Spring RTS Engine

Kloot wrote:

Floris wrote:Yeah I also think the new pathing is worse, (pathingwise ...)

Concrete evidence of regressions in 82.7 wrt. previous Spring versions is more useful than personal opinion.

luckywaldo7 wrote:If engine devs put out potential fixed versions to test I am sure I could find some people to test with me.

Here's your chance to prove that assertion: http://springrts.com/dl/buildbot/defaul ... 89799d.exe (everyone in this thread just volunteered, especially rene7705 who snipped a remark about TESTING THOROUGHLY from his first post, so glhf)

1) 0.82.3 < 0.82.7, what's the point?

2) I never signed up to be a tester, know little about the spring code, have no appetite for it, and don't appreciate having that chore shoved in my lap. If i want to start developing for the spring platform, i'll let you know myself.

3) If i delete a remark out of politeness i don't appreciate it being requoted by an apparently lazy spring developer

4) Thanks for your efforts, spring developers. I do appreciate a free game. But I don't appreciate it degrading in quality.

Kloot isn't lazy man.

but yeah I can sympathize with you not wanting to test just play. btw he was talking to luckywaldo and Floris not you rene, don't take things so personal.

rene7705 wrote: 1) 0.82.3 < 0.82.7, what's the point?

In this case, 0.82.3 is a more recent build.

2) I never signed up to be a tester, know little about the spring code, have no appetite for it, and don't appreciate having that chore shoved in my lap. If i want to start developing for the spring platform, i'll let you know myself.

Spring is a community effort, without testing, the developers don't get sufficient feedback to even know that something could be wrong. No one asked you to look at code, all that was inferred is that maybe you could download a 30MB executable, install it to a new directory so you don't overwrite your main install, and launch it (no need to even copy over maps and mods, since they are in user space and auto recognized) to check if the issue has been resolved or not.

3) If i delete a remark out of politeness i don't appreciate it being requoted by an apparently lazy spring developer

Deleted/edited posts can't be quoted if they are no longer there. Maybe you just shouldnt have posted the remark in the first place?

4) Thanks for your efforts, spring developers. I do appreciate a free game. But I don't appreciate it degrading in quality.

A small dip in perception of the quality does not mean mean permanent degrading.

smoth wrote:Kloot isn't lazy man.

but yeah I can sympathize with you not wanting to test just play. btw he was talking to luckywaldo and Floris not you rene, don't take things so personal.

with what he said, "especially rene7705", i can take it a little bit personal, imo.

Beherith wrote:

rene7705 wrote: 1) 0.82.3 < 0.82.7, what's the point?

In this case, 0.82.3 is a more recent build.

Usually version numbers go up, not down, for newer software.

2) I never signed up to be a tester, know little about the spring code, have no appetite for it, and don't appreciate having that chore shoved in my lap. If i want to start developing for the spring platform, i'll let you know myself.

Spring is a community effort, without testing, the developers don't get sufficient feedback to even know that something could be wrong. No one asked you to look at code, all that was inferred is that maybe you could download a 30MB executable, install it to a new directory so you don't overwrite your main install, and launch it (no need to even copy over maps and mods, since they are in user space and auto recognized) to check if the issue has been resolved or not.

well, imo, if you're going to rewrite the pathing routines, it should be simple for the developers in charge of that rewrite to start up some AIs against eachother, and see if there are serious issues, like very-bad CPU lag.

i find it really strange that this issue had to be reported by the user community.

to leave testing of it to testers/end-users, just prolongs the development cycle by a lot.

3) If i delete a remark out of politeness i don't appreciate it being requoted by an apparently lazy spring developer

Deleted/edited posts can't be quoted if they are no longer there. Maybe you just shouldnt have posted the remark in the first place?

4) Thanks for your efforts, spring developers. I do appreciate a free game. But I don't appreciate it degrading in quality.

A small dip in perception of the quality does not mean mean permanent degrading.

I wouldn't call CPU lag so bad it prevents further gameplay a "small dip".

In general, i'd like to see the developers themselves at least put in a mandatory test-with-AIs-against-eachother before forcing code changes upon a user community that can't easily revert to older code that in some cases will work better than the changes.

Also, if you want people like me to test code branches for you, i'd like to see a document on how to start up a game with a different executable.

Am i right to assume that springlobby will take the "current" build rather than one in a different directory?

Will putting the right .exe in (springlobby:menu:)edit -> preferences, (tab:)spring, (field:)spring executable location, use that new build?

After that, will it be a matter of starting up a single player game like i normally do?

Also, i just saw that i no longer use the MT spring.exe version, it must've gotten auto-changed during the upgrade to 0.82.7.x

So all my remarks about CPU raping by 0.82.7.x apply to the regular spring exe, not the MT one.

Hope that clarifies something to someone.

I think it would be a big improvement if

- the lobby software(s) list a version number of the spring.exe used for any hosted game in the lobby, much like they do for the mod/game already.

- the spring.exe and spring-multithreaded.exe change their name to include the version number, and old versions of the spring.exe don't get deleted when upgrading.

- the lobby software(s) should get easy access to the changelog, which i'd name spring-versionNumber.changelog.txt, in the same directory as spring-versionNumber.exe.

- old versions of the spring exes could be easily downloaded from the springrts.com website, and ideally also inside the springlobby software(s), like maps and mods/games are.

- the developers (and perhaps testers) get access to a logging site that lists what versions of software people are using how many times in online games.

- allow bugreporting from within springlobby.exe, without the need for a springrts.com/phpbb account.

but of course, perhaps mandatory testing of changes with AIs would be easier than adding all this to the lobby(s).

similar thing is already done. Zero-K lobby can auto download any engine you need.

To use it just add [engine0.82.5] to battle title and people who join it will auto use that version.

Players who join it with zero-k lobby will auto use given engine.

You can see it in on "iridum1" autohost which actually hosts 0.82.5 to compare pathing.

[deleted]

Licho wrote:similar thing is already done. Zero-K lobby can auto download any engine you need.

To use it just add [engine0.82.5] to battle title and people who join it will auto use that version.

Players who join it with zero-k lobby will auto use given engine.

You can see it in on "iridum1" autohost which actually hosts 0.82.5 to compare pathing.

Cool, thanks.

Unfortunately, after dnloading and running the zero-k lobby, it seems zero-k by default only lists games for the zero-k mod/game.

The default setup gives me 1 online game i can join, ticking "show empty" gives me another 4, but empty games probably arent much use.

Springlobby at the same time shows 15 hosted games with players present.

Also, zero-k couldn't download 0.82.7 due to an internet host being down.

I compiled the latest source from git yesterday, an I doin' it wrong? I had trouble starting spring (looks like OpenAL issues), should I be reporting to mantis? Or is it pretty much expected that stuff will not work as it is currently work in progress?

That sounds like you are suggesting unit testing spring releases(don't know if this is done). Unit testing is very useful but it can't catch every single bug, sometimes they will still slip through. It's not completely fair to blame kloot and hoijui because they are working hard developing the game so that we may enjoy it more. But still what they get here on the forums is mostly complaints. I think kloot's post was just a reaction to the constant complaints about path finding several months back now.

Seems like you threw a fit when you post 5 replies after another by the way.

@luckywaldo
master builds are likely to have more bugs then releases, but that does not mean that you should not report errors there. in fact, error reports based on master builds are even better.
Maybe try to disable sound with NoSound=1 in spring config, to test if it really is sound related. I also suggest to report a bug as soon as possible, cause otherwise you may lose the corresponding infolog and other files, if they make sense. just attach infolog.txt to your post. someone will have a look at it, and tell you if it makes sense to put it on mantis.


the forum has an ignore feature (marking a user as foe).

hoijui wrote: the forum has an ignore feature (marking a user as foe).

lol I think I know who someone put on ignore.

rene7705 wrote: Cool, thanks.

Unfortunately, after dnloading and running the zero-k lobby, it seems zero-k by default only lists games for the zero-k mod/game.

The default setup gives me 1 online game i can join, ticking "show empty" gives me another 4, but empty games probably arent much use.

Springlobby at the same time shows 15 hosted games with players present.

Also, zero-k couldn't download 0.82.7 due to an internet host being down.

It looks you had it in limited mode. Go to settings and disable limited mode. Restart lobby.

Limited mode is intended for people who download zero-k game only. Its auto enabled if zero-k cannot find any spring installed on its first run.

smoth wrote:Kloot isn't lazy man.

In my opinion, any developer who insists his end-users test his code for him, while _for him_ it's trivially easy to setup a comprehensive test himself, is "lazy".
I could add even less flattering descriptions, but i've already received a board warning for the "lazy" label, which i'm trying to get withdrawn atm, btw.

Also, with some free time i tried running a singleplayer game from springlobby with the exe he wanted me to test, but even if i put the path to the exe in springlobby->edit->preferences->tab:spring->spring exe location, it still runs with the 0.82.7.0 version.
So it seems that with the default lobby, i can't even start up a different spring.exe.
I might retry with zero-k one of these days.

And after 11 days since this crippling issue got reported to mantis, i had hoped it would've at least got confirmed and assigned to someone by the core developers.

Comprehensive test for pathing? Are you retarded? Do you have the foggiest idea how intensive pathing testing has to be to catch even the large bugs? Oi.

Forboding Angel wrote:Comprehensive test for pathing? Are you retarded? Do you have the foggiest idea how intensive pathing testing has to be to catch even the large bugs? Oi.

Seems to me like running 4 AIs against eachother on a few different maps will do that trick on full-auto for you..?

RAI can take any mod/game, and will work fine to test pathing, i think..

Just chiming in to clarify that rai does not work well enough to "test" pathing in ct. Nothing of real value to add outside of that minor note.