Hey all,

I figured out how to create demo files but I was wondering how I would be able to with dosbox watch them playback for me?

If sum1 may help with this would be great. Could possibly sharpen up for my next video.

Hi,

You can play single player demos back easily, and you can also play multiplayer demos back, but it's a bit more difficult to do when playing back multiplayer ones.

First as you probably know you can record a demo file by the command line "-drfilename" where you can name the demo anything you want for example.

"sw.exe -drdemo1.dmo -level24 -monst"

Would record a demo to a filename called "demo1.dmo" on level 24 with no monsters.
Then to play it back you would type,

"sw.exe -dpdemo1.dmo -level24 -monst"

Easy for playing back single player demos.


Ok now I found out last year or two on how to play back demos that have more than one player in it. Or maybe someone has a better method of playing them back.

Not sure why the game always had this problem, because playing them back just doesn't work unless you are also connecting the same amount of players in a multiplayer game with the same settings they played the level on, but playing back the demo in netplay mode!

It is maybe because another player doesn't spawn on the map when playing back the demo file.

Let's say you have recorded a 2 player multiplayer game on level 24.

This is my own method of playing the demo back, and you will be able to switch between players with the coop view key to change views while playing the demo back.

Lets say you recorded a demo of a 2 player game on level 24, and it's named "demo1.dmo".

You basically start up two DOSBox windows, for examples!

On the first DOSBox window you type,

"ipx true"
"ipxnet startserver"

Then you locate your game directory an example is.

"mount d d:\"
"d:\"
"cd games\Shadow~1"
"setup.exe -dpdemo1.dmo -level24 -monst"

You then go into network game and in the menu and start a 2 player network game.


Then On the second DOSBox window you type,

"ipx true"
"ipxnet connect localhost"

It should make a connection locally on the same machine.

And also type,

"mount d d:\"
"d:\"
"cd games\Shadow~1"
"setup.exe -dpdemo1.dmo -level24 -monst"

And then go into the "Network Game" menu.

Set the "Number of Players" to 2.

Launch it and both DOSBox windows will connect to each other thinking it's a 2 player game, but !

Finally playing back your 2 player demo file!

I have also attached a screenshot of me doing this, but also a download to two demo files, one is a single player demo file, the other a 2 player demo file on level 24 that you can try to play back like I have done in this example as a test.

I have been wondering if it's a bug in Shadow Warrior that has never been fixed from the day I discovered it?

But that's allot of effort for playing back demo files that have more than one player in it.

I think most people instead of recording demos, they would record their game screen instead, as it's much easier to do, for making YouTube videos and such, like using FRAPS to capture the screen.

Also DOSBox has an inbuilt video capture feature that can also be used to record the screen with sound.

Here are some screenshots...

In this one you can see me throwing a sticky bomb in the air, and you can see it on both players views in each DOSBox window when playing the demo file back.

http://yang-online.com/examples/multiplayerdemofile2.png

And for another screenshot I took,

http://yang-online.com/examples/multiplayerdemofile.png


And here are the two demo files I used,

2 player demo on level 24.
http://yang-online.com/examples/SWMultiPlayerDemo.zip

Single player demo on level 24.
http://yang-online.com/examples/SWSinglePlayerDemo.zip

Hope that info helps, and maybe someone knows a better way to play them back when using a demo recorded in a net-play game.