Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

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NY00123

Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by NY00123 » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:24 pm

Hello to everybody reading this,

I started a long time ago the work on a multi-player front-end, called YANG, which stands for Yet Another Netplay Guider.
Basically, it lets you host and advertise chat rooms, join such rooms, and then a game can be launched with the members inside such a room.
Since the day it was born, it has supported Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior.
It's also cross-platform. It can work on Windows and Linux, and also on Mac OS X, thanks to the help of a few people.

Now, I've recently got several code contributions by someone known as Turrican. One major contribution, is, that's right, Blood support.

Website with screen shots and downloads: http://ny.duke4.net/

Note that you need the DOSBox emulator in order to run it. If you haven't already got it, you can get it from http://www.dosbox.com/.

NY00123

Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by NY00123 » Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:12 am

Version 0.72 has been released. Should hopefully work better on Mac OS X with application bundles like DOSBox.app.
The directory you can set for Blood MOD files has been removed from the UI for now, as it isn't really useful.
If you want to know why you can't even select MOD files for Blood, see the YANG FAQ (accessible from the Help menu of YANG).

NY00123

Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by NY00123 » Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:57 am

Version 0.80 has been released. The main addition, again thanks to the efforts of Turrican, is support for Descent 1 and 2.

NY00123

Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by NY00123 » Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:59 am

Version 0.81 has been released. This is mainly a bug fix release. One example you may have noticed in version 0.80 is the wrong icon set for the Windows executable :P

Replica

Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by Replica » Sun May 23, 2010 2:50 pm

Hi,

We are pleased to announce a new release of YANG that was released.
The following fixes and features have been done by Turrican below.

20/05/2010
YANG v0.84 has been released, with the following updates:

* Added support for bMouse which greatly improves the mouselook in the DOS Build Engine games : download and extract it in its own directory, then enable it and specify its location in the new YANG's option, located in the source ports dialog, under the DOSBox tab.
Also, don't forget to change the "Controller Type" to "Keyboard and External", using the "SETUP.EXE" program of all the DOS games you are going to use with bMouse on YANG.

* Fixed a problem where a CD-ROM would not mount in YANG, if you are using a DOSBox base configuration file in YANG, which was already mounting something with the drive letter "D".

Note that it has only been discovered after YANG v0.83 has been released, that since YANG v0.82, the Windows 9x support was broken (because of Unicode), and that there was a problem with the "GeoIP.dat" file when the Linux DEB packages are used.

These problems could have already been fixed for the YANG v0.83 release if we were aware about them in time. So now we'd let you report to Replica's (email) any problem you may encounter with YANG as soon as possible.

A link to download YANG is available here http://www.multi-players-zone.com/yang

Replica
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Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by Replica » Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:37 am

YANG v0.90 has been released today :


The most interesting change done for the Blood players, is the "Cryptic Passage" add-on support for the "Blood" game, which works with the original edition of the "Cryptic Passage" add-on installed on the "Registered" and "Plasma Pak" editions of "Blood", but also with the "Cryptic Passage" add-on bundled with the "One Unit Whole Blood" edition too : the new "Use the Cryptic Passage add-on" option in both the Single-Player and Multiplayer dialogs will be enabled/available if the "CRYPTIC.EXE" executable file is found in your "Blood" directory.

Note that when the new "Use the Cryptic Passage add-on" option is selected, the built-in "Original map" list is updated/replaced with the "Cryptic Passage" add-on's map names.

Also, both the Single-Player and Multiplayer dialogs have been rewritten : now, there will be a tab for each of the main games supported by YANG (a tab will only appear if you have selected at least one source port for this main game), allowing to only display the relevant options for each of the main games, and also, now each of the settings/options will be saved separately between each of the main games.

Another major change is the added support for any DOS game (by using DOSBox) : you can create custom DOS game profiles, in the new "Custom DOS games" tab, located in the menu "Settings -> Source ports" dialog.


This is just a summary of the main changes done for this new YANG version : for much more informations, be sure to also read the full changelog on the main YANG web site @ http://yang-online.com


Finally, here are a few notes about the new "Packet mode" selector added for the "Blood" game :


Well, if it's true that there's no network performance problem at 2 players, when playing with the Build Engine games on Internet, using DOSBox, it's however not the case anymore at 3 or more players, which usually results in much more latency.

The main reason is that these games are designed in a way where every players are sending and receiving packets directly from and to every other players, whereas DOSBox is designed to work in Server/Client mode, meaning that there's no direct link between the 'client players'.

As a result, when playing with the Build Engine games on Internet at 3 or more players, using DOSBox, since there's no direct link between the 'client players', this means that the packets sent and received between the 'client players' will have to take a longer path, going through the 'server player', which results in a higher network latency between these 'client players', leading to a higher network latency for every players then, since the other direct links between the 'server player' and the 'client players' which could be faster, will have to 'wait' to keep the game in sync.

However, with the "Blood" game, there's a special feature/option that no other Build Engine game has, being the ability to choose between a 'broadcast packet mode' or a 'master/slave packet mode'.

By default in "Blood", for <5 players, the 'broadcast packet mode' is automatically used, and for >4 players, the 'master/slave packet mode' is automatically used.

So, if this 'master/slave packet mode' in "Blood" results in the packets not being sent and received between every players, but only between the 'slave players' and the 'master player', then this would be exactly what's needed for playing "Blood" on Internet, using DOSBox, with the lowest latency possible when at 3 or more players.

Unfortunatelly, the problem is that there's no way to specify which player is the 'master player' (blue color player/first slot in the fragbar), which seems to have always been automatically determined in every Build Engine games, by the computer's speed, and maybe other factors too.

And with DOSBox, it's even worse for some reason, because the 'server player' (hosting player) is _never_ the 'master player' (blue color player/first slot in the fragbar), whatever the computer you use to host the game.

Now, despite this problem, I've still decided to implement in YANG, an option to allow forcing the 'broadcast packet mode' or the 'master/slave packet mode', so that you can experiment with it : what you'll notice when in 'master/slave packet mode', is that when the 'master player' (blue color player/first slot in the fragbar) exits the game, it results in the game automatically closing on every other players' side too.

So, what I'm asking, is some help to possibly find a way to make it so that when playing "Blood" with DOSBox, we can force the 'master player' (blue color player/first slot in the fragbar) to be the one hosting the game ('server player') : if you've got a solution, you can contact the YANG team or talk about it on this forum.

Kresnorf
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Re: Play Blood online using YANG and DOSBox

Post by Kresnorf » Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:21 am

Hey, I actually just bought the One Whole Unit blood from GOG.com. Downloaded Yang and have been trying to get it to run. every time though, it seems that when we go to launch the game from the chat room, it gets to the point where it finds both players but then crashes and the window close instantly. Noticed in the FAQ on Yang website that it could be the setup files. Checked those and the game runs in single player through yang just fine. Not sure what else would cause that. Wondered if you might have any insight or TS ideas because I saw this exact post in the forums on GOG.com but have had no luck finding any others that even talk about it.

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