Monday, October 13, 2014

DartMan 2.2.1.0 released!

A major update to the online code for DartMan should result in almost all logged-in players going online automatically, without any configuration! The same technique used for connecting players to the server is applied to the video-streaming between players, meaning that this should also have a much higher success rate. The online page layout has also been updated so that it is more fluid, and allows all the areas to be resized to suit your preference. The full list of changes in this release are as follows:


  • Updated the entire Networking codebase to use UDP instead of TCP for server and player to player connections. This should eliminate the need for manual router configuration for most users, and allow most users to go online automatically.
  • Reorganised the Online screen with sizable areas to better display all information.
  • When you go online, you are notified of how many players are online, and how many of those are friends.
  • New Video Streaming options:
    • Added Video Compression option to control level of compression.
    • Added Frames Per Second to Send option to control how many video frames are sent to the opposition player's computer. This should help adjust video to a satisfactory level.
    • These options should allow players to adjust the video streaming to a level that works well for their system.
Please set the video resolution to the lowest resolution on your WebCam initially, and then test with higher ones to see which gives the best balance between quality of image, and frame rate.

Please provide any feedback or suggestions in the comments box below.