gnartsch

I don't have Win8, and I am really guessing here, Try running TheDarkMod in windowed mode. Does anything popup in the taskbar ? Like Windows or a security tool asking for permissions or something else ? Where exactly did you install the game? Did you upgrade from 1.08 to 2.0 - or maybe from an earlier version? Maybe something crept in that makes Win8 behave a bit different than Win7 did. Oh, and did you install the Microsoft Updates? Some people just don't bother - and wonder why Win8 behaves buggy.

Not sure how much coding would be needed. I made a code-donation for the mission-downloader, which - among other things - should have been integrated along with this task: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=3599 It would give the downloader the flexibility to compare the full version number as a string. Can't tell which parts got actually integrated into 2.01, though, since that code is not public again yet. Maybe taaaki can tell if we will see some actual improvements on the version handling. As far as the server is concerned, I have no idea. Only someone with access to the server code can answer what the issues would be. Does the database and server code accept a String already ? Don't know ! I can't imagine that the server does much more with the version then putting it into the database. So, I guess for the server it would barely make a difference whether the version is a string or an integer.

Well,.... I think it is up to the TDM team to make a decision whether that should be an official statement ... or the code gets fixed.

As is right now, you can use any version number you want. And having a precise version like 1.42 is good to have. The problem is the handling of the versions in the database. Obviously it only takes 1, 2, 3, etc.... That makes delivering updates to the players almost impossible. What is the difference between 1.41. and 1.42 ? None ! They would both read simply 1. And the updater is clueless that there is any update at all. Getting back to your question: the person maintaining the database grabs that version info from either your post or the darkmod.txt But there is surely no tool involved which would be trying to read it from a specific location. Technically correct, since this will avoid duplicate missions showing up for the player. Afaik, this has never been expressed as a requirement by the TDM team and that limitation dealing with FM versions did exist ever since TDM got out of the door. As things are working right now, this statement would help a lot, though. But it would be much more benficial to have the internal issues in the TDM code (Database, PHP on the web-server & Downloader code) resolved, since you can not argue author into incrementing the version number for each minor update. Many will continue to use versions like 1.0.1, 1.1, 2.3a, etc.......

The problem with these missions is that the internalName that is passed on to the downloader (URL) MUST NOT be changed when making an update availlable. Also, it must not include any version info. That's what the version field should be used for. However, since the versioning mechanism used by TDM for FMs is soooo poor (only allows an integer for the version, like '1', '2' or '3') probably caused that the person maintaining the mission database thought it would be better to just create a new entry in the database. Selfmade problems altogether - that hopefully get addressed in a next version and that could be entirely avoided. This is nothing the players should ever become aware of. All that manual cleanup required for the players is just pointless.

I see it listed in the URL that the downloader uses. And that's how I had received my own copy. Unless there was some outage on the server, it should have shown up properly. All links are up-to-date and functional.

Awesome! That is just what I need. Or at least the best option so far. Edit: oh well. Just having tried it and responded here. Next thing to happen was TDM hanging up when hitting Alt-Enter again to get back to fullscreen.

Nice! Will defintely give it a try. But the folder should be named darkmod/sound/ instead of darkmod/sounds/, right ?

Indeed I would appreciate a method to minimize TDM as well. Would be very nice in order to take notes when beta-testing or whatever else. (Can't stand the windowed mode, because immersion goes down to 0%) Alt-Tab works to some extend, but the the game continues to play and my Desktop is not fully accessible, because TDM is still sitting on top. Also, most of the time my mouse vanishes in Windows. Hence I can't really do anything. I think when the user runs TDM in fullscreen mode and wants to Alt-Tab to Windows, then the best would be to - pause the game (e.g. by forcing it to switch to the TDM menu by a simulated push to the 'ESC' key) - and then minimize it

Just in case that does not work either, here a note: indeed setting the resolution does not work quite as smooth as a I described. While TDM accepts the resolution that you specify in the shortcut, it actually still requires a Restart in order to actually apply it. So, if you do not bother all that much about that detail, it would at least give you the desired resolution without having to manually configure it in the UI. EDIT: Hmm...ok. Not sure what does, but obviously it enforces a refresh of the display settings without requiring a restart.I updated my post. With that the desired resolution takes effect immediately.

Evening, Bikerdude. This seems to do the trick: D:\Games\darkmod\TheDarkMod.exe +set com_allowConsole 1 +set r_fullscreen 1 +set r_customWidth 1024 +set r_customHeight 768 +set r_aspectRatio 0 +set r_mode -1 In case your default TDM aspect ratio does not match the desired resolution, you need to specify the r_aspectRatio. Otherwise you can omit it. The values for r_aspectRatio are: Unfortunately this will permanently change your resolution, so you will need to specify alternative settings to all other shortcuts as well.

Which unusual object??? Must be junk. Quote: The answer must be close by.

Congrats & thanks for this fine mission! The gameplay is really nice and well done. A few comments after completing on Ghost.

Thanks Bikerdude ! With that there are only 3 issues left, aside from the ones affected by whitespaces. Two of them are still a pain in the ass. Sneak & Destroy 'http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/sneak_destroy.pk4' This link is much smaller then it should be. And if you download it, you can not even open it. --> So, it is corrupted, obviously! Please drop the link or replace the pk4. In Remembrance of Him 'http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/remembrance.pk4' This link is older and smaller then the other links. --> Outdated version Please replace it with this one: 'http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/TDM2testmissions/remembrance.pk4' Crystal Grave 'http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/TDM2testmissions/crystalgrave2_l10n.pk4' This localisation link is dead. Please replace it with the one below. 'http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/TDM2testmissions/crystalgravev2_l10n.pk4' Wish you a Happy New Year !

I opened a bugtracker for that issue. But there is not much more that I can do. Since I have no access to the admin pages (off course) all I can do is guessing. Regarding Solar Escape: Tr00perty announced a TDM 2.0 compatibility update on August 21 in this post: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14944-fan-mission-solar-escape-1/page__view__findpost__p__317979 If you download the PK4 and open it, you will notice that the maps and various folder got updated on that day. If you download the mission via any link from the database, you will see a date like July 22 instead (and the PK4 has a different size as well). Unfortunately he failed to update the version in the readme or the darkmod.txt. Nevertheless, I would consider that to be an official update that should be caught up. And maybe increase the version number along with that.

Can't you just delete the individual offending links and recreate them? The analysis.txt file tells you exactly which these would be. Opening a bugtracker against the webpage would be advisable as well. The code should strip off any trailing whitespaces. I wonder if those blanks are introduced because of the way someone copy/pastes them from another source. Oh, and I would like to draw your attention to post #30 as well. Solar Escape & Lord Dufford got updated for 2.0 already. But the links in the database are older versions.

I do not think that this is the issue. But it's hard to tell without seeing what you see when editing the details pages. But here is another example. <td><a href="http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/sound_alert_trainer.pk4">http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/sound_alert_trainer.pk4 </a></td> </tr> Actually the trailing whitespaces consist of a blank, followed by a tab. (Save that webpage to disk and open it in an editor.) The internal downloader itself of course can not access the database. It calls a PHP script on the server, which will returns an XML file. So, it's the server that crawls through the database and fetches the latest info from there before it assembles the XML.

Sounds like a text-editor would be sufficient. Check for the words PROBLEM or WARNING. This will have to do for the moment until I find the mood to go some steps further. If I decide to implement a UI it will end up being more complicated (but more user friendly) then just filtering for troublesome missions and fill a text field with the raw details as they are printed to the file. That would take some time. We will see if and when I get to that. Ok, just saw your last response. Feed back is welcome! - If the sorting is an issue, then I can try to address that during the next few days. - Allowing a difference of ~0.5 MB sounds reasonable. Will do that as well. - Regarding the whitespaces: I have trouble fully understanding that myself as well. But obviously there is some code in the DarkMod website already which is trying to handle that at least for the mission detail webpages. See this small excerpt from the details for Business as Usual : <td><a href="http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/missions/TDM2testmissions/businessv3.pk4">http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/mis... spaces</a></td> The website obvisously retrieves the raw links from the database and at least corrects the actual LINK on the left by removing the trailing whitespaces. But the 'display text' on the right still proofs that the link in the DB does have trailing blanks. Now, turning to the code that feeds the XML & PHP pages: I do not know what that code looks like, but it behaves different. Any Link containing trailing blanks will never be send to the player-machine via the XML, because the server obviously does some checking (like whether the url ends with '.pk4' or not). As a result, all those links ending with blanks are non-existant for the internal downloader. <mission id="14" title="Business as Usual" releaseDate="2010-01-14" size="16" version="3" internalName="business3" type="single" author="Bikerdude"> <downloadLocation language="English" url="http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/business3.pk4"/> <downloadLocation language="English" url="http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/TDM2testmissions/business3.pk4"/> <localisationPack url="http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/business_l10n.pk4"/> <localisationPack url="http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/business_l10n.pk4"/> <localisationPack url="http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/missions/business_l10n.pk4"/> </mission> As you can see, there is no link to the Fidcal mirror. It got discarded by the server before the XML was sent to my local PC.

Adding a UI was not actually on my todo list. Maybe I find some time for that sometime next year, or maybe not at all. Don't know yet. What exactly would you like to see there, which the command-line version can not show you? Or, to put it different: which part would you consider to be rather tedious in it's current form besides having to open the results in a text editor? I understand that a good UI may help to pinpoint some issues in a better way, however, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to request the PHP page (or whatever you are required to use in order to maintain the mission DB) to be improved. Such as cutting off trailing whitespace from any link that gets added - which makes up the majority of the current issues, although these are not the most important ones. I would be curious to see what that page looks like and how helpful it really is - considering that in the past a few missions were even pointing to totally different missions. Could you add a screenie?

v0.45 is out with a few minor corrections.

Someone added a mirror for 'In Remembrance of Him' just recently. Now the tool complains about detected mismatching filesizes. The offending mirror is on Southquarter. The link on Fical is v2.0 as it should be. Adding mirrors that point to outdated versions does not help anybody at all. Merry X-mas anyway EDIT: in case it helps, the tool also provides a mode to test any mirrors you might intend to add upfront before really adding them on the server. Download the XML file from the server and save it as available_missions.xml in the directory where you run the tool from. Then you can manually add any potential mirrors to it.... and see if any complaints show up running the tool. In that mode there is no crosschecking done against the PHP, XML or the Mission Details webpages, though. Don't forget to delete available_missions.xml afterwards!

With respect to the crashes, it might be well the NVidia drivers. Anything newer then 314.22 never worked reliably for me - and the internet is crowded with people having the same random crashes. Even if you just browse the web, and sometimes even if you don't do anything specific at all. So, you might try to uninstall the drivers completely and then install 314.22.

Someone picking up the Winchester Mystery House would be awesome! But building that would be a challenge... And even if you were able to get hold of the plans, they would be hard to understand. 1000 windows, 2000 stair-steps, 47 fireplaces,..... Stairs and doors leading nowhere, since the last inhabitor was terrified about potential apparitions, etc.

Hells bells! I just realized that this contest was started exactly one year ago already. And we even do not know the winner.

@Bikerdude: no problem. I don't give up that easily and will keep posting the entire next year if I have to. EDIT : Oh, can you please update Solar Escape 1 by Tr00perty ? On august 21 he posted an updated version of the mission with various bugfixes and also with TDM 2.0 compatibility. http://forums.thedar...post__p__317979 The version on the servers is still the original july 22 version. EDIT2: Lord Dufford by stumpy has been updated for TDM 2.0 as well on october 28. So, it should be added back to the download repository. http://forums.thedar...post__p__324925 IMHO, someone should really open an official stickyfied 'New Mission & Update Announcement Thread'. Authors expecting that the admins will read each and every post is simply unrealistic. With such a thread, players could 'announce' them in case the authors forgot to do so. And the admins would have pretty much a single thread to follow. Would be nice for players as well, in case they return after a long time without having to read all the threads and posts. Just my 2 cents.