BZ2 1.3.6.3d patch - OPEN BETA & TESTING

[GSH]

Download this and unpack over your existing 1.3.6.3 install's exe. This is a quick patch that fixes RakNet matchmaking, re-enables fbspir ordnance, and a few other minor changes.

If you can, please install and test this. At some point, I'll make a 1.3.6.4 full build installer. Your best chance of having bugs fixed for 1.3.6.4 is to report things on the 1.3.6.3 series. Logfiles -- battlezone.log and chatlog (if enabled) -- are useful. Otherwise, reporting things in a way that makes them happen here is best.

What's changed since the last open testing build:

- Fix for bugzilla #7. Attempts to read in the userprefs file before
starting DirectX. This should get the screen resolution fairly close
to the desired resolution on startup, no dropping to 640x480 for a
second. [NM]

- Fix for bugzilla #514 (moving some fixes from trunk into this branch
first, then folding combined fix back to trunk). Was releasing vertex
buffers a little too early under some high-performance situations,
leading to corruption onscreen. [NM]

- Fix for bugzilla #270. Ground shadows should appear when shadows are
set to medium. [NM]

- Triggers a visual world rebuild asap if a remote player has blinked
or otherwise triggered a visual world issue. [NM]

- "Player has entered the world" should print a little less frequently
and hopefully accurately now. [NM]

- Work on bugzilla #525. This bug has happened before manipulating
this data structure, just replaced it with some modern C++ STL
code. [NM]

- Fix for Bugzilla #15 (pathing forver). Switched pathing code from
floats to doubles, and that seems to have fixed long paths, as
floating point inaccuracies don't crop up quite as much. Once you get
to a float of about 300000, adding 1.0 doesn't quite work as intended.
Thanks to Commando for sticking on this bug. [NM]

-- 1.3.6.3c build

- Work on bugzilla 523. Always recalculate whether joining is possible
before displaying the join game button. [NM]

- Work on late-game resyncs, including a little more on bugzilla #15 &
#520. Made pathing code clean out and reset more data every MP join
and resync, so that ideally things are the same on all machines. Also
cleared temporary calculations from the last path request before doing
a pathing calculation so that the results should be consistent. Also
made it try and clean up any leftover AI & AOI settings. [NM]

- Fix for bugzilla #528. Password column should have (p), (v), (x)
correctly shown once again. [NM]

- Fix for bugzilla #529 - shell/game state of over 250 minutes is
shown as "250+ minutes". [NM]

- Fix for bugzilla #527 - server browser list of games should show DM
subtypes correctly, and MPI type correctly. There's no distinguishing
factor to differentiate ST vs STCTF, so those will show as Strategy.
[NM]

- Move packet loss and throughput stats to RakNet. Packet loss (shown
in the ping column) is what RakNet reports. Game.histogram has one
line of packets out (Sent, Resent and Total, including overhard) and
packets in -- and these four numbers are updated every second. [NM]

-- GSH

[Juggernaut]

Add avast (free) to the list of antivirus programs that block BZ2/Raknet servers from appearing (AVG, Avira, Norton are known to have this issue too). It doesn't seem to affect my ability to host, only the ability to see any games listed. This will be a big problem with people wanting to get back into this game not being able to see any servers listed until they disable their AV program (or add a BZ2 exception). Some had to either disable their AV or direct IP join my game to get in.

Tested a few games and multiplayer seems to be much better. Quits, rejoins didn't cause any apparent re-synchs that lagged out the game.

Not sure if this is related to the patch or not, but I notice AI having a much harder time attacking the appropriate target. It seems like if they are engaged in any sort of way by the enemy they will often ignore my orders to hold, attack other targets etc.

I'll try and test more tonight, hopefully w/ a 5v5 strat or two.

[Zero Angel]

Adding bzone.exe to the exception for Avast web shields worked for me. However it may not be so obvious to others how to do it, and I do not believe that adding an exception for Avira works according to Mauler_Bait.

[Huib-Bloodstone]

BZ II needs a good guide to do this.

[TwinShadow]

There's guides all over the net on port forwarding. You think people are going to be any smarter to add exceptions into a firewall/antivirus program? I deal with those types of people all the time.. have to write down very, very specific instructions or they're like "Huh? Where do I go after I hit the Windows logo on the bottom left?"

Besides, there are guides to do this already, its called Google. Just substitute the bzone.exe instead of whatever.exe an original guide says.

[GSH]

We can't yet tell if it is a firewall interfering, or some sort of separate 'web security' nonsense that these specific antivirus programs are running.

-- GSH

[Cirno]

Looking in Network Manager, avast's web shield seems to be stopping bzone.exe from even sending the packets to get the match info - I'm not quite sure why. If there's any way I could debug this further, I'd be glad to.

[Zero Angel]

A few weeks ago, I used a program called Wireshark to analyze the contents of the transmitted packets. Comparing all UPNP-related packets when Avast was on with UPNP-related packets when Avast was disabled. Avast's web shield to some degree changes the UPNP information in the packets slightly, I think by stripping out one identifier from the packets (A UPNP address). I didn't save the information but that's what I noticed when I did analyze it.

For practical purposes, adding bzone.exe to the exception list on Avast's Web Shield module allowed me to see games so I didn't really pursue the matter any further.

[mase]

What is the game id of battlezone in raknet?