TA Demo 0.99b2
README | Recorder | Replayer | 3D TA | History

1. Disclaimer / yada yada
2. Installation
3. Quickstart Guide
4. What's new
5. Troubleshooting
6. Known bugs
7. Bug report form
8. Legalese

This file is also available online.

Disclaimer / yada yada
Please understand that TA Demo is an experimental work in progress and to be used entirely at your own risk. This means the authors can not be held accountable for any loss of data, corruption of files, shortage of milk at your local grocery store or any other real or imagined error resulting from the use of this program.

Side effects such as loss of sleep, opponent's TA skills improving or the expulsion of cheaters from the TA community might occur as a direct result of watching games recorded with TA Demo.

In case you find problems that you strongly suspect to be caused by TA Demo Recorder and which you haven't experienced before installing TA Demo, please submit a bug report to us using the bug report form. Miscellaneous feedback on TA Demo is of course also appreciated; feel free to email us your thoughts, or post them on the message board on our site.

Thank you, and enjoy! :o)

Installation
Run tademo99b2.exe and follow the instructions. That's it. The recorder and interface upgrade consist of two files, dplayx.dll and ddraw.dll, that will be placed in your TA directory. Do NOT replace the ones in your Windows\System\ directory or you will need to reinstall DirectX.

Uninstallation follows the Windows standard of doubleclicking TA Demo Recorder in the Add/Remove programs applet of Windows' Control Panel. Click on "Automatic" when prompted for the uninstallation mode.

Quickstart Guide

### 1.

| Start the Control center from Start Menu/Programs/TA Demo and switch on Record automatically and Include player names in the Recorder settings (4.) of the control center.

### 2.

| Play a multiplayer game of TA. (Skirmish is not and will never be supported by the recorder.)

### 3.

| Locate the file in Windows Explorer and doubleclick it.

### 4.

| Click Play (7.), and wait for the processing to finish.

### 5.

| Select your connection type (1.) (only TCP/IP and IPX are supported) and click OK (4.).

### 6.

| Click Start TA (4.) and join the game as a player or watcher. As a player, you will be able to enter commands on the chat console. You can adjust the replay speed using the +/- keys and the .speed command. .pos lets you jump to any point in the recording. (See the replayer command reference for details.) You can use +view number to view the game from a certain player's perspective, revealing resource levels (updated at a rate of about once every 3 seconds), health and veterancy of units and, using +los, even see exactly what that player could see during game. Issuing +los again will toggle Permanent LOS back on. This is very useful to fully understand the incredible pressure a player was under, heh :o)

### 7.

| Once the message *** Unit sync is completed has appeared, the game will launch as soon as you click Go.

### 8.

| You can adjust the replay speed using the +/- keys and the .speed command. .pos lets you jump to any point in the recording. See Command reference for details.

### 9.

| When the replay is done, exit TA and click Quit in the Replayer window.

### 10.

| Read the documentation of the recorder and the replayer :o)

What's new |
--- | ---
Recorder:

- Fixed DT-lines and added DT-rings again.
- If someone tries to use .units the recorder will now deliver divine punishment! And now this actually works!
- Warns if someone joins a game with a broken version of the recorder.
- Markers does not lose the first character anymore.

Replayer:

- Made an option to auto-enable .3dta
- The resource bars are visible during replay again.

3D Replayer:

- An option to specify your TA directory is now available in the 3DTA config.
- Errors messages are much more verbose to help diagnose problems.

Installer:

- Completely rewrote the installer script using Nullsoft Installer instead.
- Moved the windows 9x-patcher to a separate program.

Troubleshooting
Recorder:

17. Typing .record filename has no effect

1. Make sure TA Demo is properly installed.

17. I don't get any response when I enter any commands even though they work.

1. The recorder cannot reply if you're alone in the Battle Room.

17. MPlayer crashes when I try to launch the game!

1. The recorder officially supports MSN Gaming Zone, TCP/IP and IPX games and nothing else. Other services may work, but you're on your own when trying it and anything may happen.

Replayer:

17. In the battleroom, the replayer gives me a repeating message saying Current ack status: # of #

1. Lower the sync speed from the Control center. If this fails, try to replay using TCP/IP instead. You might have to connect to the internet first.

Known bugs
TA is more likely to crash if you try to record several games in a row without restarting it. We recommend exiting TA before playing each game when using the recorder. You must have all the units that were enabled in the recorded game (i.e. not grayed out on TA's build restrictions menu) or unit substitutions will occur and is TA is very likely to crash as well. We strongly advise having all official Cavedog units when replaying a game (3.1 patch, Core Hedgehog, Arm Scarab, Arm Flea, Core Immolator, Arm FARK, Core Necro).

.unitsonly severely degrades replay performance.

Rewinding a game may ruin the quality, especially if speed has been changed from 100%. If it isn't working for you, don't do it.

TA will occasionally crash or freeze when replaying a game. We're working on this, but need you to submit as detailed bug reports as possible. Please use the bug-report form

In case of weird lag the new timer mode possibly makes TA more susceptible to crashes. Try running without it and see if things get better.

The patches aren't 100% efficient:

.fixfacexps only protects your units for 3 seconds (too long a time and it becomes a trainer) so if lag is horribly bad you will still lose units. However at the rate of one every third second at least your entire build queue won't go kaboom.

.protectdt sometimes overlooks DT packets, so it isn't 100% effective.

Bug report form
Please use this form to submit bugs (cut and paste into your email-writing program). If you are reporting recorder crashings, you must include the resulting errorlog.txt, and you also must have been running the Boneyards version of TA. Email recorder related bug reports to SY_SJ
Email replayer related bug reports to SY_Fnordia
Email interface upgrade related bug reports to SY_Yeha

Use this form:

> Your nick/alias:
> Your email address:
> Date bug report submitted:
> Version of TA Demo you're using:
> Size of the dplayx.dll in your TA directory in bytes:
> TA version (incl. language):
> Computer specifications:
> Bug description and effect (include detailed error messages):
> How to duplicate the bug:
> Other comments:

Legalese
The Swedish Yankspankers are in no way affiliated with Cavedog Entertainment, Humongous Entertainment, GT Interactive, Infogrames or any other company that has rights to the Total Annihilation products and brand name. TA Demo may be freely distributed as long as it is provided as is, with the documentation included unchanged (readme.html, recorder.html, replayer.html, history.html). All rights reserved.