Bob Anglais

I always thought that the drawdistance in GRAW 1 was just crazy being set to 150m, but I cannot believe they never increased it during the development of GRAW 2, I mean I own another game that will allow draw distances up to 10000m. I know the hidden [GR] Dam map is not official but it highlights perfectly the ridiculous draw distance as you journey towards the dam with a sniper rifle, the enemy soldiers and even whole cars just appear on the road in front of you at 150m. I found the drawdisance to be a real limiting factor in the design of custom maps for GRAW 1 and I now fear the same for GRAW 2. I feel a drawdistance of between 500m to 1000m would be best but any improvement on the current would be most welcome. Is there any chance we could get the GRIN view of this, GRIN_Wolfsong are you out there ?

I and many others have asked the same question but have never recieved an answer from any of the Grins. I would add.... Why does the game read all the custom maps on startup instead of as required (like most other games)? having a substantial effect on game load times. Why did you design as above when you knew this way would then require a reboot to add a new map ? Will you ever change this ? I know Grin don't like commenting on the more difficult problems but Just an acknowledgement of the issue would be nice.

Now as many of you know I am a big fan of custom maps, in particular [GR] Coop. I run a little custom [GR] coop server from home on my adsl connection, but because of my limited bandwidth hosting http map downloads is a non starter. At the moment the process of playing custom maps is a little complicated and beyond some people, because of this the numbers playing are quite low. Introduced with 1.30 we now have a Map download feature, its not great but its better than nothing. Is there any chance that you guys could give out a direct http download location for the uncompressed bundle for your maps e.g. http://www.duck4cover.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk...sistance.bundle Then we could setup the map_downloads.xml accordingly. Alternatively, some kind soul (perhaps gr.net or monstergamingservers ) could offer a http location to host all the custom maps. Based on the total number of people we see playing online I don't think we are be talking about a huge amount of traffic. Just a thought.

Great work Papa6, I think the increased draw distance makes it much better. I always thought the short 150m draw distance would have been imposed for performance reasons but I did not notice any drop in fps at all with your mod. Willie, is there any chance you could have this increased with the next patch? or atleast get a sliding bar like in bf2.

Yep, Server name is....."omnilateral.com UK.Recon.Custom.Maps" Getting murdered on my own, its a case of hunt the muzzle flash, maybe it would be better as a night map

I liked it and have just loaded it up onto my server, come and join me Its a nice design, I like the open areas and map size, but I agree with ducky, the AI Xray vision does make it hard with all those bushes.

The two new maps are really quite challenge,much more caution is required to keep the death count down. Hopefully this will help them avoid becoming just a track & field / Forrest Gump style sprint to the finish event like the stock [GR] coop maps are now.

Its great to see the Map Devs making great progress with the editor. EvilDucky has created a great Custom [GR] Coop Map called Blackhawk Down that is absolutely loaded with bad guys to shoot at please follow http://www.ghostrecon.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39141 for more info and download link. After weeks of playing the same few coop maps so nice to play something new. The map is a 'work in progress' but I have loaded it on to my little public server - "omnilateral.com UK.Recon.Custom.Maps" (4 players max) and would like to invite you all to come join me give it a spin. Once again big credit to EvilDuckyand JasonFMX, hope this is the 1st of many. PS. Bonehead / FI_FlimFlam Would be great to see this map with 32 players **UPDATE** I have now downloaded the latest versions of hall_of_mirrors and Blackhawk_down v1.1 to my server and added them both to the map cycle. The maps can be downloaded from JasonFMX @ http://www.4shared.com/dir/687371/3fdf192a/sharing.html I can confirm they have fixed the crash at the end of Blackhawk_Down, and I just love the new bad guys up on the crane in hall_of_mirrors. The server is only setup for a few players because if I set standalone_network_speed above 256 it just saturates my connection. Many thanks go out to both EvilDucky and JasonFMX for their great work.

My GRAW server runs on an AMD Athlon 3000 and does the same thing, constant 100% utilization. There was some discussion on this during the beta and it's apparently the normal behaviour. To quote GRiN_Stickan...... "The game loop will always drive the CPU to 100%, but if it's not really doing anything (idle) it will be nice on the resources. You could run two servers on different ports and have them share the resources. Keep in mind that due to all physics calculations and such you would need a sufficiently powerful machine to host this." Hope this helps.

I'm pretty sure this is the final, I can't see filefront putting out the beta. I have not finished downloading yet but I found this line in the release notes... "After an extensive Beta test within the GRAW PC community, the results are in and the fans have spoken."

MP Pack 3 out now on Filefront..... http://files.filefront.com/Ghost+Recon+Adv...;/fileinfo.html Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter version 1.30 CHANGENOTES 04/09/2006 Last Additions: * A ready indicator for MP modes has been added. * Map download feature has been added. Server admins can link to a map's location on a web server in the autogenerated map_downloads.xml file, and when clients attempts to join they will be offered to download the map. When the download is completed, the client must restart his game in order to load the new map. * An extensive list of GRAW mod documentation can be found in the SupportEditor tutorials folder. * New gametype Siege added. One team defends and holds a vital zone while the other attempts to get inside it. If the attackers remain alive inside the zone for more than 4 seconds, they win the game. * New gametype [GR] Coop added. [GR] coop brings back firefight and recon winning conditions to GRAW, and compliments the Cooperative campaign mode in the game. * Standalone dedicated server executable added. This executable will load context-dedicated.xml, which in turn reads servers_shared.xml in /Settings. Servers_shared.xml lets you specify a server password and other server settings. Please note that the minimum game CPU requirement still applies, or you might start experiencing connection issues. * Server administration console added. A complete list of commands can be found in Support/Commands.txt * A new speedhack detection system has been added to the anticheat. * You can now add favorites by entering the server's ip in the favorites interface. This allows you to enter a custom ip for a server and connect directly. Note that you need to be logged in to Gamespy first, in order to register with your nickname. * Added nightvision toggle for Deathcam * Added a new checkbox in the Cooperative campaign that allows players to continue even if Mitchell dies. * Added kit restrictions. Enable these either in the server creation interface or through the admin console. You can mix and match to customize your server. * Added a new 3 Mbit/s limit for server admins. You can now increase the alloted game bandwidth to 3 Mbit, from a previous maximum of 1.5. This is the maximum total a server may use and share between it's clients, but please note that while a higher bandwidth setting can decrease latency and improve lag issues, it will increase the processor load on the server. The bandwidth setting only affects servers. * Added "Next map" to the multiplayer loading screen. * Updated the Editor to allow outputting Siege and [GR] Coop maps. Press F1 in the editor to access the help screen for each layer. There's also a tutorial and a sample level in the Support directory. Fixes: * Fixed aspect ratio bug with widescreen monitors. * Fixed shot/hit effect going off on spawn and sometimes when chatting. * Fixed issue where a player could get stuck in run animation. * Fixed several crash bugs. * The server info button now always shows the correct map name * Fixed glitch where you could run while crouching and still shoot. * Fixed an exit bug that would cause GRAW to perform an illegal operation when exiting. * Fixed some CrossCom camera glitches. * A number of typos and small glitches have been fixed.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter version 1.30 CHANGENOTES 04/09/2006 Last Additions: * A ready indicator for MP modes has been added. * Map download feature has been added. Server admins can link to a map's location on a web server in the autogenerated map_downloads.xml file, and when clients attempts to join they will be offered to download the map. When the download is completed, the client must restart his game in order to load the new map. * An extensive list of GRAW mod documentation can be found in the SupportEditor tutorials folder. * New gametype Siege added. One team defends and holds a vital zone while the other attempts to get inside it. If the attackers remain alive inside the zone for more than 4 seconds, they win the game. * New gametype [GR] Coop added. [GR] coop brings back firefight and recon winning conditions to GRAW, and compliments the Cooperative campaign mode in the game. * Standalone dedicated server executable added. This executable will load context-dedicated.xml, which in turn reads servers_shared.xml in /Settings. Servers_shared.xml lets you specify a server password and other server settings. Please note that the minimum game CPU requirement still applies, or you might start experiencing connection issues. * Server administration console added. A complete list of commands can be found in Support/Commands.txt * A new speedhack detection system has been added to the anticheat. * You can now add favorites by entering the server's ip in the favorites interface. This allows you to enter a custom ip for a server and connect directly. Note that you need to be logged in to Gamespy first, in order to register with your nickname. * Added nightvision toggle for Deathcam * Added a new checkbox in the Cooperative campaign that allows players to continue even if Mitchell dies. * Added kit restrictions. Enable these either in the server creation interface or through the admin console. You can mix and match to customize your server. * Added a new 3 Mbit/s limit for server admins. You can now increase the alloted game bandwidth to 3 Mbit, from a previous maximum of 1.5. This is the maximum total a server may use and share between it's clients, but please note that while a higher bandwidth setting can decrease latency and improve lag issues, it will increase the processor load on the server. The bandwidth setting only affects servers. * Added "Next map" to the multiplayer loading screen. * Updated the Editor to allow outputting Siege and [GR] Coop maps. Press F1 in the editor to access the help screen for each layer. There's also a tutorial and a sample level in the Support directory. Fixes: * Fixed aspect ratio bug with widescreen monitors. * Fixed shot/hit effect going off on spawn and sometimes when chatting. * Fixed issue where a player could get stuck in run animation. * Fixed several crash bugs. * The server info button now always shows the correct map name * Fixed glitch where you could run while crouching and still shoot. * Fixed an exit bug that would cause GRAW to perform an illegal operation when exiting. * Fixed some CrossCom camera glitches. * A number of typos and small glitches have been fixed.

MP Pack 3 out now on Filefront..... http://files.filefront.com/Ghost+Recon+Adv...;/fileinfo.html

Thx for the reply Bonehead, after closing the 1.30 beta on Friday it does make me wonder just how many more bugs they managed to swat on the weekend before going gold on Monday, perhaps those Grins never sleep but I doubt it. I assume that us common folk will have to wait until Wednesday for the release in keeping with tradition.

Bonehead, so am I right in understanding that since 4:20 this afternoon you have been running with the final/release/non beta version of Map Pack 3 on your servers? I'm running the latest 1.30 beta but am unable to connect to any of your servers.

Any chance of a comment on this from one of the Grins ??? I mean is it just tough luck, or can we hope to see a change to the way maps are handled sometime in the future, perhaps 1.4 ?

Perhaps I have been a little spoilt by my other games but I have never really had to 'manage' my custom maps folder before. As Postal says is does seem like a real pain in the butt. Perhaps Grin have a great technical reason to read all the custom map's description.xml files at startup but most other games seem to be able to manage this on the fly. In my view this way of doing things is now causing other problems too, I mean look at the new auto download feature, great, connect to server but need to download map, map successfully downloads so now we are ready to go? no, now you need to restart graw first. hmmm. As for managing your custom maps so you don't have too many, lets say GRAW really takes off and you frequent say 4 - 5 different popular servers like BDA's, each with its own custom map rotation, do I need to visit explorer 1st just to prepare my maps before I boot GRAW? I'm sure Grin are fully aware of all this but probably don't have the money/manpower/will to change it. I just think now is the time to discuss this during this Beta period.

Now I am a big fan of custom maps, and over the past few months I have built up a nice collection of custom maps now standing at 91, around 386 MB in total. At first I did not notice anything but slowly over time I began to realise my game loading times where beginning to get longer and longer and longer. I also came across a little note in the BDA mappack that stated: "Testing has shown that GR:AW performs slower the more files that are in the custom_levels folder, so keep that in mind as well." So I decided to do a spot of testing for myself and my results were..... With no custom maps. GRAW load time 45 Seconds Internet Server Connect time 50 Seconds With 91 custom maps. GRAW load time 120 Seconds!! Internet Server Connect time 80 Seconds!! Now that the mapping guys finally have the new coop functions in the editor, I (like many others) am really looking forward to some great custom coop maps being produced but this together with the new custom map auto download feature could really see my collection of custom maps grow considerably and I shudder to think just what my load times could end up being, maybe 5 minutes +. Now I have a number of games with large custom map collections, a good example being Vietcong, my collection of custom maps is currently almost 280 maps, around 1.57 GB but I have never noticed any slowdown because of it. If this has been discussed before then I missed it and I am sorry. I know it is more than likely due to the some embedded feature of the GRAW game architecture and will probably prove difficult to change but this for me (and I am sure many others) is looking like it may be a major issue/nuisance in the future. Grin?? perhaps a few words of wisdom?? Rant over.

I must say with [GR] Coop I have rediscovered my love for GRAW, its really very good. Tried out two maps now, both very good and swarming with sneaky AI. I have found a few bugs but still no luck getting into beta.ubi.com to report them.

I could not contain myself and had to post about the standalone server files, but I am not sure what we really can and cannot say. I don't recall reading anything about non disclosure, I mean come on, its only a game patch not a new part of the space shuttle we are testing. I cannot get on the official site atm either.

Downloading all 264 MB of it now, 13 mins left

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Multiplayer Pack #1 (230.94MB) Coming soon....... Bob MODERATOR EDIT: Link removed. Links will be provided when patch is officially released. edited by ZJJ