Moving to the Svencoop engine

Everquest · Nov 5, 2016

MS:C community said:
How exactly did you load MS:C in the Sven Co-op 5.0 engine? I copied my \msc\ folder to my \Sven Co-op\ folder (and restarted Steam) but it's not showing up in my games list.

Edit: svencoop.exe shortcut --> -game msc. Of course

So now anyone who does not have access to HL1 can still download MSC and install it to Sven Co-op and it works? Do you keep all your stats, all the objects and gear, all the npcs and monsters still do what they are suppose to do? (I read the sound for at least one thing was changed...) And is there anything special I have to do to get MSC to work? I mean is it as easy as installing it to-

C:\ProgramFiles\Steam\steamapps\common\Sven Co-op\svencoop_addon

Or do you have to create a folder or take all the stuff out of the MSC one or only the maps, etc.?

Thanks in advance! I am drooling just thinking about being able to play this great mod again...

MS:C community · Nov 6, 2016

Everquest said:
is it as easy as installing it to-

C:\ProgramFiles\Steam\steamapps\common\Sven Co-op\svencoop_addon

No, it's as easy as copying your \msc\ folder to your \Sven Co-op\ folder, which is described ad verbatim in my post that you quoted.

MS:C community said:
I copied my \msc\ folder to my \Sven Co-op\ folder [...]
svencoop.exe shortcut --> -game msc.

Everquest · Nov 6, 2016

MS:C community said:
Everquest said:

is it as easy as installing it to-

C:\ProgramFiles\Steam\steamapps\common\Sven Co-op\svencoop_addon

Click to expand...

No, it's as easy as copying your \msc\ folder to your \Sven Co-op\ folder, which is described ad verbatim in my post that you quoted.

MS:C community said:

I copied my \msc\ folder to my \Sven Co-op\ folder [...]
svencoop.exe shortcut --> -game msc.

Click to expand...

We shall see...

I have had other maps made for Sven Co-op that no longer work as they should in SC due to patches or compiling issues or need to be adjusted from the old way of installing, so I thought I would ask for clarification now. Thank you. ^_^

Hmmm... I am not seeing it. Mind you I have a fresh copy of MSC that was never installed properly to begin with so I am not sure if that makes a difference or not, as in the folder was never compiled properly into HL1 because I do not have access to that game at the present moment, unless I just simply install the msc_full_installer_FEV2015d.exe to svencoop_addon folder...

Which I am assuming is the completely wrong way to do it because I can no longer play Sven Co-op or even open it to the title screen now...

MS:C community · Nov 6, 2016

Everquest said:
I just simply install the msc_full_installer_FEV2015d.exe to svencoop_addon folder...

Which I am assuming is the completely wrong

It appears you messed up. Delete Sven Co-op entirely and let's start again.

1) Download and install Sven Co-op. Run the game at least once and join a random server. Quit.

2) Download the Master Sword Continued 1.2 FULL INSTALLER FEB2015d from this page. Install it to the following folder:

3) Download the MSC Update Package - NOV2015a from this page. Install it to the following folder:

4) Go to your ...\Steam\steamapps\common\Sven Co-op\ folder and right-click on svencoop.exe. Click on "Create shortcut".

5) Right-click on the newly made shortcut. Click on "Properties". In the Shortcut Properties window that pops up, locate the editable field next to the text "Target:". At the end of this field, add the following (without the quotation marks)
" -game msc"
That's
[space][dash]game[space]msc
It should look like this:

Click "Apply" and then "OK".

6) Double-click the shortcut and you're good to go.

MS:C community · Nov 6, 2016

Update: Don't bother because it's pretty much unplayable now.

When I tested this in Sven Co-op v5.0 the mod worked OK, mostly.

Now, as of patch v5.07 (and perhaps even earlier) no single model shows up. NPCs, weapon models, your own model, prop models, they're all invisible. Some FX sprites don't show either.
Furthermore, sometimes entities with special render properties render through walls, through large parts of the map. And I only played for three minutes in edana just now... who knows what other problems there are.

My advice: Cough up 10 USD and rebuy Half-Life. Not only is it worth your money on the basis that it is one of the greatest games ever made, it will also allow you to play MS:C and a metric sh*tton of other mods.

Everquest · Nov 6, 2016

Yea... That is a shame... I just noticed that as well... I am in Edana and see an apple case just hanging in mid air with a help sign of a merchant and I can hear whistling from time to time..., the water fountain missing textures and I too can see through the walls of a building...

However, I still have my Blue Shift, Opposing Force and Team Fortress cds and I think each of those still have their keys. Will those games allow me to play MS or any other HL1 mod, but obviously not be able to play HL1 it self. (Which SC allows me to play coop anyway.) Other wise I guess I will just rebuy HL1 digitally this time. :?

Thothie · Nov 6, 2016

If you submit your keys in Steam via Game->Activate a Product, you should be able to download the latest digital versions of the games you have. Between that, and the Svencoop media folders (models/sound/sprites) you might be able to fandangle to something together to let you play MSC on-line, but yeah, probably much less trouble just to spend the $10. (Especially when you consider what your time is worth.)

MS:C community said:
Now, as of [Svencoop] patch v5.07 (and perhaps even earlier) no single model shows up. NPCs, weapon models, your own model, prop models, they're all invisible. Some FX sprites don't show either.
Furthermore, sometimes entities with special render properties render through walls, through large parts of the map. And I only played for three minutes in edana just now... who knows what other problems there are.

The good news is that our Svencoop version of MSC seems to still be working. Under regular MSC, I'm running into memory problems on some maps when adding anything globally to items (such as the item mod system), I'll have to see if our Svencoop version fixes this (edit: oh dear, yes it does). Not that I can't add them as is - I just can't add anything else, and have to strip the item debug systems to boot, under regular Half-Life. Not good.

Everquest · Nov 6, 2016

Thothie said:
If you submit your keys in Steam via Game->Activate a Product, you should be able to download the latest digital versions of the games you have. Between that, and the Svencoop media folders (models/sound/sprites) you might be able to fandangle to something together to let you play MSC on-line, but yeah, probably much less trouble just to spend the $10. (Especially when you consider what your time is worth.)

But I am pretty sure I had activated my HL1 game. But I don't think I ever physically installed the other cds that came with it that I remember... Hmmm... maybe Team Fortress... I doubt I could use my old HL1 key which is under a long forgotten email address to download a free copy, (Even though I own it...) but I am wondering if just having the other games would act as the main game on their own since I am sure they use the same textures, animations, core gameplay, etc.

Thothie said:
The good news is that our Svencoop version of MSC seems to still be working. Under regular MSC, I'm running into memory problems on some maps when adding anything globally to items (such as the item mod system), I'll have to see if our Svencoop version fixes this (edit: oh dear, yes it does). Not that I can't add them as is - I just can't add anything else, and have to strip the item debug systems to boot, under regular Half-Life. Not good.

And is that a good thing for the HL1 system you are using or the Sven Co-op one?

Thothie · Nov 6, 2016

It doesn't matter if you activated the key under WON - if you have a key, you can use it in Steam. If you activated it under another Steam account, then you maybe SOL (though, if you still have access to that account, you can family share it.)

Our current Svencoop/MSC Alpha is running under Svencoop 5.02, and seems to still be operating (although, sadly, the extended map area feature doesn't seem to like MSC much). It doesn't seem to be affected by the same mysterious memory limitation as the default Half-Life/MSC which prevents certain script-heavy maps from loading (such as Undercliffs) when we add much of anything more to the global item script functions. So, it's bad news for the future of expanding under Half-Life/MSC, but the good news is that it isn't absolutely fatal since Svencoop/MSC still handles it.

Just wish I knew why, but obviously there's some engine side limit involved, so there might not be much that can be done to salvage it, beyond simply optimizing like mad by stripping/merging every event we can, which would likely create more bugs.

Everquest · Nov 7, 2016

Thothie said:
It doesn't matter if you activated the key under WON - if you have a key, you can use it in Steam. If you activated it under another Steam account, then you maybe SOL (though, if you still have access to that account, you can family share it.)

Our current Svencoop/MSC Alpha is running under Svencoop 5.02, and seems to still be operating (although, sadly, the extended map area feature doesn't seem to like MSC much). It doesn't seem to be affected by the same mysterious memory limitation as the default Half-Life/MSC which prevents certain script-heavy maps from loading (such as Undercliffs) when we add much of anything more to the global item script functions. So, it's bad news for the future of expanding under Half-Life/MSC, but the good news is that it isn't absolutely fatal since Svencoop/MSC still handles it.

Just wish I knew why, but obviously there's some engine side limit involved, so there might not be much that can be done to salvage it, beyond simply optimizing like mad by stripping/merging every event we can, which would likely create more bugs.

When Steam first came out, did it not force us to reuse our HL1 keys by automatically taking it from WON or simply asking for it again by being forced to register it? It has been so long I can not remember but perhaps I shall try it again and see what happens...

I remember reading something of someone asking a member of the SC team about the problems. Has anything else come of it? If not I could mention it. I just do not want to start any trouble if MS does not have permission to use the SC engine in that way. I have been on their forum rather a lot recently so maybe I could get some where with it.

Thothie · Nov 7, 2016

Back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and Steam was in beta, I remember having to plug in my HL CD-key (jeeze, I think I still have the box for it around here, somewhere.)

We've permission from Sam Vanheer, but I'm not entirely sure he's the final authority on the subject. Of all the various HL1 re-creations, Svencoop is the first we've managed to port to, so I wouldn't expect them to put much effort into maintaining that compatibility.

I do need to figure out how to automatedly stick a shortcut for MSC/Sven into Steam via the installer. At the moment, all I know how to do for sure is make a desktop icon. Also need to figure if there's any issues with the HLDS end of things.

Everquest · Nov 8, 2016

But if the game is unplayable at the moment at least, due to SC's patch, why bother making a MSC/Sven in steam via the installer?

And I would assume they would try to keep some kind of compatibility with MSC if you guys were really serious about porting and of course doing your own efforts to keep it working.

They say they have had to go back to older maps from each new patch to keep them working properly. If they do that for abandoned maps, I would assume they would really put some effort into MSC. It not only adds more people to their flock, but does the same for you guys, although I would assume many more people would become interested in MSC. Those who had HL1 and played Sven Co-op and even more now downloading SC because it is free and stand alone and your game would be on it.

And perhaps you could find help mapping, modeling, textures, coding and scripts because of the merge. If you ever need a box map, I'm your man...

And if you guys do not mind I will start a discussion at the forums over there about it, just to test the waters a bit, to see who thinks it would be a good idea and the positive and negatives of it and how to possibly fix things.

Thothie · Nov 8, 2016

We already have a MSC/Sven alpha that still works fine, using an older build of Svencoop. We rigged it up anticipating something along these lines.

It'd be *nice* if they kept Svencoop compatible with MSC, so we could benefit from their new features, and possibly, further down the line, OS compatability issues that may crop up (that being the one advantage to HL1 - odds are good if Microsoft does something to kill it, Valve will update it.) Better still, if they could get the source of their engine to us, but I never got a response in regards to that.

But I wouldn't expect them to... Svencoop is only concerned for their own game. Retaining compatibility with MSC going forward, when they can't even retain compatibility with their own maps, is a tall order.

Everquest · Nov 8, 2016

Thothie said:
We already have a MSC/Sven alpha that still works fine, using an older build of Svencoop. We rigged it up anticipating something along these lines.

Hmmm... Are you referring to before or after SC became stand alone? And can you have two versions of Sven Co-op on Steam on the same computer?

MS:C community · Nov 8, 2016

Everquest said:
Hmmm... Are you referring to before or after SC became stand alone?

Thothie said:
Our current Svencoop/MSC Alpha is running under Svencoop 5.02

Everquest said:
And can you have two versions of Sven Co-op on Steam on the same computer?

Yes, you can.

MS:C community · Nov 10, 2016

Everquest said:
And if you guys do not mind I will start a discussion at the forums over there about it, just to test the waters a bit, to see who thinks it would be a good idea and the positive and negatives of it and how to possibly fix things.

I'm guessing you are "Lamar" over at the Sven Co-op forums...?

Everquest · Nov 10, 2016

MS:C community said:
Everquest said:

And if you guys do not mind I will start a discussion at the forums over there about it, just to test the waters a bit, to see who thinks it would be a good idea and the positive and negatives of it and how to possibly fix things.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing you are "Lamar" over at the Sven Co-op forums...?

Shhh...

I admit nothing and deny everything! :oldshock:

Edit: Oh crap they responded! I was not anticipating that... :oldshock:

Quick! Quick! :mrgreen:

[Are you intending on converting maps/content like we've done for Half-Life, They Hunger, Case Closed, ...and such, or are you looking to be able to launch an entire mod as is? (E.g. running Natural Selection as is on top of our engine changes.)]

How do I respond? I would assume the latter or a mix of the two. But I just ask the questions and start discussions, I have no real answers...

Everquest · Nov 11, 2016

http://forums.svencoop.com/showthread.p ... Sven-Co-op

I would like to point out that I normally would not bump a topic unless I felt it was necessary, otherwise I would just edit my older post. But due to the delicate nature of the subject, I would like everyone aware of what is going on. The entire conversation or what has been started so far can be read at the link above.

They make it seem like a lot of work is involved and most likely it is, but I want to tell them that between 5.0 and the lastest patch, the game (to my understanding) was working fine or decently enough. But I do not want to get anyone in trouble here for using their engine as a testing platform without their permission, yet I do not see a cause for alarm either.

I am no longer even taking myself and my partner's concerns into consideration. I/we WILL play this game one way or another. But I honestly think if this game could be ported to either Sven Co-op or it's own stand alone game engine, especially one that is free, it would be better for MSC as a whole. More people to play, more recruits for maps, models, animations, and less work loads on those already here, etc.

Why not push forward with the least amount of resistance- meaning porting to a game engine that is practically what it was born on so it is already very familiar and less work, which has also improved upon a lot of things including map and old game limitations (Have you seen some of the cool and fun to play maps on SC recently?) and is FREE, something even the original HL is not and take advantage of all this? And SC is not going anywhere anytime soon. It could be considered a god send for this wonderful mod.

This game has a lot to show for it, with a lot of hard work, dedication and love poured forth into it over the course of many years, but only when it can be "seen"... But who wants to pay $10 for a very outdated game just to play this? I understand there are a lot of other great mods as well, but it is a hard sell to get someone interested by promoting this mod as free, when the game it was built upon is not. I believe at least the people I can convince will be mostly interested in RPGs anyway and not interested at all in any of the other HL1 games that are all or mostly run and gun.

I can continue forward with out guidance if need be, but I just do not want to ruin MSC's chances or reputation.

Thothie · Nov 12, 2016

If you followed the thread, you should realize we're already moving to a stand alone Svencoop engine model, eventually.

Just not sure how soon. It might bring a flood of new players, which means a flood of new hackers, and there's a rather critical security issue that needs to be addressed before that happens (as it could entirely compromise the servers themselves - not just the game, but the very boxes they run on). Sadly, our main coder, while still offering advice, can't spare the time to fix it ATM, as the fix is rather complex, and my own coding skills are meagre. If I manage to fix it the only way I can see how, it'll have a major impact on performance.

However, adding the item mod system revealed (or re-revealed) another limitation of the original Half-Life engine that we probably can't get around - specifically regarding the total amount of string space or events we can use in the base item scripts before it stops the more complex maps from loading. The Svencoop engine doesn't seem to have this same limitation, though I've yet to test whether it simply gives us more room to work with or removes the limitation entirely.

Everquest said:
[Are you intending on converting maps/content like we've done for Half-Life, They Hunger, Case Closed, ...and such, or are you looking to be able to launch an entire mod as is? (E.g. running Natural Selection as is on top of our engine changes.)]

How do I respond? I would assume the latter or a mix of the two. But I just ask the questions and start discussions, I have no real answers...

Run as-is. As it runs fine on the older Svencoop standalone there are no plans to convert 80+ maps, and I wouldn't even know where to begin. The game is very finicky and can easily be offput by the slightest mismatch from the original engine - it's pretty amazing it runs under that, as it has failed to do so under a half-dozen other Half-Life engine recreations already. Then again, Natural Selection, with its rather radical changes, is in a similar boat - but is also certainly more worthy of attention, and would probably require less work. It's also been temporarily broken by Valve updates before, and isn't being updated, so if they break it for good, without another engine, unlike our mod which might be able to adapt, it's just gone.

Everquest · Nov 12, 2016

Yes, but eventually is how soon? A year, five years, another 10? Like you said you probably can not answer that. Will the mod or community survive that long? At least this way, if it was ported to SC or where ever, in the mean time you could still benefit from it and you could still go forward on your stand alone. You can get more people interested and more people to help and clean up what is copy righted and write the code that needs to be written. Then get green lighted or otherwise and have your own stand alone game. But the benefits from SC should be lasting.

I mean if it is simply not worth doing I shall drop the subject and not speak more of it. I would just rather, if can be put on SC, to do it now rather than later and try to get them either to reverse what ever it was that destroyed it in the recent patches, or simply not have them do it again for future ones. If we wait too long, the gods only know what else they could do to it in future updates that would conflict more with MSC and they would have no reason not to, because we are not with them in any respect.

If there is code to be done first or maps to be fixed, that shouldn't stop you from trying SC, just hold back a bit before the general community is allowed to play it. But at least you could continue to test and work with them even with the newest updates opposed to working on it on an older version that wont matter and with no help and who knows what trouble could happen later.

But I said my peace and do not know any other way to say it. I shall reply in the other forum I was just asking in general terms and leave it at that if nothing else is to be done. Just know I had your best interests at heart.

Thothie · Nov 13, 2016

Everquest said:
Yes, but eventually is how soon? A year, five years, another 10? Like you said you probably can not answer that. Will the mod or community survive that long? At least this way, if it was ported to SC or where ever, in the mean time you could still benefit from it and you could still go forward on your stand alone. You can get more people interested and more people to help and clean up what is copy righted and write the code that needs to be written. Then get green lighted or otherwise and have your own stand alone game. But the benefits from SC should be lasting.

I mean if it is simply not worth doing I shall drop the subject and not speak more of it. I would just rather, if can be put on SC, to do it now rather than later and try to get them either to reverse what ever it was that destroyed it in the recent patches, or simply not have them do it again for future ones. If we wait too long, the gods only know what else they could do to it in future updates that would conflict more with MSC and they would have no reason not to, because we are not with them in any respect.

If there is code to be done first or maps to be fixed, that shouldn't stop you from trying SC, just hold back a bit before the general community is allowed to play it. But at least you could continue to test and work with them even with the newest updates opposed to working on it on an older version that wont matter and with no help and who knows what trouble could happen later.

But I said my peace and do not know any other way to say it. I shall reply in the other forum I was just asking in general terms and leave it at that if nothing else is to be done. Just know I had your best interests at heart.

Eventually, Valve Time. (Or possibly Reverse Valve Time.)

I don't expect Svencoop to ever be compatible with MSC again, given that they've had trouble maintaining compatibility even with their own maps, but we got what we need, which is more than we coulda hoped for.

Solokiller · Dec 19, 2016

Hey, i'm Solokiller (Sam Vanheer). I'd like to correct some information.

Thothie said:
We've permission from Sam Vanheer, but I'm not entirely sure he's the final authority on the subject.

I can't give you permission since i'm not a team member anymore. I don't think permission is even needed though.

The reason why your mod is currently broken on the latest Sven Co-op build is because they added a new studio api function to the client. They added it smack dab in the middle of the interface, so now all functions below it are calling the wrong one. It actually crashed another mod i ran, which is how i found out.

The function was added below this one: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halfli ... oint.h#L65

Code:

void (*StudioBBox ) ( void );

I'm pretty sure this was added for this change:

Added mode 6 to "r_drawentities": This will draw the collision bounding box for entities.

This should stop the problems with models not rendering. Note that they also implemented the fullbright flag for studio model texture rendering, so if your models have it it'll render them at full bright at all times.

As for the string issues, Sven Co-op uses its own string allocator in place of the engine's version.
I rewrote that string pool (because it leaked memory), and i also included it with my HLEnhanced project:
https://github.com/SamVanheer/HLEnhance ... ringPool.h
https://github.com/SamVanheer/HLEnhance ... ngPool.cpp
https://github.com/SamVanheer/HLEnhance ... toString.h

The code that copies the string is from Quake, no issues using that if you were wondering, though i did end up removing it since it seems rather fishy to me.
https://github.com/id-Software/Quake/bl ... ict.c#L693

Sven Co-op basically replaces the ALLOC_STRING call to instead call into a global instance of CHashStringPool's Allocate. It clears the pool at the end of a map. You'll need a function that takes the return value and converts it to a value that can be used for string_t:

Code:

string_t AllocString( const char* pszString )
{
return MAKE_STRING( g_StringPool.Allocate( pszString ) );
}

#define ALLOC_STRING AllocString

I'm sure you can figure out the rest from there. Clearing the pool should occur either at the very end of a map (rather difficult) or right at the beginning of the next, before any ALLOC_STRING calls are made. Keep in mind that the engine will pass keyvalues in before Spawn and Precache are called, and that will call ALLOC_STRING.

If you need to do this at the start of a map, you can add a virtual constructor function to CBaseEntity that gets called from GetClassPtr: https://github.com/SamVanheer/HLEnhance ... ed.h#L2395

Adding the clear call to OnCreate in CWorld should suffice, but i would check to make sure nothing else gets called before that. Save/Restore calls might occur before this, i'm not 100% sure.

This string pool is much more efficient than the engine, and works like the string pool in Source does. No duplicates, and efficient lookup. The engine on the other hand just allocates memory from the hunk (-heapsize command line parameter)
The code also includes a verification feature to detect modified strings. Defining the DEBUG_STRING_ALLOCATION preprocessor macro and calling CHashStringPool::VerifyIntegrity will check to make sure no strings were modified. This should never be an issue, but if you experience crashes or weird behavior that might be why.

If you use this pool or a pool of your own design it should eliminate out of memory issues with the strings, and free up that memory for other things (models, etc).

That should deal with any issues you're having. I'm putting together a report to inform them of the mod compatibility issues, should be done soon. Whether they'll listen is a different story.

I'd also like to point out that the increased engine limits are unstable and may not work. The game world turns black when you go halfway to the new maximum limit, so maps that stretch that far out won't work.
The new entity limit will break as well past 4096 instances due to hard limits in some areas, and the increased model and sound limits will cause reliable channel overflows on connect if you try to precache that many.

They're likely to break compatibility or engine features as they release updates, so be careful. I am going to propose a solution that lets you use older engine builds, but like i said, they might not listen.

Solokiller · Dec 29, 2016

Here's the report if you're interested: https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t= ... st51596775

I reported your compatibility issues and recommended a Source SDK Base like approach.

Solokiller · Dec 30, 2016

Sniper - Today at 3:45 PM
I didn't know we were supporting third party mods suddenly.

Well, there's your answer. They did fix the sound system bug though.

MS:C community · Dec 30, 2016

I read the entire thing (but didn't understand most of it) but I vaguely recall that Sniper was, in fact, aiming to support third party mods... Oh well.

Moving to the Svencoop engine

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