The [FGS] Clan

If you updated Hamachi or installed it only recently, it no longer uses 5.*.*.* internally but 25.*.*.*, fixing the issue.

And I've just been awfully busy and it also slipped my mind.

Past month I've realized the severity of some growing issues FAR beyond team balancer and spectator mode. I'll try to spark a discussion with few people from here and there regarding it.

~DJ~ wrote:HAI ALEX.
I was wondering on how about releasing an ANNA version with spectator and FPS showing-scoreboard, and a team-balancer (mutator maybe?) first? if EMMA is taking long, that is?

Stil got to tweak the FPS thing, and check if it works properly in multiplayer enviroments. As you can see the FPS on the scoreboard is a bit different than the one shown by stat fps, that's because ANNA calculates the FPS every second, and stat fps is more realtime.

Awesome!
Good luck with the tweaking.
A version with FPS visible in scoreboard, a better Spectator-mode(?) and a team-balancer feature released first would be very beneficial to everyone.

Just curious, though, is this the code Nobody provided you (as in Allan's code)?

The code to measure the FPS? No, it's a small piece of code I just wrote.

Looks good!

Good work Alex, looking forward to seeing this.

Are we nearing the release of anything?

Currently experimenting a bit with methods to detect speed hacking, so far seem to be getting good results, but will require more extensive testing. Can't give any concrete info about a potential release & it's date, sorry.

If you need help testing then let me know.

Good work

Alex, since you returned back to DXMP and Nobody, I don't know if you did any work on this, I have a question for you two guys; how about a joint project? Let's get rid of DXMTL152, I can supply many features that you have seen in latest miniMTL (spec mode, net optimizations), you supply latest anti-haxoring methods, bug fixes etc.

Contact me, if interested.

~][FGS][Nobody~ wrote:The core problem of the GPF couldn't be solved because it's caused within the engine.
We could break it down to one single expression, where it tries to access an object that seems to be in good condition to UnrealScript, but in reality it's somehow broken (possibly unallocated already).
Thus, the problem was solved by replacing the Inventory belt.

The source of all evil GPFs in DXMP is Window.dll, native library made by Ion Storm, which is obviously not coded as well as native Unreal engine libraries, made by Tim Sweeney. DXMP for rendering on screen menus, HUDs etc... uses this module instead of Unreal engine's canvas (used in UT for example). While canvas works just fine and with 0 GPFs, new window rendering on DXMP is obviously buggy.

Turning all HUD rendering into canvas rendering fixes all GPFs you would get playing DXMP game. The only GPF you might get is when you open some DX menu (press ESC). In AvsH mod, you see that HUD is a bit different - because it is canvas rendered (and I couldn't be bothered to make it look exactly the same) thus meaning goodbye to all GPFs.

Im not sure whats so special in AvsH's hud but i love it
Its just different, like you said.

And yes i can't agree with you enough DejaVu, I did not see anyone leave, and come back saying GODDAMNED GPFS
Neither did i.

I decided I should update this, as I haven't given any update since March, sorry 'bout that.

I did a lot of experiments with some speedhack fixes, also with TimeDilation. Even though it does work in general, it brings too many downsides to implement into ANNA. I noticed that certain renderer settings conflict with this, and also solutions such as Kentie's DX launcher have issues under certain conditions (warping etc). Also, the speedhack fix is in general not for actual speedhacking, as the speedhacking used in practice - according to rumors - is not activated by default/permanently, but bound to a key/mouse button, which makes it active only temporarily, and any "fix" cannot act fast enough to prevent that.

Actual speedhacking can only be prevented when the client can no longer control/influence important timings such as firerate, but we currently are not able to supply a stable solution for that.

As for clients with adjusted timings due to their configuration (cpu speeds and such) can be detected and then be informed and/or forced to install programs to fix the issue. It needs to be investigated if Kentie's DX launcher is enough to fix the issues. Only downside to this, is that players can find it too obtrusive or scary to install programs on request of a server.

As for the rest of ANNA / EMMA: A lot of improvements have been made, and EMMA is becoming more and more powerful. It's recently become possible to capture commands that don't exist (Unrecognized command) and forward it to EMMA, so modules/mutators can create commands that don't require "mutate <command>" anymore.

Great to see you on the case again, we all need inactivity at some point.

Alexander wrote: Actual speedhacking can only be prevented when the client can no longer control/influence important timings such as firerate, but we currently are not able to supply a stable solution for that.

That sounds final, like you need the source code or something else?

Alexander wrote: It needs to be investigated if Kentie's DX launcher is enough to fix the issues. Only downside to this, is that players can find it too obtrusive or scary to install programs on request of a server.

Do you mean, when joining a server, connection would fail and message would tell player to download somewhere, or the server would offer a yes/no install and then the server would install, sorry I'm trying to visualize that process.

I'm thinking that Kentie is well-recommended by general DX people and that, for something important such as a fix like this, maybe EM and other people are going to blog it and band it about. If the FB group and everyone DXMP could get enough retired players back at the same time to check out the new fix and a clan war / competition season, then screenshot the amount of players on serverlist and so on, take that to Steam or wherever people buy DX1 these days and then at least you would have a dribble of players trying out DXMP each month. It's exciting stuff, good luck Alex!

And then charge EM thousands of Euros for fixing their old game which they are still selling