Hello, compile all with -DSHORT_PACKETS to get SHORT_PACKET support. Otherwise it's an standard bronco.final server. Two patches are applied: a) pop patch from Brian Paulsen b) The better input.c from Tedd Hadley SHORT PACKETS Definition and implementation of short packets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hw@plato.chemietechnik.uni-dortmund.de (Heiko Wengler) Subject: SHORT_PACKETS README (from the coder) Date: 24 May 1993 14:49:13 GMT Hello! Here is the Readme to SHORT_PACKETS. You need a new client and the server must have SHORT_PACKETS to play with it. The actual client informations how you can switch SHORT_PACKETS on could be wrong. Short Packets Code by Tedd Hadley and Heiko Wengler. Send bugreports to hw@plato.Chemietechnik.Uni-Dortmund.DE. Extra feature: ',' puts up a menu ('network' for your .xtrekrc) with 1 toggle options and 1 integer entry field and two new keys: '-' updateSmall gives you an update of all weapons+Planets+Kills.(<400 bytes) 'UpdateMiddle' is updateAll without the Stats. (< 700 bytes) -=' 'UpdateAll' (<2200 bytes) (orig. UpdateAll (4192 bytes max.)) MENU: [Don't] Receive variable and short packets (1) Receive threshold: (2) Done (1) Variable and short packets. This tells the server to send several new types of packets instead of the original types. The technical details follow at the end. (2) Receive threshold. This is complete experimental. If a non-zero threshold is specified the server tries to not overload the connection. This option could be not implemented in the server. You should give as a threshold the number of bytes per second you wanna give from your bandwidth. For example if you set the threshold to 500 bytes. And you are playing with 5 updates/sec. You have a threshold of 500/updates = 100bytes/update. The server checks after every update if he wrote more than the limit. If yes the server skips your next update and you get a warning from your client. This can actually halve your Updates/sec. Not more. (Eg if you play with 5 updates it 'slows' you down to 3 updates.) Minimum limit per update is 60 bytes. (Threshold = 60 * updates then.) If you set it to 0 Server ends testing. If you wanna calculate your bandwidth requirements you should count the tcp/ip overhead of 64 bytes to the actual data. For example if you wanna play with a 9600 Baud modem. You have a bandwidth of 1200 bytes. you can subtract 200 bytes for client-server communication. So you have 1000 bytes to play with. With 5 updates you need under tcp/ip (5*64=)320 bytes for headers. You have then ~650 bytes for server data. That means you should set the threshold to 650 bytes. (130 bytes per update are much. All player movement(16 players) + SP_S_YOU + 16 Torps). I do not think that you ever get 16 player packets in one update. That leaves you with some more "weapons data" :-). If you have another protocol you must compute the overhead by yourself. And any limit smaller than 500 bytes/update means that after an UpdateAll the next update is skipped. Implementation overview: Variable and short packet justification: The three largest contributors to netrek bandwidth are the packets SP_PLAYER (all player movement), SP_YOU (information relating to your ship statistics, and your status) and SP_TORP (torp movement). In one test I got these statistics: SP_PLAYER: 2407 K SP_YOU: 1408 K SP_TORP: 1118 K SP_STATS: 262 K SP_FLAGS: 148 K SP_WARNING: 139 K SP_TORP_INFO: 90 K SP_MESSAGE: 82 K, ... (the remaining packets account for about 50K) Without much doubt, the first three (SP_PLAYER, SP_YOU, SP_TORP) contribute most of the overhead. So... NEW PACKETS: ORIGINAL SIZE (bytes) NEW SIZE (bytes) -------------------------------------------------------------- SP_PLAYER 12 SP_S_PLAYER 4 (**) SP_YOU 32 SP_S_YOU 12 SP_S_YOU_SS 12 SP_TORP 12 SP_S_TORP ~4 (***) SP_TORP_INFO 8 SP_S_TORPINFO 1 SP_PLANET 12 SP_S_PLANET 6 (*) SP_MESSAGE 84 SP_S_MESSAGE 8-76 SP_WARNING 84 SP_S_WARNING 4 (*) variable packets, each packet containing 2 bytes of type & length information and some number of 6-byte entries, (**) variable packets, each packet containing 4 (or 12) bytes of type & length information and some number of 4-byte entries, (***) The torp packet is really a packet container for 9 bit pixel- coordinates. SP_S_TORP_INFO is added to a SP_S_TORP packet if needed. (More tech info at the end.) Notice that the reduction in network traffic is very close to 40-75% of the original. Excerpt from packets.h: #ifdef SHORT_PACKETS #define SP_S_REPLY 40 /* reply to send-short request */ #define SP_S_MESSAGE 41 /* var. Message Packet */ #define SP_S_WARNING 42 /* Warnings with 4 Bytes */ #define SP_S_YOU 43 /* hostile,armies,whydead,etc .. */ #define SP_S_YOU_SS 44 /* your ship status */ #define SP_S_PLAYER 45 /* variable length player packet */ #define SP_S_TORP 47 /* variable length torp packet */ #define SP_S_TORP_INFO 48 /* SP_S_TORP with TorpInfo */ #define SP_S_8_TORP 49 /* optimized SP_S_TORP */ #define SP_S_PLANET 50 /* see SP_PLANET */ #endif and client: #define CP_S_REQ 43 /* Req to server over tcp */ #define CP_S_THRS 44 #define CP_S_MESSAGE 45 /* vari. Message Packet */ #define CP_S_RESERVED 46 #define CP_S_DUMMY 47 SP_S_PLAYER: byte bit description ----------------------- 0 0-4 player number, 5 local or galactic, 6 = 9. x-bit, 7 9. y-bit 1 0-3 speed, 4-7 direction of ship 2 0-7 low 8 bits from X-Pixelcoordinate 3 0-7 low 8 bits from Y-Pixelcoordinate SP_S_TORP: byte range ----------------------- 0 0-7 Packet type 1 0-7 Bitset describing which torps are in this packet. 2 0-7 Torpnumber of first torp( num*8=torpnumber) 3 A number of 9 Bit pairs. Each describing one torp. (The 9 bit numbers are the torp coordinates in pixel-coordinates.) All rounded up to 4 byte boundaries. SP_S_YOU and SP_S_YOU_SS are the result of dividing SP_YOU into two packets. Most of the time, SP_YOU gets sent because ship status has changed, i.e. damage, fuel, or shields. The remaining information, hostile, swar, armies, and flags are not needed as often. Therefore it makes sense to split SP_YOU into two packets: struct youshort_spacket { /* SP_S_YOU */ char type; char pnum; char hostile; char swar; char armies; char whydead; char whodead; char pad1; unsigned flags; }; and struct youss_spacket { /* SP_S_YOU_SS */ char type; char pad1; unsigned short damage; unsigned short shield; unsigned short fuel; unsigned short etemp; unsigned short wtemp; }; The new SP_S_PLANET: all info as in the old packet but only 255 armies. struct planet_s_spacket { /* body of SP_S_PLANET */ char pnum; char owner; char info; uchar armies; /* more than 255 Armies ? ... */ short flags; }; SP_S_WARNING: struct warning_s_spacket { /* SP_S_WARNING */ char type; uchar whichmessage; char argument, argument2; /* for phaser etc ... */ }; Instead of sending the strings I send only an index into an string array. This works also for all weapons warnings with arguments (like phaser). e.g. old phaserpacket (16) + SP_WARNING = 100 bytes, now only 20. SP_S_TORP: struct torp_s_spacket { char type; /* SP_S_TORP */ uchar bitset; /* bit=1 that torp is in packet */ uchar whichtorps; /* Torpnumber of first torp / 8 */ uchar data[18]; /* For every torp 2*9 bit coordinates */ char pad1; /* To get long word alignment */ char pad2; char pad3; }; SP_S_TORP_INFO: struct torp_s_spacket { char type; /* SP_S_TORP */ uchar bitset; /* bit=1 that torp is in packet */ uchar whichtorps; /* Torpnumber of first torp / 8 */ uchar infobitset; /* second bitset with TorpInfo */ uchar data[18]; /* For every torp 2*9 bit coordinates */ uchar tinfo[10]; /* Torp Info data, each 1 byte with 4 bits torpwar */ /* And 4 bits of status information. */ }; You get the torpnumber for a torp with: torpnumber = whichtorps * 8 + (index in bitset.) With this method you can encode 8 torpnumbers with 16 bit. TorpInfo: TFREE and TMOVE are encoded in the bitset ( bitset = 1 -> TMOVE, bitset = 0 -> TFREE) if there is no TORPINFO data byte. SP_S_MESSAGE: struct mesg_s_spacket { char type; /* SP_S_MESSAGE */ uchar m_flags; uchar m_recpt; uchar m_from; uchar length; /* Length of whole packet */ char mesg; char pad2; char pad3; char pad[76]; }; The server sends all messages with SP_S_MESSAGE. SP_S_MESSAGE is like the old SP_MESSAGE with 2 differences: a) The header is 1 byte longer. ( A length field.) b) The server removes the message header ( "GOD->All") and sends only as much bytes as the message is long. ( I think most messages should be under 16 bytes. (eg. "a++ @TAU" = 16 bytes with 2 pad bytes.) If you wanna test something in a SP_S_MESSAGE with an SP_MESSAGE pointer you should search at packet->mesg[1]. packet->mesg[0] is the lenghtfield. I changed in the server: packets.h added SHORT_PACKETS data.h added send_short vari. defs.h added endless defines. struct.h IMPORTANT!!, made 'struct message' bigger. All programs that work on the shared mem must be recompiled!!! Now the c files: coup.c changed all warnings. (To spwarning()). getentry.c changed all warnings. interface.c changed all warnings. orbit.c changed all warnings. phaser.c changed all warnings. plasma.c changed all warnings. redraw.c changed all warnings. torp.c changed all warnings. smessage.c added DINVALID flag to pmessage and pmessage2. warning.c implemented short message sending of warnings. daemonII.c implemented SHORT_DAEMON messages. ( Killmess, Planetmessages.) data.c added global send_short variable. startdaemon.c changed one warning. socket.c Look at all SHORT_PACKETS code. *** Changed functions: updateClient, updatePlanets, updateMessages, updateShips,forceUpdate IMPORTANT: changed the meaning of handleDetMReq. If the routine gets one det Req it dets all torps. Changed most warnings. The order in which the server updates the client in updateClient is now important. (SupdateTorps (the new torproutine) must be after updateShips.) Client: socket.c , data.c -- All coordinates are in the client coordinate system. (0-499 = 9 Bits) -- UpdateAll: The client resets all weapon info by himself. The server sends only active weapons data. ( torps that fly around or a player phasers you.) The weapons are always cleared. Limitations: Only 64 Players can be send with SP_S_PLAYER. Ships are send with only 16 directions. MAXSPEED of ships is warp 15. (Within the SHORT_PACKETS limits.) Future features: a) 'compression' of client-server packets. ( Have an idea for 50% reduction.) b) message compression. ( Details must be hashed out.) c) Player should be able to stop some warning messages. ( Like the 8 Torps limit warning. Really useless.) Bye Heiko Wengler hw@plato.Chemietechnik.Uni-Dortmund.DE ------------------------------ End of SHORT PACKETS ********************