ET-tv

[Azarael]

For the record, I was recording a demo today, and I noticed it was generating information at a rate of 20 KB/s (via the little readout at the bottom). For comparison, the server I run generates around a constant 50KB/s of traffic (if I remember correctly… I could be wrong on this) and a standard ADSL connection can only upload about 25 KB/s.

You would probably need quite a bit of bandwidth to make it work with a non-trivial number of people. I still think that you could cut down on the amount of traffic for a demo compared to what your server would generate.

[nate.h]

[quote=nate.h]For the record, I was recording a demo today, and I noticed it was generating information at a rate of 20 KB/s (via the little readout at the bottom). For comparison, the server I run generates around a constant 50KB/s of traffic (if I remember correctly… I could be wrong on this) and a standard ADSL connection can only upload about 25 KB/s.

You would probably need quite a bit of bandwidth to make it work with a non-trivial number of people. I still think that you could cut down on the amount of traffic for a demo compared to what your server would generate.[/quote]

I guess my only point in saying that is that streaming the demo would be at least an additional 20 KB/s, which would increase the bandwidth demand on the server by 30-50%. I’m not exactly sure how much of a problem this it; it’d probably vary alot with the implementation and method used for streaming.

[Azarael]

I guess my only point in saying that is that streaming the demo would be at least an additional 20 KB/s, which would increase the bandwidth demand on the server by 30-50%. I’m not exactly sure how much of a problem this it; it’d probably vary alot with the implementation and method used for streaming.

Not if you streamed from the camera man’s machine

[nate.h]

Yeah, but he’d have to get the data from the server, still.

Or are you saying just have the cameraman just be a regular spectator, and just forward the specators view to all the connected clients? If you want to do that, you might as well just record a video stream of the cameraman’s display (since there are already a ton of tools to do streaming video). I’m not sure if this would have any other advantages as far as spectating goes, but at the least it’s a simple way to use existing technology.

[Stee]

The source code is needed to make a decent tv client, ID will not give this to everyone who asks, the only chance someone may have Is to work on an ET-tv program as much as possible without the code then show ID how much work has been put in and this will prove your serious and MAYBE they’ll let u have it.
Tho propbabaly not.

[Azarael]

It’s really just a hypothetical conversation sort of anyway. I’m sure that this project could be do-able, but who has the time.

[Stee]

There are a few people who are willing to spend the time making ET-tv but without the source it will NEVER happen.
If this was a game people payed for I think It would happen easily enuff, but Id\Activision etc… don’t want their own free game competing with future games such as Call of Duty or Doom3.

[nate.h]

There are a few people who are willing to spend the time making ET-tv but without the source it will NEVER happen.

I don’t think that’s true. The system described above, using streaming video, would be perfectly implementable without any access to the ET source at all. That would just be a question of bandwidth, but if the Cameraman had a solid enough connection, it’d be perfectly fesable.

If this was a game people payed for I think It would happen easily enuff, but Id\Activision etc… don’t want their own free game competing with future games such as Call of Duty or Doom3.

While that may be true in part, I don’t think it’s an entirely fair judgement of Activision/Id. I mean, if they cared alot about that competition, they wouldn’t have released ET at all in the first place, right? Activision has been more than helpful in aiding my own project with ET, and has even shown enthuseasm in seeing the results. Id itself has an even stronger history of supporting innovation and extension of all their projects (They have released the source for all of their 3D engines up to quake 2 so far, for example).

I think Id/Activision beleive their new games will survive on their own merit. I, for one, will be buying Doom 3 pretty much as a total given, and from what I understand Call of Duty has a very strong and enjoyable single-player mode which sets it apart from alot of FPS’ out today.

In short – I think they would be just as happy to see ET become popular and successful as we would.

[digibob]

Just streaming the cameraman’s feed has some issues.

The engine requires a base state to work from, so unless you either

a) make sure all clients get the entire feed from the beginning
b) backup all data and feed it to any late connecting clients
c) dont send the direct feed, but instead have your own gamestate/delta mechanism

then you are going to have some serious problems.

[Sauron_EFG]

The system described above, using streaming video, would be perfectly implementable without any access to the ET source at all.

It’s already been done (once, for RTCW) by TSN, they used Nullsoft Streaming Video and called it TSNTV.

The problem is that a decent quality video stream requires a lot more BW than the game data, and will never look as good. Only benefit is synchronized shoutcast…

[Azarael]

Just streaming the cameraman’s feed has some issues.

The engine requires a base state to work from, so unless you either

a) make sure all clients get the entire feed from the beginning
b) backup all data and feed it to any late connecting clients
c) dont send the direct feed, but instead have your own gamestate/delta mechanism

then you are going to have some serious problems.

That’s a good point, that would be the same as the getting gamestate operation when you connect. In that case stee is probably right in saying that source is necessary.