Spring RTS Engine

All the maps. Just dig them allready. Selection is taste, and if you have a composition of a thousand tastes, you have coffee. This is the beans of spring.

Google_Frog wrote:Both packs is an ok idea, just that there could be a smaller pack of the current best maps that would not take so long to download.

Best maps can bite us in the ass "popular maps" IMO is a better idea...

So like:
Spring popular pack
Spring top 100
Spring mega pack(what he has already)

ninety percent of everything is crap.
And in case of spring maps it is not just a matter of taste.
I will not even mention "bad gameplay"/"not playable" because it would be personal opinion:
Some maps...
-do not work anymore, (crash or not show in map list)
-are old versions,
-are that ugly that even yomomma says that,
-are "my first, really crude" try at mapping.
-are experiments like "what is the largest possible map"
-only work with 1 special game (ie THIS space map)

For new players that is deadly.

All am hearing is to much criticism and not enough action. It's easy to say that a large all-map pack may not be a good option. But I don't see anyone offering to make suggestions about some of the maps that they think are best.

If you guys could all get together and hammer-out a good map list that most people think is the best I would be happy to host those torrents as well.

In particular I like smoth's idea of a Spring popular pack and Spring top 100 map pack.

Super Mario wrote:Did he attempt to use any compression methods?

smoth wrote:sdz/sd7 is already compressed.

yeah but there are many maps that are just a clone of another map with a few changes. so you should be able to get some compression on the whole pack.
which makes me wonder if there's a more efficent way of doing the maps.

se5a wrote:

Super Mario wrote:Did he attempt to use any compression methods?

smoth wrote:sdz/sd7 is already compressed.

yeah but there are many maps that are just a clone of another map with a few changes. so you should be able to get some compression on the whole pack.
which makes me wonder if there's a more efficent way of doing the maps.

Like the map options stuff? I mean omg it would be ground breaking to have a wet/dry option :)

Kind of something like on http://springrts.com/wiki/Maps
(i edited it a bit to make chosing a good map for different games easier but its still fubar)
I wanted to do a mappack for some time (because of the "i reinstalled spring, now i just want some a handfull of maps to play on"-phenomena)
Maybe I will post something later or maybe not

se5a wrote:

Super Mario wrote:Did he attempt to use any compression methods?

smoth wrote:sdz/sd7 is already compressed.

yeah but there are many maps that are just a clone of another map with a few changes. so you should be able to get some compression on the whole pack.
which makes me wonder if there's a more efficent way of doing the maps.

If I understood it correctly rapid does that ((de)assembles SD7 for that purpose). IMO it's the only way, because each SD7 will have a slightly different dictionary.

My personal taste for torrents is, that I am willing to sacrifice a possible <5% file size bloat for getting a proper file list before download starts. --> The way OP did is perfect.

dan, much of the map is the texture.. which is a VERY large file uncompressd.

OK.
The question I was exploring is, if we have two versions if the same map, if the two SD7s would together be compressable. And my guess is that it won't be possible unless you decompress them first, then compress the two maps together - creating a common dictionary for the two bitmaps (textures).

mason05 wrote: In particular I like smoth's idea of a Spring popular pack and Spring top 100 map pack.

Quick! Someone make a DSD torrent!

Forboding Angel wrote:

mason05 wrote: In particular I like smoth's idea of a Spring popular pack and Spring top 100 map pack.

Quick! Someone make a DSD torrent!

We need the Spring Essential Starting Pack, which consists of all the variations of DSD that exist and some, that don't.

dansan wrote:creating a common dictionary for the two bitmaps (textures).

Only a few poorly conceived maps do that(dsd & dsd-dry)

Otherwise the new version supplants the only for good reason.

smoth wrote:

dansan wrote:creating a common dictionary for the two bitmaps (textures).

Only a few poorly conceived maps do that(dsd & dsd-dry)

Otherwise the new version supplants the only for good reason.

Misunderstanding I think: I was talking about the dictionary 7zip (LZMA) uses: wikipedia: Dictionary_coder. Best compression can only be archived if both textures are scanned when creating the dictionary for the compression - so only when the maps are not already packed.

I had to know... so I tested it just now with Valles_Marineris.sd7 and Valles_Marineris_v2.sd7 and DeltaSiegeDry.sd7 and DeltaSiegeOrig.sd7.
Valles_Marineris 1 and 2 are very different maps, which only share a similar looking ground texture.
DeltaSiege{orig,dry} differ only in that one has water, which is prob made by using the same texture, but a different hight - so very similar maps.

I used 7zip with "ultra" options and a 80MB dictionary size. I also tried lrzip because I know it really uses big dictionaries to archive higher than usual compression (optimized pre-processing through big dictionary (as much mem as you have :), then compresses using lzma/bzip2/gzip/lzo/zpaq, default lzma).

The result:
Nothing could be gained for both pairs by compressing their SD7 files together.
When compressing the decompressed maps nothing could be gained for Valles_Marineris, but the DSD-maps ended up being ~12% smaller when compressed together.

If the maximum achievable (re)compression gain is 12% (for almost identical maps!) then it's definitively not worth the hassle.

knorke wrote: -are experiments like "what is the largest possible map"


For new players that is deadly.

Help, help im beeing thiscreameanated

i would not want to wait for unitsync (the lobby) to cache all these maps when putting them into the data-dir. any noob would quit way before that is done cause the lobby is not opening, or laggy for hours.
... so much about spring getting popular through this torrent. popular for being shit maybe, yes.
a popular map pack is not a good idea in addition to this, but instead of this. better have nothing instead of this.

hoijui wrote:i would not want to wait for unitsync (the lobby) to cache all these maps when putting them into the data-dir. any noob would quit way before that is done cause the lobby is not opening, or laggy for hours.
... so much about spring getting popular through this torrent. popular for being shit maybe, yes.
a popular map pack is not a good idea in addition to this, but instead of this. better have nothing instead of this.

I have been reading this thread for a couple of days, to be honest; people have made good points towards this. I agree that having a full map pack might be a bit too much, but letÔÇÖs make a few of them for a bit of diversity.

I however do not agree to your comments Hoijui, I understand that being a developer might mean that you are always compiling a new spring, which could affect your cache, but I would just like to highlight and point out that not everyone does that. Some of us are here to play the game (which is a nice one); also that caching the maps doesnÔÇÖt take very long either. You make it sound as if it going to grind your computer to a halt while it does it. And that it takes hours and hours when it only takes minutes. (Sounds like youÔÇÖre running a single core 500 MHz)

IÔÇÖm sure if someone has spent the time to download all them maps they will spend the time to see what sort of game it is. I donÔÇÖt see why you are so against having a single map pack....

Zydec
(The Spring Noob)

when it only takes minutes

minutes to start a lobby is acceptable? I think no, especially if it can be avoided.

downloading all spring maps is like download ALL the pr0n:

a real bad idea because there are evil things nobody wants to see.

speak for yourself knorke, some of us are into japanese culture....

knorke wrote:

when it only takes minutes

minutes to start a lobby is acceptable? I think no, especially if it can be avoided.

downloading all spring maps is like download ALL the pr0n:

a real bad idea because there are evil things nobody wants to see.

Sorry I forgot to mention in my other post is that spring loads fine. it just when you join a battle-room and you go to select a map via the map viewer (top right 'map' button) you have to wait a few minutes for it to cache(show the map pictures), but once its done it loads instantly from then onwards even when you open it up another time eg after a shut-down.

Zydec

(The Spring Noob)