Working on UO Auto Patcher

[nex666]

This is the kind of software i've been waiting for!
Thank you!!!

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

A question. In order for my users to get the patches I make with your program, they would have to be using your UOPatch Client, right?

Yes they will need to download the client in order to patch against your server, I know that it is lame right now that you have to type in the server address for the patch server. I will be adding a registered server list next BETA.

Please feel free to post some ideas you have or would like to see in future releases.

Thanks

 

[Tannis]

I think your program is brilliant, so don't take this wrong please. I just don't like the fact that they would need to download a patch program as it is. I think that would be the one big thing stopping me from using this. I went through it last night and tested it, and I think it works great. I just don't like asking my players to download any extra programs, only because a lot of them are younger (or just dumb) and would have no idea of what to do, even with a detailed walk through showing screenshots of every single step. Believe me. Then all they would do is page and complain that this or that doesn't work, and all because they didn't do it right. Keep up the great work though. If they program becomes more widely known, as I'm sure it will, it won't be as hard to get people to download it.

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

I think your program is brilliant, so don't take this wrong please. I just don't like the fact that they would need to download a patch program as it is. I think that would be the one big thing stopping me from using this. I went through it last night and tested it, and I think it works great. I just don't like asking my players to download any extra programs, only because a lot of them are younger (or just dumb) and would have no idea of what to do, even with a detailed walk through showing screenshots of every single step. Believe me. Then all they would do is page and complain that this or that doesn't work, and all because they didn't do it right. Keep up the great work though. If they program becomes more widely known, as I'm sure it will, it won't be as hard to get people to download it.

I appreciate the compliments and criticism. Thank you.

Like I said BETA 1 is really for testing the patching and patch transfer. I am hoping in BETA2 that the patch client will become a median for players to find your servers, similar to how UOG works, and UOG does do an awsome job at that. Nor will I be trying to replace UOG in BETA 2, but merely offering another way for players to find your servers. My main purpose is to offer a solution that is more geared twords shards that plan to patch and update frequently. So stay tuned for BETA 2 you may find more of what you want! and thanks for testing out BETA 1.

 

[Greystar]

actually looks kinda interesting I'll have to see how it works for me to see if I want my players to have to download the client. I'm not personally listed on UOG and probably never will. I have a semi-private shard and I kinda want to keep it that way.

 

[Atomic]

It would be cool if you could contact Mr.Fixit and try to integrate this into UOG, then it would be perfect

 

[Kwwres10]

Methinks MrFixit will have some competition? That tool would be appreciated world wide. You may even get some donators.

Good luck. Really.

-NoX

 

[Kwwres10]

ARE YOU TELLING ME... I CAN SEND FILES TO PEOPLE DIRECTLY FROM MY COMPUTER, AND NOT A WEB HOST!?



Chris, you are now officially, my hero...

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

Thanks for the compliments guys! Your support for this project is appreciated and I really hope that the product helps server admins out there... Perhaps in the future UOG integration might be a possibility.. We will see.

I just wanted to let you know I put up a basic bug submission form on the UOPatch home page: www.UOPatch.com

Please use that to submit any bugs you run into


Thanks Again

Chris The Avatar

 

[Sotho Tal Ker]

Um.. err.. this is great

Some things to think about, if you haven't already:
- Compare the patch files downloaded and the ones on the patch server, maybe by size and/or checksum and inform players when there is a new patch released.
- Make a version numbering for patches (i.e. version 1 [date] or something)
- I have not tested it yet, but are the files transferred uncompressed? Maybe you can make it to download zipped files (or any other compression) and unpack them automagically before applying. Would decrease bandwidth, too
- An option to use the original uopatch if OSI makes a new official patch, so people can play with the newest clients.
- Multilanguage support

Maybe I will come up with some more thoughts.

Edit: The reason i think it is great? Because the newest UO does not support verdata.mul anymore and that would make the players to download HUGE files for just a few new graphics. With your tool you only need to download smaller patch files and apply them.

1 more edit and i'm quiet
What kind of patch algorithm do you use?

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

Um.. err.. this is great

Some things to think about, if you haven't already:
- Compare the patch files downloaded and the ones on the patch server, maybe by size and/or checksum and inform players when there is a new patch released.
- Make a version numbering for patches (i.e. version 1 [date] or something)
- I have not tested it yet, but are the files transferred uncompressed? Maybe you can make it to download zipped files (or any other compression) and unpack them automagically before applying. Would decrease bandwidth, too
- An option to use the original uopatch if OSI makes a new official patch, so people can play with the newest clients.
- Multilanguage support

Maybe I will come up with some more thoughts.

Edit: The reason i think it is great? Because the newest UO does not support verdata.mul anymore and that would make the players to download HUGE files for just a few new graphics. With your tool you only need to download smaller patch files and apply them.

1 more edit and i'm quiet
What kind of patch algorithm do you use?

I do ALL of these things in BETA 1 that you speak about in your last post... Except for multilanguage support.

The patch algorithm I use right now I personally wrote from scratch. Right now it does a strict compare of one file against another (see patch builder documentation). If there is not an old file to compare against then it adds the entire file to the patch otherwise it only includes the difference between the two... After everything has been compared and included as nessecary. The patch is zipped using the standard zip algorithm.

Thanks

Chris The Avatar

 

[etherkye]

instead of zipping it .rar it, there a lot smaller (1/4 the size). makes for faster transfer. And how long do you tihnk it'll be before this will be out without the need for users to download?

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

instead of zipping it .rar it, there a lot smaller (1/4 the size). makes for faster transfer. And how long do you tihnk it'll be before this will be out without the need for users to download?

RARs are something to look at in the future right now i am more interested in improving the patch algorithm itself, the payoff there is much more than a better compression algorithm. I am not sure what you mean by your second comment...

If you are asking how long will it be before the patch client can update itself. I am hoping to do that in the next BETA or the one after that. The next BETA will mainly focus on improvements to the patching alogirthm and an addition of registered server list so admins can begin advertising there servers with UOPatch if they choose to, some other minor additions will make it in as well.

 

[orpheus]

here. I was bored.

 

[Sotho Tal Ker]

Two things:

1. website is broken :/
2. Does the algorithm just check bytes at the same position against each other? if it does so it would sometimes give not much benefit if i.e. someone replaces an animation with a bigger one because the entries behind it would be shifted by some bytes. This would make a check for bytes at the same position always fail and it would need to transfer all data from the beginning of the replaced animation to the end. (Sorry, cannot say it very well )

I like your program, just want to know how it works in detail and maybe give some ideas.

The problem with RAR is, that decompression library is free, but compression library is not free. So you would only be able to decompress files and someone would have to install winrar and call it from the patcher to compress it.
There are other good compression schemes out there, which are totally free tu use (compression and decompression), maybe it's better to take one of those, even if they don't give small files like RAR does.

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

Two things:

1. website is broken :/
2. Does the algorithm just check bytes at the same position against each other? if it does so it would sometimes give not much benefit if i.e. someone replaces an animation with a bigger one because the entries behind it would be shifted by some bytes. This would make a check for bytes at the same position always fail and it would need to transfer all data from the beginning of the replaced animation to the end. (Sorry, cannot say it very well )

I like your program, just want to know how it works in detail and maybe give some ideas.

The problem with RAR is, that decompression library is free, but compression library is not free. So you would only be able to decompress files and someone would have to install winrar and call it from the patcher to compress it.
There are other good compression schemes out there, which are totally free tu use (compression and decompression), maybe it's better to take one of those, even if they don't give small files like RAR does.

1. How is website broken for you? Anyone else having any problems?? Access works just fine for me...

2. I know exactly what you mean in BETA 1 it only checks for changes, not adds like your saying, so you are right if a bigger entry was added then it would make a lot of changes to the whole file. fortunatlly in UO land this is very uncommon generally you replace art with the same size of art, atleast this is what I have seen people do the most. This is one improvement I will be making to the algorithm in BETA 2.

I agree with you on RAR that was one consideration for not going with it in the first place, but it does offer excellent compression, perhaps I could support both... My second motivation was the people over at sharpdevelop offer a wonderful zip library for .net.


Thanks

Chris The Avatar

 

[Sotho Tal Ker]

The error i get when i want to access the page is:

Software error:

Unauthorized access... please reauthenticate and try agian at ../WebPerl/Web.pm line 110, <GEN0> line 3.

For help, please send mail to the webmaster ([email protected]), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

The error i get when i want to access the page is:

Software error:

Unauthorized access... please reauthenticate and try agian at ../WebPerl/Web.pm line 110, <GEN0> line 3.

For help, please send mail to the webmaster ([email protected]), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.

Hrmm. I have seen this once before but only with the built-in AOL browser, I cant reproduce it with any other browser... It has to do with the browser passing back a session ID cookie... I made a small change if you could try it again. I doubt it made a difference but worth a shot.

I will look more into this

Thanks

Chris The Avatar

 

[Sotho Tal Ker]

I use Opera

Now it works fine again for me, thank you

 

[ChrisTheAvatar]

Odd it didnt like the name I gave to the cookie before...