Question for the Developers (Working with original source release)

[Chojun]

Hey all (Developers),

This is mostly for those of you who were involved with the original source's compilation and first build release.  For my own educational benefits (etc) I took an original copy of the source and am working on getting it compiled so that I can just poke around at it and learn its inner-workings better for myself (when the source was released I studied most of the source files but I never made an effort towards compiling it).

Anyway, when Kevin and Troman first worked on the source, I remember them saying they had some issues with some various things as they were working to get the source to compile.  If I remember correctly, I believe it was something with Lex & Yacc, Glide (3dfx), and some others that i can't remember.  My question (for now) is this:  What were the issues with Glide?  Was the source utilizing Glide ever compiled?  If so, what version of the glide SDK was used?  I found an old glide SDK and the source compiled under it (I haven't run it yet, though).

I'm sure I'll have a number of different questions for the developers that I'll keep to this thread.  Thanks.

And, for the morbidly curious, I recently was hired at a company working in one of their development departments to document and update their old system.  From what they've described, the source is 15 years old and it probably looks a lot like some of warzone's deep-down stuff.  The experience I gain at this company (Tomax) will certainly benefit the Warzone project, but I want to start from scratch.

[Troman]

I don't remember any details anymore. I think there were no problems with lex/yacc. There was a macro which was causing problems, all I remember it dealt with some floating point stuff, but it was easy to fix it.

I don't remember anything about glide.

I was sure I had the old source on my old HD, but I couldn't find it so far. BTW there must still be a compilation guide for the old source on the P-2 forums, if they are still up.

[Giel]

You can also just check out from Subversion starting at revision one. Then just read the logs.

[Chojun]

Yeah, I looked through a bunch of the first revision logs.

Is there any other documentation out there?  I don't want to duplicate this project's work.

I got it compiled right off the bat but I had to comment out a line that was declaring and then referencing a function called _input(), it was giving me a linker error.  Perhaps I don't have the correct libraries?  Anyone remember having a problem like this?

Of course, commenting out that function causes the game to crash later on, but at least I can get it to compile and run past the main menu.

[Troman]

I got it compiled right off the bat but I had to comment out a line that was declaring and then referencing a function called _input(), it was giving me a linker error.  Perhaps I don't have the correct libraries?  Anyone remember having a problem like this?

Personally I never had a problem with that function.

[Chojun]

That's odd... 

Anyway, I got the FMVs working....  How come no-one ever said that RPL playback worked from the original source release?

Messing around with the source will be helpful for my new job.  The company has an old Unix-based server that needs updating and they want me to do it.

[kage]

Anyway, I got the FMVs working....  How come no-one ever said that RPL playback worked from the original source release?

someone had said that was the case, and we all assumed they were correct, at least in regards to the windows platform.

[DevUrandom]

I have been told by those who were here before me. And I told it to everyone else asking.
I never myself tried to compile anything but the 2.x versions on Windows. And neither did I look into the original source.

[Chojun]

Out of curiosity, how many of the developers have worked with the original revisions of the source?

[Giel]

Out of curiosity, how many of the developers have worked with the original revisions of the source?

If you mean, from those who are currently active within this project, then I think it's safe to say: none.

[Chojun]

If you mean, from those who are currently active within this project, then I think it's safe to say: none.

Hmm.  Well, in that case, I hope that my efforts are beneficial in some way to you.  I heard Kamaze talking about documentation being widely needed or something like that...  I've never taken a look at the source from this project, or even played even 5 minutes from any of the Wz2100 Resurrection builds.  So I don't know what has changed or what is needed in that regard.

Anyway if anyone has any questions about the original source, I'd be happy to answer them as I have time.


In other news...  I've managed to fix 99% of the compiler warnings for several of the projects.  Also, I fixed the esoteric _input() linker error.  I also fixed the texel offset bug that plagued the D3D version of the game, and I got the debugger to attach to the executable for MSVS.NET 2005..  It wasn't setup that way by default...  it makes me wonder how Pumpkin tested their product...

This is probably old news and quite uninteresting for a lot of you but if there are any questions or value in what I've been doing, then I'd be happy to write up FAQs or tutorials for getting started with the original source release.  Just let me know.

[lav_coyote25]

yes - please - just keep track of what your doing - you know that any docs generated can always come this way...

[Chojun]

I'm certainly willing to help, Coyote   The documentation for this game has always been a little.. famished...  But one thing that THIS (wz2100.net) project needs is to direct people toward (specific) things that need to be documented.  So tell me what needs to be documented and don't say "everything." 

I've established a "home" for my tinkerings in the source.  I hope that it will help by uncovering things that the developers may have missed over the last couple years.  I'll document everything and post it on my site...  Coyote, you can feel free to grab anything off there and put it on your docs site.

BTW, I noticed that one of the banners I had running for you for the last 2 years (for the WZToys site) is not pointing to the correct site anymore.  Did WZToys go down?

And just a clarification before people start barfing flames at me:  This (my) project is not a split or an attempt to drive warzone in another direction.  I am not accepting membership at my site and I will not be releasing Binaries/Executables, nor source code.  It is just something to satisfy a desire that has been boiling up inside of me since like August/September 2004.

http://www.cs.utah.edu/~gilmore

[lav_coyote25]

there was actually 2 wztoys sites...  the original - went down due to isp problems - not having proper tech service.

and the second went off line when the site went elsewhere... and i thank all those that supported them when they were on line.


still there is the original one i started way back  - http://members.shaw.ca/kgmetcalfe/  contains the tech tree in NON graphics format.

and the full site - right here -( all the docs in full gfx glory ) - http://docs.wz2100.net/index.html

[Chojun]

OK sounds good.  I have the banner for the original one still working.

Who is the webmaster around here?  If you want to get me a banner for this site I'll put it up on mine.  The benefit to that is that it will give exposure of the various Warzone projects to the CS students at my University.

Also, any other banners that people would like me to put up, just send em to me.