Crossfire Archive
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Re: CF: images & caching.
> The whole point is that there is no xpm vs gif vs png since one client
> could use a xpm font server and another client could use a png font server
> while both simultaneously playing on the same map and CF game server
> doesn't even know what image system the clients are using. The key
> is that it pulls the whole image issue away from the game engine and
> the client platform limitations.
However, the font servers must remain up to date.
Suppose fontserver is the typical fontserver used, and has the standard
images.
Suppose gameserver is what I am playing on. Suppose gameserver also adds some
new maps and images.
If fontserver does not get updated with these new images, there are now some
items which will have no images.
And such a situation may not be especially rare.
Now it may not be a problem if only a few new images are added (ok, once in a
while something won't look right.) But if you look at Brian's gold city maps,
which add a whole mess of new images, you really need to be able to get a copy
of those, or the city will be pretty meaningless.
To me, having seperate font servers adds complications all around (people now
need to maintain such servers, client now needs additional support to connect,
there are more points of failure (if the font server is down, but the
gameserver is up, the game could now be nonplayable).
> This is actually not to different from how sounds are done in CF as
> it is presumed local machine has the sound files.
But sound files are not a critical part of the game (a lot of people without
any sound capabilities can play crossfire without any significant
disadvantage.)
However, having a complete set of images, or being able to get all the images,
is really a must for proper play. If it wasn't, all the clients could just
include the necessary images - but in the above example of maps being added,
that obviously won't always work.
--
-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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