DPERR - PENDING

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [American Civil War] >> Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War 1861-1865 >> Forge of Freedom - Support >> DPERR - PENDING

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DPERR - PENDING - 9/29/2008 9:05:33 PM

ferrata

Posts: 10
Joined: 8/23/2008
Status: offline

Alright, I have read the posts regarding other Direct Play errors, and the title of this thread is the one that I'm getting (with both systems running Vista. What I don't understand is this:

What does it mean when you say that DirectPlay 4 has been "deprecated"?
Is everyone experiencing these problems on Vista, or are people experiencing them with XP and other OSs?
Has anyone been able to make any headway with this?

I'd really like to know the answer to these, and any other info you guys might have -- I bought this game so I could play head to head with my father, and the fact that Internet play is essentially broken is infuriating! I am not blaming the developers, but somebody has to know something about how to get this function to work!

The thing is, when all of the error messages are clicked away, the game moves on just fine.

I know, I'm rambling, but I'm angry and a little frantic to get this fixed. Has anyone been able to find away to kill or troubleshoot this bug?

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RE: DPERR - PENDING - 9/30/2008 12:24:06 AM

ferrata

Posts: 10
Joined: 8/23/2008
Status: offline

OK, I amend my last...

Reading those past posts again it seems that the culprit is the DirectPlay 4 that came with the game. If the multiplayer game is unplayable for some of the customers, isn't it the responsibility of WCS to at least attempt to rectify this with a patch?

In one of the previous posts, ericbabe from WCS says the following:
...the libraries we use, Microsoft's DirectPlay 4.0, does have some issues and has been deprecated by Microsoft in the last few years...I would have loved to migrate the TCP/IP engine to a newer library, but unfortunately DirectPlay 4.0 is quite idiosyncratic, and this would require a major amount of work on the engine. .

If the libraries have been deprecated in the last few years, why were they included with the game? I think loss of the multiplayer functionality removes most of the allure of the game -- the AI is good, but it's not that good.

Honestly guys, this is the second game I've purchased from Matrix that had a major problem. I'm starting to feel the burn... and I think WCS owes it's customers some support on this one. Problems like these are causing me to lose interest in Matrix as a whole.

(in reply to ferrata)

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RE: DPERR - PENDING - 9/30/2008 3:44:43 AM

ericbabe

Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline

"To deprecate" in software jargon means to desist support for the software, or to discourage its use.

DirectPlay 4.0 had not been deprecated when I wrote the engine around it. I've spent more than a month full time trying to fix whatever was wrong in DirectPlay 4.0 and then trying to migrate to a different TCP/IP library, without avail. In house, we actually don't have any problems with DirectPlay 4.0 other than a very infrequent occurance of a dropped packet, and I know other people who have played TCP/IP games without problems. I don't know why DirectPlay 4.0 works for some people without any serious issues and why it does not seem to work for other people.

_____________________________

(in reply to ferrata)

Post #: 3

RE: DPERR - PENDING - 9/30/2008 10:46:21 AM

ferrata

Posts: 10
Joined: 8/23/2008
Status: offline

OK, I'm tracking now -- the game was originally released in '96. I still am upset that the games sold by Matrix aren't being playtested for current system compatibility, or if they are then Matrix is not being forthcoming about issues found with them.

Let's narrow this down though -- what OS are you guys using to play the game "in house". If the game was originally written for XP/2000, perhaps it is a DirectPlay 4 compatibility issue with Vista? Honestly, I like the game so much that it would be just more fuel for the fire that is persuading me to go buy a new copy of XP and throw my Vista installation in the trash.

I understand that you have worked to fix the issue, maybe we can determine exactly which users are experiencing the problem.

Man... my girlfriend just backed out on me a couple weeks before mid-tour leave, I hope I can figure this out in time to go see my dad instead

(in reply to ferrata)

Post #: 4

RE: DPERR - PENDING - 10/1/2008 3:34:20 AM

Gil R.

Posts: 10821
Joined: 4/1/2005
Status: offline

As CeltiCid mentioned in the other thread, Hamachi is a program that has helped some people who encounter this problem, so definitely give it a shot (and please let us know if it worked).

The DirectPlay 4 issue is unrelated to Vista, since people who have XP/2000 also have encountered it.

To elaborate a bit on what Eric wrote, it's an unfortunate situation, but not one that is fixable without redoing the engine. There are lots of people who have been able to play FOF networked, but a small number (1%? 5%? 10%?) encounter this problem that is caused by our engine incorporating deficient Microsoft code. Some of those people are able to solve the problem using Hamachi, but beyond that, we have no good advice for how to deal with it. (Needless to say, we're certainly not pleased by the situation.)

(in reply to ferrata)

Post #: 5

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [American Civil War] >> Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War 1861-1865 >> Forge of Freedom - Support >> DPERR - PENDING

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