GPL.tv Server
- the server for GPL.tv
made by Soeren Scharf
Latest News:
-
October 2006: Version 0.2.6 released
-
the name of the List Server changed to gpltv.virtualracing.org, please
adjust your settings.
Description:
This program is intended to be run on GPL race servers. It extracts race
information i.e. position data of cars out of the network traffic of a
GPL server and transmits them to GPL.tv clients, so people can watch the
race without joining the server. The spectators who watch the race do not
need to download this program.
Installation:
No special installation needed, just unzip all files to the same directory
and make some adjustments to gpltvserver.ini. In this file you will also
find a short description of every entry.
GPLtvServer needs Winpcap installed
on your system. It was tested with Winpcap 3.0, later versions should work
too.
If you have more than one network card installed in your system, GPLtvServer
will ask you which one to use. After starting GPLtvServer you will see
the following console window (or something similar):
That's all, now GPLtvServer is up and running. All you need to do now
is to start your GPL server and wait for a driver to join the race.
Bandwidth:
GPL.tv is designed to use as low bandwidth as possible. You may expect
traffic of about 150 to 200 bytes per second per client with a full grid.
So modem users are able to watch GPL races too without any problem.
Additional information
Because GPLtvServer captures network traffic, it is possible that GPLtvServers
run on a different machine than the GPL server. This is possible because
Winpcap switches your network card into promiscuous mode, so that your
machine will receive all network traffic on the ethernet (works the same
way like an ethernet sniffer). Because of this you need to check, if you
are allowed to use this tool, if the server is not your own machine.
Because the server requires network traffic to extract the race information,
at least one driver should be connected to the GPL server. In example if
you are using an external GPL server and there is no other driver connected,
spectators will not see the local car or an AI car.
If you host a race with AI cars, you should only use up to 5 AI cars
to ensure that everytime the position data of all AI cars are transmitted
to one or more of the connected drivers. If you are using the bandwidth
patch (ie. 6 cars in front, 2 behind) you may use more AI cars.
F.A.Q.
Q: Does GPLtv work for 65 mod too?
A: Yes, it does.
Q: Why GPL.tv will show the position of the cars some seconds later?
A: There is a small delay in time of about 2 seconds. To reduce bandwidth
requirements and make network traffic to the TV clients more efficient,
the servers collects driver data over a complete second and after this
second it will send the data packet to a client (every second one data
packet) - this is the first second.
On client side the program decodes postion data an puts them into a
queue. This would be the next second. So you will always see a smooth movement
of the cars, even if you have a bad line with a lot of packet retransmissions
or if you start downloading a large file or something else. With the release
of version 0.2.5 the client allows to ajust the delay on client side to
match the connection of LAN users and of modem users too.
Q: Why GPL.tv shows a different track on a server than VROC
/ iGOR is showing?
A: Because the server requires network traffic to extract the race
information, at least one driver should be connected to the GPL server.
If not, GPLtvServer will not notice track changes. So if all drivers leave
the server after a race, GPL.tv will show you the last used track (or no
track, if the server was just started).
Q: What means the Error Message: "Servername, no track loaded at
the moment"?
A: if you can read this everything works fine, and GPL.tv is connected
to the GPLtvServer. What you need is is a driver joining the track. This
can be summarised to the following equation:
No driver -> no network traffic -> no track in GPL.tv
Nevertheless you need to make sure that GPLtvServer is listening to the
correct IP (the IP of your GPL server). If you let it run on a different
machine than GPL server, then make sure, they are connected by a hub (not
a switch), so GPLtvServer can see all data packets send from and to the
GPL server.
Q: Will GPLtvServer support DSL modems too?
A: The program was designed to work with ethernet cards. Nevertheless
people already tried using an USB modem successfully, read the discussion
about GPL.tv in the RSC forum.
Download:
History:
v0.2.6
-
Support for PPPoE added, now it should be possible to broadcast with DSL
modem (not tested)
-
added an entry in the ini file to enable/disable the possibility to join
the race
v0.2.5
-
GPLtvServer now sends packets with information about laptimes to the clients
-
fixed some problems when sending server information to the server list
v0.2.4
-
GPLtvServer now will extract the server name out of the network traffic,
so you do not need to specify a name in the gpltvserver.ini file. This
makes sure that the name of GPLtvServer will match the name of the GPL
race server.
-
GPLtvServer can now transmit chat messages from the GPL server. It is possible
to disable this feature. Nevertheless whispered messages will never be
transmitted.
-
GPLtvServer can now send information (server name, track) to a server that
holds a list of all running GPLtvServers (similar to the racelist in VROC).
So it is easy to find your server. Important: You need to wait for the
first driver to join the GPL race server before GPLtvServer will appear
in this list!
-
Some additional settings added to gpltvserver.ini, so you can make some
more adjustments.
v0.2.2
GPL.tv Server behind a router or firewall
To transmit the position data to the spectators, this program uses TCP/IP.
The default port is 32001. This is the port for incoming requests.
The connection to the server list uses port 32002 (currently, all these
things are configurable). This is an outgoing request.
GPL.tv
Spectators who want to watch a race need the client application GPL.tv