From 35536f5060528b5b8f9ab6fdeae1398b57c5e05e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Joseph Carter Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 07:38:22 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] SotC update --- state.html | 182 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 126 insertions(+), 56 deletions(-) diff --git a/state.html b/state.html index f836b44..81d0d01 100644 --- a/state.html +++ b/state.html @@ -1,63 +1,133 @@ -

Palisade's away for a bit. He should be back sooner or later but - until then things are a bit muddled---sometimes life doesn't leave - us with the opportunity to prepare for a need to become scarce for - awhile. Since the show must go on regardless, the project's core - coders have been picking up some of the administrative tasks 'till - he gets back. Bear with us, it ain't exactly our department. +

The State of the Code address is a not-frequenetly-enough updated + article written by Knghtbrd + primarily for QuakeForge developers and other people who consider + themselves to be knee deep in the code, whether they happen to be + writing it or just testing it. What you won't find here is a lot of + the fluff news that tells the casual onlooker that the project is + actually doing stuff without really telling you what the state of + things are. -

This update will probably not be as frequent as many of you might - want. I'm going to stick to development issues mostly, but I'll - cover them in detail. Usually after the fact. But it will be - updated. +

No attempt will be made to soften technical issues so anyone can + understand them. If you want to really know what's going on, you + probably don't want details left out because they might not make a + whole lot of sense to a non-coder. Feedback is always welcome. So + are corrections if they're necessary - contrary popular (with him) + belief, Knghtbrd has in fact been known to be wrong sometimes. He + isn't afraid to admit it either (most of the time..) -

How stable is stable?

-

Pretty damned stable from what I'm hearing, unless you run win32. - Sorry about that, I don't do windoze so it didn't get tested. I - have and will apply pretty soon a fix for that. Look for 0.1.2 to - be released. Want a release date? Tough, I know better than to - offer you one. We'll make sure it gets spammed to the usual sites - when it's ready believe me. +

How are things going? Your SotC update is late again.

+

Yeah yeah, I know. Okay, first the quick news: Palisade is + back. The website is still under construction but it got a lot + easier to construct since now it updates immediately after a CVS + commit. With Palisade back, it seems that everyone who planned to + vote on the logos has now done so and we should hopefully have a + result soon. -

If you have a patch for something you want to go in to stable, - send it to me! Now's the time to do it. I have patches for the - cache mismatch bug planned. Our newest win32 coder, Tonik, has a - fix for the win32 stuff in my inbox right now. +

I promised I would keep the crap not related to the technical + aspects of the project short and at the top where they were easy to + skip, but a very important issue needs to be discussed whether it + fits the usual content of this page or not. Here it is: + +

Will QuakeForge be able to run Mega2k?

+

How many poeple can ask that in two weeks' time? I lost count, + but there were a lot of inquiries. Unfortunately, I have bad news + for you. MegaTF says they're quite loyal to QuakeLives, despite any + legal or other problems the engine team has had or may have in the + future. Ambush says on his radio show that he hopes all of the + engines will support MegaTF though, so we didn't really expect any + problems. + +

I've been trying for several weeks now to establish a regular + dialogue with Ambush, but people close to the project have told me + that most likely my emails wouldn't be seen, much less answered. So + I mentioned something about trying to connect with him durring or + after the 17 March 2000 MegaPhone show. Several other people from + the team as well as from other teams came as well to help show the + players of MegaTF that indeed we are serious about supporting the + mod fully. + +

Things remained civil until some of the QuakeLives guys came in, + and things started falling apart then. Attempts to calm the fires + weren't terribly successful until not long before the show's start. + Things remained sane throughout most of the show. Ambush asked for + another small feature to be added durring the show (the console + version string gets in the way and he'd like to get rid of it) and I + wrote and committed the feature he asked for on the spot. + +

Fires started burning again shortly after the show ended. I'm + not unsurprised, but eventually I did manage to wind up talking with + DyerMaker out of the view of the main channel so there was actually + a chance of talking. The results? I am now aware that MegaTF's + loyalty to QuakeLives extends as far as deliberately shutting out + any engine but QuakeLives from being able to run Mega2k. They've + decided that since Slade will not take part in creating an open and + secure standard for all engines, they can only support his. In + order to do that and do it well, they have to ensure that we can't + run Mega2k. Nothing personal against QuakeForge or anything, it's + just how the politics have played out. + +

So from where I'm sitting, it looks like Ambush isn't interested + in other projects and engines supporting MegaTF. Or at least, he's + only interested in seeing QuakeLives-endorsed projects support + MegaTF. Nothing personal and no offense intended toward us, but + they seem to be intending whether they say so or not to be + exclusively QuakeLives. + +

Well, nothing personal, but I have no intention of playing these + silly one-must-win-and-everyone-else-must-lose games. I'm quite + sick of them by now - but I'm surprised nobody else seems to be. + We'll do the best we can to support Mega2k whether they want it or + not. Why? For one, some of us play it. For another, and more + importantly, many of YOU play it. I lost count somewhere + not far before 150 people who have asked in recent weeks if + QuakeForge intended to support Mega2k's new features because you + don't run win32 and aren't interested in starting. Yes we + will. It may not happen until after Mega2k's release if the needed + information to do so is going to be withheld from us, but you better + believe it will happen. + +

Am I being a bit harsh here? Quite possibly. As I write this, + it is now merely 24 hours after what we can all agree was a rough + night for a lot of people. From my perspective, it looks like + MegaTF is refusing to allow Mega2k to run on anything but QL dispite + Ambush saying he wants all the engines to be able to run it and to + work together or interoperability standards. -

How unstable is unstable?

+

It seems that's what's going on here, but that doesn't mean it is + what's happening. Chances for misunderstandings have not been + infrequent and it's not unlikely that MegaTF would be absolutely + thrilled to see a project dedicated to compatibility and open + standards like QuakeForge working to make sure not only that we + support Mega2k, but that every project out there can. And even more + importantly, that the user doesn't have to worry about whether or + not project foo's client is going to work with project bar's server. -

Well, dispite some problems with COM_Parse() that are screwing - with QW, unstable works rather nicely. taniwha is working on it, - should be fixed soon. - -

raptor has been playing with volfog again and has it replacing - the water brush for testing purposes. Give Necropolis a very nifty - effect by grabbing yourself a watervis'd map and trying it out. - raptor recommends r_wateralpha .3, r_volfog .0009, and r_waterripple - 5. Be forewarned that the volfog code currently uses the stencil - buffer which is almost guaranteed to not be hardware accellerated. - Expect a FPS drop. Using the stencil buffer is really not a good - idea and raptor will fix it if I don't first. He's got other visual - toys in mind too. +

If that's the case, then all of the above is essentially moot. + We'll do our best to make sure we support Mega2k right out of the + archive the moment it and that whatever it takes to make sure it + does work has already been made available for and incorporated into + every single project we can find, whether they're affiliated with us + or with QSG or MegaTF or the abominable snowman or not. Lack of + standards can only hurt the game. Since that's obviously a very bad + thing, hell yeah we'll do everything we can to keep it from + happening. -

We've decided it's time to kill the UQUAKE and QUAKEWORLD defines - in common. Some of them won't go away, but many of them will. And - soon. This brings us one step closer to a single unified game. - Before that can happen though, we need to be able to build a UQuake - dedicated server. Remember unixded? Of course you don't, it's - ancient and it sucked. Well anyway, it needs to be able to be built - and used once again so we have a point of reference for putting a - server inside the QW clients. These two things are the last major - hurtles to a unified game and tree. Everyone is encouraged to help, - whether they're actually part of the project or not. - -

Standardize this!

- -

QuakeForge has joined the QE.. uh, right. QuakeForge has joined - the QSG mailing list to hash out standards with other projects. - We've generally agreed that we've all gotten a few nifty features - implemented while we've been getting used to the new codebase (and - in QF's case, rewriting it in the process!) We're just about at the - point that we're starting to talk about where to go from this point - to establish and maintain working standards. More news on that will - become available as soon as we figure it out for ourselves. +

So what are you, the players of MegaTF who don't want to be tied + to a single engine and a single operating system, supposed to do + about any of this? Make some noise! And I don't mean go around + accusing MegaTF and QuakeLives of trying to quash all the other + engines either---that's the wrong kind noise to be making. It also + is quite likely not true. The noise you should be making is for + Mega2k to run on your preferred engine. And I do realize for a lot + of you, the engine you prefer happens to be the only one that even + runs on your platform. If that's the case, make sure you're heard! + You can write to me until the cows come home but I'm not the one who + needs to hear from you! +

The actual technical stuff

+

If you're still here after all of that, I'm impressed. Release + of 0.1.2 hasn't happened yet, but could really anytime now. Mostly + I have just had other issues on my mind. Plus I don't want to give + too much false hope here, but I really think a release of 0.2.0 + isn't all that far off. I've been focusing my efforts in that + direction.