in the relative infancy of MP at that time and it all all pre-dates today's routers, firewalls, virus software, etc. Trying to make that older core coding technology work now with limited technical knowledge of modern MP coding makes this pretty tough.

A long standing hope is that someone comes aboard the BDG with the skills needed to update the MP code. A few people have initially looked at it but then dropped out for various reasons (same has happened with other development goals). I'm a good example, as for a time I was much more active with BoB2 but real life issues have basically made my ability to contribute here very difficult for a couple of years now.

Buddye and others have however made a lot of progress so far with the MP - more in the last 4-6 months than in several years prior combined. Maybe the even limited unpolished implementation of MP on a beta basis now can spark the fire to move this further along. Help will be needed.

[Bucic]

Great news! It was not certain that MP code will make it into 2.10 even as beta and here it is.

As you may know I tried to join MP testing with Alexcraig's help few months ago. Unfortunately without success. From what I've seen it was not that hard to configure. In fact I've seen simillar procedure in other MP games. The reason why we didn't make it was that my comp is behind a NAT so I don't have a private IP, even temporary private IP. For my network to work with BoB2 MP it would require some custom port forwarding by network administrator but it's not possible due to our network "policy". I use to play other MP games like Lock On with Hyper Lobby support or server-based ArmA.

For persons with similar problem (no private IP) there are at least 3 options:

1. Play over LAN
The paper says BoB2 will automaticaly list "active players" in LAN.

2. (hypothetical) HyperLobby
IMO it would be the best option for BoB2 MP as it allows people with ANY network configuration to play online.

3. Virtual Network Protocols
I started with Hamachi one day which just gives you a virtual private IP. It allowed me to play Falcon 4.0 MP and it worked great. Unfortunately it went payware so I've found few Hamachi freeware alternatives but I haven't tested any of them yet:

• NatNix http://www.burton-krahn.com/
  OpenVN http://www.openvpn.net/
  LogMeIn https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?hp=6&lang=pl
  Tinc http://www.tinc-vpn.org/

I strongly encourage anyone to test them out!

[Uriah]

You guys might want to try Gameranger. For more info contact Mr.Jelly over at the SimHQ forum for European Air War. As you can guess EAW has the same old MP as BoBI had. We found that using Gameranger solved a lot of the proplems people were having connecting to an online game.

[Buddye]

I will look at this. Is it a for profit product? Does anyone have some details on it?

[Uriah]

It does not cost us anything. However, you have to get the 'owners' of the product to set up game. I think they did so for EAW. Mr. Jelly knows the details. Plus the moders at EAW have also learned a lot about the old Multiplayer code. Some of the knowledge might transfer to your code.

[CatsEyes]

Hi folks,

Great news about the BOBII 2.10 MP beta. Happy to help troubleshoot problems, if that's of any use. Warning: I know nothing about networking code, however.

Having said that, I can't currently get it to run on our home LAN. Which is odd, because I used to have the old BOB I up and running using limited MP functionality on the same LAN. And because I've reinstalled on both PCs, so the BOB II 2.10 installs are identical.

No matter which form of MP I try, same thing happens. Both machines enter 3D for a few seconds normally. Then one PC carries on as normal, while the other screen shuts down, with the audio carrying on in the background.

Sounds like something simple, though I can't for the life of me think what. Is the game perhaps using a different screen res setup when it enters 3D in MP? (The machine that loses video is using an older CRT monitor, BTW, while other is digital LCD. So could it possibly be trying and failing to achieve some out-of-range screen resolution or refresh rate?)

If there's another thread on MP bugs and troubleshooting, let me know and I'll post there.

David

[Osram]

Some things to check:
- Is there any file written during the MP attempt on the "bad" computer? (Sort the diosplay of the files by date). part from debuglog.txt.
- You can run an extended SP mission on the "bad" computer?
- What gfx card do you use?
- I very much doubt its the monitor, but maybe its easy to swap the monitors and see which computer then hangs?

[CatsEyes]

Hi Osram,

My mistake. The same issue has now begun happening on the 'bad' PC in SP too. So it's not MP-related after all. Sorry for the confusion.

Graphics card on the 'bad' (and older) PC is a GeForce 7600GT running 92.91 drivers. Would a driver update do any good?

[CatsEyes]

Ah, OK. Cooking with gas now. Changed the landscape texture size on the slower PC according to this thread

http://shockwaveproductions.com/forum/v ... bd7ce1e33c

and seem to be flying OK now. MP too.

Sorry for wasting your time...

Some spectacular MP lag at times, though! Got to go through that guide...