Birgers/JB's WinRott Port Thread Part 2

[ADM]

Continuation of old thread due to being too large:
http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5954

WinRott Site:
http://home14.inet.tele.dk/Bna-Info/RecNews.htm

WinRott Download:
http://home14.inet.tele.dk/Bna-Info/DL_WinROTT.htm

[Crezzy_man]

Is there any chance of including a midi device selection option? At the moment you can only listen to the MIDI with the Microsoft Synthesizer.

[jbailey]

You can got to 'settings' 'select sound driver' and go from there (see screen
shot).

[Crezzy_man]

whenever I try to use any of the [Emulated] sound drivers (pretty much whichever is not the Microsoft Synthesizer), WinRott crashes and I get an Error - Could not GUID_Download. Any ideas?

[jbailey]

Did you click on 'use soundfix' option at the bottom the audio driver
selection screen? If that doesn't work there is a new version (1.40) of
winrottgl available...

:)

[NightFright]

Is there a changelog? I just noticed there's a new binary, so I updated the mirror build on my site.

[jbailey]

You can now add your own Hires GFX up tp 1024x1024 pixels or more.
(But be aware, the game eats memory like candy when you are usings that hires)
MP3 support.
BOTS added.
Window play.
Grab mouse.
Random actors.
Respawn actors.(you can now play forever!!!)
Random maps. (you can now play forever!!!)
UseGFX via UseExternalGFX.
Soften GFX. (this takes a LOOONNNGGG time, so be patient)
ExtractGFX.

a new switch:

NoActors: if you want to checkout the map without any disturbance.

The join in multiplayer is still not running stable.
I am beging to have a clue whats wrong but my second (older pc) has crashed so for the moment I am not able to make code in the multiplayer busniess.
I think it has some thing to do with the other players still playing while joining, perhaps
is my info for the new player allready to old when joing or something.

Please send bugs reports to me at bna@post10.tele.dk

Is there a multiplayer expert out there I would like to hear from him (or her).

[BrotherJohn]

Finally I can get the game running with the new version of WinRottGL! Thanks!

But whenever I activate "Music On" in the Settings an start the game or only try to "Select Sound Driver" the WinRottGL exe crashes.

I don't have probs with any other software/game with music....

[jbailey]

Delete your *.rot config files (back them up first if you wish), and re-run the
game....

:)

[BrotherJohn]

Thanks, jbailey, but that does not change anything. :(

As soon as I activate "Select Sound Driver" in the setup or start the game (right after "Starting DirectMusic") it crashes...

When I deactivate "Music On" I can run the game.

[jbailey]

Please post your winrott.dbg file.

[BrotherJohn]

With pleasure, but I fear it will not help...

WinRottGL.dbg:
Platform is Windows NT ,Version 5.01
Build 2600

Platform is Windows NT Version 5.01 Build 2600
Starting WinRottGL version 1.40 FULL VERSION
Programmed by Jared Stafford & Birger N. Andreasen
Found DARKWAR.WAD
Found DARKWAR.RTL
Found DARKWAR.RTC
Found D:\WinRottGL_Full_v1.40\GL\colors.ifo
Found D:\WinRottGL_Full_v1.40\GL\model.ifo
Found D:\WinRottGL_Full_v1.40\GL\trans.ifo
No rott demo files found.

Push 'Run WinRottGL' button to start game

Rott command line parameters =
Starting DirectSound
Starting DirectMusic

[jbailey]

Unfortunatly, there's no info listed, click on your speaker icon in your icon tray
and select 'adjust audio properties', then click on the 'audio' tab, tell me what's
listed as your current audio playbackdevice. Also, run dxdiag )click 'run', then
'dxdiag'), and look at the audio related stuff, make sure no errors are listed.
You can also check to make sure you have the latest drivers for you audio
hardware, 1.40 runs fine on both my p4 with sound blaster live bd, and my
amd 64-bit system with nvidia nforce, one last thing, make sure you have
installed the latest directx runtime files (march). Let me know if any of this
fixes your problem...
Here's one link for the directx runtime:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=2924&file=15&evp=13a19092b4f125241930bd833db42de2

:)

[The Stinger]

How do I highres textures to Winrott? How does it work, which files do I need to edit to point it to the highres texture

[jbailey]

This feature is 'work in progress', I think it's meant for imported hi-res stuff, you
would need a 'rott hi-res mod' to get hi-res in the game, birger has been
working on this for a while, click on my sig and see if there is any new
info posted about this. Sorry I couldn't be more informative...

[The Stinger]

On the site it says "You can now add your own Hires GFX up tp 1024x1024 pixels or more.", can't find any other info about it on the site.

[jbailey]

I'll contact birger about getting more info on this...

[The Stinger]

Alright, thanks jbailey. :)

[BrotherJohn]

Unfortunatly, there's no info listed, click on your speaker icon in your icon tray
and select 'adjust audio properties', then click on the 'audio' tab, tell me what's
listed as your current audio playbackdevice. Also, run dxdiag )click 'run', then
'dxdiag'), and look at the audio related stuff, make sure no errors are listed.
You can also check to make sure you have the latest drivers for you audio
hardware, 1.40 runs fine on both my p4 with sound blaster live bd, and my
amd 64-bit system with nvidia nforce, one last thing, make sure you have
installed the latest directx runtime files (march). Let me know if any of this
fixes your problem...
Here's one link for the directx runtime:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=2924&file=15&evp=13a19092b4f125241930bd833db42de2

:)

I tried all of your suggestions, installed the DirectX runtime, reinstalled the sound card driver. It seems that there is problem with my sound setup though. I have "SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio" and seem to have the newest driver available. When I run dxdiag it reports an 0x80004005 error ("Error:Problem getting extra sound info, result code = 0x80004005 (Generic failure)")
Strange, that only WinRottGL doesn't work, the rest of the applications/games do!

Thanks for your help anyway!

[jbailey]

I can't think of anything else to suggest at the moment other then trying a
different audio bd in your pc, but that means spending money, and it would be
up to you to decide if it's worth it or not. WinrottGL uses current stuff for
audio, if your other games work ok, so should rott, if I think of anything else,
I'll et you know...

:)

[BrotherJohn]

Once again, a big thank you to you, jbailey, for your help!

I'm thinking about buying a new machine in the next months, I hope that will solve the problem! ;)

Until then I still can play with sound and no music (that's more than I could before build 1.40 was released).

[The Stinger]

I was going to suggest reinstalling Windows, that should work or there could be a really small chance that your soundcard is broken, but highly doubtful seeing that other games work ok. Buying a new rig would solve this problem too. ;)

[NightFright]

Even if the WinROTTGL "highres pack" (if you wanna call it like that) is quite rudimentary right now, you might consider giving it a version number. This way you can see when something gets updated (whenever that will happen...). ;) At least ROTT has much less enemies and textures compared to Duke3D, so this project should have a chance of getting finished.

[The Stinger]

Well it has around 3300+, but alot of them are animations for the different enemies.
So that would be cut down if 3d models were made for the enemies, weapons and items.

Edit: I just got an e-mail from birger:

"Start 'winrottgl 1.40' and set the menuitem 'Use external GFX' and start the game.
Now rott will extract all GFX (only if no folder exist) from the game in a new subfolder named 'GFX'.
It might take a couple of minutes to extract all these pictures.

Exit the game and you can now alter all the bmp's in these subfolders with only one
things to caution namely the releation between Height and Width.
It must be the same as the extracted one's, so if you have a 20 x 40 pixel picture you must use
a picture that is 40 x 80, 80 x 160 and so forth."

Ok, so this'll be the start of Rott HRP. :D

[NightFright]

Probably a remake with textures resized by the power of 4 like in Duke3D HRP is in order, i.e. a 64x64 tile would be remade as 256x256. However, I think for wall tiles you should aim for 512x512 wherever possible, it's a decent compromise between quality and size. Skyboxes could be higher res since they are large, presumably 1024x1024.

[The Stinger]

Too bad the graphics can't be higher than 8bit though, mailed birger if hes planning on updating to 16 or 32bit.

[NightFright]

Yeah, 32bit is kind of a must these days. And it allows transparency effects. This is the best square block-based shooter out there, it deserves a good HRP! ;)

[The Stinger]

And the 8bit bmps arn't using the correct trasparent colour. It's using white, so everything that has the same white will be transparent.

[Zztx]

Minor nitpicking:

1) Originally in ROTT, gibbage blood/sparks rocketed outwards at random (but far) distances.
In GLROTT, Eluder/Deluder Triads, Bots, and enemies gib in a short "dome" pattern.
It's simply an aesthetic nitpick and I might've brought it up before, but there it is. It ain't ROTT without a properly functioning EKG mode.

2) "This Causes An Error!" doesn't cause an error anymore! :p

3) Can't skip the "quit game" sounds.

[ufo_warviper]

JBailey, I sent a pretty long e-mail. I don't know if you got it, but here is the update since the last e-mail. I Think I have the resources to alpha/Beta test any updates your team makes to the network code. I could even test cross-platform through WINE on Linux! I am also going to experiment with VMWare player inside of Linux as well. I have heard your plea for getting the networking going on this game. My dad and I have 6 systems of various antiquity. 2 of them are Laptops dedicated to Windows (XP & Vista OS). 2 are desktops dedicated to Fedora 8 Linux. 2 are dual-boot systems with the capability of launching either Windows XP or Linux. , and we are WILlING TO COMMIT these resources to Alpha/Beta testing the network capabilites our old favorite multiplayer game. As far has programming, I've had an introductory Java Course in Spring 2004 and an introductory C++ course in Fall 2004. I was very good at programming with what I knew then, but I am extemely rusty and am going to take another Programming course in the upcoming Fall Semester. Obviously, I am not the expert you were looking for, but I am willing to do anything I can to help out with this objective.


I've been able to get WinRott more or less working well on Linux through WINE. After using Winefile and some DLL overrides and stuff for WINE, I've been able to network A Linux computer\ through WinRottGL crossplatform to a Windows XP laptop (although very unstably)!! I still have more networking tests to do, but I was wondering, does the game typically become unsychronized after 30 seconds to about 2 minutes going Windows to Windows? It's been my dream to see a High Resolution/OpenGL port of ROTT with networking capabilites to work crossplat-form through Windows and Linux. Accomplishing this through WINE would be nice. IF we could compile a Linux Version (call it LinRottGL maybe?) that would be even sweeter.

[jbailey]

Thanks for your efforts!, I've been contacted by a couple of other people about
compiling winrottgl under a linux type environment, but the best I've got is
cygwin for windows at the moment. The net code has been one of the hardest
things to get running properly. Right now were waiting for birger to release the
1.40 source code....

:)

[ufo_warviper]

To JBailley:
So if Birger releases the 1.40 source, will it be theoretically possible to compile it for a Linux Distro like Fedora 8? Also, what packages should I download.. Last of all, does the multiplayer unsychronize as fast between all Windows players as it does between the setup I have now. I haven't been able to test since I've been monkeying around with getting a system back on its feet the past couple of days.

I am willing to commit:
I was reading at Birger had only 2 systems that he was working wtth (one of which is down). I'll gladly help Birger test the multiplayer of machines across all platforms on up to 6 machines. Just send testing procedures and I will do it. A statement of intent for the eventuality of a Linux Native Version (or at least a WINE-compatible) would be more than enough motivation for me. E. I nearly have it WINE compatible with the work I've put in.

Ideas for multiplayer Improvements
Scratch this if this is a really dumb idea. From what I could tell, back in the day, the Duke Nukem 3D multiplayer Network Interface seems like its heavily based on the old ROTT Network Interface. Since Jonof and Eduke32 have a working Netcode based on Duke Nuke3D which is based on ROTT, perhaps the bulk of Jonof's Network Interface could be incorperated as the interface for this port. I realize the terminal commands from these Ports aren't as easy-to-use as the GUI, but once a low-level version is working, then mutliplayer through the GUI could be done. I was thinking since the code is probably very similar, it would be much easier to adapt over to WINROttGL than other opensource NEtcodes.

[jbailey]

I'll contact birger about your idea, the current net code has been a real pain
for birger to try and get working properly...

:)

[Player Lin]

Played the newest version of WinROTTGL v1.4.2...

"Autorun toggle itself when 'player died and restart level' / 'go back game from menu' after deleted all .rot file bug" , "Can't break the quit game sound effects bug" and "sky tile messed up in Automap" still alive in this version...:p


Some new bugs... of course , I deleted those ****ed old .rot files before playing new version... :p
1. At random maps mode...sometimes player can go through some a lot of walls...then game freeze... I can't reproduce this bug again... maybe some random problem happens there...

2.If a sector didn't active before player go in, when player go to that sector, the railings on that sector will disappears until the doors on that sector are all closed...
Screenshots in attachments is the result...

[jbailey]

Hey Player Lin, I sent you a PM...

[Player Lin]

Hey Player Lin, I sent you a PM...

Yeah, I got that build.
But those bugs are still alive...:(

[jbailey]

This is strange, I've never had that problem on my system, I have a general
idea as to the cause, but I'm not sure yet.

[jbailey]

Player lin, you wouldn't have set some stuff in the graphics options would
you? See screenshot

[jbailey]

Bad screenshot, it looked fine when I saved the file... Go to 'settings' then
'graphics settings' and check what you have there...

:)

[Player Lin]

Bad screenshot, it looked fine when I saved the file... Go to 'settings' then
'graphics settings' and check what you have there...

:)

Nothing. None one be selected...

All setting are default.

:(

EDIT : Add a screenshot about my "setting > graphic setting"
I tried old 1.3.4 build and it's works fine. So I think it maybe about v1.4.2's problem...
Change resolution to 320x200, 640x480, 800x600 = the same.

[jbailey]

To ufo_warviper,

I've still not heard anything new on the net code stuff, don't withdraw your offer of help
though, there will be some new news about the net stuff eventually....

[MarkJ]

Hey, good to see you guys are still working on this port.

Just thought I would point out some general issues I have been having with the port (Winrott 2.24 Full):

a) Arrow key reassignment.
For most FPS's I play, I tend to use the left and right arrow keys to strafe left and right (as opposed to looking). Setting up the controls this way in WinRott means that you can no longer use the left and right arrow keys to adjust things like mouse sensitivity, etc, within the configuration menus. You can still use the arrow keys on the numeric keypad, but yeah, just thought it was a bit odd : ).

b) Persistent weapon bobbing.
Sometimes the weapons bobbing animation seems to get stuck, and the weapon/view will continue to bob after you have stopped moving. I havn't been able to reproduce the exact reasons for this, but shooting seems to fix it up.

c) Errors when quitting.
I tend to get errors when quitting from the game. The last one I got was:

The instruction at "0x7379210d" referenced memory at "0x0e0e0f0e". The memory could not be "read". Click on OK to terminate the program

If it makes any difference, I was using a custom RTL when that happened. I will PM you the file if you want a look at it.

d) Map mode
Not so much a bug, but I noticed while playing recently that while the gameplay and everything looks wonderfully reworked and high-res, the map mode still looks exactly as it did on my 486, and horribly dated in comparison to the rest of the port. There may be options for changing the display setting for the map already, but I havn't come across them yet, and it would seem logical that the map defaults to the same resolution as the rest of the game, instead of being stuck in 320x200.

Keep up the good work guys.

[MarkJ]

Oh, and one more thing:

e) Extend pushwall limit.
ROTT seems to have a limit on the number of pushwalls you can have in a given map. Could this limit possibly be extended/removed.

Thanks : )

[Player Lin]

OMG! WinROTTGL v1.4.4 fixed a lot of bugs... (http://home14.inet.tele.dk/Bna-Info/RecNews.htm)

And a very stupid question...
Is WinROTT still update or not?

[jbailey]

As far as I know, winrott hasn't been updated in a long time, only winrottgl is
still seeing active development...

[ewolf]

Is there a way to make heatseeker missiles attract lamps and torches with the Winrottgl port? They seem to do so without Winrottgl, but not with it.

[SirSilentBob]

Is there a way that winrott and winrottgl code can be fixed to allow real hardware midi devices to be used? I have tried the latest versions of both, and when I attempt to use my Sound Canvas SC-55 with a game port, or if I attempt to use my Sound Canvas SC-8850 in usb mode, each time, with both devices and both builds of the game, I get "Error could not guid_download."

It does this weather the "soundfix" box is checked or not. I saw how someone else mentioned this. I tried all of your suggestions that you gave them, however I still get that error. All other games/programs on my computer that use midi work without a hitch, and I am certain that the midi port is not already open. Midi works fine if I use the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth, Microsoft Synthesizer, or any of the on-board midi devices of my soundblaster audigy.

Please, is there anything that can be done to allow external devices to work?

If you try to use the external midi port on your computer, I am pretty certain you might encounter the same error.

If I need to post the contents of any diagnostic files, or beta test any experimental versions of either of the regular or GL versions, I will do so.
I just hate using the crappy microsoft and soundblaster synths when I have ones which sound so much better!

[Darkman 4]

In Shareware GLROTT, I can't get past this point. There's an invisible wall that prevents me from getting under the pads. Is this problem related to GLROTT?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v132/Ziron/rottprob.png

[tommy-vercetti]

As far as I know, winrott hasn't been updated in a long time, only winrottgl is
still seeing active development...

Hey jbailey, do you still visit the rott boards at bizhat.com? :)

[jbailey]

It's been a while, the whole board seemed to go quiet, so I stopped going
there...

[tommy-vercetti]

It's been a while, the whole board seemed to go quiet, so I stopped going
there...

Yea i know, but that's gonna change soon. I've been working on a few projects related to rott, and will have annouce its details as well as some preliminar samples for everyone to see!! :)

[jbailey]

Sounds good! I'll keep a eye out for your work...

:)