What makes Kai so great?

Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 8:41 am

Ok maybe I missed this somewhere, but I would have thought what with all the Kai is best talk, there would be an easy place to go see what makes it so great, if I missed a post or link please let me know.

The meat of the quesiton here is what "technically" makes Kai so great? I have seen numerous people say the community is what makes it great, it's not the 10 year olds on live, it's not the nasty bastards on XBC, it's a friendly community.

I am not saying it's not nice to have a friendly community, but that has nothing to do with Kai, kai is free to anyone so they didn't code a friendly community into Kai.

Is it the UI? Because a nice UI and easy use is a very important thing, and I can definitely say that Kai is more user friendly than XBC. But is that all that makes it the best?

I am thinking packet handling, routing techniques, I want to know, when Kai was being coded, what specifically did you all think made Kai the best tunnel out there. Some special performance tweaks? Some insanely cool way of handling the connections? What?

And this may have sounded like a flame, but it is an honest quesiton with no hostility intended, I just have way of using rhetoric a bit too librerally sometimes. This question is asked in good fait with good intentions, I really do want to know just what the developers of Kai think makes it the best to the point they are willing to tout it as such Smile

And yes I do think Kai is the best, but I still want to know what the "official" reasons are.

Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 0

Hi,

Good question. It's difficult to quantify - but here my personal favourite things about Kai from a code point of view:

1.) Portability. the Engine component was written with portability in mind from the start. You're gonna see the obvious mac,linux,bsd ports emerge soon after we've tidied up the win32 stuff. You'll also see more abstract ports - things like TiVo's or certain LinkSys routers getting embedded kaiEngines Smile

. There is also a possible chance of an absolutely massive announcement for homebrew xbox users soon - but we can't really say much about that yet - because me and ava-tj havent had any time to confirm the stuff we need to know it'll work.

2.) Architecture - the orbital architecture is probably the most technically cool thing about Kai - read my post in general to get an idea about how it works.

3.) Routing stuff - Kai uses a cunning system of UDP port holing, enabling people behind NAT to connect without any messing about in almost all cases. Also, because every user is essentially on a different UDP port, it's really cool how the orbitals coordinate everyone (even across servers) - dealing the right IP/Port stuff out to everyone. It's a huge, huge mesh of people - but it works pretty sweet. Tunelling itself is not really clever, more "clean". Most of it is assembler within the engine (MAC comparion, frame type detection, encapsulation) etc - it's just as fast as you could possibly do it, with nothing wasted at all.. saying that, i'm still not convinced everything is working right with it - we'll know more as time goes by.

4.) Open API - Well, here's the thing.. I'm not gonna write UI's for any other OS ... Why not? Becuase other people are much better than me at it, and they want to do it. The Engine talks to the UI using UDP messages - pretty simple stuff even for a non-network-type-guy coder. Keep an eye on the development forum here - the spec will be made public shortly.

TD

Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 9:37 am

You forgot something.... and you get the smoothest halo games you've ever played.... Twisted Evil

*lol* soz, just had to get that in Very Happy

Can't wait till we can design our own skins Smile

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 1871

Devedander wrote:

And yes I do think Kai is the best, but I still want to know what the "official" reasons are.

That the real reason its so great, its because the users say it is.

in actual fact its a combination of many things.

Community Spirit
Excelent UI
games that run smoother
A developer that listens to its userbase
excellent techincal support
wonderful website
Clan support
Fastweb support
the only multi-console tunnel

I could go on.[/list]

Kai Regular Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 81

TheDaddy wrote:

[...]

There is also a possible chance of an absolutely massive announcement for homebrew xbox users soon - but we can't really say much about that yet - because me and ava-tj havent had any time to confirm the stuff we need to know it'll work.

[...]

That's pure evil man! Either don't say anything at all or say everything that is to be said about it Razz

. Now I'm getting really curious Very Happy

Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 8:38 pm

Thanks for the replies, I guess the words of The Daddy are pretty much gospel in this realm.

I will find the posts about the details of how the orbital mesh works, to tell the truth I thought it was just a cool sounding way to say "contacting servers".

But I was hoping for something like: Warptunnel does it this way, XBC does it this way, but WE do it THIS way which is better. That kind of thing. Not to bash on the other tunnels but to show why Kai is such a big deal.

And I agree that when the user base says it's the best, it's a good sign, but I bet the guys at XBC say theirs is best also, and Kai was touted as the best before it was even released (I mean evo 7) so that was before any users could say it was the best.

Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 10:21 pm

It's an easy question for PS2 owners,... Without it we would never be able to play TimeSplitters 2 online (or any LAN game), Unless we want the painful torment of configuring GIT. There simply is no alternative for us. To me the defining and best feature of Kai is it's multi-format support, That is what makes it different and great.

Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 8:07 am

And cuz you can play your backups and bcuz its so compatable.i love kai

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:56 pm

taz wrote:

Devedander wrote:

And yes I do think Kai is the best, but I still want to know what the "official" reasons are.

That the real reason its so great, its because the users say it is.

in actual fact its a combination of many things.

Community Spirit
Excelent UI
games that run smoother
A developer that listens to its userbase
excellent techincal support
wonderful website
Clan support
Fastweb support
the only multi-console tunnel

I could go on.[/list]

I couldn't agree more with you, specially with the comunity, rocks, but i find that with xbc i have better game than kai, i mean, less lag, why?

Kai Admirer Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Posts: 381

well, if theres more people on xbc, then its more likely that u'll find a host with lots of bandwidth, or one that is nearby...
Not really a problem on kai either if you take the time to figure out witch player is in the best position bandwidthwise/geographically to host

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:27 pm

Ah it's just a matter of time till the XLink user base grows exponentially.

It's a simple matter of the better one... best program wins. In the end.

I made my choice Wink

Kai Regular Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 94 Location: Sweden

Tony52 wrote:

And cuz you can play your backups and bcuz its so compatable.i love kai

I'd stop that if I developed Kai (if possible).

BUY the games you little <CENSOR>... Evil or Very Mad

Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 0

Backups have always been a contentious issue - XBC used to have a go at us because supposedly we "advocated" the use of backups - thats not the case of course.

For Xbox, we cant actually even tell if the user is using a backup - same for PS2. For GCN, its impossible to use streamed backups for online gaming anyway (uses BBA to stream).

"Backups" are perfectly legal - if that's what they are (ie copies of an owned original, in case it gets damaged - hell - ive busted up enough CDs / DVD's to know).

I think you actually mean "piracy" - well, in that case, I can honestly say that all the games I play using this service, I own original copies of.

The difference between Kai and other tunnels is simple. We encourage / actively support the homebrew authors who make legal *code* for xboxes, ps2, and GCN's. Nobody else seems to want to talk about it for fear of being "taken to court" - but the truth is, its legal, and the guys who do it are some of the nicest, most talented people you will meet online.

I mean, XBC, GameSpy and WPP will never see a UI running on the Xbox / GCN, given their current stance.. With Kai, it's being done by at least 2 xbox dash crews, and a Gamecube TV UI is already in the planning stages from teamXlink itself.. Thats what you lose when you call good, honest, legal people "pirates".

TD

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 2:54 pm

TheDaddy wrote:

You'll also see more abstract ports - things like TiVo's or certain LinkSys routers getting embedded kaiEngines Smile

Now that would be very interesting, running the kai engine on my TiVo and the UI on the xbox using XBMC or Ava. A computer wouldn't even be required anymore. Smile

Is that actually something that is likely to happen at some point, or are you simply citing obscure examples to emphasise how portable the engine is?

Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 0

It's entirely possible - and will happen Smile

Impossible to say how long though - I'm still fighing orbital server bugs and a couple engine things on win32.

TD

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:14 pm

But i agree, BUY THE GAMES!

I dont care how you play them, off hd or not. just so long as they are legal backups

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 9:09 pm

DIE-HARD wrote:

But i agree, BUY THE GAMES!

I dont care how you play them, off hd or not. just so long as they are legal backups

Well, I say....don't preach. If we can just stay clear of the tpoic, it would be good We really don't want to get into the bullshit hypocrisy they do in XBC right?

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:14 pm

All i am saying is that everyone should be sure to read the AUP
http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/disclaimer.php#AUP

And I will feel free to preach and hound all those who do not abide.

no wars, no arguments, that's just the way it has to be.

Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 0

Correct, the AUP governs use of Kai. Anyone in violation of it will be swiftly removed. We dont do this because we're nasty bastards, we do this so we don't get shut down Smile

TD

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 5:07 am

TheDaddy wrote:

Correct, the AUP governs use of Kai. Anyone in violation of it will be swiftly removed. We dont do this because we're nasty bastards, we do this so we don't get shut down Smile

TD

That is exactly how it should be.

But when I want a sermon I go to church. The "buy the games" thing......that's XBC and that is hypocracy.

And that is my opinion. Wink