Aleph One 0.17 release candidate 1

[treellama]

Aleph One 0.17 release candidate 1 is available from treellama.org:

Release notes: http://www.treellama.org/alephone/0.17rc1-release-notes.html

Mac OS X (Universal Binary): http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne...0061111.tar.bz2

Windows: http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne-20061111.zip

Linux: http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne...-nolibs.tar.bz2

Classic Mac OS: http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne0.17rc1.sit

Source: http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne-20061111.tar.bz2

Mac OS X (NIBs) (PowerPC only): http://www.treellama.org/alephone/AlephOne...0061111.tar.bz2

Major changes since 0.17pre2 include players showing up in the Find Internet Games lobby while in-game, some commands for dealing with troublemakers in the FIG lobby, overhauls to fix bugs in physics and Lua handling, and other bug fixes. Please see the release notes for complete details.

Please report any bugs to http://marathon.sourceforge.net/

[Zott]

I see you got rid of .bacon

Pork Pork Pork



Is it possible to add people to an Aleph One Friend's list through Marius.net?
I don't recall.

[treellama]

If they enable logins, I think there's a friends list. I doubt they're going to enable them at this point, though.

[pakkman781]

I'll forever hate you for dropping NIBs. You'll go to hell for that

[Samus]

Why? SDL is faster to make, easier, and runs smoother and has a nice interface...

[shongshong]

actualy... why is there two versions? (or used to be two) what are the differences between nibs and sdl?

and does ither one load/render graphics faster better?

I never knew exactly whats between the two ecsept that I keep thinking sdl is not full screen

[Switch]

"runs smoother and has a nice interface..."

This is an opinion. I think the user Interface Is pixelated, unatural, unintuitive and flimsey topped off by gouge-your-eyes-out graphics and a windows bargin bin feel that doesen't play well with my operating system - I miss my mac game.

I woulden't be complaining, I just want to make sure nobody thinks pakkman Is alone.

[screamingfool]

yeah i totally agree with ya appleswitch, if it's all we get, i can live with it. But feels foreign and doesn't quite play smoothly.

[shongshong]

thats odd... one person says its smoother and faster, and another two says its slower and... not as smoother?

well... none the less, sounds like I should keep my old nibs?

[treellama]

For once, Samus is right, SDL should run a bit faster and load smoother, since SDL is actually designed for OS X and Quartz, unlike NIBs.

As for which interface is better it's down to opinion, some people like it to look like Marathon, and some people think it should be different from all other Mac shooters and look like their mail program or web browser instead.

People are just afraid of change. If you're not spending 99% of your time playing the game, instead of looking at the prefs screen, something's wrong anyway. And in-game, they're no different.

[Mordekai]

NIB's, in my opinion, looks a lot more like the way Marathon looks than SDL does. And not being able to apple-tab out of it will be annoying too. I guess I'll learn to deal with it, but it also means I'll have to try to recreate my exact settings, and with mouse sensitivity, it's not that easy.

[treellama]

Really? Marathon had candy colored buttons and plastic bevels and such? You must have played a different Marathon than I did!

You can copy the mouse sensitivity numbers out of your prefs file, that should make things easier. The SDL mouse sensitivity slider needs some work, to be sure. You can still command tab, just takes two keystrokes now if you're fullscreen (command-enter, command-tab). Pretend you're playing a Blizzard game

[RyokoTK]

The "In Game-Treellama" thing doesn't seem to be working for me.

[treellama]

Hmm, what happens? Do you disappear from the channel immediately?

[RyokoTK]

No, they just don't show up, unless there's some part to the process that I don't know about.

[treellama]

No, all you need is rc1 and to join or gather on metaserver. Instead of disappearing from the channel, it should send an ".afk in game" command, and continue to respond to metaserver keep-alive requests.

This means that only players using rc1 will show up as in-game...hopefully you realize this, which means something else is wrong. It's worked for me every time I've tried it, but I haven't seen any rc1 games bigger than a 1v1, so it could have something do with the number of players.

[shongshong]

well, im not exactly concerned about the GUI, since it doesnt effect the game play...

but is SDL significantly different in Open GL rendering than NIB's? and is there any other odd downsides to it, engine wize? same with mml specifications

[Lugas]

The Interface isn't perfect, but its more Marathon-like than OS X Aqua. Sure the Aqua looks good, but you don't want it stalking you into your games.
For the interface, you could change the font, and make it more like Leela/Tycho/Durandal's font on Marathon. You could also make the background black. Grey is dull and ugly; black is also dull, but more Marathon-like.
Hang on: Does NIBs use the OS X Aqua interface? And does SDL/Intel Build use the grey interfact.
Also, if its possible, interface should be editable for TCs. The interface looks okay on M1A1, but not EMR.

[treellama]

well, im not exactly concerned about the GUI, since it doesnt effect the game play...

but is SDL significantly different in Open GL rendering than NIB's? and is there any other odd downsides to it, engine wize? same with mml specifications

OK, gonna ignore the interface since we can't please everyone there, and focus on in-game:

Pros for SDL:Uses true Quartz fullscreen on the Mac, so it has more available VRAM to work withUses Altivec to do some texture blitting, so replacement textures load a little faster on G4s and G5sSupports full screen antialiasing (FSAA)Supports nearly all the MML that NIBs doesUses Core Audio instead of Sound Manager, so it doesn't screw with system volumeIs a Universal Binary; the NIBs version is PowerPC only and runs at 10 fps or so on Intel Macs when the HUD is visible and OpenGL is enabledWorks on dual monitor systems
Cons:Some of the hard-coded keys (like \ for chat) are hard to find or don't work on non-US keyboards. The solution to this will be eventually to make more of the keys configurableYou can't assign a mouse button and a key to the same action right nowMML-specified replacement sounds don't work; also, the cheat code modifier key is not configurable (but eventually cheats will be merged into the console, so this will become unnecessary)F1 and F2 are kind of slow right now (this can be improved in the future)

For the interface, you could change the font, and make it more like Leela/Tycho/Durandal's font on Marathon. You could also make the background black. Grey is dull and ugly; black is also dull, but more Marathon-like.

You can make your own themes with whatever colors and graphics and fonts you want (although fonts aren't easy to work with--you need to know what you're doing and use ResEdit)

Hang on: Does NIBs use the OS X Aqua interface? And does SDL/Intel Build use the grey interfact.

Correct, essentially

Also, if its possible, interface should be editable for TCs. The interface looks okay on M1A1, but not EMR.

It is already editable
Eternal X alpha 3 comes with a custom theme for SDL, it's the first TC I know of that has one.

[RyokoTK]

This means that only players using rc1 will show up as in-game...hopefully you realize this, which means something else is wrong.

No, I'm just an idiot, and don't bother with simple trappings like "logic." Thanks, that would explain it (most people were playing on pre2/stable).

[Zott]

Is it possible to copy and paste with SDL? That would be so helpful in Aleph One when giving webpages or the like.

[Atomic Potato]

I believe that moving to SDL was a good decision. The interface is better (loving the sound effects) and gives an old game a modern feel. I really find the ability to put game files inside the AlephOne application very convenient as well as not having the AlephOne log in my home folder. I think that this is a great move for Marathoners everywhere.

Right now, I have only one gripe, which is the lower sound quality. I understand that the audio code is an "on-the-fly" conversion, so it is understandable why it is not perfect. I will not die if the sounds in generic Infinity gameplay are slightly worse than in native MacOS, but it really has an adverse effect on scenarios without high quality sounds (like M1A1; nobody cares about it but it still is the original Marathon). I would be grateful if this could be improved.

This sound thing is just one minor detail, however. The rest of the build looks very good. It still has ways that it can improve, but it is far better than the MacOS build. If we could restore the one or two things we lost, it would be perfect.

[treellama]

Hmm, things sound as good in SDL as they do in NIBs to me in Marathon Infinity. You have all the sound options turned up in the prefs? Check and make sure your output rate is set to 44.1KHz in Audio MIDI setup.

I don't recommend putting the data files in the application itself, but one cool thing you can do in rc1 is drag and drop the scenario you want to play on top of Aleph One.

[LegacyTyphoon]

I don't recommend putting the data files in the application itself, but one cool thing you can do in rc1 is drag and drop the scenario you want to play on top of Aleph One.

Sweet!!! I didn't know you could do that!

[shongshong]

wow this sounds teh excilent! Ill give it a go soon