Ryandor.com

We all know that the differences in the Britannia map between Trammel and Felucca are contained in the map DIF files.

I've always wondered if it would be possible to patch an entire new map into the DIF files. The answer is - YES! Well, mostly.

Interestingly, programs like UO Automap and InsideUO crap out. InsideUO ran for quite some time trying to pull up the changed map and I finally quit. UO Automap crashes while trying to build its internal map files.

BUT - The client itself runs, and the RunUO server handles the files too, both with no difficulty.

The only problem I found was that the patched map is a little laggy, certainly more lag than the standard non-patched map - probably a result of some 100-odd additional megs of data in memory? The lag might actually be worse on low end systems, I assume fast systems with a lot of RAM will do better.

This would definately need more testing to see if it was tolerable for the majority of players. I'm also thinking that the smaller, non-Britannia maps might handle this better and I plan to test the other maps to see if and how well they handle the MAP Dif patches.

Note that I patched an entirely new map WITH statics to the dif files. Good news is it works, bad news is that it may require a robust system to avoid lag.

P.S. The sizes of the patches:

Mapdif0.mul - 73.5 megs
Mapdifl0.mul - 1.5 megs
stadif0.mul - 13.1 megs
stadifi0.mul - 1.36 megs
stadifl0.mul - 468k

_________________
-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

On further testing, the lag may actually have been the result of my having too many other applications open. I ran a second test and there was no noticeable lag on the patched map the second time around. Again, slower systems might have issues, I'll be running a stress test at some point with more users to see how other systems handle it.

_________________
-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

A hopeful, and possibly naive, question.

It was stated in another thread that map1.mul could be created giving us a second map the size of original Britannia to work with. I'm assuming that means even custom maps.

Now, given that, does this new info mean that we could also create a .dif file for the map1.mul as well, thereby giving us potentially four Brittannia sized maps? And, could they all be custom?

-CMS
*******

Editted to add: Do you foresee 512 RAM being able to handle this? Thanks.

You could only get 2 Britannia sized maps. I think the other trick would only let you do it without using DIF files.

Not sure on the RAM issue. 1 gig RAM handled it ok tho. And that was with both the client AND the server running on it.

_________________
-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

very very interesting, good job man

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I would like to play with this concept in testing... I always thought about splitting Fel/Tram into two separate maps...each of the same size.

Can anyone tell me what tools would be best for this task?

Thanks,

A

Use TDVMulpatcher. There is a DIFF tool in the map section of that utility. Essentially you will tell TDVMulpatcher which map is the original and which is the revised version, and TDVMulpatcher will produce DIFF files with all the differences in them.

The sizes of the patches that were produced in my experiment:

Mapdif0.mul - 73.5 megs
Mapdifl0.mul - 1.5 megs
stadif0.mul - 13.1 megs
stadifi0.mul - 1.36 megs
stadifl0.mul - 468k

_________________
-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Yes. I used that successfully.

I just imported my modified 0 mul files then saved them as mul 1's. Now, I have to original Fel map, plus a brand spanking new custom map taking the flip side for Trammel. Same size as Fel map.

Even patching a full size map with over 12 new cities...the patches came out tolerable. Not too large.

Thanks for the help!

Now I face another problem....UOGateway does not patch mapdiff files ;-P
(Eventhough they say it does).

Oh well...anyone recommend a patch utility now???

Cheers.

Bah...that was me above *points up*

Next time I will log in first ;-P