Instability in online play in v2.0 and up?

[phazon_elite]

Hi, I've recently been looking into claims from people that there seems to be online instability when playing SWBF2 with the Conversion Pack 2.0 or higher. I won't name names (but some of you might be familiar with them), but they claim that the mod edits original game files, thus causing instability during online play. As far as I know, the actual mod does not edit any original game files, correct? I need to clarify this with these people so some conflicts can be resolved, so if anyone has an answer, thanks in advance!

[Maveritchell]

Hi, I've recently been looking into claims from people that there seems to be online instability when playing SWBF2 with the Conversion Pack 2.0 or higher. I won't name names (but some of you might be familiar with them), but they claim that the mod edits original game files, thus causing instability during online play. As far as I know, the actual mod does not edit any original game files, correct? I need to clarify this with these people so some conflicts can be resolved, so if anyone has an answer, thanks in advance!

The 1.3 patch technically edits original files; the "shell.lvl", "common.lvl", and "ingame.lvl", but online play is not broken. As far as those edits causing online stability, that's just hokum. I've seen people say it, but as far as I know they don't have any basis for saying it, they just do say it (because they'd prefer that people use an unpatched game).

You could ask [RDH]Zerted, he would know more.

[RepSharpshooter]

At one point when I had the conversion pack, it crashed when I played regular mos eisly online. That was all I could tell.

[phazon_elite]

The 1.3 patch technically edits original files; the "shell.lvl", "common.lvl", and "ingame.lvl", but online play is not broken. As far as those edits causing online stability, that's just hokum. I've seen people say it, but as far as I know they don't have any basis for saying it, they just do say it (because they'd prefer that people use an unpatched game).

You could ask [RDH]Zerted, he would know more.

Ah, thought as much. I'll be sure to PM Zerted about the patch concerning online play. Thanks a bunch, Mav!

[Teancum]

At one point when I had the conversion pack, it crashed when I played regular mos eisly online. That was all I could tell.

Yeah, I had accidentally replaced Mos Eisley Hero Assault, but that was quickly fixed.

@ Phazon -- that's weird someone would say that. None of the guys here ever mentioned online issues since 2.0, and they're the ones that play it all the time.

[[RDH]Zerted]

I didn't notice there was a topic on this. Heres the PM I PMed back:

Hidden/Spoiler:

The side and hud changes were directly taken from the unofficial v1.2 patch's source. I did not make those and thus can't directly claim how stable those are. However, I have never heard of anyone having problems with them. These changes can be easily removed through menu.bat's menu and the lite version doesn't even have them.

As for the rest of the v1.3 pack, it doesn't make the game unstable. Some of the FakeConsole (FC) commands don't work in multi-player games. Using those in MP will cause problems. However, their existence has no measurable effect on the game until they are used.

The v1.3 pack does add code to the game. I did my best to make sure the added code didn't add any unneeded memory bloat to the game. However, since there are more features, the game does do a slight more processing and uses a bit more memory. In terms of the game's total resource usage, I would consider the added required resources trivial. There are some mod maps which have much worse coding practices then I did and they still run fine.

As it can be argued that the FakeConsole can make MP unstable if used incorrectly, there are other v1.3 patch features that make the game more stable. The v1.3 allows disabling of award effects. For people on lower end systems (like mine), the game would notably slow when people were running around with graphical halos around them. Removing the award effects prevents this slow down without harming the game.

The SWBF1 Conversion Pack does require certain graphical settings for it to run. And some maps don't work when used in the same rotations as other maps. But I don't know all those details or why those maps don't play nice with each other.

To sum everything up:
* Installing the v1.3 patch, removing the side changes, and not using FreeCam and FakeConsole should have no measurable effect on the game.
* I'd guess that using the v1.2 sides does increase the resource requirements slightly, as those are more detailed skins and effects than the normal sides. But that by itself wouldn't make the game unstable, unless it was running with higher graphical and POV settings then recommended for its underlying computer.
* Using FreeCam will make the game unstable as FreeCam was created by the official developers for themselves. It was never meant to be used by us.
* Using some FakeConsole commands will make the game unstable. This include things like changing weapon stats, changing the POV, and using campaign bonuses.
* Using the shortcut key to close the game results window before the game server is ready to load the next map, can cause your game to freeze on the stats screen. I forget if I fixed that or not. If it is fixed, then the shortcut key won't work until the close button appears.

Everyone is free to remove the v1.3 if it's causing them problems. I went out of my way to include a way to uninstall it. All the installation problems are due to the fact that I tried to reduce the download size and allow a way to uninstall it. I had no problems if anyone wanted to create a subset of the features and release it as a different mod, but I lost the source code which makes that a bit hard to do. Without the patch, you don't have custom game modes or custom eras in the map selection screen.

Its been over a year since I've really played SWBF2. Which community are you talking about and are there any direct claims or only general ones?

Sorry for the long replay, I'm procrastinating from doing some homework