What are the differences between RunUO and Sphereserver?

[UOMyway]

Please don't flame me, I am new and just trying to understand the pluses and minus of both emulators.

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

XxSp1derxX has written this synopsis.

[Dracarys]

runuo > sphere

sphere=shite
runuo=great?

no honestly, sphere is very outdated, doesnt support database access, ...

runuo has only one disadvantage i know of: it doesnt run on linux. And once mono is finished, this won't be a problem any longer.

RunUO is really the #1 choice.

[Dracarys]

Originally Posted by Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

XxSp1derxX has written this synopsis.

omg, that's a good one. Thank you :-)

[Dalius]

Never saw that before. That's an awesome txt.

[Phantom]

RunUO is good
Sphere is not

[Khaybel]

nice postXxSp1derxX

[darkstorm]

9) Sphere requires approximately 4x more memory than RunUO for 1/2 the amount of items, decorations, players
and NPCs.

I think thats a myth. I can't see any way a garbage collected server can use less memory than a C++ program. Not to mention they are saving most of their properties in the baseitem definitions. So that leaves about 3-4 DWORDs per Item for custom information. In general for about 500 000 items you need approx. 60-70 mb of memory.

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

Originally Posted by darkstorm

I can't see any way a garbage collected server can use less memory than a C++ program.

1) GC has nothing to do with memory consumption, only abdication of responsibility for deallocating memory.
2) A well-designed program written in e.g. Python can out-perform a poorly-designed C++ program in both speed and memory consumption.

It's not the tool, it's the craftsman.

[norelen]

Sphere is more user friendly for the novice who wants to customize things. There is plenty of documentation out there for doing so.

In the long run RunUO is more powerful and versatile, but you really need a background in programming to make more than the most minor changes to RunUO.

Sphere has improved dramatically over the years in how well it can handle large item counts and high usage. My experience is that RunUO seems to handle things better at the upper end.

I hope you'll also keep in mind that asking this question here is going to get you a very biased response toward RunUO. I assume or hope you have asked the same question on the Sphere site. However on the sphere site you will find that most there have little or no experience with RunUO. This site has a lot of people that are former Sphere users including myself.

Sphere has been around for a very long time now. It even predates the C# programming environment. RunUO is a relative newcomer to the UO emulation arena, which is both a strength and a weakness.

Do you plan on doing a lot of customization? If you are an experience C++ or C# programmer then RunUO is a good choice. If you have little or no programming experience then go with Sphere.

If you do not plan on customizing much then flip a coin. Each emulator has it's own strengths and weaknesses that are difficult to explain in a short amount of time. I'd encourage you to try out both on your local machine and see which is more comfortable to you.

[Dalius]

Originally Posted by norelen

Sphere is more user friendly for the novice who wants to customize things. There is plenty of documentation out there for doing so.

In the long run RunUO is more powerful and versatile, but you really need a background in programming to make more than the most minor changes to RunUO.

Sphere has improved dramatically over the years in how well it can handle large item counts and high usage. My experience is that RunUO seems to handle things better at the upper end.

I hope you'll also keep in mind that asking this question here is going to get you a very biased response toward RunUO. I assume or hope you have asked the same question on the Sphere site. However on the sphere site you will find that most there have little or no experience with RunUO. This site has a lot of people that are former Sphere users including myself.

Sphere has been around for a very long time now. It even predates the C# programming environment. RunUO is a relative newcomer to the UO emulation arena, which is both a strength and a weakness.

Do you plan on doing a lot of customization? If you are an experience C++ or C# programmer then RunUO is a good choice. If you have little or no programming experience then go with Sphere.

If you do not plan on customizing much then flip a coin. Each emulator has it's own strengths and weaknesses that are difficult to explain in a short amount of time. I'd encourage you to try out both on your local machine and see which is more comfortable to you.

False.
Sphere is unorganized. All the scripts are jumbled together. RunUO has a clean, organized script folder. RunUO has very good documentation. The frontend is alot nicer than Sphere's console.

IMHO, RunUO is MUCH easier than Sphere, and much more powerful, making it ideal for any user.

Each emulator has it's own strengths and weaknesses

My favorite Sphere feature is the amount of bugs! Yay for exploits!

Also, that .txt file is not biased. It is simply facts. I recall seeing some pro-Sphere facts in the txt

[Kiwi]

RunUO feels like Ultima Online.

Sphere does not.

[Revolution]

sphere has many stupid bugs, that are consequence of a not dedicated scripting work, and the SphereServer team just script Sphere for fun, just a hobby, they are busy making their own MMORPG

[norelen]

False.
Sphere is unorganized. All the scripts are jumbled together. RunUO has a clean, organized script folder.

I'm surprised to see such rudeness from a moderator.

It is no more disorganized than RunUO. RunUO's organization of the scripts, is just as haphazard, but it is no better or worse than how the sphere scripts are organized. Both require that you learn how the developer was thinking when he set it up. In fact the RunUO scripts are so confusing in their arrangment that without the search command I'd never find anything. Is it an engine or an item? Is it a command or a misc? Both seem equally sensible when you've used it for a year.

Organization of information is never a simple task when there are more than 10 items to be arranged.

[Yautja_cetanu]

Wow, From that txt file Run UO does seem much better!!! :P

I'm looking forward to the linux support.

[k0t]

But it's not RunUO's fault when you can't differ between an item and an engine! 0_o

[Arya]

Originally Posted by norelen

I'm surprised to see such rudeness from a moderator.

It is no more disorganized than RunUO. RunUO's organization of the scripts, is just as haphazard, but it is no better or worse than how the sphere scripts are organized. Both require that you learn how the developer was thinking when he set it up. In fact the RunUO scripts are so confusing in their arrangment that without the search command I'd never find anything. Is it an engine or an item? Is it a command or a misc? Both seem equally sensible when you've used it for a year.

Organization of information is never a simple task when there are more than 10 items to be arranged.

I beg to differ. RunUO's scripts are organized both in the filesystem and in the code. You have a meaningful folder structure on your hard drive (and mobiles are, guess what, in the Mobiles folder) which is easy to navigate. When you code you have namespaces (Sever.Mobiles is where you look for a mobile). You're mistaking complexity and organization. RunUO's scripts are more complex because they are more powerful and flexible than Sphere scripts.

I think that RunUO is better than Sphere for two main reasons: first is the scripting language which allows you to actually code the server, and second (and most important) is a dev team who invest a lot of time to work on it and fix things when needed (which can't be really said about Sphere).

[JonnyBrav]

I really think that RunUO is better then sphere, sphere have been out there for what, 5 years or more? The only stable version is 55i.. RunUO have been out there for I think.. max 3 years if its not 2? And we're heading for version 1.0.. RunUO does have better organization in the scripts, and I find it way more powerfull.

[Ceday]

RunUO is too good to compare with Sphere..

About memory issue, it could be because of the fact that almost every data in RunUO is stored in hashtables. Hashtables allocates "double" memory than regular data structures. But this is the reason why RunUO is too good with CPU. i dont know how Sphere stores data, actually i cant think of any other than hashtables, so i am not sure about the reason..

[Dracarys]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

RunUO feels like Ultima Online.

Sphere does not.

Sphere feels like walking blindfolded over a 20cm wide rotten log which spans two buildings in a height of 200m?!

[Dalius]

Originally Posted by norelen

I'm surprised to see such rudeness from a moderator.

It is no more disorganized than RunUO. RunUO's organization of the scripts, is just as haphazard, but it is no better or worse than how the sphere scripts are organized. Both require that you learn how the developer was thinking when he set it up. In fact the RunUO scripts are so confusing in their arrangment that without the search command I'd never find anything. Is it an engine or an item? Is it a command or a misc? Both seem equally sensible when you've used it for a year.

Organization of information is never a simple task when there are more than 10 items to be arranged.

I apologize, I did not mean it in a rude tone. I was simply disagreeing with you. I have a weird personality, so don't mind me.

[Dracarys]

Originally Posted by JonnyBrav

I really think that RunUO is better then sphere, sphere have been out there for what, 5 years or more? The only stable version is 55i.. RunUO have been out there for I think.. max 3 years if its not 2? And we're heading for version 1.0.. RunUO does have better organization in the scripts, and I find it way more powerfull.

Well, that's only versioning. Sphere could make 2.0 tomoorow. :> Won't make it better, though.

[k0t]

Hehe - true!

[bean56]

I must agree with everyone that that is an awsome txt. Good job spidey, i've never seen anything bad from you. You are a great asset to this site.

[Kiwi]

But really, seriously, if you play nothing but RunUO for a while and get used to it, you cannot play other emulators. They just feel completely wrong. They are so sloppy, old, outdated, disgusting, not UO.