The Dark Mod 2.10 Availability

[Hugo Lobo]

Hi all!

First of all, since the "News and Announcements" section is read only, let me congratulate all Dark Mod team for keeping improving this amazing game. You are all incredible and, if i may, a little bit crazy to ster on Id Tech 4 c++ code.

Now for the question. It looks like TDM Updater is still not picking the new version. Looking a little bit closer, i think the mirror list seems not to be working (any of them), because the tdm_version_info.txt content does not have the package data (versions, crc, file size) but instead have 404 not found messages. I tried changing the mirror priority and all of them seem to return the same.

So my question is, you are aware of the problem? If so, do you have any estimation of when will we able to update the game.

Thank you in advance.

 

EDIT: nevermind... tdm_update.exe is deprecated. We should use the new installer.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Hugo Lobo

[thebigh]

The TDM updater is obsolete. It's been replaced with tdm_installer.exe on Windows, and with tdm_installer.linux64 on Linux. You should have a smoother experience with that; it's a bit less finicky than the updater was.

[Hugo Lobo]

1 minute ago, thebigh said:

The TDM updater is obsolete. It's been replaced with tdm_installer.exe on Windows, and with tdm_installer.linux64 on Linux. You should have a smoother experience with that; it's a bit less finicky than the updater was.

Thank you for the info @thebigh. I figured that out meanwhile. We really could use this information on the release log. I could be wrong, but i found no info about this. I edited my original post with this information, so it could help other people.

[thebigh]

There's already a big banner up at the moddb page but I guess it isn't as signposted as well as it could be elsewhere.

[New Horizon]

The performance improvements are definitely noticeable.  I was barely able to play TDM the last two updates but as of 2.10, performance levels are definitely back up.  The two missions I've tried so far are nice and smooth.

Load times are great as well.

[wesp5]

Yep, loading times improved a lot. I used to read some ebook while waiting for missions to load and now I barely start and they are already finished :)!

[chakkman]

On 3/4/2022 at 8:38 PM, thebigh said:

The TDM updater is obsolete. It's been replaced with tdm_installer.exe on Windows, and with tdm_installer.linux64 on Linux. You should have a smoother experience with that; it's a bit less finicky than the updater was.

So how does this work? I place the tdm_installer.exe in the games directory, and my TDM installation is updated when I run it?

Edit: Ok, problem solved. I just ran it in the Dark Mod directory, and, it seems to work like the updater, i.e. if there is no installation, it newly installs Dark Mod, if there is an installation, it updates it accordingly.

I don't understand why it still wants to update something when you run it after you updated though. It deleted all my settings as well, argh...

Edited March 6, 2022 by chakkman

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, chakkman said:

I don't understand why it still wants to update something when you run it after you updated though. It deleted all my settings as well, argh...

You have the option to install a previous version or a dev/beta version instead of the default latest stable release.

[Anderson]

Download speed is so slow. Does anyone have a .torrent with seeds?

Downloading about 2-3 hours and it says I need to wait another 17 hours.

Does it pick up on where it left or it starts over if I stop downloading?

Edited March 7, 2022 by Anderson

[datiswous]

5 hours ago, Anderson said:

Does anyone have a .torrent with seeds?

There's always the full download from moddb.

You can also specifically select another mirror in the installer. This sometimes helps.

Edited March 7, 2022 by datiswous

[stgatilov]

8 hours ago, Anderson said:

Download speed is so slow. Does anyone have a .torrent with seeds?

Downloading about 2-3 hours and it says I need to wait another 17 hours.

Does it pick up on where it left or it starts over if I stop downloading?

Are you doing fresh install?
You can save a lot of time by upgrading existing TDM installation (of any version). Just remove everything except for pk4 files and run tdm_installer.

Unfortunately, there is no option to pause and resume download.

I'll create torrent, but it will be targeting http mirror anyway.

[stgatilov]

Here is a torrent file for 2.10 download.
You won't be able to do differential update, but you will be able to use any torrent client and to pause/resume download intentionally or due to unstable network.

Instructions are simple:

1. Make sure the whole torrent is downloaded into fresh directory.
2. Unpack contents of tdm_shared_stuff.zip into TDM directory.
3. Probably download tdm_installer from website, maybe even run it to check that your installation is good.

release210.torrent

UPDATE: Added trackers to the torrent file.

[Anderson]

7 hours ago, stgatilov said:

Are you doing fresh install?
You can save a lot of time by upgrading existing TDM installation (of any version). Just remove everything except for pk4 files and run tdm_installer.

Unfortunately, there is no option to pause and resume download.

I'll create torrent, but it will be targeting http mirror anyway.

Yes, itțs a fresh install.

Indeed the only seed is thedarkmod.blob.core.windows.net:0. And it's in the US whereas I'm in Europe. I think that explains the slow speed. But at least I can see download speed and a realistic ETA.

5 hours ago, stgatilov said:

Here is a torrent file for 2.10 download.

I don't know how to use trackers, so using this torrent, you will efficiently download from http mirror (a different one though). You won't be able to do differential update, but you will be able to use any torrent client and to pause/resume download intentionally or due to unstable network.

Instructions are simple:

1. Make sure the whole torrent is downloaded into fresh directory.
2. Unpack contents of tdm_shared_stuff.zip into TDM directory.
3. Probably download tdm_installer from website, maybe even run it to check that your installation is good.

release210.torrent 38.4 kB · 0 downloads

Thank you!

Does this method create registry files in regedit btw? If so, maybe we could create a torrent which allows multiple seeders so that people don't get discouraged by the slow download speed. For some reason I thought it existed already. Sharing is caring.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Anderson

[stgatilov]

34 minutes ago, Anderson said:

Indeed the only seed is thedarkmod.blob.core.windows.net:0. And it's in the US whereas I'm in Europe. I think that explains the slow speed. But at least I can see download speed and a realistic ETA.

The tdm_installer mirrors are all different from this one.

Quote

Does this method create registry files in regedit btw?

TDM does not create registry entries.

Quote

If so, maybe we could create a torrent which allows multiple seeders so that people don't get discouraged by the slow download speed.

I'm open for tracker suggestions.
I believe it is not possible to have P2P sharing without tracker, at least I did not managed to do it.

[Summer]

On 3/4/2022 at 9:38 PM, thebigh said:

The TDM updater is obsolete. It's been replaced with tdm_installer.exe on Windows, and with tdm_installer.linux64 on Linux. You should have a smoother experience with that; it's a bit less finicky than the updater was.

Since I already have TDM v. 2.09, I downloaded the installer.exe as a zip folder, then unpacked it--and it created a new folder: tdm_installer.exe. I can't copy or extract the installer from there to my darkmod folder, so it tries to install a double version (v. 2.10) of the game in the installer folder. What am I doing wrong? Tech illiterate here...

[thebigh]

19 minutes ago, Summer said:

I can't copy or extract the installer from there to my darkmod folder

That is where it's supposed to be. Why can you not copy it? What's going wrong when you try?

[Summer]

9 minutes ago, thebigh said:

That is where it's supposed to be. Why can you not copy it? What's going wrong when you try?

It's installing a second version of the game in the new folder, not update the one I already have in the darkmod folder. Hope that makes sense.

[thebigh]

Just now, Summer said:

It's installing a second version of the game in the new folder, not update the one I already have in the darkmod folder. Hope that makes sense.

Okay, so you have something like c:\games\darkmod containing all the 2.09 files IIUC. Inside that is another directory called c:\games\darkmod\tdm_installer (or something similar), and inside that is a file called tdm_installer.exe which, when you run it, tries to create a whole new installation of TDM 2.10 where that exe is.

Can you not just copy or move the exe file into one directory higher up, into the c:\games\darkmod directory where all the 2.09 files are? Then it should work.

Maybe I am not understanding the question.

[Summer]

12 minutes ago, thebigh said:

Okay, so you have something like c:\games\darkmod containing all the 2.09 files IIUC. Inside that is another directory called c:\games\darkmod\tdm_installer (or something similar), and inside that is a file called tdm_installer.exe which, when you run it, tries to create a whole new installation of TDM 2.10 where that exe is.

Can you not just copy or move the exe file into one directory higher up, into the c:\games\darkmod directory where all the 2.09 files are? Then it should work.

Maybe I am not understanding the question.

You understood my problem perfectly. The trouble is, my computer refuses to copy the installer into the main darkmod folder, claiming there already is one--when there isn't. I've checked like a hundred times.

If I ignore that and try to install in the tdm_installer folder, it doesn't update the v. 2.09 I have but creates a new second game v. 2.10. Maybe I should just do that...? I'm running out of ideas at this point.

Thanks so much for helping out, thebigh

[thebigh]

Huh. That is very strange. Did you say the directory itself was called tdm_installer.exe, with the .exe extension? If so, try renaming the directory to anything else and then copy the file out of it.

[Summer]

14 minutes ago, thebigh said:

Huh. That is very strange. Did you say the directory itself was called tdm_installer.exe, with the .exe extension? If so, try renaming the directory to anything else and then copy the file out of it.

That did it! It worked! I moved the installer into the main folder and I'm updating now. Thanks so much! 

[thebigh]

1 minute ago, Summer said:

That did it! It worked! I moved the installer into the main folder and I'm updating now. Thanks so much! 

Good to hear! Windows does some funny things sometimes. Happy sneaking!

[Summer]

On the main menu, on the lower left of the "scroll", it no longer says which version of the Dark Mod I have? Before the update, it said v. 2.09. Now there's nothing. I'm assuming it still worked, though, right?

[thebigh]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's right.

[Anderson]

Downloading through custom European mirror helped download speed a lot. Half an hour and it's done.

On 3/8/2022 at 12:37 PM, stgatilov said:

The tdm_installer mirrors are all different from this one.

TDM does not create registry entries.

I'm open for tracker suggestions.
I believe it is not possible to have P2P sharing without tracker, at least I did not managed to do it.

I made a separate .torrent tracker. Please confirm if .torrent file works. We can greatly reduce the load on TDM mirror servers by having the community host .torrents.
AFAIK you can make a tracker-less torrent if you want through a magnet link that will find any peers on that torrent by accessing the DHT. But I never used this option.

 

Thank you in advance.

TDM.torrent