The website for our upcoming game Arena Wars Reloaded was finally launched today. More information can be found on the website, we currently got a lot of infos, screenshots, wallpapers, a forum and more. The community site will also be launched soon and we still got some new features coming up.

BTW: If you had an account for the old Arena Wars game you probably got this newsletter containing some cool information about our new "Veteran" rank for the original Arena Wars players. If you had an account for Arena Wars One everyone will see that you are a Veteran in the Arena Wars Boards and in the game itself.

I was quiet busy this week with our current project Arena Wars Reloaded. We got a playable version now, but there are still some issues. It runs fast and uses glsl now (instead of CgFX, which sucks, I will talk about that in a future blog post), there are also some new post processing shaders, but there is still some finetuning to be done.

Here are some screenshots from the version. More to come till the end of march, when we will be done with the game and all new effects, etc.

New snow texture pack and heavy glow, may need a little weaker post screen effect ^^

Fight in Mission 1, water looks cooler now and some new effects, but I was to lazy to play more and go into a later level.

Not much going on here on my blog, but in reality I was quite busy finishing some projects.
Our whole team at exDream is also working hard on our upcoming game Arena Wars Reloaded.
But it will take another month until we can release some cool looking screenshots that will make you excited.

In the meantime you can check out this nice article with lots of interviews on gamecareerguide.com.
On page 3 I do answer some questions and talk about current projects I'm involved in, including the
Professional XNA Game Development book I've done. The book will come out in early may this year.

The article is 5 pages long and a nice read:
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/328/microsoft_xna_.php





While we are at it, I decided to finally post some high quality (1920x1200) Racing Game screenshots (formerly known as XNA Racer).
I don't know yet when it will be released, but it shouldn't take much longer

Screenshot 1:


Screenshot 2:


Screenshot 3:


Screenshot 4:




Lately I'm also playing around with the Visual Studio "Orcas" CTP which was released a week ago. Runs fine side by side with all my other
Visual Studio versions, but some plugins do not work and most language extensions I have installed (like LinQ or ASP.NET Ajax) are just
missing, not sure yet how to fix that or if I will really develop with VS Orcas right now, there is not really an advantage yet.

And finally there is a big fight coming up: Me vs FxCop. I will discuss my experiences with FxCop in a few days after I have converted
Arena Wars Reloaded and fought agains the 7000+ warnings ^^
In smaller projects I had worked with FxCop before and some warnings are annoying, but usually easy to fix. It was a little harder in
the Racing Game XNA starter kit (see screenshots above) because that thing has already over 20,000 lines of code and many warnings were
just about my unit tests, which FxCop can't figure out (lots of uncalled methods). But I will discuss all of this in a few days. Not sure
if any other game development team even uses FxCop or similar tools. At least I have never seen a game (or even a big app) pass the crazy
FxCop rules.

I installed Windows XP Professional x64 Bit today and this post is about my experiences with it. I tried it a year ago, but most drivers were not available for 64 bit back then. Now most drivers are supported and most programs will work without a problem. However some drivers and programs will still make trouble. Most of the issues could be resolved one way or another.

Generally I would say Windows XP x64 works great and is even a little bit faster than 32 bit Windows.

^{No problems}

Had to change my mainboard because my current one went dead yesterday, I could use the same Windows x64 version without reinstalling, thats nice. Windows 32 bit does not work anymore (some driver troubles I guess). I also noticed that about Vista, no more reinstalls required if you change your board and cpu.

Games worked great, no problems here. I guess Microsoft plays a lot of games and wants to make sure all of them work, hehe. Even 15 year old games like Raptor (my all time shoot'n'up favorite) or Wolfenstein 3D worked without problems. Starcraft, Quake3 and current games worked nice too. Daemon Tools also provides a x64 bit version for Windows XP x86 for emulating CDs or DVDs.

Visual Studio 2005, DirectX SDK and all other development tools like VS Express, SharpDevelop, CodeRush, Perforce, UltraEdit, PCalc, NSIS, etc. work great too. For running 32 bit IIS apps you might have to follow these instructions.

Virtual Server 2005 works nicely and you can run virtual x64 and x86 computers, I guess the performance is also good or even better than before, but maybe my system is just faster.

Most normal programs did work too, but since nearly 99% of all programs are still 32 bit, it does not really make sense to have a 64bit platform yet. For browsing IE 64 bit is available and for Firefox (which is 32bit again) there is a 64 bit port called Deer Park, which works nicely. Both of these browsers are useful if you need more than 2 GB memory for your crazy browsing. Some programs do provide a x64 bit version, which works just the same way as the 32 bit version (I guess they did just a recompile with different compiler settings). I would say more programs and tools will be tested for x64 in the future, especially for Vista, when more users might choose x64 for their operating system.

^{Programs with problems}

Most .NET 2.0 tools I tested did not work, but all of them could be fixed by changing the build setting from Any CPU to x86 Platform. While .NET 2.0 has NO problem running in 32 or 64 bit, it is not that easy in the case you call any external code (and almost all my tools do that). For example my AbiTrafficMonitor tool uses SharpPcap, which again uses wpcap.dll, which is only available as a 32bit dll. By forcing 32 bit to the application everything works great, in 64 bit the dll is not found and can't be forced. It is not possible to load 32 bit dlls in 64 bit mode, you will get the following error message when attempting to do that. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007000B)

So you have to make sure a 64 bit version of all used dlls exists, else DO NOT use the Any CPU or x64 Platform settings. so this has to do something with .NET 2.0 (just some stupid compiler setting, recompile works, but a smarter version would be cool).

Here is the new installer for AbiTrafficMonitor, which works on Windows XP x64 too (by forcing the x86 mode). It does obviously still work on a normal 32 bit (x86) windows platform.

.NET 1.1 games like my Arena Wars game worked too, also .NET 1.1 tools worked fine. All .NET 1.1 assemblies run automatically as 32bit applications by design. .NET 2.0 runs automatically in 64bit mode on x64 platforms if All CPU is selected.

However my .NET 2.0 game Rocket Commander could not be started. Actually this is the same problem as above (not allowed to call 32 bit dlls from 64 bit code). .NET 2.0 runs fine in 64 bit mode and DirectX provides also 64 bit dlls, BUT Managed DirectX does NOT support using 64 bit. There is no version available to do that right now, neither MDX 1.1 nor MDX 2.0 support x64. So again, force the platform to be x86 and everything works again.

I recompiled Rocket Commander and it is available at the default download location: www.RocketCommander.com download page
There were also a couple of discussions about this issue in the Rocket Commander boards.

Another issue are external tools or helper tools like TestDriven.NET, which support x64, but it seems the underlaying NUnit Framework does work only in 32 bit. Not funny at all if you have a x64 bit app or just run All CPU on a x64 platform and want to test your code. This issue can be resolved by testing in 32 bit mode and then later switch to 64 bit if you want a 64 bit version of your app.

UltraEdit, WinZip and WinRar work fine, but all of them are 32 bit. So whats the problem? They all provide shell extensions for the Windows Explorer, which do not work in the 64bit version of the Explorer. There are 2 solutions for this.

• Start the Windows Explorer 32 bit with the command line. Command:
  c:\windows\syswow64\explorer.exe /separate
  This didn't work very well for me, some of the shell commands did not work properly and it is really annoying to start the windows explorer this way. Often you might open a folder or jump to a containing folder, then of course the default 64 bit Windows Explorer is used.
  
  
• Add your own shell commands in the registry. This works great for Open with UltraEdit or Extract files here, but if you need smarter commands like Extract to subfolder this doesn't help. Anyways, here is the solution. Add this file to your registry to add the following lines (change them to whatever you need):
  
  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell]
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Extract here]
  @="Extract here"
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Extract here\command]
  @="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\WinRAR\\winrar x \"%1\""
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Ultra Edit]
  @="Open with UltraEdit"
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Ultra Edit\command]
  @="c:\\Program Files (x86)\\ULTRAEDIT-32\\uedit32.exe \"%1\""

^{Programs and drivers that do not work}

Some old setups like for the Panorama Wallpaper changer do not at all (wrong windows version error message), but I managed to install some of the manually (copying files and setting registry settings).

My on board network drivers do not work at all, neither does my old TV card, but I had many driver problems in Vista Beta 2 x64 too. I found a old 1Gbit network card that works and I never watch TV anyways. All other drivers (board, gfx, sound, mouse, keyboard) work just fine.

Update 2008-08-19: My onboard sound really sucks and I tried to install my old PCI Soundcard (XFire 1024), but since the vendor does not provide 64 bit drivers, there is no way I can use that card. The onboard network adapter (Marvell 88E1111) also stopped working and does not even show up. Another old VIA VT6120 1gbit card could be installed, but didn't work either. Maybe I have to try out deactivating the other cards and then it should work, a 64 bit driver is installed.

Now to my main issue: You cannot use ANY new keyboard layouts at all! I really need my own AbiKeyboardV9 layout to type efficiently. I tried like 10 different other keyboard layouts too, all of them can be installed, but as soon as you try to use a new layout you always get a error message like "Windows could not load the x keyboard layout.". Not funny at all and I found absolutely NOTHING for either vista or x64 Windows to fix this problem on the internet. I used the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, which works great on Windows XP 32 bit and lower. But this tool was last updated 2003 and the support for future windows version or x64 is just not-existant. Other tools I tried (keytrans, klm, etc.) suck even more and usually cost a lot of money, none of them worked on 64 bit or provide any useful features for me. All of them work only in 32bit.

More links on that topic (all of them have x64 bit problems and are unresolved)
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t15929.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2006/01/26/517728.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2005/10/06/477930.aspx

I found some information on Marks Blog from Sysinternals in which he provides a solution to his Cap2Ctrl tool (which just maps the Caps Lock key to Ctrl). Similar to that I found out which keys have which codes with help of the scancode.doc doc from Microsoft for keyboard developers and wrote my own keyboard remapping code.

While the normal keys worked great and were changed in a couple of minutes all the special keys are messed up because I had different meanings for pressing shift with special keys. I found no solution to that so I updated my keyboard layout, there were some minor changes I wanted to do anyways. This is my new keyboard layout, which now works on all windows versions (finally I can use Vista too ^^). Some keys are not optimal, but to support both the german and US keyboards some '/" have to be used twice (scan code 2B) and some keys like -/_ had to be moved to worse positions (relative to my old layout, not much of a difference compared on the US layout). This can't be fixed with scancode remapping. I've used my new layout for a couple of hours now and it seems fine. The most annoying changes are <>, (), \|- and -_, everything else stays, but I guess I will manage.

This is my new Keyboard Layout:

• AbiKeyboardLayout v10
  
• To install you can use the following file: abi keyboard installer.reg
• And uninstall it again with this file: abi keyboard uninstall.reg
• This is the content of abi keyboard installer.reg:
  
  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
  "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00, 19,00,00,00, 2A,00,3A,00, 2B,00,0C,00, 0C,00,0D,00, 0D,00,10,00, 19,00,12,00, 15,00,14,00, 10,00,15,00, 22,00,16,00, 20,00,17,00, 21,00,18,00, 25,00,19,00, 28,00,2B,00, 18,00,1F,00, 12,00,20,00, 16,00,21,00, 17,00,22,00, 1F,00,24,00, 14,00,25,00, 31,00,26,00, 26,00,27,00, 27,00,28,00, 0C,00,56,00, 24,00,30,00, 30,00,31,00, 00,00,00,00

  To understand the scan codes and how this binary code is formated please read this document: scancode.doc.

So far so good, I will stick with x64 and you guys know now how complicated my computer is ^^

Hi everyone. The last couple of days this site and some related sites were down because we (exDream entertainment) moved to a new location and hadn't internet for a while. Now everything is back up and working again.

The EuroVernichter game v1.2 had also some troubles with the last static ip we had and now no longer maintain, so it needed an update (it was originally written in 2003). For this reason I've implemented some cool new features and also fixed the online-score reporting, version 1.3 can be downloaded now. There isn't much text in the game and it can be played without much problems even if you don't know the german language.

As stated on ArenaWars.net the new features are:

• A new fancy powerup, which allows you to switch all coins of a type to another type with just 1 click (see the screenshot).
• 5 new hidden ranks, the ranking goes now from 0 to 2000 euros. The old ranks are now reached easier und this brings hopefully newer players into the highscore :)
• Fixed server-update technique to upload your online score, also a couple of new sound effects for victory and powerups.

I have also been working on another small useful tool, which I will present you tomorrow (with an nice article and sourcecode), here is a small preview:

Today I sucked at BWCL (StarCraft), then when playing Wolfenstein3D (really funny oldschool, I lost all my lifes in 6.7, but the 6. campaign is really hard) and now I suck to finally make my first RWA (Arena Wars Replay Commentary). I get a couple of minutes good comments and then I just get lost. Man, I just wanted to finish my first RWA today, that's not looking good for me (wanted to do that a long time ago).

At least the programming does work well, I fixed most bugs in my CodeRush plugin and will hopefully finish it this week and release it (with tutorial, sourcecode and everything).

And now a picture totally out of context:

Omg! Are we famous or what? Doesn't make any sense. www.ArenaWars.net was hacked a couple of hours ago. This is how the site looked like (all other www.ArenaWars.de, www.Arena-Wars.com, etc. sites were also affected):


A couple of days ago some russian guy did spam the Wiki Strategy Guide Section on ArenaWars.net, the full story (in german) can be found here in the AW boards.

This has NOTHING to do with the Arena Wars game server, any other service, server or website from exDream or ArenaWars, it was just the website (and only the start page) which got affected. The site is restored now, but sadly the security isn't because I have no direct access to that computer, but the Server administrator has been informed.

I already have a guess how this could have happend, but until can't tell you right now! All I can tell you that some russian guys were involved, I got some log entries, emails und urls, but that won't help my in any way I guess.

If you like to talk about this, please go to this thread in the ArenaWars boards.

Well, there wasn't much news this week here. ArenaWars v1.2.1 did come out, more on that on www.ArenaWars.net, I also did some server improvements yesterday and switched to release mode for the first time (now the server has much more cpu power).
I also wanted to start a Replay Commentary section here, but I'm not really in the mood and am a bit depressed (has also to do with how bad ArenaWars marketing and stuff is doing and the relationship with the publishers). Maybe later or maybe if something makes me happy again.

Other than that I just reinstalled VS2005 to continue with my other stuff (had to do that because the Oct Express Edition was not compatible and stuff, but the Oct Edition is not really useable, just the E&C feature is cool). Also a new version of CodeRush is out and I will check out the new features and hopefully finish my CodeRush plugin soon (it works already great, but it needs still some improvements).

I also missed the start of the DotNetRocks radio show, it started earlier today? Its running right now :)
Update: Ok, they just recorded DotNetRocks and are now broadcasting Mondays

The first show is currently recorded, turn in at http://radio1.franklins.net:8000/listen.pls (winamp stream).
More info about the show can be found at: mondays.pwop.com, I think sometime monday you can download the show (if you had not listen to the show live).
Sadly, the