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Testing C1 net mode on single PC

When the mayhem started! And its expansion pack made by interns!
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QTZ
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Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by QTZ »

Since there is no way to start C1 in network mode without net connection - testing network mode is really pain. For example we need to connect few PC in one room, but what if we have one... and we just want to test some changes we made. So I decided to try run multiple instances of C1 on one PC. Unfortunately starting network mode in one instance lock network for other instances. So I decided to use virtual machine with network support. I have found Oracle VM VirtualBox where I have installed Free DOS to see how C1 working in VM, unfortunately C1 was working very slow running from FD. Even without proper net setup. So I leaved this for few months. Now I decided to install XP and to my surprise it started very fast and run C1 smoothly from shared folder. I have set up a VM clone, then started 3 instances of game - one as usual and two virtuals. To fit three games on screen I have run two instance in lo-res and one in full (or lores too). I have used Hifi's dlls.

Since I'm working on patch for MSE I tested this version:
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Hi-res screen running gore version, left running zombie, right robots.


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Custom car falling - C1 bug - respawn to nowhere.


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Here same custom car, this time problem with on car effect.


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Moving crane - fixed texture for upper part of crane is set for some tracks


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No problem with Buggit


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SP Figure of Hate


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C1 Figure of Hate Arena (track missing in most recent versions of C1)


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Different type of blood at same time


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Custom track El Morte Desert, available only in race like modes


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Only this one time all 3 players are visible on guests


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Bug - possible to random same car (when player leave and return to game);
Bug - Eagle selected when only Hawks are allowed
We can also compare final Hawk (yellow) with beta one (color versions) fixed (no parts swap)


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Car indicators on map equal M##.MAT colors used;
Abuse-o-matic messages in use (press "~" key then select one of 10 abuse message with numpad "0"-"9" keys)


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Bug - hires caricons used for menu - wrong and cut in "half";
Also we can see custom green blood hand (for zombie) and custom slime and oil (for zombie and robots)


For gamplay screens you may notice proper caricons displayed (some are missing - replaced with "CHEAT" or "ADDON").
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Harmalarm
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Re: Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by Harmalarm »

Heh, that's a pretty neat trick. It must have felt quite lonely though, playing network games on your own. ;) What are you hoping to achieve with the network testing?
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QTZ
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Re: Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by QTZ »

Main purpose is testing / bug fixing. I fixed some bugs from stock C1+SP and MSE, and now I'm testing and searching for other bugs in MSE. (My patch for SP / Meld [without addons] is not released yet). Other purpose is to make screen-shots with new car icons set up, from three (or even more in the future) games connected in network mode at once. I think I'm the first who did it for Carmageddon :swheel:

I think, when we have two monitors connected, we can run two games in full screen mode, but to play two or more players game on one PC we need to take control of few windows at same time. I think this may be possible with additional software.

Edit: Searching the net - to play two players game on one PC we need additional keyboard or pad connected and configured.

Edit2: Successfully Tested :smile: . I have connected another keyboard & mice and set up it to be used in guest system and now it's possible to play two player network game on one PC :banana: . Of course if we have better PC we can connect more keyboards and / or pads and start more games (up to 6 for C1). I guess the same is possible with C2 and other games :supercrazy: but if we have only one monitor we must fit all displays on one screen, so lo-res will be useful there :techsupport: (or downscale).

The last thing is/are live player/s... :swheel: :swheel: :swheel: :swheel: :swheel:

End of Edit2

The other problem are system resources - power and memory of our PC. Three games started that way have lags on my PC, but two is OK.

I think there must be easier way to start multiple games in network mode, but probably there is no such software yet...

Edit3: I have found another solution, but only For Win7 (I can't test it) and it's not free - SoftXpand. Trial version is available. Full version is limited in number of users, depend on how much we paid. It doesn't require to install guest OS, but It look like for each instance of game we need another monitor display (for 3rd - 4th another graphic card).

Some claim this is possible to use Sandboxie to run multiple programs - it's true, but in my test multiplayer mode doesn't work, so it's pointless. However Sandboxie is a very useful tool.
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Toshiba-3
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Re: Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by Toshiba-3 »

We can also compare final Hawk (yellow) with beta one (color versions) fixed (no parts swap)
Does that mean you've been able to fix that yourself, and also the swapping parts with CaddyFatCat?

Nice bug tracking by the way. Though I think finding an old laptop to run the game in true LAN would be easier?
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QTZ
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Re: Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by QTZ »

Swapping parts are fixed since 2003 :) but for all other problems I mentioned in e-mail I still waiting for your help :)

Edit7: I have found that "bglunder.pix" have many versions - few different, and few very similar...

For testing we need at least 3 players connected (as far as I remember swapping parts affect only opponents). I think this is possible to setup VirtualBox together with real network.

The most time consuming operation is OS install, but this took about 15-25 minutes (on my not new PC) and we need to do this just once.

Also running it on one PC it's cool to have possibility to make screen shots (or record a movie) from few games at once :)

There is a problem - guest systems don't see each other. So host game must be started from outside Virtual Box.

Edit:
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4playersOn1PC.jpg (75.84 KiB) Viewed 4480 times
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Problem solved. All gusts have access to each other - as we can see on screen above all players have all other players icons visible. Host game started from Clone 2 (not host system), also USB keyboard connected to one of virtual machines (may be connected more keyboards - for each player).

Solution - added second network adapter for each virtual box system clone and set to "Host-only adapter" (Machine->Settings... menu) which have DHCP Server enabled (File->Preferences menu).

We also need each clone to have unique computer name ("Win key" + "Pause Break" -> "Computer name" tab, "Change..." button -> enter new name - for example add number of clone like "SYSTEM-01" so on. Don't know if this is important here, but "work group" name should be the same for all machines (virtual and not) in our network. This is also useful to disable screen saver for all clones, disable win theme, disable pulpit image and hide start button belt.

Edit2: If our guest systems have firewall (98 doesn't) we also need to make exception for Carmageddon and optionally for other tools, etc.. in all guests and host.

Usefull commands (basic knowledge):
Start->Run... "cmd", then "ipconfig -all", "ping IP" (of course instead of "IP" type other guest / host "IP" number).
They say ping not working when there is no shared folder set (?).

Sources:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html
http://blog.logicexception.com/2012/10/ ... ts-on.html
http://blog.superuser.com/2011/04/25/vi ... you-do-it/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1219 ... l-machines

Edit3: So it's easier than install real lan, but this may depend on existing infrastructure, software and hardware we already have installed. As I say above it's possible to mix real network with virtual (this may need to add another network adapter for each guest [not tested]), which is also very useful. So maybe the question is not what is easier, but what we want to do and what is possible for us.

Edit5: VirtualBox also allow to run Carmageddon on Linux, Solaris (64bit) or MAC OS X (with Intel hardware) hosts - for details look here.

Edit6: This is also useful to testing one player mode - we can save game state at any time, then restore it, but this step require virtual system to shut down first.

Edit4: I have found different solution for this topic - using DOSBox, but I guess this is for dos exec only, so for MC1SE we need to add DOS files from SP installation CD (if we want to play with zombies we need to edit files manually) and set paths.txt properly.

Edit8: Edit11: (moved to caricons.pix topic)

PS. Still can't get C2 to work that way... 1st no network visible in C2... 2nd no hardware acceleration...

Edit9: Browsing gog forum I have found another IPXWrapper.

Edit10: With this wrapper C2 is able to start in network mode from VirtualBox, but without 3D hardware acceleration game working incorrectly - I have two small "windows" on top of black screen for each game...
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QTZ
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Re: Testing C1 net mode on single PC

Post by QTZ »

Few days ago browsing Microsoft download center I have found that Microsoft released (few years before actually) Windows XP for virtual PC which Microsoft call Windows XP Mode (since it integrating into Windows 7). It is available for free (!!!) This is also very cool that many language versions are available. It's created for Windows 7, since Microsoft decided to stop supporting Windows XP there is no version for later Windows, but it's possible to use shipped virtual drive with virtual machine elsewhere. We just need to extract VHD file and mount it in virtual machine. I have mount it in current version of Virtual Box, since there is no drivers for it we need to boot (using keyboard, F8 key) to safe mode and insert virtual box addon CD and install the drivers and Direct 3D patch from there. For network play we need to add second network adapter in Virtual Machine settings, also we need to exclude Carmageddon in Windows XP firewall (and of course on Host too).

Don't know how it is with the activation, but since this is full legal version I think it can be activated normally (I need to check how it is under Windows 7, since there it should be activated by default?).

BTW: Windows 7 and other (8...10) can be downloaded as 90 days test at http://modern.ie (it need to be extracted from zip and may need to be extracted from file extracted from zip).

For never Windows we can install VHD into Hyper-V (there are more tutorials on this page).

I think this is also good environment to play C1 / C2 (work with nGlide) for those who can't play it directly under modern OS. It's much faster than DOS Box or virtual Win 98.
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