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Posted: 22 Jul 2005, 12:55
by Neuralize
As these are mock screenshots and not actual screenshots, I would say that anything but Sample 1 is going to be a pain to implement.

However, all of it looks very good.

Posted: 24 Jul 2005, 20:23
by Ace07
Neuralize wrote:As these are mock screenshots and not actual screenshots, I would say that anything but Sample 1 is going to be a pain to implement.

However, all of it looks very good.
Yes, I wish it was extremely easy to impliment all of this.

At the worst, we could rewrite the software rendering engine for wxWidgets so that we can get a custom look. Or we could use opengl to draw this theme on the window.... (This probably won't happen until after a working version is released... :P )

I still like the style that you have there, Slayer, and I am surprised I didn't notice any of this sooner. I thought this thread died off and I forgot about it I guess. Sorry.... :twisted:

If you want to give me all the art files that will be needed....I can work a lot of it in now. Even the really cool start button could be used. (I really like the start button...haha) :wink:

Posted: 24 Jul 2005, 21:12
by Neuralize
I may retaliate with some friendly competition. We'll see.

Posted: 25 Jul 2005, 15:27
by zwzsg
I wish I could see the numerical values of the ping. Colored icons are so imprecise! Keep colored icons for things that have a limited set of values, not for things that can ranges from 0 to 10000. (Hmm, not sure I've already encountered 10s ping). With icons for instance you don't see the difference between a bad ping and a very bad ping once you've reached the worst ping icon, you can't compare with the pings given with other method and have to learn what the scale mean, you can't see if a ping fluctuate a bit or stay constant, etc...

Cosy GUI is nice, but being shown the information is better.

Posted: 25 Jul 2005, 17:08
by Ace07
I have already noted before that you can mouse-over the ping icons and you will get an exact reading (0-1000ms). I would never dream of not including this, because it is very useful for determining someone's internet connection speed.

(Cable < 150 < DSL <250, 56K > 350)

If a ping is 999, you can safely assume that the person is pretty much disconnected. IMO, 10 seconds is a very long time to not respond to a ping command.

Posted: 25 Jul 2005, 17:25
by Slayer
Hi Ace,

I'm glad you're still around. I'll get your those source files when I get home from work around ~8pm EST. I have one PNG file that has everything in it. Will that do or do you want me to cut stuff out and give it to you that way?

Is there anything else you need? Any icons/buttons/whatever? Just name it and I'll do my best.

Thanks,
Slayer

Posted: 26 Jul 2005, 03:25
by Slayer

Posted: 26 Jul 2005, 03:33
by Gnomre
Ace07, you realize ping is measured in milliseconds, right? A ping of 999 is one millisecond less than one second...

Also, I only get pings of greater than 100 to people outside of North America, and I'm on DSL... and hell, I've seen sub-60 pings to certain Europeans before. There is really no defined scale for determining connection type based solely on ping, because things like network status and the ISPs involved and distance come into play too much to make it possible.

Posted: 26 Jul 2005, 20:42
by zwzsg
BTW, I got a 2 min ping to someone from the same country as me, yesterday (yeah I know 2min is a really crazy ping). You'd better allow for larger number for pings. Maybe some packet loss indicator could be an idea too?

Posted: 26 Jul 2005, 21:01
by Ace07
Slayer wrote:Hi Ace,

I'm glad you're still around. I'll get your those source files when I get home from work around ~8pm EST. I have one PNG file that has everything in it. Will that do or do you want me to cut stuff out and give it to you that way?

Is there anything else you need? Any icons/buttons/whatever? Just name it and I'll do my best.

Thanks,
Slayer
Post as many individual pictures as you can. One big image is just more work to impliment, since I have to impliment it in pieces anyways.

I was a zero off on the milliseconds, but the truth is that there is no reason to allow pings over 1000, because they are unsuitable for interactive play. If you want to watch a slideshow, it might be very useful... (If you see 1000 ping from someone, why not kick them?)

Packet loss indicators might be useful, but at the same time, if there is too much packet loss, the player will automatically be disconnected anyways. I guess I don't see the practical advantage to knowing how many packets were dropped or how high the ping went above 1000.

My scale of internet pings I showed there works 90% of the time because its basically just the strength of the signal anyways. You can always deduce the speed the game will play at by just glancing at the pings. You are right that I can't really classify each particular connection type to a range of pings, but you will always know that 56kers generally have 400 or greater ping whereas DSL/Cable has less than that. That is assuming that the server is on your local continent.... :P

Posted: 27 Jul 2005, 19:39
by Lindir The Green
I really like the 2nd one :shock:

Maybe make the ping icons more precice, with, say, 10 different options instead of 3, and then keep the if-you-roll-over-it-with-a-mouse-it-gives-you-an-exact-number thing.