WinBolo v0.89e (23/11/99) http://members.xoom.com/jamorrison/winbolo/ Read Me This readme is not designed as a replacement for the Bolo readme's and documentation. It only details items that are directly related to WinBolo. To learn about Bolo I strongly recommend you visit http://www.lgm.com/bolo - The official Bolo Homepage I especially recommend you view the online Bolo manual at: http://www.lgm.com/bolo/guides/bolomanual/ This release of WinBolo is a time-limited beta. It is also free. Please read the file "Lisence.txt" for more detail. What's included in this -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- WinBolo.exe - Main game executable. WinBoloDS.exe - WinBolo Dedicated Server executable. BoloSounds.bsd - WinBolo sounds file. Everard Island.map - Default map. winBoloInfoPacket.c - Sample code to get a network WinBolo information game. Readme.txt - This file. Lisence.txt - The license you must agree to before running this software. Bug Report Form.txt - Bug Reporting Form. System Requirements -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Windows 95/98/2k DirectX 5 or greater (and DirectX capable video card)* Display capable of 16 bit colours or greater 8Mb of RAM** Winsock 2 (I believe that is standard) * It is recommended that you have 250K of free display RAM as WinBolo will move all graphics and processing to the video card (if supported) resulting in a performance increase. ** Although the game processing only uses about 550K of RAM loading of DirectX modules result in 5Mb of RAM being required. (Removing sounds may save 500K) Installation Instructions -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-- Simply extract all items in the archive to the same folder. Run WinBolo.exe to start a game or a network game. If you wish to start a dedicated server independently of Bolo run it from the command line. A list of the arguments to it are displayed when run with no parameters. To start single player games run WinBolo and select Practise from the menu. To join a network game in progress, enter the IP address or FQDN of any player in the current game and click the join button. To start a network game click on the new button or run the separate dedicated server program. NOTE: If you start a game via WinBolo and it crashes it does not close the server. To do so press Control-Alt-Delete and close the application named "WinBoloDs" in the task list. The map files are not auto-associated with WinBolo. Neither are the icons for the map files and BoloSounds.bsd file. The icons are stored in the WinBolo.exe if you want to associate them yourselves. Differences between Bolo and WinBolo -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=- Alliances: WinBolo's alliance system works as follows. A player selects a name(s) in the players menu that he wishes to allie with. He then selects request alliance from the Bolo menu. On the receiving end a dialog box pops up saying "XXXX requests alliance. Accept?" where they can accept or deny. If the new member is allied, then they are also allied with all members in the alliance. When a player selects leave alliance from the Bolo menu all items personally owned (ie captured) by that player reverts to his ownership. Items that are owned by remaining alliance members remain owned by the alliance. Autoscroll: Autoscroll only keeps the tank in the centre of the screen. It does not move around to focus on pillboxes or other tanks. ISA Sound Card Menu Item: Enabled by default. Every time a sound gets played the sound mixer must be started and when it is finished it must be stopped. On older ISA sound cards this slows down the games speed because of increased use of the sound cards DMA. Enabling this may speed up the game on older ISA sound cards. There should be no effect on PCI sound cards. (NOTE: On my ISA sound card it makes no difference...) - This option will be disabled if the sounds file is missing or Direct Sound could not be set up. Key Settings: To set the keys choose "Set Keys" from the Bolo menu. Check the item you wish to say. A small window will show up saying: "Press new key for item" The next key you press will be assigned to the item selected. Networking Topology: WinBolo makes use of a Client/Server topology as such a variety of items are different. If the server quits then all players are dropped. Network Messages: Presently there are 4 different network messages: pt - Prediction Timeout. This is caused by the server telling us a map fact and we could not come to the same conclusion within a given timeframe. (~5 seconds) The server's fact is then used rather then the local conclusion. These messages appear frequently but generally have no effect on the game. at - Authentication Timeout. This is caused by a client wanting the server's authentication on a map fact. (Such as placing a building item etc) The server denied this change request in which case we throw away our change and revert to the servers map fact. pnb-no - UDP Packet Lost: A UDP packet containing pillbox and base items was lost. Using the TCP version of the packet. mnt-no - UDP Packet Lost: A UDP packet containing mines/terrain/LGM items was lost. Using the TCP version of the packet. Generally "pt" messages are less harmful then "at" messages. Additionally in the network status window you can get the present download information while you are joining a game. Occasionally when you are shooting at a pillbox and it is shooting back and there is some wall behind you the wall appears to get damaged magically (as no bullets hit it, they hit you) This is because the servers version of the map is always the master copy and on it the wall got hit. (ie your location is presently just slightly out of sync) System Info Window: If you run a System Information program such as System Monitor you may notice that the total CPU usage is higher then the total amount of CPU used being used by WinBolo even if there are no other programs open. This is because WinBolo only records the amount of processor it is using. For instance, WinBolo tells DirectX to draw a tank. DirectX will draw the tank asynchronously allowing the calling program to continue running. Thus WinBolo only records it used the amount of time to tell DirectX to draw the tank, where as the System Information program also includes the amount of CPU to do the actual drawing as well. Tracker: If you enter a hostname (rather then an IP) for the tracker at the beginning of the game it will perform the hostname lookup before it tries to join the game. This can cause significant delays if the hostname does not exist. Window Size: WinBolo makes use of DirectX's inbuilt stretching function to allow double and quad sized windows. DirectX makes use of the best possible method of stretching the image, however it only seems feasible on high end computers or computers with hardware stretching on your graphics card. Can I play against Mac players? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Regrettably not. The networking protocols used by Bolo and WinBolo are radically different. How do I improve Performance? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1. Close unnecessary background programs. 2. Run WinBolo in Normal Window size. 3. Turn off base and pill labels. 4. Reduce WinBolo Frame Rate. (From the edit menu) 5. Turn off tank labels. 6. If you are running multiple copies of WinBolo consider selecting Hide Main view after dropping the frame rate down on the background copies. I don't know why you'd want to run multiple copies, as there is presently no brain support. Bugs? -=-=- Please read the text file "Bug Reporting Form" to report bugs. Future Plans -=-=-=-=-=-=- The main priority is to fix any network or game related bugs that people report. After this I plan to add brain support as well as ports to other operating systems. After that I'll consider adding new features. Contact Details -=-=--=-=--=-=- If you wish to contact me about WinBolo send me email via: http://www.lgm.com/bolo/clones/wb/mail.cgi or visit the webpage at: http://members.xoom.com/jamorrison/winbolo/ Do not email Stuart Cheshire on matters concerning WinBolo. Thanks To: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Stuart Cheshire Jolo Kax Max Mecca Plastic Fist Todd Becker Daniel Everton Luke Morton Cameron McNiel Ben Muller Daniel Thomas Plus those on #bolo and r.g.b who answered all my annoying "So does Bolo do this or this?" questions. WinBolo (c) 1998-1999 John Morrison Bolo (c) 1987-1995 Stuart Cheshire