TCPRelay 0.4 beta 3

TCPRelay 0.4 beta 3 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • FIXED: TCPRelay would fail on startup under some circumstances if there was no IP address configured in Bind to Interface.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

ARK: Survival Evolved and Android App

Oh boy, I've been playing ARK: Survival Evolved for a couple of weeks now and having a ton of fun! This is a game about survival in a world filled with pre-historical creatures, mostly dinosaurs, where you can tame almost all of them and ride them around! The guys behind the game are constantly updating it with new creatures almost every week, tons of bug fixes and new stuff to build and explore.

I've been recording my adventures in ARK (in Portuguese) and uploading them to YouTube. Check that out:

In addition to that, I also took the time to learn some Android development and wrote a fairly simple app called Anacruse where you have to tell the note name from a staff. Go download it!

TCPRelay 0.4 beta 2

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.4 beta 2 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • IMPROVED: cosmetic improvements to the Advanced Settings window.
  • FIXED: Advanced Settings window would fail to open again if closed by clicking the X button.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

TCPRelay 0.4 beta 1

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.4 beta 1 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • NEW: added a new Advanced Settings window for tuning socket parameters
  • Socket Send Buffer Size moved to this window
  • Added Receive Buffer Size
  • Added No Delay
  • Added Connection Timeout
  • Can set up parameters for both the application- and the remote-facing sockets
  • [b1] Added an option to allow binding remote connections to a different IP address

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 4

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 4 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4. Keep in mind that this is an alpha version; some features may not behave correctly.

What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • NEW: added a new Advanced Settings window for tuning socket parameters
  • Socket Send Buffer Size moved to this window
  • Added Receive Buffer Size
  • Added No Delay
  • Added Connection Timeout
  • Can set up parameters for both the application- and the remote-facing sockets

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 3

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 3 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4. Keep in mind that this is an alpha version; some features may not behave correctly.

What's new in this version:

• General
  • NEW: socket send buffer size can be tweaked from the console and GUI.
  • Console: use the -sbs:## parameter.
  • GUI: use the newly added Send Buffer field to adjust the buffer size.
  • The default size is 8 KB.
  • Increasing this might help reduce or eliminate dropped frames, especially on connections with high latency to the server.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

New YouTube channel and stuff

Hey there guys! A couple of friends and I have started an YouTube channel about our geeky interests: video games, comic books, fiction books, movies, TV shows, and much more! It's The Geek Salad! (We are not edible.) We're just starting out, so check us out!

I have not forgotten about publishing the TCPRelay source code, the Java synthesizer, the gaming stream, and other stuff I have talked about here. I'm just... a little bit lazy. :P

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 2

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 2 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4. Keep in mind that this is an alpha version; some features may not behave correctly.

What's new in this version:

• General
  • NEW: partial localization support for:
  • [es-AR] Spanish (Argentina)  (thanks to Nicolás Sigal)
  • [nl-NL] Dutch (The Netherlands)  (thanks to TalbotEv)
  • If you wish to add your language, fill this table (make sure to fill both sheets: WinFormStrings and ControlsStrings) and send me via e-mail with the subject TCPRelay translations for [language] [country].
  • NOTE: only the GUI version has support for localization for now.
• GUI
  • FIXED: [a1] status tooltip did not clear when TCPRelay was started sucessfully after an error.
  • FIXED: [a1] added localization support for several hard-coded strings.
  • FIXED: [a1] component layout updated manually for localization.
  • FIXED: [a2] old Twitch.tv ingest server list was shut down. Updated to the new Kraken REST API. Fixes an error when starting TCPRelay.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 1

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here. It fixes a problem with Twitch.tv ingest server listing when starting up, so if you still have the problem, make sure to upgrade now.

TCPRelay 0.4 alpha 1 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4. Keep in mind that this is an alpha version; some features may not behave correctly.

What's new in this version:

• General
  • NEW: localization support for:
  • [es-AR] Spanish (Argentina)  (thanks to Nicolás Sigal)
  • If you wish to add your language, fill this table (make sure to fill both sheets: WinFormStrings and ControlsStrings) and send me via e-mail with the subject TCPRelay translations for [language] [country].
  • NOTE: only the GUI version has support for localization for now.
• GUI
  • FIXED: status tooltip did not clear when TCPRelay was started sucessfully after an error.
  • FIXED: added localization support for several hard-coded strings.
  • FIXED: component layout updated manually for localization.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

Natural Selection 2 - build 250 is out! Time to stream again!

This weekend Natural Selection 2 saw the release of build 250, along with a nice big -66% discount. This helped restore some of the game's popularity, at the cost of introducing a lot of newbies, which means the overall pub game level is quite low.

My team, CiB, has been quite inactive lately. No scrims, no competitive games, no internal practice, nothing except for 3 or 4 members playing sporadically. Even myself gave a little break to NS2 for other things, because once you get into the competitive scene, it's hard to go back to pubbing, because you'll end up breaking the balance like this. (I am smurfing as Ares.)

Thankfully, people are picking up the pace quickly. Today I played for a couple of hours and there were some pretty decent games, albeit not very balanced, and there were some funny moments in there too. Watch them below!

TCPRelay 0.3 beta 3

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.3 beta 3 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.


What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • FIXED: serverlist.txt is now saved to the user's AppData folder to avoid permission issues. (Thanks for reporting this Pedroca!)
    The full path under Windows Vista/7/8 is:
    
            C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\TCPRelay

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

More competitive Natural Selection 2

Hey guys, I've been very busy recently with Natural Selection 2. Some of you may have heard of the free weekend and 50% discount on the game that went live last weekend. This brought lots of new people into the game, hopefully to stay. It's been really fun going back to the basics and teaching those new people how to play the game and win. The game is still on discount sale as of this writing, but only for 6 hours, so hurry up and buy it if you like it!

After a three week hiatus (due to some issues with my ISP), my stream came back with a couple of very good, very fun NS2 matches. The first one is a couple of ENSL Gather matches, one of which lasted over an hour and had its fair share of higher alien lifeforms and all sorts of marine tech destroying said aliens.

The second is a set of matches for the NSL Season 2 tourney, for CiB Highwind. We played against AtroX on the official map Veil and the custom map Jambi. Watch below my point of view for all four rounds, and also the official casts by RedDog and Neatchee: rounds 1, 2, 3, 4.

Have fun watching! :)

Getting into competitive NS2

My Natural Selection 2 team, CiB, is now entering competitive tournaments against teams from all over the world. Last weekend we played several matches in the ENSL Custom Map Cup, all of which I have streamed in first person: vs. VexX, KKG, Team 156, flow and AtroX (aPx forfeited).

Of course, we speak Portuguese, so many of you probably won't understand our chatter ;)

After you're done watching the games, or if you want to know the results right now, see our division here.

We did quite well for a newcomer team. We're on par with most teams in our division, but still need to work on Marine tactics and dealing with the higher Kharaa lifeforms, as well as playing them better. Since this was a custom map cup, we had to give feedback on the maps. My overall opinion about them was not very good -- most maps had several balance issues and bugs in the form of stuck spots, missing textures or holes.

After playing these competitive matches, normal (pub) games are no longer the same. They're just for fun -- hop in, kill some aliens/chomp some marines, don't care about winning or losing. It's all about the fun (and honing skills).

On the next weekend we'll be playing the NSL Invitational #1 Qualifiers (see our division here), although we won't be able to get past the qualifiers since we're not an EU or NA team. We're up for the challenge, to learn new tactics, get some practice and, well, just for the sake of playing competitive games (and because they were missing three teams to fill up the 32 slots and decided to pick us). There are two well-known, strong teams in our division: Goðar and True North. We also met Team 156 before. The rest of the teams is new to me; hopefully they'll be on par with the teams we scrimmed.

Wish us good luck!

TCPRelay 0.3 beta 2

NOTE: there is a newer version of TCPRelay here.

TCPRelay 0.3 beta 2 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.


What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • NEW: the Target URI list is now saved to a file in the TCPRelay folder (serverlist.txt) and reloaded every time TCPRelay starts.
  • NEW: pressing Enter while typing a Target URI or starting TCPRelay will add the current Target URI to the list if not already present.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

Natural Selection 2 is so much fun. Streaming with OBS is so much better

Hey there people, happy new year! It's been a while since my last gaming-related post. As you may know, I am now playing Natural Selection 2 a whole lot. This means I must have been streaming a lot lately, right?

Well, due to what amounts to extreme laziness, I haven't been streaming too much. :( But this is going to change, as I just found out this new streaming program called OBS (Open Broadcaster Software), which is, simply put, a "free, open source XSplit", except it is much faster and lighter.

For starters, it loads and closes as fast as Notepad. I can easily stream with the screen capture feature without as much as a dent on the frame rate, which I found very impressive. I can play NS2 at over 60 fps most of the time with the aforementioned software screen capture, just as if I wasn't streaming at all.

It has pretty much the same features as XSplit, lacking only a few I never used anyways. Even if it doesn't come with them out of the box, there is a plug-in framework so that people can add the features to OBS. I wouldn't be surprised to see plugins that replicate or perform certain features better than XSplit.

I have one complaint though: the video quality doesn't look as good as XSplit. Maybe I'm trying to push too hard with just 2000 kbps of video bandwidth? Who knows. I'll be tweaking it a bit more...

Back to Natural Selection 2! I did stream some matches, and they're available on my YouTube channel. Here's one of my recent ones - a ridiculous pubstomp (70 kills, 7 deaths!) with those newbies that bought the game on the recent Steam Sale:

TCPRelay 0.3 beta

TCPRelay 0.3 beta is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

What's new in this version:

• GUI
  • NEW: the last Target URI and Listen Port values are now saved to the Windows Registry under the key:
    
            HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\StrikerX3\TCPRelay
    
    Now every time you restart TCPRelay the last used server and listen port should be automatically set.

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

State of TCPRelay, and Natural Selection 2

It's been a while since my last update here. If you're wondering why I haven't been updating TCPRelay lately, it's mostly because there was no demand for improvements or fixes for it. Also, I work as a systems analyst and that involves a lot of programming, so it's also a matter of being burned out too.
Anyway, here's a few ideas for the next versions of TCPRelay I have written down:

• Stream delay: I'm not entirely sure this is possible without inspecting the stream data, but this is definitely worth checking out.
• A way to fetch server lists from other services (own3d.tv, YouTube, ustream, ...). Also enable users to add their own lists, keep them between sessions and share with others.
• Improve localization support and allow users to translate TCPRelay to other languages.
• Fork into TCPProbe -- basically TCPRelay with packet inspection and manipulation capabilities through .NET plugins. Could be useful for network development.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment.

On another note, I've been looking for a strong, competitive FPS that's reminded me of the old, but fun formula of Unreal Tournament and Quake: fast-paced action with insane movement skills and pinpoint aiming accuracy required. Unfortunately, since 2007 (when UT3 was released), there was not a single memorable FPS that followed the formula and caught my interest, turning me off from the genre. I went on to other games, including World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Borderlands 2 and several casual and indie games. That is, until last month.

Natural Selection 2 was developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment and released on October 30th. I haven't heard much about the game until then, but instantly got addicted the moment I got into a multiplayer game. It's an amazing blend of RTS and FPS with a surprisingly friendly community -- the complete opposite of most popular games such as Dota 2, LoL and Starcraft 2. People in NS2 actually help each other out, newbies ask questions and learn tricks and tactics from veterans (there's even some pro players giving out "classes" for free on their servers! See here and here); there's no split between the n00bz and the pros. Teamwork and coordination are absolutely required to get somewhere. Trying to Leeroy Jenkins your way into the enemy base *will* get you killed, unless you happen to be an Onos fighting against a bunch of rookie marines (and even then, if they know how to press the fire button and move their mouse to follow a giant suicidal gorilla-rhino-thing around, you *will* go down).

I highly recommend NS2 to anyone who has been yearning for something other than the generic "realistic" war shooter #235 with killstreaks and "realistic" gunfights, or anyone who enjoys either the FPS or RTS genres at all. It may not be as popular as LoL or Dota or SC2, but it's definitely competitive and interesting to watch. Refer to this topic on the UWE forums for a list of streams/YouTube channels/whatnot on NS2 competitive play. Oh, and it's cheap on Steam -- just 25 bucks.

Now Playing: Borderlands 2

This is going to be my first gaming-related post (yay!). I had a blast playing the first Borderlands game a while ago. Picked Mordecai, grabbed sniper rifles and pistols and chose a set of skills with emphasis on sniping. Cleared the whole game, including all DLCs. Leveled to 61 (before the cap was raised to 69). Then I got bored and hacked my character to make the most insanely powerful equipment out there -- 1.2k x4 damage pistols with near-perfect accuracy and very fast firing rates (and the ability to crash the game once in a while), "god mode" shields (which displayed as negative 2 billion and never drained), insanely fast sniper rifles and even some overpowered Eridian guns, and maxed out all skills in all trees just because. I remember doing a critical hit for the maximum possible damage of 99999 with a melee attack once. Needless to say, the poor victim exploded in a shower of gibs.

Back then I didn't have a computer powerful enough to record my gaming, nor did I have an YouTube channel or a stream, so unfortunately I got (almost) nothing to show you. :(

When the sequel was announced I was pumped. I watched every trailer and every bit of gameplay and just had to play it now (er...  then). Borderlands 2 was released three days ago (September 18th), but I had to wait two more days as the game would only release on September 20th here in Brazil.

The wait was over, and I had to stream it. Unfortunately, my microphone is really bad, so I couldn't comment on the stream itself.

Here goes my personal opinions on the game:

• Borderlands 2 has an amazing sense of humor. Claptrap's lines are among the funniest, as are Handsome Jack's and pretty much every other non-srs-bsns characters'. If my microphone was working, you'd hear me laughing about every 10 seconds or so.
• The guns are much better polished, and each brand feels unique -- an addition I liked a lot. I quite enjoy Jakobs pistols - they let me fire as fast as I can pull the trigger, which is to say, really fast. Tediore weapons are fun; you throw these cheap pieces of garbage away when reloading and a new gun materializes in your hands while the discarded gun proceeds to explode. I also like how Bandits can't spell their weapons properly.
• Enemies are much smarter now too, and they also feel more "natural", more "realistic". Bandits will actually look for cover or just put their faces straight into your gun, and they also seem to work as a team now. They also have better environmental awareness and try to avoid/use explosives to their advantage (at least that's how it feels to me).
• The world is HUGE. I've partially explored three major areas and this makes about 5% of the in-game world map. Each individual area is much larger than the previous iteration's areas. You also get a bunch of side-quests right at the beginning (OK, not too early) and there's always something to do or explore everywhere. Not to mention the vistas are amazing!
• The new UI has a bunch of improvements, but the inventory feels a little clunky and not much of an improvement from the first game. Comparing items was made easier, but equipping items isn't as simple as before. To switch a weapon, you have to go to the backpack column, click on a weapon, then click on the weapon slot you want to switch. Switching shields, mods and stuff for some reason requires the same steps as above, even though there is only one slot for each. Buying and selling items, however, is much better than before.

And now, a bit of gameplay! The video quality should improve after YouTube decides to process the videos. Oh, and sorry about some videos being cut before the actual end. You're better off watching the videos from my stream channel anyway.


You can also watch the videos on my stream channel in 1080p: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7-1 7-2 7-3 8 9 10 11-1 11-2 11-3

Also, watch me live here!

TCPRelay 0.3 alpha 3

TCPRelay 0.3 alpha 3 is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4. Keep in mind that this is an alpha version; some features may not behave correctly.

What's new in this version:

• General
  • NEW: localization support for:
    • [en-US] English (United States)
    • [pt-BR] Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Send me an e-mail if you wish to add your language.
  • NOTE: only the GUI version has support for localization for now.
• Console
  • FIXED: application no longer crashes when a connection is closed. The fix never got into 0.2.2.3 for some reason.
• GUI
  • NEW: Localization support, as above. By default the application will use the default language set in your operating system. You can override this by passing the language code as an argument to TCPRelay.exe. The supported language codes are listed between brackets above.
  • NEW: [alpha 3] application now has an icon (thanks to Fryderyk "Ziel" Dachowski!)
  • FIXED: [alpha 2] localization should now work properly on all parts of the GUI.
  • FIXED: [alpha 3] tooltips for speed buttons were incorrectly referring to "as slow as possible".

TCPRelay finally has its own icon, thanks to Fryderyk "Ziel" Dachowski! I appreciate your work :)

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.

TCPRelay 0.2.2.3 beta

TCPRelay 0.2.2.3 beta is now available! Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. You may also need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

What's new in this version:

• General
  • FIXED: [0.2.2.1] no longer tries to reverse DNS lookup the target host. Should fix issues with not being able to connect to certain servers.
  • FIXED: [0.2.2.2] reduced socket buffer size. This should eliminate dropped frames and disconnects caused by a change in version 0.2.1.0.
• Console
  • FIXED: [0.2.2.3] application no longer crashes when a connection is closed.
• GUI
  • FIXED: Target URI field no longer loses selection after being populated by the Twitch.tv updater.
  • FIXED: speeds below 1 bps no longer show as ",# bps" or "bps".
  • FIXED: [0.2.2.3] outbound and inbound speeds were swapped.
  • IMPROVED: connection info no longer shows the local bandwidth (the old Received column). Since TCPRelay cannot receive more data than it can push to the servers (due to blocking I/O), that column was completely redundant. The numbers displayed in the GUI now represent the actual bandwidth usage (the old Published column).
  • IMPROVED: average speed is now an average of the last 2 seconds.
  • IMPROVED: connection info now displays connection duration in HH:MM:SS.
  • IMPROVED: [0.2.2.3] closed connections now display the overall average speeds.
  • Speed history graph:
    • IMPROVED: widened to fit the extra available space.
    • IMPROVED: now displays a wide bar with the current speeds to the right of the graph.
    • IMPROVED: slightly reduced resource usage.

TCPRelay still does not have its own icon. If anyone could provide me with one, preferably in 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64 ICO and 128x128, 256x256 PNG formats, I'd be very grateful! :)

Check out the official topic on XSplit's forums and see for yourself all the great feedback people gave me.