Visual IRC

OK, Mr. Stroud, this is the second time that I have been lured into trying VIRC by yout 5 star rating. Once again, I cannot understand why you rate this program higher than either mIRc or Pirch. The current beta of VIRC 97 is a quirky affair to say the least. Various oddness or bugginess that I encountered in only a few hours of use included: The program installed itself in the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP directory. This was partly my fault as it asked to which directory it should extract its files. However, since t prompted with the TEMP directory, I assumed that it meant that it was extracting temporary installation files. Once underway, the program gobbled up about 30% of the system resources on my P-133 with 32M of RAM!!! This is an astounding number. Pirch, a known resources-gobbler takes only about 10%; mIRC even less. Perhaps too much of the program runs off of scripted events. I did not find the user interface to be particularly easier to use than mIRC or Pirch. (The absence of a help file in the downloa didn't help.) In fact, the developers seem to have pretty much cobbled together features they like from both programs, then added visuals that take up a lot of resources. While a lot of useful user functions have been added to or pre-built into the program in the later versions, some very essential functions. There is no flood protection, for example, except apparently through adding a script, and none of the usual commands for sending a channel operators message worked. There is also no easy way to re direct join/part/quit messages to the server window that I could find. On a net split, the channel window disappeared and the program said that I was disconnected when in fact I wasn't. But, since none of the usual disconnect messages appear in the server window, whether you are disconnected or not, knowing what your status is is very confusing. With the op control panel option on (feature lifted directly from Pirch), when I tiled 3 windows horizontally, the op panel covered the user list, making it inac essible. This on a full screen on 17" monitor at 1024 x 768. Some of the cutesy features in this program are just dumb and I suspect responsible for resources used. For example, a window pops up when you do a Whois, instead of simply showing the results in the server window. Too many other bugs or anomalies to mention. Finally, the program seems to keep almost all its settings and remotes information in the Windows 95 registry, instead of in *ini files as mIRC as Pirch do. Maybe this is fine, but it d esn't seem like the greatest idea to me. My impression of this program has always been that it is a "fun project" of a group of heavy IRC users who primarily want a highly scriptable program. It does not enough built-in functionality for the vast majority of your average IRC users. None of the IRC clients do, but the mIRC and Pirch are far better in this regard. It is not a program for IRC users that feel that IRC does not warrant learning scripting. It's also not a program for people with computers that cannot take the resources hit. In sum, I think the 5-stars is not deserved and will led many people, especially newbies, astray. Paula Ford~

Great assessment Paula, you sound like you're deep into the world of irc.

I'm *not* that deep into the world of IRC, and I *quite* agree with Paula. I downloaded vIRC, unzipped it and immediately went hunting for a help file -- sorry folks! A knee-jerk reaction. Amazingly, there was NO help file to be found, despite the fact the installer managed to install an icon for the absentee file!! I went ahead with the install procedure (it says you have to run vIRC97 in order to set things up....duuuhhh, okay). Double-click the appropriate icon, "splash" and "STALL". "Nothin' doin'," says the Taskmanager. vIRC97 stopped responding. (The memory-hog problem?) So I figure I'll hop on the 'net and see if the vIRC site has some hints on where I can locate the missing Help files. Wrong again. The site listed on Stroud's as being the VIRC Home Page comes up a dud -- just like the program. At this point, I've uninstalled vIRC and gone back to my mIRC. Mercifully, it's not so full of itself that it can't even find the where-with-all to install itself!! A swing and a miss on this one, Stroud! Respectfully, Ron Torrella Ypsilanti, MI

Have you tried emailing the folks at the company that put out this irc software?

Hi there, Well, I've read what you've said, and here's my response (as the author of ViRC). First of all, the latest _official_ version of ViRC '96 is 0.92b, and this is available from my home page at http://www.megalith.co.uk/virc. This version includes a full help file, and is quite stable. The versions that have appeared on CWSApps recently are prerelease betas, and I do not provide support for them (which is why they're not available from the official ViRC home page, and why they don't contain a help file, alth ugh the final version, of course, will). As prereleases, they contain a lot of experimental new code and functionality, much of which has not been tested thoroughly (which is why these aren't official, public releases). It strikes me that you've all been using very old releases, with very incomplete functionality. This is no longer the case. You may be interested to know that 1.00almost-final3b, the current release on CWSApps, is very stable indeed, and should cause you no major problems (certainly no crashes), and 1.00 final will be released within the next 3-4 days. This version features an additional setup mode for newbies, which guides you through every step of the setup process, from putting in a nickname to joining a server and channels and speaking to people. Why did Stroud give ViRC '96/'97 a 5-star rating? Well, the latest release has - built-in - everything that PIRCH and mIRC has (and if there's something that either of them have that I don't, let me know). It's also got heaps of extra stuff, like a scripting language that's substantially more powerful than mIRC's or PIRCH's, being totally object-oriented and comparable to C++. It's also got voice chat, which neither mIRC nor PIRCH have, which many people think is great. As for the resource usage, this is an unfortunate side-effect of programs compiled with Delphi. The way forms are preloaded makes resource usage a lot higher than programs compiled with VC++, like mIRC (although note that resources are not a problem under NT). However, I have ordered the Borland Delphi 3.1 update, which should arrive shortly, and will compile ViRC '97 with this as soon as it arrives, and this may reduce resource usage (note also that the amount of RAM you have does not affect resources - ll resources are limited to one 64k memory block on Windows 95, which is a bad design limitation of W95 - for comparison, under NT, there is no practical resource memory block limit) I take any comments very seriously, but I hope that I've addressed all of your possible concerns above, and hope that the latest ViRC '97 prerelease (currently 1.00almost-final3b, also available from http://www.virc.com) addresses most of them. I look forward to any additional feedback you may have.

is it just me or does it seem like virc takes a lot more resources than it should?...i mean...it's just an irc application and according to my resource meter, it takes more than Internet Explorer or MS Word!...seems to me to be a little out of whack mirc starts up in a couple of seconds...virc seems endless...too bad because i like the software but in my system (a 486DX100 with 16mb), it sucks the life right out of it although i can concurrently run all the Microsoft Office products

There's quite a difference between an unsuspecting customer looking at an automobile in a showroom and a mechanic giving the car a going over and looking under the hood. Virc 97 is the flashiest IRC client ever. When you run it you feel like Lieutenant Pete Mitchell in an F-14. Such a sense of power! But I don't use Virc 97 anymore - I looked under the hood. For starters, Virc 97 is written in Delphi, and uses a totally incompatible file format. It is not an authentic PE image. It loads and runs ok, but nonetheless. Eyebrows are raised even here. And because it is not an authentic PE, it cannot be bound. Meaning slow loads all around. Virc 97 writes lugubrious amounts of data to the Registry. You can see this data immediately after setup, and reading in this data is what takes the sucker so long to load. Now this data came from somewhere, and one must wonder why Virc 97's right hand doesn't know what its left hand does. mIRC32, on the other hand, still uses the obsolete INI file system. Partly for cross-platform compatibility with 16 bit versions, but also because all this data takes all the more space in the Registry. The Registry is Unicode animal, and each and every key created represents an additional overhead of 260 bytes. Above and beyond what is stored there. There's class info, last write time, the ACL (access control list), etc. Meaning for matters such as these the solution offered by mIRC is actually superior. That background image is amazing. Alone it's worth the price of admission. But until Virc 97 is re-written in C and the use of the Registry is toned down, it's definitely one of those products that look good in the showroom, but, on closer inspection, is a real no-no.

So, if you don't use virc, what do you use?

Downloaded virc, found out it's loaded with things I don't want. It's terribly slow and no on line channels for support that I could find. I also uninstalled and immediately went back to mIRC where I can load the addons I want and unload those I don't need. AND find the help file and 'live' help on line on every network I log on to. I too feel the 5 star rating is very over blown. If I want voice chat, I use a voice chat client which specializes in it. If I want video, I use video software which specializes in it. There is a sacrifice for this 'bundle' application, speed and the intrusion of my registry is way too much. Strouds, what are the perks you get for this 5 star rating ? yeah, thats got to be it.

You know what? If I was introduced to IRC through mIRC or PIRCH, I would have been scared away. However, I was introduced through ViRC, which I like and will keep. I've found lots of help chanels on the Big Three (especially on Undernet: #New2ViRC), can load and unload scripts I want, and use the "bundle" apps in ViRC. I'm not sure if this is the best choice, but it sure seems it. Thanks, Mr Cable, for all the work you've put into this. Good luck on ViRC '98.