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We are happy to announce the launch of Warp Pipe 0.3 Beta for Windows. First and foremost, special thanks go out to the rest of the Warp Pipe team:
Nathan Ford (Lead Daemon Developer)
Tushar Singh (Windows GUI / Server Developer)
Matthew Herberg (Macintosh GUI Developer)
Warp Pipe beta allows both Kirby Air Ride and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! to play online. We are also very proud to announce that our latest version supports region free play, which means any Mario Kart: Double Dash (JPN, US, or PAL) can play with the other. The same goes for Kirby Air Ride.
Look for Warp Pipe Beta for Macintosh to launch within a week.
Since our last update, showing extensive video footage of our latest build (at the time, now 3 builds ago), we have made great progress this weekend and have again captured video of our latest build. This is a large step forward, as we were able to successfully run Mario Kart: Double Dash full speed last night using our latest private build.
This race took place between my friend and I, from Berwyn, IL and Bloomington, IN respectively. It is important to note that this is one of the closest races we have had carrying a distance of approx 250 miles. My upload speed is 256kbps and my friend is on Earthlink DSL and capped at 128kbps. You can view the results below in the Windows Media video. Please download BitTorrent in order to download the file.
Download (requires BitTorrent):
Waluigi Stadium Full Speed (14.2 MB)
My friend was the one who captured the video, so the entire race is from his perspective, my apologies for not keeping a standard file format, as our last videos were divx. Races between Waterloo Canada and Bloomington, IN have also drastically increased in speed.
We have made many other advancements this weekend in our quest for releasing a quality beta. I'm happy to announce that a router is no longer required to use Warp Pipe. We have successfully tested the following setups with beta:
Hub/Switch Direct to Internet
NAT (DSL/Cable Router)
Two PC Network Cards
NAT + Hub/Switch
USB Cable Modem + One PC Network Card
In order to keep up to date with beta, we have a special thread in our forum dedicated to beta progress; you can check that out here.
Beta development continues, and GameCube Advanced was able to document our recent progress in a write up and a series of videos.
To supplement this, we decided to give our loyal community a chance to download six hi-res videos that really show, in great detail, the progress of our latest build. Tushar is the one capturing the video, and I am the one he is racing (my roommate joins us in the 3 player race). The same stats apply (distance, bandwidth, etc.), as they did in the initial write up, as I suggest you read it.
The videos we are offering are high resolution divx files. They are available for download through BitTorrent, a program that allows you to distribute files with bandwidth conservation in mind.
You must have the divx codec downloaded and installed, as well as a copy of BitTorrent. Once these programs have been installed, please click the links below to begin your download.
DOWNLOADS (requires BitTorrent):
Daisy Cruiser (36.6 MB)
Waluigi Stadium (37.7 MB)
Bowser's Castle (57.0 MB)
Luigi Circuit (27.7 MB)
Wario Colosseum (40.0 MB)
DK Mountain (37.2 MB)
Note: We realize there are issues with the audio in each of the videos. This is a result of the compression process and do not reflect the sound of actual game play.
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has been shipped to the United States and people who have preordered it should start receiving their copies tonight, although most major retailers will not have the game on store shelves until Wednesday, November 19th. Rest assured the Warp Pipe team (Nathan, Tushar, Matthew, and myself) are working very hard in order to bring you a quality beta release that will allow people on residential cable and DSL connections to play Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. This release will support either a router setup or a setup that involves having 2 NIC (network interface cards, or Ethernet adapters) in your computer and will be released before the end of the year.
Currently, we have been able to link 3 GameCubes together and play some races with the latest private build of Warp Pipe and Mario Kart: Double Dash (JPN). Mind you, our lead developer, Nathan, is on dial up and our latest build was able to sustain his latent connection while both Tushar and I were on standard DSL connections. Also, for those who are curious about distance, Tushar resides in Waterloo, Canada, while I reside in Bloomington, Indiana, and Nathan resides on the east coast of the US. We have documented the races here, where you are more than welcome to find out more of the specifics.
Nathan is currently in the process of trying out several of our optimization theories while Tushar is working on the 1.0 server, as well as the 1.0 windows client while Matt looks forward to releasing our first OSX build (when beta is released), and is also working on the 1.0 OSX client. To clear up misconceptions, our first beta release will feature the basic functionality that alpha has. While Nathan stabilizes the daemon (the core component which will make the game run smoothly over the internet) the other half of the team is working on a feature rich client (1.0) that will be made available shortly after the completion of our last beta release (early 2004). We look forward to bringing you more specific updates as they come available.
In light of recent events, we reevaluated our decision to remain closed source. We have come to a final decision, despite our alpha 2 source being made public without our consent, that we will remain a closed source project. We have officially terminated our relationship with SourceForge and we are moving forward in order to remove the project from its pages.
We are moving forward, full steam, with the development of our beta. Warp Pipe beta will be our next release, and we will be seeking partnerships from third parties interested in hosting mirrors of beta and future releases. We hope to have beta released by the end of the year. Beta will support residential DSL and Cable broadband with either a router or 2 NIC setup (no router needed).
Our 1.0 application will feature simple xml-based skinning for the web developer and artist community. 1.1 will have full object-based xml skinning which will allow for total customization of the application. Look for those SDKs and more to be released prior to the launch of our 1.0 application. This will allow interested designers and Nintendo related websites to create skins to promote their websites and works just in time for the release of our 1.0 application. Also, our 1.1 application will show a commitment to the interested development community, as we will be releasing a series of plugin model SDKs that will enable developers to extend the functionality of Warp Pipe as they wish.
It is very demoralizing to note that shortly after pulling our binary alpha releases; members of the Xlink community have exploited (mirror) the fact that our source code (previously open source) is still sitting our SourceForge CVS servers.
It seems they are forcing our hand to stay open-source, which is fine in its own right, but the way they are going about it is utterly unethical. As we now have to reevaluate the decision to remain an open source project, this does not give Xlink the right to use our code as it is not under a GNU/ GPL license. Our license acts much like a standard BSD license and Xlink does not have the express written consent of Warp Pipe to repackage or redistribute in any way.
We are currently looking for donated legal representation to ensure the present and future integrity of the Warp Pipe code. Even as we open this project back into the community, it does not give non-sanctioned third parties the right to violate our license.
As many have already noticed, we have pulled our alpha software release. We have done this to avoid confusion when Mairo Kart: Double Dash is released, because the software is not compatible with the game and it does not reflect the progress we are currently in at the moment. We are focusing our efforts on beta which will function with Mario Kart: Double Dash, Kirby Air Ride, and 1080: Avalanche. As stated before, we are aiming to have beta out before the end of the year, so practice your carting and snowboarding skills.
Also, it has come to our attention that since we are no longer an open-source software effort, we cannot host our releases on SourceForge. Although this is regrettable, we can understand and we are currently in the process of terminating our relationship with SourceForge. We are currently exploring other avenues to distribute our software. Bittorrent is always an alternative, but we are trying to find donors who would be willing to mirror the beta release. If you are interested, please contact us.
Thanks to the great folks at lik-sang, we now have copies of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (JPN) and are able to start testing with the public. If you have the game, and would like to test, please post in this thread. If not, lik-sang is still taking orders and your game will arrive in 2-3 days with UPS express shipping. Thanks, in advance, to all those doing what they can to support Warp Pipe. We look forward to releasing Windows Alpha 3 and Mac OSX Alpha soon.
UPDATE: We are aware that our current build (Windows Alpha 2) has a bug preventing Japanese GameCube games from working with Warp Pipe. We have solved this problem in our new build, which is not yet ready for the public and will be our next alpha release for Windows and Mac. That said, Mario Kart: Double Dash (JPN) will not work with Windows Alpha 2. If you are interested in testing, please post in this thread and we will get in touch.
