Spodi

From these posts, I wonder if any of you have even used XNA much. It is basically just a high-level managed interface to DirectX. It does a very good job at what it is intended to do - provide a very straight-forward, high-level interface to multimedia support. Even 2D is made simple by automated batching (SpriteBatch), automatically recovering lost resources, content precompiling and management, yada yada. Or to put it in a way you guys would be more familiar with, its more powerful than Direct3D 8 while far easier than DirectDraw 7. The Zune and Xbox support are just a bonus. If you don't want it, simply ignore it. That said, I still prefer SFML for 2D since I like the portability.

Right now, Eclipse is hitting about 175 MB of RAM, peaking at 200 MB when loaded. All of you here probably know already that it takes a lot of RAM. Well, I "can" reduce this to probably around 30 MB tops, possibly even lower. The problem, though, is that it will require me splitting up all of the graphics from one huge sheet into thousands of individual images. Each image would be a single clip in the smallest size of the graphics in the bitmap. Most of the cases, this will be 32x32, but for stuff like BigSprites, 64x64. I know how attached some of you are to the old system of one huge image sheet, and yeah that is a lot easier then editing thousands of small individual images. The large images could still be used to design your tiles, but the small images would have to be used in the client itself when loaded. So if you do use the large images to develop, which most of you probably will, you will have to split it up into small images again after adding to the sheet. I'll create a program to split up the graphics and number them automatically - that is no problem. Though, are you all willing to go through that for lower RAM usage? Right now Eclipse loads all graphics into memory, so that means you can lower the RAM usage by reducing the amount of graphics, but you're always going to be limited. This will give you a theoretical infinite number of graphics you can use. Another con of the system is that it does add tons of files, which means compressing and decompressing the archive will take a lot longer, even if it is close to the same amount of disk space. In all fairness, I think Eclipse is fine at 200 MB of RAM. Yeah, its a ton for a game of its style, but hardly anyone has machines with less than 512 MB of RAM these days, along with majority of the graphics often included in games are not even used. There are people with less than 512 MB of RAM, though, and weaker computers and graphic cards who do have a hard time running Eclipse. I will try and find another way to approach the problem but don't get your hopes up. But for now, your opinions? Edit: Another solution is to see if the tile sheet exists in the graphics folder, and if it does, crop it up when the client loads. This makes the distributed archive much smaller and faster to extract, but the first time loading the client slower.

Updated July 21th **Left over To Do log:** > ============================================== > Key: > - Untested / untouched > ? Tested, could not recreate > * Recreated, unable to fix / have not yet fixed > ! Need elaborating on the problem > ============================================== > ? walk to the top of a map, it pushes the top of your head down > ? when you login it says you have no characters but when you go back to the main menu and log in again there right there. > ? If I click thunder and then click none I still hear the storm [Spodi's Note: Thunder? Storm? Huh?] > ? If you pressed enter too many times, the server crashes with overflow also > ? Most of my stuff in the NPC editor resets after i've applied it…....... > ? NPC DROP ITEMS - Value is always 1 and not what you set it as. [Spodi's Note: Tested it with stackable currency, it worked fine for me] > ? I found an item bug. When I choose a sprite to represent the item, save and come back to the item, the sprite has reset to plain black. Help? [Spodi's Note: If you mean that items don't show the right graphic, it works fine for me] > ? When mapping with the map editor using scrolling maps the tile you click to place is placed one or two squares up and to the left of where you click. > > ! Screen Res doesnt save [Spodi's Note: No idea how to set the screen res] > ! can't see other peoples armor/equips unless they take it all off and put it all back on. > ! can't go past 2 pages of items in the shop other pages are bugged > ! Skill menu pages are bugged [Spodi's Note: In what way are they bugged?] > ! when you open the key config thing and the window comes up with all the keys my little X to close it was off the screen and i could never get rid of it [Spodi's Note: I don't know enough about Eclipse to recreate this] > ! when u buy or sell an item you should get a confirmation icon for check [Spodi's Note: What do you mean a confirmation icon? Like a messagebox confirmation saying if you want to sell / buy it? Seems like it'd be annoying to me ;)] > ! Other characters on the screen have the wrong very top of their head on them (using 32x64 sprites w/ custom). [Spodi's Note: Not sure how to use that kind of sprite system] > > * can't see people attacking UNLESS they actually hit an npc [Spodi's Note: The way this is programmed in, it seems more like a feature than anything, and makes more sense to only show the attack when hitting something] > > ============================================== **Changes of the last version:** > Changes: > - Added a conversion program for the accounts and converted some of the account values to longs to support more than 32767 items / currency, along with not crashing on more than 32767 exp > - Added code that will track how much bandwidth is used per each packet ID > - Fixed what I believe was all of the invalid packet IDs, along with removed those that weren't even being referenced by the server but sent to it > - Fixed some small bugs… forgot what exactly : / Sorry, I lost my change log when my comp crashed, so I had to try and recall what I did from memory. Seeing that I have bad memory, I couldn't really recall much obviously. :P **My final suggestions:** - Not sure if it is planned to be done when the engine rewrite is finished, but it would be very helpful to not only attract people but to show them how it is done and what can be done to give a few demo maps to come with the engine. - Remove at least 90% of the graphic content, if not more. All that is needed is just that to show a demo, and nothing more. This will significantly decrease the download size, making it much more friendly for everyone, especially dial-up users. But more importantly, this will prevent Eclipse from having such a bad first view since it takes so long to load all of those graphics and allocate all that memory, especially for those who have 512 MB of less memory. If you want to give people those huge tile sheets, give them a separate link to download it and let them add it in themselves. - More emphesis on the concept of More Graphics = More RAM Used. Some people fail to understand that, especially since that is how EE comes by default (with so many graphics). Even just a friendly little reminder in the graphics folder would work. - Only use one type of compilation, that being Fast Code with the optimizations I left ticked. I am not sure how Small Code works, but I believe it just makes the code (executeable) itself smaller, not the RAM usage. Theoretically, it would be impossible for Visual Basic 6 to directly decrease the RAM to a point of even being significant since majority of the stuff it can't safely deallocate from memory unless told to do so. The only thing that causes the RAM problems is the graphics. - A huge amount of bandwidth is taken from the map changing. Game admin should try their hardest to release a copy of the client with all the latest map versions for the client to prevent this. **Important Notes:** - There is a variable in the server, DebugPacketsOut, will track what packet ID uses how much bandwidth (going out from the server). This is vital for those of you who want to try and reduce bandwidth! - You can convert from the EE version I got to this version, but you have to run the account conversion tool. It should be very easy to follow and take less than a minute. - Some changes I made, those which are worth reading the code changes on, are marked with the prefix **'//!!**. - In the client and server both, you will see this line of code: ``` '//!! Temp error checking If Len(Parse(0)) > 1 Then MsgBox "Error on packet!" & vbNewLine & "Header: " & Parse(0) & vbNewLine & "Packet: " & Data, vbOKOnly End If ``` This is here for debugging only. In any release, please delete this or else it may cause you hassles! **Download:** http://www.freemmorpgmaker.com/Eclipse3.rar (15 MB)

Well basically here is how it is - I have hardly used Mirage/Elysium/Eclipse and related engines, and have been so sucked up in my own little world on my engine that its a bit hard for me to find my way around all of Eclipse, or to know exactly how everything is supposed to function. Marsh is pretty busy himself and can't get to me all the time, and my questions are often simple enough that typical users can probably answer them instead of me bothering just him. So excuse my newb questions, but it'll help me out a lot instead of trying to dig the answer out through the code. ;) I am using Eclipse Evolution I believe it is - whatever version Marsh gave me. I don't know the difference between these versions or if this version is even out to the public yet. If it isn't, then whoopsies! :o 1\. Are walking animations supposed to just be 2 frames? If they are supposed to be 3 frames, does it cycle through linear (frame 1,2,3,1,2…) or in a pattern (1,2,1,3,1,2,1... etc)? 2\. Is there paperdolling by default? How do you go about using this? This is for this bug: > ! can't see other peoples armor/equips unless they take it all off and put it all back on. 3\. How do you add music? 4\. How do you change the resolution? The following bugs I could not recreate: > ? When I cast a spell, and if I don't have enough mana to cast again, and cast anyways, that crashes the server > ? Scrolling maps bug, when move other player's head moves with you… > ? walk to the top of a map, it pushes the top of your head down > ? You can't Select Multiple tiles by holding down shift in the map editor, I am a fairly good mapper and I use this alot mapping on EE would be shit without it. The following is the bug list I have. If there is anything you want to help me elaborate on that needs to be, verify that ?'d bugs are existent or not or add to the list, that'd be great! > ============================================== > Key: > - Untested / untouched > ? Tested, could not recreate > * Recreated, unable to fix / have not yet fixed > ! Need elaborating on the problem > ============================================== > ? walk to the top of a map, it pushes the top of your head down > ? when you login it says you have no characters but when you go back to the main menu and log in again there right there. > ? If I click thunder and then click none I still hear the storm [Spodi's Note: Thunder? Storm? Huh?] > ? If you pressed enter too many times, the server crashes with overflow also > > ! Screen Res doesnt save > ! can't see other peoples armor/equips unless they take it all off and put it all back on. > ! can't go past 2 pages of items in the shop other pages are bugged > ! Skill menu pages are bugged > > * can't see people attacking UNLESS they actually hit an npc > > - Scrolling maps bug, when move other player's head moves with you… > - when u buy or sell an item you should get a confirmation icon for check > - when I make my item it is correct on the ground, in inventory, and equipped, but the wrong sprite is displayed in the shop window. > - when you open the key config thing and the window comes up with all the keys my little X to close it was off the screen and i could never get rid of it > - In the client as admin when I click on 'Edit scripts' from the admin menu, the server pops up "Error 76 (Path not found) in procedure Form_Load of Form frmEditor. I click the OK button on the server's box it popped up and then the client pops up the script editor. > - Other characters on the screen have the wrong very top of their head on them (using 32x64 sprites w/ custom). > - there's a glitch where if if you try to sell anything it tells you that you cannot sell equipped items. > - Sometimes when you equip items you get runtime error 9 and everyone gets booted from the server, and also, when you cast spells, you can't see the animation at all. > - I found an item bug. When I choose a sprite to represent the item, save and come back to the item, the sprite has reset to plain black. Help? > - NPC DROP ITEMS - Value is always 1 and not what you set it as. > - NPC Sprite bug that always changes the npc I select in the NPC editor. I'll select, let's say a dragon or what not in the sprite selector, on the map it will show an old lady! (this has to have some meaning to it..........not cool). Also, if it helps solve this problem, i've noticed when you scroll through the sprites in the npc editor, it seems to skip some. When you click the button to scroll, it seems to skip a sprite or two. > - Most of my stuff in the NPC editor resets after i've applied it.......... > - Music won't cut off if you turn it on, it keeps playing and only way to cut it off is config.ini > > These require editing the file system: > $ When I Have currency that's more then around 34k, it overflows, meaning a character can't hold more then 34k or it crashes the server. > $ If someone kills an npc that has more then 30k exp It will crash the server, seems like it's capped at 30k, Hope this is fixed or raised and the things above > ============================================== It may take me longer than I hope to fix some stuff up due to the RAM usage mostly just kills my 512 MB of RAM. Maybe Marsh will want me to clean up this client RAM usage. ;)