thanks for all your hard work pacer!!! i'm all set for sharing ;) i'll try to run it as often as i can. i wonder if it turns off when i run the editor? anyway i changed the settings just in case.

Thanks... It would be great to have as many people as possible leave USucc running... that's how BitTorrent works.

Yea, by default, it will stop sharing when you run the editor since the editor is the same exe as the game.  As you know, you can just change the setting in USucc to allow it to keep sharing while UT3 is running... it is up to you.

The next beta will have a feature that allows USucc to startup much quicker... without rehashing all the maps that it is sharing.... pretty critical when you have lots of maps.

I have released a new beta, v0.09.08.20, which fixes some bugs and improves startup performance. Download link is in the first post. Enjoy!

nice man! downloading...

M012E <3 4 PACER!!! :D

So this week I was going to try rigging up the (A.S.S) servers with this godlike shiz, and thus far my top concern is the uz3 issue: I definitely want to provide a straight redirect for users, but I've been pushing compressed files at players all this time, so obviously, big fat gigs of uz3 files are what I'm working with at this point ... so then when it comes to configuring Bakwey for a redirect, do I have it right that USucc isn't going to be able to pull from the uz3s?

If that's correct, then ... is that something that's inherently difficult, or is it just a matter of USucc not having anything built into the client to decompress them?

And if it's the latter ... I wonder, how much of a task would it be to add into USucc some functions or a class that could asynchronously handle those compress/decompress ops? I'm thinking, (1) fire up a ut3.exe with the proper args, (2) monitor the process, (3) when the process disappears return success/fail to a callback, according to whether or not the expected file has been produced. Or maybe there's a better way to catch the return int from the process directly instead of polling for its existence.... Anyway, in theory I have to think it's possible ... tell me my Nuts aren't CockBlocked here lol

Right, USucc can not deal with uz3 files on the redirect. I thought about using UT3.exe to uncompress uz3 files but there are a few issues:

1) Don't know where UT3 is installed... custom install location, steam version, direct2drive? Possible workaround: Search common locations and provide a pref for user to specify path.

2) USucc will CockBlock itself by running UT3... easy workaround is to ignore any UT3 process that USucc launches.

3) Steam versions will try to log you in to Steam every time you launch UT3, possibly prompting for a password or prompting about Steam updates. These prompts will hang the process. No workaround for this.

4) I can not run UT3 commandlets on my Vista machines without it hanging after the work is complete. Every time I try to close the command windows, Vista complains that the process did not shut down properly, logs an error to the event log, asks if I want to report the problem to Microsoft, and eventually asks me if I want help diagnosing the problems with my computer. Only running the server commandlet shuts down properly... all the other commandlets don't seem to know how to shut down. I don't know if this happens in non-Steam versions on Vista.

So the last two problems are show stoppers for me. I wish I knew what compression algorithm uz3 uses... I doubt they've invented their own but they may have tweaked one just enough to prevent me implementing my own decompression.

You could upload uncompressed versions of your maps to your redirect but I understand that is a pain.

When you create your torrents, I would probably recommend that you only include the ut3 map file for DM, CTF, and vCTF map torrents... leave out the ini files and LOC packages because those only serve to force downloads when they'd otherwise not be needed. The same goes for WAR maps that don't have alternate link setups.

It just occurred to me that another problem with trying to download uz3 compressed data from a redirect is that it breaks BitTorrent when you receive pieces of data that do not match the pieces on disk when the torrent was created. Each workaround alley I walk down with this scenario leads to more problems.

I just don't think support for uz3 compression is going to happen unless I change USucc to work with single-file torrents only and create my own "package" format on top.

That approach does help solve a problem for people who have partial installs... typically after having used a cache converter but I was hoping to address that another way because I'd prefer not to multiply the number of active torrents by the average number of files per torrent.

Interesting. Well that's too bad, but those certainly are some major obstacles you've pointed out. Seems far easier indeed just to set up alternate redirects for all the uncompressed files ... I'll set about putting those together then.

Thanks

the million dollar question: am I able to post from IE8 now ?

holy shit dude !! I posted successfully !!

hey, I love the idea of "USucc" and I LOVE the name. Freaking pansy asses who can't DL a map or two.

anyway, I'll see if I can get it to work.

After reading discussions above: if the torrents work off people's computers, those could use .ut3 files cuz you can't play maps from only .uz3 so you have to decompress to use them anyway. As for redirects, it seems like it's smarter to slightly compress them to .uz3. Then you have to use a local decompress action anyway -- I happen to use UT3_vice to decompress cuz it works nicely. So you could do .uz3 torrents from servers, but require the user to do a local batch decompress to get the maps ready for gaming !!

hey, pimping your work here, Pacer -- just helping to get the word out

http://unkclan.com/forums/?page=post&id=42D1DC52-FF8F-4E49-82DC-C52E5E68F014&fid=79C8CEB3-6AF6-42F6-B96A-6F9452E571F8

Thanks.... I just noticed an uptick in USucc traffic on my machine... no doubt thanks to your pimpage.

questions: what happens when it finishes DL'ing a map? is it bringing down a .ut3 file ? does it put it in the "Published/CustomMaps" folder ?

would be nice if the "server" list was wider or resizable or was it's own whole line so I could read the server names. Some are much wider than the displayed line.

ok, so now I've "created" a couple new torrents: will anyone see them? they are just from my computer

hey, jump on ventrillo if you can...

hey Pacer,

got USucc working on the client with (apparently) a .NET update ... on the server it still aborts silently; I've checked the server and it's updated to .NET 3.5, so I'm not still sure what to make of that at this point.

Anyway the other bit I'm up against now is, when I do run it from my local machine, I try connecting to the ASS DM server and I get back an error in the status bar, "Failed to transact with server 'http://216.86.149.224/': The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized." Now as you obviously know, port 80 at that address is wired directly to the web admin which is going to be asking for credentials ... is that what USucc is bumping up against then? Or do I need to tweak Bakwey a bit yet....

graaaazie

I think the Bakwey 401 error might be that you have not added Bakwey as a web app in UTWeb.ini.

Not sure about the USucc silent fail on the server... I'll work it out with you offline.

I have posted a new version with some important bug fixes and optimizations for connecting to servers that have hundreds of custom maps... download the latest version and start sharing yo A.S.S off... hint hint ;-)

 lol.

Good to chat with you about this the other night. I downloaded the newest version last night and really noticed a performance boost on loading the maps. I have all of the GOW maps in there, as well as the A.S.S DM and CTF/Greed maps as well.

The initial hash took a little bit, but checking CPU usage, it was hovering around 3% which is not bad given the amount of maps I have in there (At least 100+).

I'll be sure to let you know of any weird behavior I run into.

I can also verify this runs on Windows 7 x86/x64 :)

Thanks xtacy! Glad to hear it is working well on Win7. The hashing improvements won't be seen the first time you run the new version because it depends on saved hash data.

Yep, I remembered you mentioning that it will hash, then save a time stamp that it references during startup to determine whether it needs to check file integrity.

It was alot faster than I had thought it would be. I do have a question about the port that MonoTorrent uses?

I have been sharing the content, but have yet to see any sort of seeding activity, and I want to verify that its from the util being new and not that my router is blocking connections.

That reminds me, I need to add an indicator of whether port forwarding has been enabled to the status bar. In the meantime, you can probably check your router status to see if port forwarding is set up for the port you've chosen for USucc.

You can also probably set up port forwarding manually.

But also, I think we've may have 100% seeders at the moment.

I totally missed that you can specify what port to listen.

That makes so much sense!

Garrysmod.org, the huge map/mod download site for the Source game engine, has switched to BitTorrent for content distribution. There has been a ton of push back based on misconceptions about torrents.

For me, this further validates the concept behind USucc.

I tried using USucc and I guess I suck since I couldnt get it working. When trying to connect with any of the 3 servers on the list I get the message "Failed to transact with server "http://205.234.152.124/": Unable to connect to remote server. That IP is for GOW | ONS 2.0 server. I did allow USucc through my firewall.

What port should USucc use as a Listen port?

Pacer, in your thread at Epic you have this server listed: GodsOfWarfare server: 216.86.149.231. Is the program trying to contact the wrong server maybe?

Looks like you have the old server still in your favorites. We recently shut down the servers that Harmerty was renting and moved back to the A.S.S server. Look for "GodsOfWarfare | www.ut3gow.com". It should work if you enter the IP address above or go into the game and add the new server to your favorites. Also, add the A.S.S DM and CTF/Greed server if you want those maps too. Then go back into USucc and try again.

With regard to the server selection combo... that needs to be reworked. I think a full server browser in USucc would be cool but that's not my top priority... still plenty of other bugs and critical features to work out.

Just dropped a fat ton more DM maps this week, at least 50 or so ... I'm testing USucc's redirect pull now and it seems to be working both web seeds without a hitch. Got the initial 2+MB/s spike of death, but it fired up eventually and has been going strong for some 30-40 torrents in a row. Something still might be off somewhere, but this latest run at least has been the smoothest sailing yet by far.

Now I've got a test case to ponder also ... this week a public beta release of the Jailbreak mod for UT3 was released. It consists in part of roughly a dozen various .u and associated files, however, none of these files bear any special naming for being "_beta" or anything. So what I'm wondering is ... I've already torrented together that batch of script files as "Jailbreak.torrent"; when the presumed updates and final version are eventually released, and I create a new "Jailbreak.torrent", what kind of trouble would I run into when trying to serve the updated torrent and its associated content? Could *I* circumvent that problem simply by creating differently named torrent files as any new updates to the mod are released, and then changing the server's Nuts entries as needed?

Cool. I grabbed some of the DM maps last night. I also saw that you uploaded the CBP3.4 warfare map to the server. Was there a Conifg/.ini file for that map? I tried to download the CBP3.4 but the zip file was corrupt so I figure I'll just use the version you uploaded to the server. It turns out there's a major bug in WAR-CBP3-Midst. The countdown node always damages the blue core no matter who controls it. Too bad. So much time invested in a map only to have it ruined by a silly bug. I hope they fix it.

W.R.T. Jailbreak mods. Although USucc is not ready to deal with updates yet, the way I want to handle it is to have USucc occasionally look at the HTTP header data for the torrents it has to see if the torrent has been updated. If so, it will download the new version and compare it to the old version. If they differ, the torrent will be highlighted and the user can choose whether to download and install the update. The same process will handle the case where multiple servers have different versions of the same content.

For now, I recommend that you avoid creating a torrent for the JB mods and let players dl manually or in-game. Mod downloads are quick compared to maps and, until USucc is able to deal with updates, I would avoid creating torrents for stuff you know will soon be updated without being renamed. It is a different story for maps that have version info in their name... that's safe since new versions will have new names.

Another thing I intend to do is allow you to change the name of the torrent itself. But then it would be up to the user to make sure to install the latest version after installing previous versions... there's no guarantee if they were to install multiple versions of the same thing at the same time.

Last night I began working on the UI that will be needed to allow users to compare torrent versions... mainly the addition of informational tab pages at the bottom of the main panel... it is starting to look more like µTorrent.

Finally updated my favorites list to include the GOW server, and gave USUCC a go.  Awesome!!  It nabbed 8 maps I didn't have yet, and I installed the first 4 when they were ready.  But after that it continued to download the next 4, I tried installing them when they were ready, but USUCC never prompted that they installed and "downloading" was still showing in the status box.  I wonder if some small bug only allowed me to install once per session, I didn't try exiting and reopening USUCC to see if they installed or not, but will look again tonight.  Also small typo:  when you hover your mouse over install and uninstall - the little info box that pops up says "install selectected maps" and "uninstall selectected maps". 

If a map is downloading, selecting it and clicking the install button only marks the map to be installed when downloading is complete. But it sounds like you had some that were fully downloaded, in the seeding state, and when you tried to install them they ended up back in the downloading state? Were you running UT3 at the time?

Thanks for the typo bug report... I'll get that fixed in the next version.

The first set of 4 maps I installed were completely downloaded, and changed to the seeding state.  They installed correctly.

The next set downloaded to 100% and still said downloading when I pressed install.  I may have not been patient enough for them to get to the seeding state.  ISUCC

Sounds awesome! :D

fwiw, IMO updates to torrents of gametype mods are of particular importance, because of how they are only recognized in the server browser if they're installed on the local machine.

And no, there was no /Config .ini file supplied with the Midst map, iirc. That being moot atm ofc ... pity about the kismet bug. Maybe report what you found here in case they're not aware...?

Good point. I found out tonight that every torrent has a creation date in it which will help track versions in the UI. I think I can come up with a pretty clean solution in the next few days.

mentioned all this bakwey & USucc stuff to Sayunkle over at unkclan.com, but I'm not sure if he's seen it yet. Hoping to get all the maps we have on the 2 UNK servers available to all through this thing -- it's so slick !! just needs more advertising and users !!

Cool! I'd be happy to talk about the details of hosting Bakwey with you and Unk... just let me know.

I released a new beta version of USucc. Besides numerous bug fixes, this version adds a Torrent details panel which shows a variety of information about the selected torrent.

Download link is in the first post. Enjoy!

nice man i'll check it out

Pacer I wanted to add the newest beta of Cola wars with a new node layout. I have all the files copied to the redirect and the other ftp but was wondering what I have to do to get the .bittorrent file on our ftp? Is that something you want to show me or is it too complicated? just wondering.....

i'll show you tonight if you're on vent.

i got bored so i remade the USucc banner :)

Eff Yeah!  Nice one Killa!