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FAO Olaf van der Spek: Thanks for your reply...


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#1 Antares376

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Posted 04 April 2009 - 09:41 PM

...and, taking the opportunity, thanks for all your great C&C-dedicated work over all these years.

Firstly, I'd like to state that neither of the links in this post is intended to explicitely advertise for any external site; as opposed to this, their mere purpose is to relay to relevant information, the posting of which here directly may have proven cumbersome, or otherwise inconvenient.

(I included this disclaimer, staying aware of the fact that the rules of these forums seem to be rather picky in regards to linking to other sites, and as much as I'd like to rely on the common sense and reason of the admins, I'd rather avoid getting myself banned for some stupid reason ;)).

A fresh install of TFD does not include patch 1.03.

Strictly speaking, TFD patched with the 1.03 patch is not a completely *fresh* install anymore. However, I had not heard anywhere of any outstanding issues pertaining to the current release of the 1.03 patch, and you can trust me when I say that I always try to stay informed and do some research first.

I have notified Nathancnc, who maintains TFD 1.03, of the apparent problem; he was not aware of its existence beforehand. Well, it seems no one really was. How this can be is still beyond me, as this custom WinSock library from Scorpio9a has been around for roughly a year already. And, given that it seems to be the only currently existent fix to make local networking for RA2 etc. possible without having to rely on the oh how hopelessly deprecated IPX protocol, I have good grounds to assume that its usage is fairly widespread amongst dedicated C&C fans (even more so after release of TFD 1.03 patch), and I am certain there are enough of them concerned about both LAN and XWIS online functionality. As I have been playing on XWIS only for a short time, I had not encountered the problem before, but the contents of the Help Archives, such as here, easily prove that this problem had been reported before, and the reason already had been tracked down to apparently have to do with the custom WinSock dll. Unfortunately, this fact did obviously fail to receive the acknowledgement it definitely should have.

While I completely appreciate DonCarlo's statement that sticky topics cannot be made on everything, here are three quick reasons why I still think there should be one here on this problem:
  • It has severe adverse impact on RA2 (YR and TS still to be confirmed) online play on XWIS;
  • It seems to originate from a widely used fix providing extended LAN functionality;
  • It affects RA2 (and, potentially YR and TS) regardless of whether the game is standalone, or part of TFD.
As far as a remedy for this is concerned:

- Workaround: For the time being, here you can obtain my current workaround; it has the form of surrogate launchers for RA2 to be used for online play (need to be placed in RA2 main folder). Each of them will ensure that RA2 will not use the problematic dll, allowing for smooth online play, while the LAN fix still remains in place when RA2 is launched normally. Should you wish to, feel free to post this on the Strike-Team site (needless to say, I guarantee the files are 100% clean).

- Fix:

Has anyone notified Scorpio already?

Sadly, no one I have spoken to seems to know how to contact Scorpio9a... however, I seem to recall having read somewhere that you once worked with him on some network stuff for Renegade, could it be possible for you to get in touch with him? If so, it'd also be great if you could mention to him that implementing a method to select which network adapter to use (like it was the case with IPX) would be most appreciated (if that's possible, that is); these matters were discussed in a few topics in the old Command & Patch forums (these are possibly gone due to some technical problem, which fact sucks big time, but hey, that's life) and currently the only viable way to succeed with LAN play over VPNs seems to involve applying a workaround, as outlined here.

BTW, there was no need to open yet another topic and you still write way too much. ;)

I created another topic because, at the time I realised the problem still persists, the original one had already been archived and closed. Similarly, I'm replying to you in this thread, as for the same reasons I wasn't able to post in the thread you commented on anymore.

Finally, whilst I'll eagerly admit that my posts may tend to be quite elaborate at times, I am taking great care to keep them meaningful rather than pointless, and I strongly hope that you'll agree with me on that ;) Please note that, in this way, I am devoting my time to convey information to others, and if people fail to recognise this and refuse to devote their time to read it, I guess it can't be helped... On the far opposite, we can encounter uncounted numbers of posts merely consisting of one or a bunch of acronyms, and as for myself, I undoubtedly prefer to read one meaningful post, rather than reading a thousand of "lol"- or "rotfl"-ones...

In the unlikely event that I'm still misunderstood, I'll take the liberty to illustrate with a tiny sketch of mine (yeah, let's have some humour here, too)...


"Hey, the author of the Readme File is writing way too much... let's skip it :)"

(half an hour later...)

"Heck, why isn't this working...? :confused1: Grrrrrrrrrr... :("

[I-¦34\/1l`/ p\/\/¦\I3¦) 8`/ 0I\¦353lp¦-I]


Once again, thanks for your time, and all you have done this far. All the best for the future.


Kind regards,

Antares376

Edited by Antares376, 08 April 2009 - 08:53 PM.


#2 Pompski

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Posted 04 April 2009 - 10:45 PM

This is xwis help, not a discussion forum. If you wish to speak to olaf, PM him and hope for a reply, or post this in a different forum.

As im in a good mood, il move it for you.

I really do appreciate your goal's though. However, if all help topics were to be pinned, there would be alot infront of this in that Queue :D

Moved to XCL Discussion.

Edited by Pompi, 04 April 2009 - 10:47 PM.


#3 Antares376

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Posted 05 April 2009 - 06:48 PM

Thanks again for your help.

I very much attempted to send the above to Olaf as a PM in the first place, however, found myself unable to do that (got a message informing that I can't PM him, as PM messages from members cannot be sent to him, or something very similar). Alternatively, I could have emailed him, but now that I posted it in the forums, that's out of the question anyway.

To avoid confusion, I decided to post it where the original discussion took place; as I see you share my view that it doesn't really belong there, thanks for having moved it.

Cheers


EDIT: I had outrageously ;) allowed myself to have bumped this topic with a remark as quoted below, having subsequently received advice "not to bump help topics" (which, obviously, is perfectly reasonable).

I am very fond of this thread being perceived as a "Help Topic", as I really hope it may prove to be of help to some people. And no, Olaf, by any means I am not speaking of you (given that someone may have come up with a silly idea of that kind in the first place).

[Bump], dammit. The original post has been amended to.

And yes, I do enjoy being a comedian, while still staying dead serious at the same time. "Bwahahahaha".

Cheers


Edited by Antares376, 08 April 2009 - 04:53 AM.


#4 Antares376

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Posted 18 April 2009 - 02:40 PM

...Yawn.

There's still no sticky on this in the Help Forum, folks obviously keep running into the problem, and supposed help staff merrily keeps being totally clueless about it. You have really a beast of a reason to congratulate yourself. Or at least you would have, stood the world upside-down.





Let it be said, that I myself have been providing tech support in various fields for a living for years, and I really can tell good support from not-so-good. I've seen enough of bad support, and I don't wanna see it again, hence my (as someone was kind enough to call it) "appalling attitude". But here, my dear sirs, sometimes it appears to be hopeless.

Cheers

#5 Pompski

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Posted 18 April 2009 - 02:50 PM

Thanks for your thought's

Closed.

Edited by Pompi, 18 April 2009 - 04:59 PM.



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