[Nel] Getting NeL up and running.

Sun, 25 Feb 2001 01:29:01 +0800

Hi Guys,
+    Well, i finally managed to get the sample snowballs client and
+    server up and running, though it required quite a few code hacks
+    on my part. (Damn my wacky machine config). Oh yeah, this is all
+    for the linux code as well.. my machine is basically debian woody
+    (though various gnome/wine/sawfish things are latest releases
+    compiled from source)
+
+    Most of my 'fixes' aren't really, they address the symptoms rather
+    than the cause, though I don't think I've broken anything major 
+    with them ;) If anyone wants to give me some hints on what could
+    be causing them, please do. 
+    In case anyone else has similar problems, things I got were:
+        time_service was exiting: temporarily fixed by removing the
+          call of _Callback() in checkConfigFiles() method of 
+          code/nel/src/misc/config_file/config_file.cpp. I haven't
+          managed to work out where it's being set, or why the value
+          isn't correct yet.
+          I gather the point of the Callback function is so that the 
+          client which has loaded the Config file can become aware 
+          of any changes to the parameters in the file, the time_service
+          doesn't appear to set any callbacks for this though. *shrug*
+        moves_service - suspect it had the same problem as above, it
+          _was_ segfaulting, but went away after the above hack.
+        the client was exiting with a message in the logfile about 
+          being unable to load file "data/". Managed to eventually track
+          it down to some of the texture loading code in 
+          code/nel/src/3d/landscape.cpp. The loading of the diffuse
+          texturemap doesn't do a check for textName == "" though
+          the loading of the alpha texture map does. Haven't worked 
+          out yet why it's decided that the textName is "" (it's too
+          late ;)). I modified the code to do a test for textName == ""
+          and made it default to loading the CTextureCross texture.
+
+    As some other comments - processes are defaulting under linux to
+    some (IMHO) really ugly behaviour of 'fork'ing another process,
+    the sole purpose of this appears to be to let them run in the 
+    background. I don't see any really good reason for doing this,
+    since it can be quite easily achieved by 'nohup'ing it and 
+    shoving an '&' on the end of the line. Am I missing something?
+    (It makes it a bugger to debug, I can't run 'strace' on them effectively
+    etc etc. Obviously, i just commented the code out of my version ;)
+    Perhaps a commandline switch would be more appropriate?)
+
+    Oh well, after all that, the client runs at about 5fps ;) Guess
+    I should spend some time seeing if I can get it faster eh?
+    Can anyone give me some benchmarkish figures for framerate 
+    under window~1? For a P3-550 with Geforce(1) would be best ;)
+    Then I can have a base to work from.
+
+    Anyhow, nice work guys. The framework (which I've forcibly had
+    to poke) seems pretty decent (I'm reserving judgement for further
+    praise until I've had more experience with it ;)). Having spent
+    some time working on one of these, I know just how much work it
+    is to get anything this complex working. 
+
+    
+Leighton...
+
+--
+
+Part-time student. Full-time Programmer. 
+Seeking the 36 hour day and the 10 hour working week.
+(08) 9272 9058 (Home - like I'm ever there)
+0401 335 136 (Mobile - like it's ever on)
+
+