GNE (Game Networking Engine)

I just got through with an 8 hour code-a-thon here working on making a 
completely new event system.  Note that to the user the API to follow is 
the same.  The main difference is now that it WORKS.  It is much cleaner 
now and does a few cool things like:
  Doesn't crash.  Does what it the docs says it does.  It accessed by a 
single thread as is easy to control.

Before there was ONE event thread for everything, and events weren't 
controlled.  One thread can call one function and one thread could call 
another etc.  Sometimes three different threads could be in there and it 
was hard for the user to follow and hard for me to follow.

onDisconnect could theoritically be called before onConnect while 
onDoneWriting was being called and threads sending information while 
another tries to read at the same time.  That is no more.

There is one SINGLE thread that maintains an event queue, one thread for 
each connection.  It serializes the events and actually guarantees 
onConnect always comes once and only once and first and onDisconnect comes 
only once and only as the very last.

This has the additional benefit that GNE can process events for other 
connections at the same time AND do reading as well.  Before almost all 
events and reading was handled by the same thread.  Now it is not.

Gillius

The current CVS version of GNE has GCC 2.9x support.  I am still trying to 
decide wether to release a patch or wait a few more days and release a GNE 
0.41 (since a bit more changes have been made since them as well).

The CVS now additionally supports the two previously supported compilers 
MingW and GCC 2.9x under Linux, in addition to MSVC 6 and GCC 3.x.

Gillius

GNE 0.40 alpha has been released, and 4 months of work has happened on GNE
since the last release 0.003pre-alpha.  Almost nothing was implemented yet
in 0.003 but almost everything is implemented in 0.40.

The changlog is too big to fit into a single message, but some general
highlights:
  * Maturing of the threading and timers code.
  * Greatly expanded and tested Console I/O API
  * Nearly complete redesign to the Connection API, and new types of
Connections have been added and implemented
  * Better packaging support and directory/include structure.
  * Linux support now working and actively maintained.
  * Several more example programs, bug fixes, and more classes implemented
  
across the board.

GNE works and has been tested with MSVC 6 and Linux using GCC 3.0.2. 
These are the primary ports.  Unfortunatly ports that used gcc 2.9x do not
work anymore due to an old incompatable libstdc++.  MingW32 should work if
you get gcc 3.x for it.  Sun Solaris 8 should work now using GCC 3.x and
GNU make but is untested.

  GNE stands for Game Networking Engine and it is a high-level networking
library made in object oriented C++.  GNE is meant to handle the common
elements of any networking task and provide a framework for your game's
specific networking code.  Some things that GNE does:

  * Cross-platform multithreaded programming
  * Precise timing capabilities using callbacks in threads.
  * Multithreaded Console I/O (meant for text-based servers, do input and
output at the same time)
  * Bandwidth throttling (control and specific bandwith capabilities) *
  Packet parsing, serialization of Packet data, conversion between 
different processor formats, type checking and error detection.
  * Connections and disconnections and negotiating connection parameters *
  In the future GNE will have a list server built in similar to 
Battle.net or Half-Life where all GNE games will be listed.

  Visit the GNE website at http://www.rit.edu/~jpw9607/ and click on the
GNE link on the left for more information.  The GNE SourceForge page is
http://www.sf.net/projects/gnelib/ , where you can find mailing lists,
news, and CVS access.

Gillius