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Sly
14-07-2005, 01:28 PM
...it is related. I'm writing my own networking objects to support client/server networked games. It is being written in Delphi 2005, but FPC compatibility is being kept in mind at all times. It currently uses HawkNL 1.7 as the networking back-end. What inspired this was that DirectPlay is getting axed from DirectX in future versions and I wanted some networking objects that were simple to use. There is also an apparent lack of readily available game-oriented networking objects that supply the functionality that I was wanting.

This is a screenshot of the test application. It contains a client and a server in the one application. In this screenshot, I have started a local 32-player server and a remote 16-player server (remote as in the computer next to me). Selecting the Search button sends a GETSERVERINFO broadcast message over the LAN and waits for responses.

http://users.on.net/~sly/images/donknet.jpg

That is all it does at the moment. Note that they are not really a 32-player and 16-player server as such. It is just a server object sitting there responding to GETSERVERINFO messages pretending to be a real server.

Next on the list is to get the client to be able to connect to the server. And yes, I know the ping to my own machine is slower than the ping to the remote machine. I think I have some things to sort out in the ping calculation. :)

Eriken
14-07-2005, 02:12 PM
Hehe, cool stuff ;)

And now to the obvious question, since you've been working on Donk for a while, where is it going? ;) I mean, Network-stuff, memory-handling, and if I remember correctly the GUI-stuff you started on before you ended up as a jugde for the competition was also Donk-stuff?

What are you upto Sly? ;)
_____
Eriken

Robert Kosek
14-07-2005, 03:46 PM
What do you think "sly" is upto? He's SLY after all! :D I bet he is taking aim at challenging some gaming giants, and taking their money straight from their mouths!

tux
14-07-2005, 05:05 PM
he really is busy :shock:



is that networking library good? it seems to have not been updated for a while :(

Sly
14-07-2005, 10:53 PM
hehehe... there's no big hidden agenda here. :) It's just me applying the things I have learned in the industry to my own projects. I haven't been too busy though. Donk was left lying around for a while after I became a judge for the comp. I've only recently picked it up again.

Things I'm applying to Donk implementation is things like memory management (being careful how memory is managed to minimize the expense of allocation, reallocation and freeing too many small blocks of memory), data path (do as much data processing as you can before it gets into the game instead of doing the processing at run-time), and many other small things that one picks up in this industry.

technomage
15-07-2005, 07:07 AM
Sly

I don't know if you are intersted but I have a conversion of the HawkVoice header for Delphi / FPC. I have a demo using SDL_Net, FMOD and HawkVoice to send and recieve voice data. I can PM a link if your interested (it still needs testing).

What is the HawkNL library like? any good?

Dean

Sly
15-07-2005, 07:12 AM
That would be interesting to test. I had tried a simple conversion of HawkVoice a while back. I probably won't try to implement voice for a while yet. I want to get most of the networking functionality in first.

HawkNL is not bad to use once you get into the mindset of its author. It is not documented too well, which makes some things a bit hit and miss. It is a pity that updates to HawkNL have been a long time coming. HawkNL 2.0 has been in the pipeline for almost as long as MilkShape 2.0.