Our ReVolt Pub

EDIT: RV House has been released and this topic will be added with news of releases etc.... below is the original message for reference.

Hi,

I've been creating a Re-Volt specific multiplayer lobby program that I hope can replace GameSpy for revolters soon. It's kind of a part of my university final thesis.

Now I would need some people willing to help me test it. There's two important reasons for beta testing it:

1. I need people to tell me what is needed to add to the program to make it good enough for you to switch from GameSpy. The program is very simple at the moment, having only the features that I consider essential, others probably need more features that should be implemented before releasing.

2. Testing the general operation. I've been able to do only quite limited testing because it's hard to test with one or two people how well it works. Also I want it to work for everyone that can play Re-Volt in GameSpy, so all kinds of hardware/software should be tested before releasing.

The advantages of having our own Re-Volt lobby program are numerous, but here's some:

- Nevermore will it happen that we find out we don't have a place to play Re-Volt (remember what happened when Zone dropping Re-Volt support?)
- No advertises
- We can make Re-Volt specific features. For example how about some RV League support, say displaying the current rank for every user?
- I will be releasing the sources, so more people than only me can eventually contribute (all in all it contains some 30000 lines of C++ code, so getting into it fully requires some time)
- Maybe can provide different translations in the future. If there's big demand to for example French translation, that can be done if someone volunteers to do the translation.

Currently the program includes following features:
- Game host can set directly in the program the number of laps, players, and pickups without having to go to Re-Volt.
- 12 players from lobby without IP game! (this must be tested though)
- No more need for passing IP's if game failed to launch. Just click an icon to try again connecting to the host.
- Password protected games possible.
- Provides a combination of lobby server (currently on my linux machine) and Peer-2-Peer technologies to ensure maximum connectivity. This means in plain english, that the program works without any server at all, so if my lobby server has crashed (like GameSpy's servers have many times done) we can still get into the lobby and play.

If you're willing to help, please contact me by replying to this post or e-mailing me at:
ajalkane at gmail dot com

I would be happy to assist.
Just arranged a time, and direct us to a download link.
Is there some form of chatroom incorporated in this utility ?

Thanks Manmountain.

There is indeed a chat room... it is in essence quite a lot like GameSpy or the old Zone, but currently much more primitive. Bear with me on that, and give feedback what needs to be added / changed.

There's been preliminary talk that saturday would be a good day to test. I'm all for testing today too if enough people are willing to try it.

I'll put the download out here in public so it's possible to have a general look and give suggestions:

* link removed, there's real download available *

Beware, it's primitive... that's why I want opinions what kind of things should be added.

One more thing: at the moment it uses the same login as RVZT, so if are registered there the same user id works. You can easily register from the program too though.

If it crashes or there's other peculiar problems, please send me the files found from the "log" directory (found where the program was installed)

If someone uses Jabber Instant Messaging system (such as GoogleTalk), I can be usually reached instantly from ajalkane at jabber dot org.

Im in and up for testing, I might not be able to tonight but Sat is a pos.

What time tonight and I will try and make it.

Josh

piN @ Feb 22 2006, 07:32 PM wrote: Im in and up for testing, I might not be able to tonight but Sat is a pos.

What time tonight and I will try and make it.

Josh

Cool thing Josh... let's make saturday the day as I think we can get a bit more people to come by then.

How about at 6 pm french time since that's good for Harry Plotter? That's 5 pm in GMT time.

Count me in dudes! GameSpy doesn't work well for me anyways. A server for ReVolters only is a pretty cool idea. (Let's hope I can get my new car done by then )

How about at 6 pm french time since that's good for Harry Plotter? That's 5 pm in GMT time.

Arto,

I wont be back from a football match untill 6 - 6.30 GMT so if you guys want to get started I can join in then.

I think this is a great idea and look forward to trying it out, hope I can get with you on Sat.

Josh

OK I have loaded up the software and it all seems to work I will be online for a bit at 11pm GMT if anyone wants to try it.

My PC Spec is

P4, 3Ghz 1gig ram
XP pro with SP2
Nvidia GEForce 6600 Graphices
REVOLT works fine both on GS and solo

If that helps with the testing data

Josh - piN

piN @ Feb 23 2006, 09:52 PM wrote: OK I have loaded up the software and it all seems to work I will be online for a bit at 11pm GMT if anyone wants to try it.

It's a little late for me (1am), but I'll be there if I'm awake.

If you can join 6-6.30 GMT that's cool.

I will be there.

Also I have noticed on the programme that at the bottom of the page there is a line which says DHT could not update contact nodes dont know if thats going to be a problem

Josh

piN @ Feb 24 2006, 07:45 PM wrote: I will be there.

Also I have noticed on the programme that at the bottom of the page there is a line which says DHT could not update contact nodes dont know if thats going to be a problem

Josh

It won't be a problem. But it's interesting. Might be your firewall is blocking it's access to the web site?

Might be, I will look at the FW before I join in.

See you later

Josh

Download the latest version here :
http://revolt.speedweek.net/dload/tools ... up_051.exe
Come join us now!

A big thank you to all who came to help with testing. I received lots of good information about what to improve and what features would be needed. Many bugs unearthed too .

I will try to address the bugs next week and maybe add some features that were asked too. I'll make a post soon about what ideas have come already and ppl can add more ideas there then too.

I'm listing here the things that are planned to be done to RV House, for reference to me and others. If you have some ideas you'd like to have please post them. Also if you think some feature is important and you'd like it to be implemented earlier then do tell.

A list of things to do to the next beta:
- Fix crashing bugs
- Make a fix to the Manmountain bug (slow FPS in game)

A list of things to do to the beta after that:
- Fix Jumex multiple names bug. This happens with people who are behind NAT (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_ad ... ranslation). To cut the long story short, unfortunately when I fix this bug the version will be incompatible with the RV House versions before it.
- Ping for users. This is actually a part of the solution for the Jumex multiple names bug, so its a good idea to implement here.

After those are done and if things are stabile I plan the following:
- Support for different translations of the program
- Work to have the sources somewhere for download

Then here's a list of things that I'm planning to do or some possible features people have suggested. These are long term plans and some of the features require lots of work so won't be coming any time soon. If you have more ideas let me know by posting here or telling me in Spy/House.

- Grouping of users by their status (Playing/Chatting/Away/In room)
- Clickable links in the chat
- Showing position in RV League (for this to work user name in RV House must match user name in RVLeague web site)
- Configuring the colours to use (for example the chat background)
- Host can select which custom tracks to race and others can click if they want to download the tracks. I wonder if Track Manager, which has a similar feature, can be used to implement this faster.
- RV news from different sites (league, new tracks/cars etc.)
- Improve looks
- Private messages
- Icons side on the nick (like in spy) with diferent states
- Ping of the users
- Sound support (when anyone says your nick, when launch, etc)
- Possibility to launch revolt with parameters (like -window, -fps, etc) ? Have to look if possible.
- Splash screen?
- User profile (Country, Name, Birhtday...)
- Configuring if all in one window like in GameSpy?
- Checking if new versions available

About the sources - I'm not in a hurry to release the sources until the beta is done. But if someone wants them I will make it a priority to release them in some form next week. Especially if someone wants to get into improving the app . Some things in the application require quite a lot of time to get into, but for example improving the GUI is quite easy to get into if you know C++.

Arto,

I think you have covered all of the points I was going to make, I think that when RV house is more stable and you are happy that the bugs are sorted to make it look better would be nice, however the project I think is great and if its to much work to make it look better then I can understand that the nuts & bolts of the thing is more important.

Josh

Ok just had an idea, how about a notice board type thing, for example, I open up RV House and no one is on, but the notice board says there will be a RV league event on Tuesday (or whatever) that way I can make sure to be on then.

Josh

2 Ideas :

-Add some links to most frequented sites
-Try to let the room windows in the same window, like in Gamespy, so that to switch you just have to click on the room button, and so on...

Hope you've understand, I apply I speak very bad in this message.... :S

piN @ Feb 26 2006, 08:13 PM wrote: I think you have covered all of the points I was going to make, I think that when RV house is more stable and you are happy that the bugs are sorted to make it look better would be nice, however the project I think is great and if its to much work to make it look better then I can understand that the nuts & bolts of the thing is more important.

I definitely agree with making it look better once it's stable and the most important features are in place. I tend to not care much about visuals, so the more people request stuff like that the sooner I start taking some action.

There's of course the problem that I'm not really graphics oriented, so I might have hard time figuring just how to make it better (nor can I draw). But perhaps when the time is ripe people can let me know the specifics they'd like improved.

Ok just had an idea, how about a notice board type thing, for example, I open up RV House and no one is on, but the notice board says there will be a RV league event on Tuesday (or whatever) that way I can make sure to be on then.

Yes, good idea. Basically how this would work would to have a sort of "bot" like the ChatMonitor in GameSpy that would send announcement once it saw a user coming in.

-Add some links to most frequented sites

Good idea, could be done to the About button. It has to be kept relatively small list, with maybe a link to a bigger list of links. Any ideas what would be essential links? I'm thinking something like this:

rvleague.free.fr
revolt.speedweek.net
www.rvtt.com

Something else?

-Try to let the room windows in the same window, like in Gamespy, so that to switch you just have to click on the room button, and so on...

I personally dislike having everything in one window. But this will get done if many people prefer that over having different windows. Note however that on the coming version the room window is always on top of main chat window so maybe that solves some of your worries?

arto @ Feb 27 2006, 06:30 AM wrote: Note however that on the coming version the room window is always on top of main chat window so maybe that solves some of your worries?

Mmh maybe it would be better...
What about an option to let people chose in the program itself ?

Thanks to RVHouse there is now a one click solution for a meeting place, but the problem still lies with timing.
Josh's notice board idea sounds good, but we still need something to tell us the timing relative to our own location.
We need an agreed regular time slot that is reasonable to most, to help get a productive racing schedual. Basically we need to try and relaunch the League, maybe (and it's only a suggestion) the scoring needs to be tweaked to make it more even for lesser drivers, as the 'Lantern Rouge' just doesn't do it for me,
Dam that ReVolt for being so Globaly popular,

And once perfected (or as good as it gets) we need to promote RVHouse and the regular timing slots across every possible interested gaming/sim/racing site and forum, not just within the RV comunity.

Could I suggest a link to the Frappr - ReVolt page, as this will give everyone an idea of where people are and who may be availabe for racing.

Of cause it's good to try and implement ideas and suggestions, but the ease of use and simplicity of the program must remain a priority, IMO, that's what puts some people off Gamespy.

The implemented instant download and install of an unknown track sounds like a really good idea, as many a race has been stalled or dropped due to missing tracks. I would make this a priority add on. If cd's trackmanager could be implemeted in some way, or if cd could help in creating this function, maybe ?

Killer Wheels @ Feb 27 2006, 05:25 PM wrote:

arto @ Feb 27 2006, 06:30 AM wrote: Note however that on the coming version the room window is always on top of main chat window so maybe that solves some of your worries?

What about an option to let people chose in the program itself ?

Sure, why not. I can't promise it'd be happening very soon though since there is so much to do and providing alternatives to already working solutions have to take a backseat in this kind of situation. But if it's reasonably doable I could see that happening!

Just in time for the cup a new version! I have fixed a number of bugs that could have caused the crashing that's been seen, and improved it generally. Also ADX has done some great icons so it looks now a lot better. I'm sure ADX can and will help in the future too to make it better looking.

Download here: http://revolt.speedweek.net/dload/tools ... p_0521.exe

The full change log is here:

Version 0.521 beta (02.03.2006)
- Fixed some crash causing bugs: one that happened when joining,
one that could happen when new players joined.
- Fixed the Jumex bug (multiple names displayed)
- Fixed password bug
- Fixed one crash causing bug from DHT lib
- New icons
- Shows in users list if user is in room or creating room
- User pop-up shows also if creating a room
- A small list of some big Re-Volt sites in the info
dialog

Nice,

We testing this Saturday ? I can do any time I think.

Josh - piN

piN @ Mar 3 2006, 03:36 PM wrote: Nice,

We testing this Saturday ? I can do any time I think.

Josh - piN

Unfortunately I can't be around for testing on saturday since I have to go to humppa concert (http://www.humppa.com/index_eng.php). So I'm going to be quite dizzy the whole day and feeling bad on sunday.

But the servers are on of course. There's a couple of bugs that cause RV House crash still, so if anyone experiences that please before starting RV House again copy the files at the folder
C:\Program Files\RV House\log

and send them to me and I will try figuring out what to do.

One more note before sending me the files: it might be a good idea to do a search and replace in the files for your password because RV House still logs them at the start when it's initializing and logging in. Not that I would look at them but it's a good precaution if you're feeling paranoid.

me ? paranoid! I'm not paranoid... am I your talking about me aren't you..eh ? ..eh ?

A new version is out! I recommend everyone to download as it should be much more stable than previous versions:

* link removed *

Version 0.53 beta
- Fixed many crash causing bugs
- Improved the decentralized operation
- When playing, decentralized searching of new players
is done less frequently (hopefully fixes FPS problems
some users experience)
- Displays in user tooltip if the user's connection is
NATted, and the connectivity status of decentralized and
centralized
- Indicates with colors the connectivity status of users.
(green=connected to centralized, light blue=connected to
decentralized, dark blue=connected to both, b
rownish=user behind NAT)
- Some URLs are clickable (not in chat)
- Automatically detects newest version and provides a link
to download.

For those that don't for some reason get update notifications directly from RV House, there's a new version out that fixes one of the worst memory corruption problems causing crashes:

* link removed *

Now there is a Linux version of RV House available since at least Tux wanted one. Of course you can not play RV there since it doesn't run in Linux, but at least people who use Linux can come in have a chat and if they feel like it, boot to Windows for some racing .

I don't expect to be compiling a Linux version of every RV House version, nor do I intend to put a effort into the Linux version. But every now and then I will make a new Linux version available, at least as long as there is demand. And of course the sources to the whole thing will hopefully soon be available so everyone who has the energy can do what they like about the Linux version .

Grab it from here:

www.rvhouse.net

Just a few more suggestions, not sure if they've been said or can be applied.

1) Give the program the ability to steel focus or at least indicate in the task bar when there is something new being said in the chat window. Something similar to mIRC.

2) A switchable option to allow the program to be either always on top or not.

3) Again similar to mIRC, is it possible to have a menu option to allow users to send each other files directly.

1) Give the program the ability to steel focus or at least indicate in the task bar when there is something new being said in the chat window. Something similar to mIRC.

2) A switchable option to allow the program to be either always on top or not.

These are easy to implement, but like you said they must be an option. I will do these when I have time to implement a proper Settings window for RV House.

3) Again similar to mIRC, is it possible to have a menu option to allow users to send each other files directly.

It's possible, but my personal opinion is this: I like to keep things lean and simple. Anything that's not integral to RV House's mission (Re-Volt online racing) should not be in. So I doubt I will be building file sharing to RV House.

On the other hand, I very well might build support for sharing of files easily with another program. You'll understand better how that could work once you see how Custom Tracks sharing works using cd09's Track Manager.

If there is need for that it will be done.

This is hopefully the last beta and unless major problems arise, next week a non-beta release is done.

NOTE: You must download the new version, the old version is incompatible and there is no server anymore for it!

The major feature of the new version is ability to share custom tracks with CD's Track Manager. You need at least version 1.5.0 which is soon available if not already.

Also an important thing, RV House has a web-site. Click here to find it. There's basic instructions and firewall settings. Note that the new version uses slightly different ports.

One more important thing, all the sources to the program are finally downloadable, see the web-site.

There is no linux version yet of the new version, but I will make one available soon.

The full change log:
- Rewrite of decentralized communication to support NAT better.
- Support for NAT keepalive in centralized communication.
- Now when user is exiting, sends a notification packet
- Support for sharing tracks using Track Manager
- Shows how many minutes user has been playing or away
- Version update window lists new features from used version to current version

This is great!
You did it!
This version allows me to play whitout modifing my port configuration or my antivirus.

Be carfull guys the worse revolt player is now Online!!

Great to hear you've finally have it working, Luke!

See you on the track, practice makes perfect as hard as it is to believe at first playing against those seasoned racers .

greetings to the revolt world,
this is cool arto! many thanks for your time and work. who else is risponsible for this project? i got the connection date from my new (and temporary) net provider in scotland, so 2 weeks after today i can play online (probably). this revolt house looks so great, im looking forward to play with all of my ancient cavemen buddys .
see you on the track.

human caveman

human @ Apr 7 2006, 11:08 AM wrote: greetings to the revolt world,
this is cool arto! many thanks for your time and work. who else is risponsible for this project? i got the connection date from my new (and temporary) net provider in scotland, so 2 weeks after today i can play online (probably). this revolt house looks so great, im looking forward to play with all of my ancient cavemen buddys .
see you on the track.

human caveman

many thanks for your time and work. who else is risponsible for this project?

Thanks... several people have helped me in one way or the other. CD for making Track Manager to support RV House, ADX for making much nicer icons and a good web-site template, Pigasque for the excellent icon... and definitely not the least the Re-Volt community who has patiently tested the program and reported to me the errors.

So it's a community effort, and while I've been doing all of the coding so far, I hope in the future others can get into it too when I run out of steam .

i got the connection date from my new (and temporary) net provider in scotland, so 2 weeks after today i can play online (probably).

Great to hear. You've been gone without a net far too long. Too bad you don't get the net fast enough to take part in the Hil cup.

I only have 2 complaints.

1) when your in game and someone trys to join your passworded room, and gets wrong password given, it boots you to rv house when your in the middle of racing. This also happends when "room is full" happends. - Very annoying.

2) sometimes chat scroll stops scrolling and I miss what people are trying to say.

and also when exiting I / we get a RV house has generated errors, report or not to microsoft.

1) when your in game and someone trys to join your passworded room, and gets wrong password given, it boots you to rv house when your in the middle of racing. This also happends when "room is full" happends. - Very annoying.

That is quite interesting, I couldn't replicate it with a quick try... let me make sure that I understand what happens so I can try finding the fault:
- you host a password protected game
- someone tries joining, but writes wrong password
- you, even as the host, get a window up saying something like "Wrong password"

Is that what happens?

2) sometimes chat scroll stops scrolling and I miss what people are trying to say.

There is a feature in the chat scrolling, that if you have scrolled up to see what was said previously it won't automatically scroll down. This is so that you can read what was said without interruptions. But the scrolling will continue again when you drag the scroll bar to bottom.

Is this what happens or is it something else?

and also when exiting I / we get a RV house has generated errors, report or not to microsoft.

Not in version 0.61.0 (released yesterday) I presume.

I have the same experiences ...

Sometimes it happens that :
Return to windows in the middle of revolt race with a message from RV-House
"Wrong Password" and/or "Room is Full" even if I'm not the host

I can continue if I click on revolt tab in task bar ...

Well!
I've downloaded and installed the latest version, and sorry to say, it'worse than the last for me.
I've got the lag back when I run RV, even in single player mode.
Do I need to disable some logging function or something ?

The scroll feature actully stops sometimes even if I dont scroll, but thats not really bad, its the room full / wrong password given boot to rv is bad.

It happends when the room is full and someone trys to join, or if someone try's to join and types in wrong password (when in the game playing) and it switches to the error message and messes me up in game =( (if host that is)

Yes I tried the new version great that exit bug is gone!

I get major lag on my whole system, not just in RV while RVHouse is running, and I still get the occasional exit bug from kernel.32 ?
I think I'll switch back to the last version.

Hey,

I'm not really sure I know exactly why that password bug happens, but I will look into it. I'm pretty sure it's easy enough to fix.

The 100% CPU usage problem I'm not too sure about what to do... it seems it's related to one of the libraries I use. I had to go back to using an older version of the library for the new RV House since the one I used previously was unreliable. To make it worse, it is unreliable in a way that is crucial for my final thesis results. So I'm not sure what to do about it. I will look into it and have asked the author of the library if he knows what can be done.

The debug logging has been disabled in the new version so it is not that...

Btw the scroll thing, if it happens, might be cured by resizing the window a bit.

So for now, would it be OK for me to use the previous release ? as I had very little problem except for the exit error bug.
Will I still be compatible with others ?

Hey its password and room full message that is problem

I have replicated the password/full room problem so it will be definitely fixed to the next release.

The 0.60.0 version will be compatible with the new releases, I tried to put all necessary changes to that version so that there won't be incomptabile version for long time. I will try some configuration options to hopefully make the CPU problem go away. Luckily the problem seems to affect only a small percentage of users. The bad thing is that it makes it harder to fix, as I can't see it in my own machine.

hello community, hello arto
i told to Tiger how to come to House, but after he installed it, every time he launches it after a few seconds it crashes. sorry for this sad report, could you help to tiger (and me as his good friend) to fix this? its the newest version, 0.61. Tig has winxp.
greetings,
human

hmm, ok, so my post is added by the admin to this topic. i understand. i didnt know that this thing happend with others. ok, if you have a solution, i would be grateful.
greetings from scotland,
human

Hi,

I do not know why that happens, haven't heard others having such problems with 0.61. It would be helpful if your friend sent me the log file after that has happened.

To do that please do:

- Before starting RV House open conf/rvhouse.ini from the directory where you installed RV House
- Change from [log] section to debug=1
- Start RV House
- When it crashes send me the file from log/rvhouse.log before starting RV House again.

Maybe from the log file I can see what is wrong and fix it as soon as possible.

hey arto
ok, thanks, i will tell him to do this.
long live pancakes,
human