Wesnoth 1.9.6

[ivanovic]

This is the seventh release of the 1.9.x development branch. As with normal development releases, it may include many more bugs than stable releases from the 1.8.x series — additionally, 1.8 content is not compatible with 1.9.x due to the many changes in the game engine and WML syntax between both branches. Don't be disappointed if the game crashes every now and then — "normal" players (those who want a stable gaming experience) should not use this release, and stick to the stable branch instead. However, if you want to test the future of Wesnoth and help us find bugs early, you are welcome to check out 1.9.6. We require your help for finding and fixing issues. If you find a bug, please do not assume that it is so obvious that we already know about it. Report it and make sure that we are aware of it.

The most noteworthy feature of this release is the addition of a new faction for multiplayer, the Khalifate. More about them below in the important changes section. Keep in mind that this faction is brand new, so balancing will not be perfect right from the start. This is the reason why they were added as additional era. There were also some balancing changes to the already existing units as well as map updates. Besides many translations and graphics were updated and lots of bugs fixed.

So far there are no known issues (besides the stuff listed in the bug tracker). So let's directly head over to the most important features of this new release (at least the most important things that the other devs do want you to know about ).

Important changes and new features

Support for OpenMP

Wesnoth now has experimental support for OpenMP to better use multiple cores. This needs to be enabled at compile time.

OpenMP has been tested under Linux and Windows but needs some testing under Mac OS X, which is why it is currently optional. In particular we are interested in abnormal CPU usage when OpenMP is enabled. Please report to Boucman for debug instructions

New MP Faction: Khalifate

A new multiplayer faction is included in the multiplayer era default+Khalifate. Note that this does not in any way change the current default era! Khalifate units are lawful and have unique movetypes and resists. To use this faction simply choose the "default+Khalifate" era from the multiplayer game launch options.

The Khalifate are very much a work in progress. They are fully playable but are still lacking unit descriptions and some aesthetic components such as attack animations. Expect to see many changes and much improvement of these guys in future releases! There is not currently any campaign that uses Khalifate units, but they are fully available for use in campaigns and scenarios so any motivated individuals can be the first to write one!

You can give feedback and report problems in the Khalifate feedback thread.

Of course there is also the full changelog listing (almost) all the changes since 1.9.5. A changelog for the most visible changes for users is the players changelog.

Known Issues (might be fixed in the next release(s))

There are no known issues at the moment.

Downloads

Source code:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth ... 2/download (318.9 MB) md5sum
Here is the XDelta for the sources:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth ... a/download (1.9.5 to 1.9.6, 4.1 MB)
Check http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=7034 for information on using XDelta.

The Windows package is already available. You can find it on the download page.

The MacOSX package is already available. You can find it on the download page.

The OpenPandora package is already available. You can find it on the download page.

Many of the Linux packages have already been created, and all known packagers have been contacted. Information about where to get the respective binaries or how to get them to work can be found in the Linux binaries page in the wiki. Download links for other supported systems will be available at the downloads page once the packages are created and published.

As a fallback you can also get the sources from http://files.wesnoth.org/ — but you should first try to get files through SourceForge.net to help us save bandwidth. Please get the files from SourceForge.net if possible.

The multiplayer server for 1.9.6 is up and running. This server can be only be used to play with other 1.9.6 users. If you do encounter problems, please report them.

A new add-ons server for 1.9.x is already running. It was started during the development of 1.9.0. If you encounter any problems with content from the add-ons server not working as expected, please notify the content's author — most of them should be here in the Scenario & Campaign Development forum.

If you find any bugs don't hesitate to report them, but please read the instructions on how to post bugs first! Instructions for bug reporting can be found at ReportingBugs. Again, we require your help for finding and fixing issues, no matter how trivial or complicated they are!

Enjoy!

PS: Within the next seven days anyone asking when the binary for xyz will be ready will be banned and the post will be deleted. Such questions just distract the developers and packagers and don't do any good, so better not ask them...

Bug reports in the forums tend to get forgotten. You will get better results by following the guidelines and report them in the bugtracker.

[Alarantalara]

A note for Mac users regarding OpenMP support:

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) does not support OpenMP. There is therefore a separate download without OpenMP available.
People with 10.5 or later should try the version with OpenMP support.

You can track CPU use with the Activity Monitor program in /Applications/Utilities/. If you are unsure as to whether the CPU use is reasonable, you can download the 10.4 version (it will work with later versions too) and compare them.

This will likely be the last 1.9.x release to support 10.4.

[beetlenaut]

This needs to be enabled at compile time.

How would you do that? I didn't see any helpful information in the INSTALL file.

[Drakefriend]

I cannot load any save after I leveled a Naffat (though I do not now yet if this applies to other Kalifa units, too). It says the file was damaged.

[uncleshelby]

What exactly is OpenMP? I looked at the website, but I didn't really understand...

[pauxlo]

It is a library (or compiler extension or combination of both?) which allows running parts of the code in parallel instead of sequential if you have multiple cores available without the need to explicitly create multiple threads.

This should speed up some parts of the program, like the animations (which get more and more with additional art), and AI calculations.

As a normal user you should not need to be concerned about it, only if there is some problem following its use.

[uncleshelby]

Thanks!

That sounds cool. I am definitely downloading this RIGHT NOW!

[charris]

What are the dependencies for openMP? I can't build using scons and the openmp flag, it can't find the boost_thread library (which is installed). Since I have had to use cmake for all previous 1.9.x builds, this didn't shock me much, but then ccmake didn't show anything relevant to openMP. Is there some mystical incantation that I am missing?

[loonycyborg]

I can't build using scons and the openmp flag, it can't find the boost_thread library (which is installed).

Runs scons with --config=force and attach build/config.log

[ivanovic]

What are the dependencies for openMP? I can't build using scons and the openmp flag, it can't find the boost_thread library (which is installed). Since I have had to use cmake for all previous 1.9.x builds, this didn't shock me much, but then ccmake didn't show anything relevant to openMP. Is there some mystical incantation that I am missing?

The respective variable in cmake is ENABLE_OMP. So to add it to your cmake call:

Code: Select all

cmake -DENABLE_OMP=TRUE PATH_TO_CMAKELISTS.TXT

[Dixie]

I cannot load any save after I leveled a Naffat (though I do not now yet if this applies to other Kalifa units, too). It says the file was damaged.

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 63#p488363

[charris]

I can't build using scons and the openmp flag, it can't find the boost_thread library (which is installed).

Runs scons with --config=force and attach build/config.log

build output:

$charris@f13 wesnoth-1.9.6$ scons --config=force version_suffix=1.9.6
scons: Reading SConscript files ...
Saved options: default_targets = 'wesnoth,wesnothd', version_suffix = '1.9.6', openmp = True
Building Wesnoth version 1.9.6
Checking for C header file poll.h... yes
Checking for C header file sys/poll.h... yes
Checking for C header file sys/select.h... yes
Checking for C header file sys/sendfile.h... yes
Checking for C function sendfile()... yes
Checking for C library m... yes
Checking for C function round()... yes
Checking whether C++ compiler works (g++ version >= 3.3 required)... yes
Checking for Gettext's libintl... libc built-in
Checking for Boost iostreams library version >= 1.34.1... yes
Checking for gzip support in Boost Iostreams... yes
Checking for Boost smart_ptr library... yes
Checking for Simple DirectMedia Layer library version >= 1.2.7... yes
Checking for SDL_net library... yes
Checking for Boost system library... yes
Checking for Boost thread library... no
Base prerequisites are not met.
Client prerequisites are not met. wesnoth, cutter and exploder cannot be built.
Unit tests are disabled because their prerequisites are not met.
If any config checks fail, look in build/config.log for details
If a check fails spuriously due to caching, use --config=force to force its rerun
scons: done reading SConscript files.
scons: Building targets ...
error_action(["wesnoth"], [])
scons: *** [wesnoth] Target disabled because its prerequisites are not met
scons: building terminated because of errors.
$charris@f13 wesnoth-1.9.6$ ls /usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.*
/usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.a /usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.so.1.44.0
/usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.so

[charris]

What are the dependencies for openMP? I can't build using scons and the openmp flag, it can't find the boost_thread library (which is installed). Since I have had to use cmake for all previous 1.9.x builds, this didn't shock me much, but then ccmake didn't show anything relevant to openMP. Is there some mystical incantation that I am missing?

The respective variable in cmake is ENABLE_OMP. So to add it to your cmake call:

Code: Select all

cmake -DENABLE_OMP=TRUE PATH_TO_CMAKELISTS.TXT

That worked, thanks.

[AI]

Can you install libboost-thread-dev or libboost-all-dev? (assuming you're using debian or a derivative)

[loonycyborg]

$charris@f13 wesnoth-1.9.6$ ls /usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.*
/usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.a /usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.so.1.44.0
/usr/lib64/libboost_thread-mt.so

Since you didn't attach build/config.log I can only guess but passing boost_suffix=-mt will most likely solve this.
Some distros seem to provide only -mt.so for boost.thread while providing both plain and -mt names for all other boost libs.
AFAICT -mt suffix is obsolete, there's no need to provide libs compiled without -pthread.