Testing FAZ Beta

Testing FAZ Beta

This entry is intended to help you get the latest Allegiance R5 build running so you can help test FAZ beta. To simplify the instructions, the entry assumes you don't even have the release build (regular) Allegiance installed on your computer. If you already have Allegiance installed, it's recommended to treat "The Beta" as a separate install from your normal one. This will avoid any artwork issues arising from custom files or mods, as well as ensuring your release build continues to work correctly.

What is this all about?

Free Allegiance Zone Beta is similar to Shadow Allegiance. Shadow Allegiance was used by MSRG during their development of the game. It allowed for people "in the know" to connect to a lobby that automatically updated the client and artwork to a pre-release version. This let MSRG developers get feedback from a select few and help decide to release the updated versions to the masses or go back to the drawing board.

Why is testing important?

The number one reason testing is important: developers require timely and constant feedback. There are many more obvious reasons, one of them being to check if the next update will be compatible with your computer.

How should I assist development?

Carefully follow the instructions that have been conveniently placed here all in one location.

When should I test?

It's usually not necessary to test by yourself unless you are a developer or you are helping a dev. with a specific test case. To organize other people to play test with, the FAZ Beta Team has scheduled weekly events on Wednesdays. There is more tester activity throughout this day of the week than any other and tries to make testing a more enjoyable experience. Sometimes larger scale beta events will be held on the weekends, watch the home page for information regarding these.

Where do I report bugs/suggestions?

If you know a specific developer was working on a similar issue, send them a private message:

http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?act=Msg&CODE=01

Bugs that don't effect game play, remember to search first:

http://allegzilla.alleg.net:8080/

Suggestions or "Bugs" that effect game play if "fixed":

http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?showforum=87

Who is responsible for FAZ Beta?

The Free Allegiance Zone Dev Team.

Getting Started

Downloads

This section lists all the downloads you may need to run the latest allegiance build for FAZ beta. Download and install the libraries. Download and install your latest video card driver.

Visual C++ libraries

Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a5c84275-3b97-4ab7-a40d-3802b2af5fc2

DirectX libraries

DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

Video card drivers

Use the most recent versions with FAZ Beta.

ATI

 http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages/psearch.aspx?type=2.4.1&contentType=GPU%20Download%20Detail

Nvidia

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

Intel

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/

Choose Graphics->Products->Desktop graphics controllers or Laptop graphics controllers

Allegiance client

http://fazdev.alleg.net/FAZ/Allegiance_R5beta_090804.zip (updated August 4th, 2009)

The artwork

http://freeallegiance.sourceforge.net/Artwork_r5test.exe (updated August 2nd, 2009)

Setup

This section provides instructions to configure your computer to run the latest allegiance build for FAZ beta. Ensure you have first installed the libraries and drivers from the links provided.

Files & Folders

Extract the client and artwork downloads from above into a new empty folder.

When you execute the artwork file it will create the artwork sub directory and dev sub directory for you, point the extraction to the same folder you extracted the client to.

Note Do NOT manually create the artwork folder, the dev sub directory or the beta sub directory.

Simply extract the client and artwork to the same folders, it can be wherever you want.

Windows registry

If the registry edits scare you, run this small utility (from anywhere), a "Browse for Folder" window will appear and ask you to choose your artwork folder (the one that was created from the download above), select it, press OK and [b]you are done:[/b]

http://freeallegiance.sourceforge.net/betareghlp.exe

If small utilities scare you, the source code has been made available:

http://alleg.pastebin.com/f2b05f328

Or do it manually:

Open regedit. If you are running Windows Vista you must open regedit as Administrator. In Registry Editor:

Win32

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type Microsoft Games then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type Allegiance then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type 1.1 then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\1.1.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->String Value. Type ArtPath then press enter.

Double left click your new ArtPath entry (in the right-hand side pane), type the full path to your artwork folder that was created when you extracted the zip file. i.e. C:\test\artwork (note: no trailing slash) then press enter.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->String Value. Type CfgFile then press enter.

Double left click your new CfgFile entry (in the right-hand side pane), type or copy/paste http://fazdev.alleg.net/FAZ/FAZR5.cfg (note: case sensitive) then press enter.

Close regedit.

[b]you are done[/b]

Win64

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type Microsoft Games then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft Games.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type Allegiance then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->Key. Type 1.1 then press enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\1.1.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->String Value. Type ArtPath then press enter.

Double left click your new ArtPath entry (in the right-hand side pane), type the full path to your artwork folder that was created when you extracted the zip file. i.e. C:\test\artwork (note: no trailing slash) then press enter.

From the menu bar choose Edit->New->String Value. Type CfgFile then press enter.

Double left click your new CfgFile entry (in the right-hand side pane), type or copy/paste http://fazdev.alleg.net/FAZ/FAZR5.cfg (note: case sensitive) then press enter.

Close regedit.

[b]You are done[/b]

Troubleshooting

This section provides tips for common errors when following these instructions.

ASGS

It is not necessary to use ASGS when testing FAZ Beta nor is it recommended. To launch the game just double click the Allegiance.exe (the application file with a red icon) or your shortcut. A shortcut to the application is recommended, see the testing tip about using multiple clients.

Artwork

It is highly recommended that you have "clean" artwork. Clean artwork being an unmodified artwork folder, which can be found in the downloads section above. Testing FAZ Beta with custom mods, chat packs, etc. can have unexpected results and may prevent you from launching the game, connecting to the lobby, joining a server and piloting/commanding.

Downloads

If you have strange issues with the client or artwork download, verify it's integrity. To do this compare the check sums from your download with the ones here. If they don't match up, clear your browser's cache and download them again. The tool used to verify the check sums can be found here:

http://downloads.activestate.com/contrib/md5sum/Windows/md5sum.exe

Allegiance_R5beta_090804.zip md5sum: 87fade5cdf9083f1581a277cde9decd4 (updated August 4th, 2009)

Artwork_r5test.exe md5sum: 0ce1432bd0488bb33b853a5cc5a83efb (updated August 2nd, 2009)

Vista

The Allegiance.exe beta is built with "Require Administrator". This should make it easier for Vista users as the UAC dialog will appear. You will need a username and password for an account in the Administrators group if you are not logged in as one already.

Intro Video

If you don't see the intro video play when starting Allegiance using the primary display adapter and not in "safe mode", you may need to install the WMV2 codec. For XP or later you must get them via. Windows Media Player, here:

32 bit

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/9/5/0953E553-3BB6-44B1-8973-106F1B7E5049/wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe

64 bit

http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/0/8/3080C52C-2517-43DE-BDB4-B7EAFD88F084/wmp11-windowsxp-x64-enu.exe

For Windows 2000, a codec installer can be found here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/c/2/5c29d825-61eb-4b16-8eb8-58367d0464d5/WM9Codecs9x.exe

Playing the game

This section gives you background on what's changed and provides instructions for testing specific issues.

Change log

The list of changes can be found here:

http://freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/R5#Changelog

Test cases

This section is a stub You can help by improving it!

Testing FAZ beta is about making sure that there are no technical bugs or gameplay related features in the code that dont comply with the overall functionality of the game.

The technical bugs can be faulty graphics rendering, actions that cause a crash of the client or faulty interface handling.

The gameplay related errors could be that you cant do things which was possible in a earlier release, such as Autopilot not working when you are podded or that you in fact is podded when the game settings allow you to.

We will try and get around all the general areas of a FAZ beta test.

Running test's

Some of the test area's will overlap, and thats not bad, its what make these test's important. Each area will have its own pages to avoid the tester's making shortcuts, eventually mature testers will do just that to cut down on the test cases needed for a full test, but they will also be ridiculed for missing out on simple errors they might have found if they had run the test without shortcuts.

The test cases or test list's is your friend it helps other's to understand where is the test process there was a error and how to reproduce it. To be able to pinpoint where in process the error occur is crucial when we communicate across the Globe, even when we have the internet we don't expect that everyone are online 24/7, so the test list and test cases are like a substitute for our actions and can stand in when we are offline.

Addition to testcases are welcome, some testcases or testlist may even split up into several sub-test inorder for the work to be spread out so we dont sit with a humungus testcase that totally kills the drive of the individual. Some test may even be so complicated that they need to be dissected into several small test, so they dont stop the flow of the process.

So dont hold back if you got new idea's on how test's should be conducted or just if you want to split up a testcase inorder for it to be more easy to handle, after all if the testcase is huge its also huge to debug, and developers hate to debug huge testcases.

WARNING: testing can be hard thing to grasp, but if one try and narrow down the area of the test it will become easy to do.

The latter of testing will follow the latter of the game.

• Graphic User Interface
• User Controls
• Rendering of Graphics
• Sound Playback
• Communication

Graphic User Interface

Graphic user interface is also called GUI, this is the first area a player will encounter when he starts the game.

This test is easy and trivial, the test on this area is about pushing buttons.

Its divided into different parent GUI's

• Game start
• Training
• Game Lobby
• LAN
• Server Lobby
• New Game settings
• In Game GUI
  • F1
  • F3
  • F4
  • F5
  • F6
  • F7
  • F8
• Game Settings Menu
  • Graphics Settings
  • Game control keys
  • Sound settings

User Controls

This section is a stub You can help by improving it!

Rendering of Graphics

This section is a stub You can help by improving it!

Sound Playback

This section is a stub You can help by improving it!

Communication

This section is a stub You can help by improving it!

Testing tips

Use multiple clients

Create a shortcut to launch Allegiance with the -multi and -windowed command-line switches. After creating a shortcut, right click on it then left click properties. Append (add to the end) of the target -windowed -multi after the quotes (if any).

Use quickstart

Create a shortcut as explained in the tip above. Add -quickstart to the end of the target, outside the quotes (if any). This will cause the game to join the most populated server automatically. If no players exist on any servers, a game will attempt to be created using the official core on the official server.

FAZ Development	About Free Allegiance Zone Releases: R1 · R2 · R3 · R4 · R5 · R6  · (current)R7 Allegiance R8: What's new? · Build it! Testing Beta: Overview · Testing procedure