DSC: light 1.25a available

[RAL]

Whats new:
added: A more transparent (hopefully) Options/MODs dialog.
added: OSP dm_48 demo will be played with CPMA on default. This is because CPMA automatically handles the 'broken' (invisible players) OSP demos correctly. Look also in the readme section "Problems with dm_48 OSP demos?" for installing an additional old OSP version for dm_48 demos.
added: The "Play as.." window has a new command line parameters edit control. You may change the q3a command line yourself for more control.


Download at

www.demoshowcreator.com/files/dsc/dsclight_125a.exe

or

www.3dcenter.de/dsc/files/dsclight_125a.exe



It's not yet available via the homepage, only via direct download link. I would like to have a bit feedback before.

thx,
RAL

ral@demoshowcreator.com
ral@3dcenter.de

[RAL]

Checked it out and it works more in the way I was after (i.e. getting
it to use OSP for playing OSP demos instead of CPMA) but it's not
really intuitive (I didn't figure it out until I read the readme -
baseq3 options I thought of as just playing baseq3 demos rather than
the default for all types).

To be honest, I don't think there was really anything wrong with the
mod menu itself before. It's more the hard coded defaults that were
causing confusion.

The way I'd do it personally is:
- Fill in all the drop downs with your suggested defaults (e.g. OSP
.dm_48 = CPMA, etc.)
- Allow user to access all drop-downs in the mod menu with none greyed
out.
- Have nothing hard coded.

That way, everything works as you suggest initially but if the user
wants to specify different behaviour it's intuitive because it's
playing demos exactly as specified by the user.

Unless there's some other problem I'm missing (e.g. identifying the
different mods).

The command line in the "Play As" is a nice touch :-)

---
Jimbob
jimbob2222@hotREMOVETHISmail.com

[RAL]

Ok thx for your suggestions. I have one problem with it. Internally DSC handles dm3, dm_48 demos and dm_66/67 demos differently. In options/MODs there would be no such visible difference. The baseline is that it would be useleless to set e.g.

OSP dm_66/67 demos to play as CPMA demos.

You could set this, but nothing would happen because dsc cannot recognize the mod type of dm_66/67 demos. So for dsc all dm_66/67 demos are virtually baseq3 demos. That's why there is only under BASEQ3 a non-grayed dm_66/67 entry which is changeable.

I thought a while about totally leaving away dm_66/67 entries from this listview and adding a edit control where the user may change the CPMA default for dm_66/67 to what ever he wishes. But the drawback is that this needs extra space in the options window, but space is a bit rare there.

regards,
RAL

[Unregistered]

Ah ok. If identifying the mods is a problem then there probably isn't a better way.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe having the default under baseq3 doesn't jump out at you as obvious. It makes sense when you know it's there but wasn't obvious before reading the readme.

Maybe have a mod type of "default"? Don't know if it's worth it.

I'd check with a few other people and see what they think. It could be just me not thinking straight that missed it.

Jimbob

[Unregistered]

Heh, that was strange. Missed the uninstall notice and DSC reported I had 36 mods installed. Whew.
Same thing Jimbob said about greying out options. I need options.
Bah, I threw out most of my demos recently (I seem to do this shortly after each protocol change, irrational I guess)anyway.
Have you thought about including something to just permanently rename .dm_66 demos to .dm_67. Maybe include a little checkbox asking if you want to update 1.30 demos. Just a thougt.

Inglo

[RAL]

Heh, that was strange. Missed the uninstall notice and DSC reported I had 36 mods installed. Whew.


Ok that would be easily fixable in the DSC code. It's not really a bug but I will fix it anyway I think.
btw: It's enough to delete the dsc.cfg before installing the 1.25a.


Same thing Jimbob said about greying out options. I need options.


Useless options too?
But you both are right, that's a problem, this whole thing is confusing. I think for such a small tool like dsc it should not be necessary in general to look into the readme. This thing needs a intuitive solution :stareup:


Have you thought about including something to just permanently rename .dm_66 demos to .dm_67. Maybe include a little checkbox asking if you want to update 1.30 demos. Just a thougt.


Yep, I had this idea too but I was too lazy to implement it *g*. There are freeware tools out there to rename files in batch mode.

btw: I would really like to know what this protocol change does mean..The #67 demos seems to be the same as the #66 ones, so where are the protocol changes?


thx for coming here and answering :)



cu,
RAL

[RAL]

Jimbob,


Maybe have a mod type of "default"? Don't know if it's worth it.


yes that could be an idea. Also I could leave all the entries changeable and when the user changes somewhere the default mod for some dm_66/67 mod type, dsc could change all the other dm_66/67 mappings automatically.

Ok, basically I don't wanted to diskuss such user interface details, but at least I would like to have dsc intuitive. Let's see whether some others have to say something about it. I've got not very much emails the last year with questions about how to use dsc in this or that way, but yesterday I read some threads at XSR and I noticed that there are some problems understanding how dsc works and how to set it's mod options.

cu,
RAL

[Unregistered]

I'd just be careful with having changes in default affecting other mod settings (as I'm sure you will anyway).

Wouldn't want to change the default to OSP and find, say, arena has switched to OSP as well.

With the options for everything idea, it would be nice in an ideal world but without being able to identify the mods it's useless like you say.

All things taken into consideration, I think you're about as good as you can get with 1.25a with just a change needed to make it obvious where to set the default.

I'll butt out now and see what others have to say :)

[Unregistered]

That last post was by me btw ;)

Jimbob

[Unregistered]

We're never going to update OSP to play old demos, so CPMA is a sensible default. The vast majority of demos that people care about are from tournaments, and those are all OSP anyway. Although there's no CPMA for 1.17, back in those days both ProMode and OSP would report themselves as baseq3, and the demos will play fine unmodded (though backpacks become flags, etc). Even though you can get the mod type for those, there's not much point to it because the 1.2x versions of those mods aren't usable with 1.1x anyway.
If you ever come across an OSP demo (48, 66, or 67) that CAN'T be played back in CPMA, just let me know.

Next time I talk to FonFon, I'll ask him if there's any way he can release source that pulls the gamename from a .dm_xx file. I doubt it, because of all the NDA shiz, but you never know.

--arq

[RAL]

Hi arQon,

We're never going to update OSP to play old demos, so CPMA is a sensible default. The vast majority of demos that people care about are from tournaments, and those are all OSP anyway. Although there's no CPMA for 1.17, back in those days both ProMode and OSP would report themselves as baseq3, and the demos will play fine unmodded (though backpacks become flags, etc).


Yes I know. That's why dsc plays OSP dm3 demos as baseq3 on default.


Even though you can get the mod type for those, there's not much point to it because the 1.2x versions of those mods aren't usable with 1.1x anyway.


If you look into the readme and the zip archive of dsc you will find some mod compatibility files for RA3 and a sample description on how to let dsc switch Q3F 1.1x <-> Q3F 1.2x versions automatically. Another way (easier and more hard disk space consuming) is to install multiple mod versions. E.g. one OSP for q3 1.1x, one for q3 1.2.x and one for q3 1.3.x (ususally the newest). Now you may map the different demo types to the different osp directories. This works because dsc recognizes the mod types of dm3 and dm_48 demos.


If you ever come across an OSP demo (48, 66, or 67) that CAN'T be played back in CPMA, just let me know.


OK, so far I had never a problem with CPMA playing back demos. (Only the invisible player prob from dm_48 OSP demos which handles CPMA automatically now -- very nice)


Next time I talk to FonFon, I'll ask him if there's any way he can release source that pulls the gamename from a .dm_xx file. I doubt it, because of all the NDA shiz, but you never know.


that would be very kewl, because it would make the whole thing 100% transparent and reliable :)

edit: a small dos console binary would be enough!!

thx,
RAL