Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of NewNet

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Dizzy
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Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of NewNet

Post by Dizzy »

For years and years I've had constant "net stutter" when playing UT99 online and I'm really sick of it.

I made a thread about it on this forum a few years ago (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12201) and have tried virtually everything to get rid of it, but ultimately it's simply due to UT's old netcode which doesn't play nicely with modern hardware and internet speeds.

There is a package called NewNet which improves UT's netcode and installing this on a server does eliminate the net stutter problem, but unfortunately for servers running the BunnyTrack gametype (like mine) it also introduces a number of problems of its own.

I've written about the problems using NewNet and BT before: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=12782

Over the years, a couple of people (Deepu and KnoW, I think?) have tried to modify NewNet to make it compatible with BT, but I've tried these versions on my BT servers and they still don't work well enough to use permanently.

In my opinion, what needs to be done is for NewNet to be completely stripped down to the bare bones so only the bare minimum of functionality remains, i.e. client-side movement. Functionality related to tournament weapons, pickups, scripted pawns etc. could (I assume) all be removed. Unfortunately my knowledge of UScript is minimal and I simply don't have the ability to do this myself.

So I'm asking the community: is there anyone experienced in UScript who has the time and willingness to modify NewNet and strip it back to the "bare minimum" to create a "NewNet lite" and to make it compatible with BT?
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by JackGriffin »

If you use NN with BT then none of your records will be valid. The minute you allow clients to have say on their location over what the server thinks it should be you'll have a bunch of people cheating the record times. Hacked NN client packages used to come out nearly as fast as the initial releases.
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by sektor2111 »

I'm not trying to troll here but... let me know your idea about mitigation of real NET-PING effect toward Movers, because BT uses A LOT these things.
Disregarding weapon problems (added in run-time) I don't know if your client has a logic toward movers as long as other client is there too and mover is part of the Level. In a real high ping server probably client's Mover is not that close to Mover from Server. NewNet is not reducing Ping.
Huh ? For me NewNet it's not a deal, but I'm curious what is doable and how.
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by Feralidragon »

JackGriffin wrote:The minute you allow clients to have say on their location over what the server thinks it should be you'll have a bunch of people cheating the record times.
Not necessarily.
Client may have a say on their location and other things, and still have it remain a secure system by having the server checking how likely the client is stating the truth.

In NW3 for example you have something like Zeroping, where the client tells the server if it landed the shot or not, however the server checks a bunch of different factors to check whether or not the client is actually telling the truth. If the server detects a "lie" it just rejects the shot.
And although you could have some tiny leeway to still cheat somewhat, it would be easier to just build an aimbot instead, to not mention that ACE detects tampered packages to begin with afaik.

That is to say that I have never even looked at NN, but I heard that it passed by so many hands, getting a bit worse each time, and I know at least some people in this community consider it a hot mess of a mod, so I doubt anyone would be willing to do a "lite" version of NN, it would more likely for anyone to develop their own NN-like mod from scratch, and if it does rely too much on the client without proper server validations, then yeah, using NN is asking for trouble.
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by Deepu »

It's not easy to do, still we are testing under mh, bt and more, there is no lite version. If you want test latest version of NewNet use KnoW's Public BT Server or Ultimate UT Dev Server...
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by Dizzy »

JackGriffin wrote:If you use NN with BT then none of your records will be valid. The minute you allow clients to have say on their location over what the server thinks it should be you'll have a bunch of people cheating the record times. Hacked NN client packages used to come out nearly as fast as the initial releases.
Honestly for me that's not a problem. I've always taken the view that if people cheat BT records, they're only cheating themselves - particularly because we don't even have an official "records server" (i.e. one with only a single slot so records can't be "helped" by teammates).

If cheating did become a problem or people demanded it, I'd create a server without NewNet where players could set their records.

I just want to play the game online with friends without it stuttering like mad.
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by Dizzy »

Bumping this.

Would anyone be willing to do this for payment?

I know at least two other people who would be willing to pay for a bug-free BT-compatible version of NewNet (edit: or an equivalent mod).

@Higor or @Feralidragon?
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Re: Looking for someone to help make a "lite" version of New

Post by Feralidragon »

Sorry, but no, I am not interested, nor do I have the time to invest into something like this right now, even if payment would be involved.

However, as you also mentioned Higor, I believe he already developed a couple of things, which along with his own XC_Engine may perhaps solve most of the problems you may be experiencing in BT, although I am not entirely sure, only the man himself can confirm this. So perhaps you don't need NN at all to already have a better experience overall at least.
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