BLACK Multiplayer — v0.4.0-alpha.1

Dedicated 60 Hz Server, Killmarks, Modern Controls & Dedicated Network Thread

Protocol Version: 3. Clients running versions prior to v0.3 will be asked to update before joining.
Official Dedicated Server: black-mp.vps-kinghost.net:1508 (189.126.105.191:1508).

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🎯 Combat Feedback & Killmarks

• CrossFire-Style Animated Killmarks:
  • Dynamic badges displayed below the crosshair for killstreaks within the same life (Double Kill up to 6x+ Multi-Kill).
  • Dedicated badges for Headshots (with a gold badge variant for streak kills), Rifle Butt / Melee, and Grenade kills.
  • Special event banners for FIRST KILL (first blood in the match), REVENGE (eliminating the player who last killed you), and LAST KILL (the game-winning frag).
  • Graceful fallback to clean on-screen text banners if image assets are absent.
• Hit Markers: Visual feedback directly on the crosshair — white tick marks on body hits, bright red on headshots.
• Line-of-Sight Enemy Tags: The "Enemy: [Name]" overhead tags now respect map geometry and walls, preventing wall-hack style spotting.

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🕹️ Modernized Controls & Gameplay QoL

• Tactical Sprint: Hold Shift to sprint with a +40% movement speed boost.
• Crouch: Press Ctrl to crouch and lower your combat profile.
• Sniper Scope Wheel Zoom: While aiming down sights with scoped sniper rifles, scrolling the mouse wheel (Scroll Up / Down) cycles through magnification zoom levels.
• Full Key Rebinding: All new multiplayer actions (sprint, crouch, zoom, melee, armory) are fully exposed in the native in-game settings menu (Esc → Keyboard Options).
• Enhanced Visibility: Default map brightness/gamma increased by +15% to eliminate dark blind spots; reload motion blur disabled by default; FPS cap unlocked by default (up to 360 FPS / monitor refresh rate).

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⚡ Dedicated Network Threading

• Decoupled Network Thread: UDP network I/O, latency pings, hit validation, and state replication now run on an independent high-priority thread separated from the main rendering frame loop.
  • Eliminates ping spikes and rubberbanding caused by client-side frame drops.
  • Inputs and player states are dispatched at a rock-solid 30 Hz; shots and melee hits are transmitted immediately on the next tick.
• Join Rate Limiting: Per-IP join request throttling to protect the dedicated host from connection flooding.

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🔊 Audio Engine & Peak Limiter

• Stereo Peak Limiter: A dynamic peak limiter is now applied after the 6-channel to stereo downmix (FL + 0.707·C + BL). This completely eliminates the clipped buzzing/static noise previously heard during radio messages and announcer kill voice lines.

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🖥️ Dedicated Server & Headless Null Renderer (Linux)

• Headless Null Renderer: The Linux dedicated server now runs purely headless with a fixed 60 Hz simulation tick. No graphical window, no Vulkan device, and no Xvfb required.
  • VPS RAM usage decreased from 358 MB down to ~107 MB.
  • CPU load average reduced by more than 60%.
• Automatic Team Balancing: Incoming players automatically occupy vacant slots on the team with fewer active members.
• Glass Crash Fix: Resolved the server crash caused when players shot and shattered glass panes on the map.
• Match & Rematch Flow: Automatic transition to the next match round within 15 seconds after scoreboard completion.

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📋 Interface & Scoreboard (TAB)

• Scoreboard Privacy: The TAB scoreboard now displays only ALIVE or DEAD for opponents (preventing players from seeing low-health enemies to hunt down); teammates still show their exact HP bars.
• Chat Integration: Pressing TAB while the in-game chat is open toggles between [TEAM] and [ALL CHAT] channels instead of bringing up the scoreboard over your message.
• Accurate Respawn Countdown: 3-second timer starts immediately upon death.
• Standardized Localization: 100% English text across all multiplayer HUD elements, console messages, and menus.

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📦 How to Play / Update

1. Download the latest build from the BLACK-XBEMultiplayer repository.
2. Ensure your legal Black.iso is placed inside the assets\ folder.
3. Join the official server:
   • Via Batch Script: windows\join.bat 189.126.105.191:1508 [YourName]
   • In-Game: Press F10 → Connect to Server → enter 189.126.105.191:1508 and click Connect.

BLACK Multiplayer v0.3.0-alpha.1 — Real names, server admin and the rifle butt

BLACK Multiplayer v0.3.0-alpha.1 — Real names, server admin and the rifle butt

The third alpha of the Black Team Deathmatch mod for Windows. It fixes the bugs you reported from the first dedicated-server matches and gives the server the basics of a real game server: players' own names and ping on the scoreboard, a welcome message, kicks, bans and passwords.

Important

This release is required to play on the test server. The server now checks the game version, and v0.2 clients are refused. Download v0.3 before you join.

This is still an alpha test build. Expect bugs, and report them. You need your own legal copy of Black (USA or Europe, .iso or extracted files): no game files ship with this release.

Play now on the public test server

windows\join.bat 189.126.105.191

Or in-game: F10 → Multiplayer → Connect to Server, type your name and 189.126.105.191:1508, then press Connect.

What's new

Scoreboard and players

• Your real name, for everyone. Other players used to show up as Player 2, Player 3… Now the scoreboard, the killfeed and the chat show the name each player typed.
• Everyone's ping on TAB. The server measures every player's ping and shares it, so you see the whole lobby's ping, not only your own.
• No more ghosts. A player who left used to stay in the level, frozen where they were, until you left too. Now they're gone within a second or two.
• TAB only shows the scoreboard. It no longer opens the mission objectives screen underneath.

Combat

• The rifle butt hurts. Melee (V) used to do nothing to other players. It now deals 50 damage, so two hits kill. The server checks the distance (about 1.8 m), that the target is in front of you and that there's no wall in between. A melee kill shows as Melee in the killfeed.
• The endless reload noise is gone. After a match restart, some players kept making a reload-like sound forever. Their weapon audio is now released when they die, respawn or leave.

Joining

• Your name and last server are remembered. The Connect to Server tab has a name field, and both the name and the address you last joined are kept for the next time. Favorites open by default.
• Clear messages when you can't join. Instead of a silent timeout, the game tells you why: a different game version, the server is full, you're banned, or the password is wrong.
• Password-protected servers. Type the password in the new Password field, or pass it as a third argument: windows\join.bat <ip> <name> <password>.
• Kicked or the server restarts? You find out at once instead of standing in a frozen match until the connection times out.

Graphics

• AMD (Radeon) fix: walls and models could render transparent on AMD cards. The game now uses a depth format the AMD Vulkan drivers support. If you have an AMD card, please tell us whether it looks right now.

Server side (for people running their own dedicated server)

• A server.toml file for the server name, player slots (1–7), password, welcome message (MOTD), frag and time limits and starting grenades.
• A live console: status, say, kick, ban/unban, restart, fraglimit, timelimit, maxplayers, password, reload.
• Join and leave messages in the chat, and the MOTD sent to each player when they enter the match.
• A server info query (name, map, players, version) that works without joining, for server lists and monitoring.

Upgrading from v0.2.x

Download this release and extract it over your old folder, or into a new one and move your assets\ folder across. Your black.toml settings are kept. Everyone must run v0.3: v0.2 clients can't join v0.3 servers, and the game tells them so.

Setup (new players)

1. Put your own Black.iso (or default.xbe plus the extracted game folders) in assets\.
2. Run BLACK.exe. The first run builds the multiplayer package from your ISO (a few seconds).
3. Join the test server (above), or host your own LAN match with windows\host.bat [port] [name] and have friends join with windows\join.bat <your-ip>.

Ports: UDP 1508 for the game and UDP 1510 for LAN discovery. To host over the internet, forward UDP 1508 on your router.

Known issues

• The AMD fix still needs testing on real Radeon cards.
• No accounts or anti-cheat yet. Bans are by IP address.
• Find LAN servers only sees servers on your local network. Internet servers are joined by IP; a server browser is planned.
• Only Veblensk (Mission 1) is available.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on BLACK-Coop and attach the newest file from the logs\ folder next to BLACK.exe. Or come talk to us on Discord.

Credits

Built on BLACK-XBERecomp and the XboxXBE-Recomp toolchain. Remote player animations: "Human Soldier Animations 2.0 FREE" by Kevin Iglesias. Full third-party notices in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

Source: BLACK-Coop feat/windows-multiplayer @ 45c4167

Full changelog: v0.2.0-alpha.1...v0.3.0-alpha.1

v0.2.0-alpha

BLACK Multiplayer v0.2.0-alpha.1 — Dedicated servers

The second alpha of the Black Team Deathmatch mod for Windows. The big change: you can now play on a dedicated server, a machine that runs the match 24/7 without one of the players having to host it. A Linux dedicated server is already up for testing (see below).

Important

This is still an alpha test build. Expect bugs, and report them. You need your own legal copy of Black (USA or Europe, .iso or extracted files): no game files ship with this release.

Play now on the public test server

windows\join.bat 189.126.105.191

Or in-game: F10 → Multiplayer → Connect to Server, type 189.126.105.191:1508 and press Connect.

What's new

Dedicated servers

• Join a dedicated server by IP. The Connect to Server tab no longer asks for an identity file: type ip:port and press Connect. The TLS identity is still there, under Secure session (TLS), for the experimental TLS servers only.
• The server is not a player. A dedicated server takes no player slot, has no body in the world, never spawns, can't be shot and doesn't show on the scoreboard. All 7 guest slots are for real players.
• No more frozen level on a bad address. Joining by IP now waits for the server to answer before loading Veblensk. If nobody answers within 8 seconds you stay in the menu with "No answer from ip:port", instead of being stuck at the mission spawn.

Gameplay and presentation

• Remote players hold their rifles up again. The animation clips for other players (assets\anim\body.bca) now ship with the build; without them everyone else stood around with their rifles lowered.
• Match voices are back. The announcer, radio chatter and kill lines play again: the voice catalog (config\tdm\voice_catalog.csv) now ships with the build. The audio itself is read from your own ISO.
• No more drops when the window loses focus. In an online match the game keeps running in the background instead of pausing, so alt-tabbing or a second game window no longer gets you timed out.
• Scoreboard footer: the connection info no longer overprints the key hints.

Packaging

• No Python install needed. A Python runtime ships in python\, and BLACK.exe uses it to build the multiplayer map and arsenal from your ISO on first run.
• OpenSSL (libssl-4-x64.dll, libcrypto-4-x64.dll) ships next to BLACK.exe for the TLS client, with its license in licenses\.
• windows\host.bat and windows\join.bat default to game port 1508.

Upgrading from v0.1.x

Download this release and extract it over your old folder, or into a new one and move your assets\ folder across. Your black.toml settings are kept. Everyone in a match must run the same build: v0.1.x clients can't join v0.2.0 servers reliably.

Setup (new players)

1. Put your own Black.iso (or default.xbe plus the extracted game folders) in assets\.
2. Run BLACK.exe. The first run builds the multiplayer package from your ISO (a few seconds).
3. Join the test server (above), or host your own LAN match with windows\host.bat [port] [name] and have friends join with windows\join.bat <your-ip>.

Ports: UDP 1508 for the game and UDP 1510 for LAN discovery. To host over the internet, forward UDP 1508 on your router.

Known issues

• No passwords, accounts or anti-cheat yet: anyone with the server's address can join (up to 7 players).
• Names default to Player when you join from the menu: set yours in Host / Join (LAN) first.
• Find LAN servers only sees servers on your local network. Internet servers are joined by IP.
• Only Veblensk (Mission 1) is available.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on BLACK-Coop and attach the newest file from the logs\ folder next to BLACK.exe. Or come talk to us on Discord.

Credits

Built on BLACK-XBERecomp and the XboxXBE-Recomp toolchain. Remote player animations: "Human Soldier Animations 2.0 FREE" by Kevin Iglesias. Full third-party notices in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

Source: BLACK-Coop feat/windows-multiplayer @ 678a637

Full changelog: v0.1.1-alpha.1...v0.2.0-alpha.1

fix - assets

Fixed assets extractor - YOU NEED PYTHON if you want custom sounds and no crash guns hahahaha

BLACK Multiplayer — Alpha 1 (Windows)

First public alpha of the Windows build of the BLACK Multiplayer mod (Team Deathmatch, up to 8 players).

This is a binary-only test build — no source code included. Full source: Peterson047/BLACK-Coop, branch feat/windows-multiplayer, commit 63e0464.

What's in this alpha

• Native Windows build (Vulkan renderer, SDL3 host) of the BLACK-XBERecomp port
• Team Deathmatch: Black Ops vs. Seventh Wave, Veblensk, up to 8 players
• LAN auto-discovery + direct-IP host/join
• Configurable network ports (host_port/discovery_port in black.toml)

Fixed in this build

• A Vulkan swapchain semaphore reuse bug that could cause corrupted or missing textures/geometry on AMD GPUs
• CMake/OpenSSL detection on the Clang-on-Windows toolchain
• Hardcoded network ports moved to configurable settings

Requirements

• Windows 10/11, 64-bit
• GPU with Vulkan 1.2 (NVIDIA/AMD/Intel, up-to-date driver)
• Python 3 (one-time multiplayer setup only)
• Your own legal copy of Black (ISO or extracted files) — not included, see README

Known limitations

• Alpha quality — expect bugs, please report them (see README for how)
• The dedicated TLS session server is experimental and not part of this build

See the README for full setup instructions, screenshots, and networking details.