Servers State

[Cool Cat]

Hey Nelsona. I am testing new final release of 469d patch for XP.
I made clean install of UT99 GOTY in separate folder, then installed high resolution S3TC textures and made useful tweaks (like they advised on ut99.org).
I tried to game on Evil's server with 436 - it worked.
And then i installed 469d patch for XP. And i try to connect to Evil's server. I was kicked 2 times by ACE almost immediately after connection.
Here is the screenshot of what it saying:
Note that this is separate new install and my nick here is "Dude". I guess you can find it in today server logs.
What gone wrong? What's going on?

Shot00004.png (96.74 KiB) Viewed 7776 times

[Nelsona]

I see a DLL file not accepted by ACE...
I'm afraid that document with 469 for XP is explaining that was not very well tested - probably XP support will be out... And once again I come to conclusion that reporting some bugs will be a waste of time if XP won't be supported - I don't really understand why. I did not checked it yet... I've been working at other things here, time will come for some checks for this sort of "UT 469"... so far MGS server demonstrated already some "mystical" compatibility... while prior UT versions were usable over there...
ACE + 469d should be aligned as long as the same author works on them - or maybe I'm wrong...

[Cool Cat]

ACE + 469d should be aligned as long as the same author works on them - or maybe I'm wrong...

Doctor, so what the conclusion? Our patient going to live or going to die?

Meaning, can you do something about it? Or should i go to ut99.org\oldunreal to tell them that they fucked-up hard this time?

P.S. What DLL is bothering ACE? Is it "direct input" file for mouse? Because during first launch with469d i choose "direct input" option for mouse.

[Nelsona]

First, I read that release Document aka "ReadMe.md"...

...
Note:

Some features may be unavailable for Windows XP and Vista systems.
The patch for Windows XP and Vista is experimental and (mostly) untested.

UNTESTED !? Interesting...
Then... If I'm finding a bug and reporting it, will that ever be fixed ? Because next line...

Windows XP and Vista support will be removed from future patches.
...

Based on my understanding and prior "fixes" I'm not that sure if this will go normal.
To the next Station... I don't have any XC_Engine for this version and neither for prior 469c.
Until something will be done and working normally as in my 436 + XC v24, updating for me is postponed for undefined time. I'm currently playing using a 436 + XC_Engine client and I can play hours, up to exhaustion.
Have you seen "PlayerCanSeeMe()" deal from prior 469d RC4 ? Is that even normal ? That function works as in RC4 469c, 451 436. XC_Engine is closer to reality not like here. Excuse me but several things without XC_Engine will be like in years 2007-2011.
And that "dll" should not be whitelisted if it's getting called ? I feel some small deceptions... Yeah, Editor is nicer, other things were a bit improved but others... not very touched as I expected.

[Nelsona]

Next things toward Sniper Server and some alleged "players".
- Probing things and being kicked;
- Using some "UT" game that is not like UT'99;
- Suddenly adding stuff that makes ACE not to check player - kicked out then.
Let's see:
HessyJames - invalid data, initial check failed - connection dropped;
Despar - Kicked for using some BotPack resident as "UT v436 Std" - Whatta heck is that anyway ?
Obeats - Kicked for timeout during periodic checks - whatever is the reason, ACE kicked out;
Happy_Camper - no longer happy due to "Timeout during periodic checks" - kicked; So initial check was OKAY but later something went flawed ? Why only that connection at that time ?
RaT - Timeout during initial check - using some v469 - kicked;
martin - UWindow.u file is unknown, resident as "UT v436 Std/TO 3.40" - funny... - kicked by ACE;

Is this somehow that so called "a lot of Players" which are restricted ? To me it seems that they worked big time to restrict themselves from playing in server. Others are simply joining and are just normal.

For the record, after installing ACE I cleaned up player's database (packed and moved). Right now new database has 2132 records - what "a lot of players" cannot play then ? Those "grey" ones ? VPN ones ? Black-Listed ones ?

Next thing it's a sort of work on web against various attacks/intruders/thievery. A database is being built with "lolo" boys, a script is being shown for checking addresses where financial transactions are done, it seems like on future bad boys won't access certain things due to their "reputation". When you are doing some sh!t on Internet you can expect the reaction of Internet against you.

[Cool Cat]

UNTESTED !? Interesting...

So i ask what 's going on on UT99.
And it turns out that it is ACE 1.2e that causing this, they say. Because 469d (when DIrect Input chosen) uses last version of Direct Input from DirectX8. And ACE have a bug when it reacting on dinpunt8.dll from DirectX8. They say Ace1.2e should be updated cause it is a long known bug and that i should use RawInput option instead of Direct Input until Ace would be updated and updated version installed everywhere on servers.

It not related to patch. Stop use DirectInput for mouse. Use RawInput.
It is well-known bug of ACE and will be fixed in next release of ACE.

ACE is not supposed to kick players for using direct input, it's a bug with ACE itself and not the 469 patch, the only thing different in 469 is that direct input uses the lastest version of it(DirectX8), microsoft themselves don't recommend using direct input for the last 12 years at least.

[Nelsona]

I read that - to me it looks funky... 436 doesn't do such responses. Clearly ACE has to be updated because it does useless logs even concerning innocent situations...
It's not like stock has to be suddenly changed because ACE injects it's own "rules".
At least somehow it keeps the ground clean because these "players" seem to do all sort of "checks" and modifications in their favor.

[Nelsona]

Such as...
Mr. "KILLERHERTZ" joined... Censoring address...

Code: Select all

[ACEv12e]: +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[ACEv12e]: |                                  Player Kick                                 |
[ACEv12e]: +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[ACEv12e]: PlayerName.....: KILLERHERTZ
[ACEv12e]: PlayerIP.......:  x - censored - x
[ACEv12e]: OS.............: 
[ACEv12e]: CPU............: 
[ACEv12e]: CPUSpeed.......:  Mhz
[ACEv12e]: NICDesc........: 
[ACEv12e]: MACHash1.......: 
[ACEv12e]: MACHash2.......: 
[ACEv12e]: HWID...........: 
[ACEv12e]: GameVersion....: 
[ACEv12e]: Renderer.......: 
[ACEv12e]: SoundDevice....: 
[ACEv12e]: CommandLine....: 
[ACEv12e]: TimeStamp......: 25-12-2023 / 06:18:58
[ACEv12e]: +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[ACEv12e]: |                                 Kick Reasons                                 |
[ACEv12e]: +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[ACEv12e]: KickReason.....: Timeout during Initial Check
[ACEv12e]: +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Merry Christmas - I would say if this address would not be reported as malicious... and ACE would not be bugged from detecting legit environment.
Let's say I locked this place at once with our old fellow...

[Nelsona]

On going... with regard to "a lot of players" that have some problems in Evil Sniper Server...

Stage...
Yesterday last record was at position 2155, today we do have record number 2165. Mainly we have around 10 new records daily. I don't get then what sort of restrictions uses the server since player's traffic is like in a railway station... Somehow it was funny to see a boy with whatever UT 469b kicked by ACE - probably he did something with files and ACE has sent him out.

Next technical stage. I suspect that at changing game-mod - using another arena weapon, player that was previously playing might still have references to prior files and keeping in memory prior package. This thing is not accepted by ACE even if NONE of objects from package is active and server has a copy of said resident package - the same file but... not loaded. What ACE does here is evil, I'll try to figure out packages configuration and maybe removing weapons - ALL Weapons at end of the match. If the solution won't help, this means that ACE must be clearly updated because it's not only logging useless complains about stock files and similar things, but right now is not friendly with a multi-mod server, a behavior which doesn't make any sense.

[Cool Cat]

Happy_Camper - no longer happy due to "Timeout during periodic checks" - kicked; So initial check was OKAY but later something went flawed ? Why only that connection at that time ?

I laughed so hard. Great joke, Nelsona!

Anyway - i have the words to say about NFR server even without ACE it definitely have a problem. The problem is thing with DoubleJump. We somewhere in past discuss this here. But at that time i was under impression that it was bug on my side. After all i use for my gaming version ut99 installed in 2010 or 2011(?) with unknown version of 451 patch. And Evil-1 tell me (in his usual rude form) that server is all-right and problem is on my side.
However! I recently installed fresh GOTY with 436 "no delta" patch.
And what do we see? Same problems with double jump on NFR Evil's server! Double jumps sometimes work, sometimes not... So my conclusion is that somewhere around year 2021 Evil's server get a huge bug with double jump mutators and it not fixed, and owner of server believes problem not exist.
My style of gaming heavily relies on dodging+double jump. And anti-gravity boots add to this trick huge speed and size of jump\flying. So i am not even playing much anymore cause there, cause that server have broken double jump mutators. On UM or Blue's servers that thing work flawlessly, but there not many people there.

I remember sweet times of 2018-2020 when everything worked , old cool maps were online and much more players was there in the evenings; and that was cool.