Pictures of your games...

[Bokishi]

Haven't played this in awhile. Kinda nice the lag is gone in next-gen mode

 

[Dark_Raven]

Haven't played this in awhile. Kinda nice the lag is gone in next-gen mode

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

nice waterfall.

[Llyranor]

Early hours of Market Garden as the Allies are heading towards freeing Eindhoven. It's go time!

[metadigital]

I'd recommend paratroopers to secure the end-points, but make sure you don't overextend your forces (a conservative two bridges, rather than all-out for three); be careful, too, because the low-lying Dutch countryside will play havoc with the radio communications of the day ... "

[Musopticon?]

I don't consider myself a fanboy of anything

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

City 17 as location, a machinima in your signature, a correspondingly huge post about HL 2 that exerts a fine bouquet of fandom ? All check. Yeah, you're a fanboy.

 

Don't mind it that much, we've all been there.

 

I have not become a 'dragon', and have no plans of ever doing so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I had somehow got the understanding that the Dragon-title had to be earned in the community.

[Wistrik]

I don't consider myself a fanboy of anything

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

City 17 as location, a machinima in your signature, a correspondingly huge post about HL 2 that exerts a fine bouquet of fandom ? All check. Yeah, you're a fanboy.

 

Don't mind it that much, we've all been there.

 

I have not become a 'dragon', and have no plans of ever doing so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I had somehow got the understanding that the Dragon-title had to be earned in the community.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From Wiki:

Fanboy or fanboi is a term used to describe an individual (usually male, though the feminine version fangirl may be used for females) who is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession. Fanboys remain loyal to their particular obsession, disregarding any factors that differ from their point of view. They are also typically hateful to the opposing brand or competition of their obsession regardless of its merits or achievements.

I like HL2, and I dislike some parts of it, but I'm hardly immature or obsessive about it. (Hopefully not, anyway.)

 

I could easily have been an Ultima Dragon, except that they didn't exist in 1985 when I rewrote parts of Ultima 3, compressed it onto a single disk, and added high speed load/save functions. It took them until the mid to late 90s to do anything comparable. (The UDIC was founded in 1992.)

 

I tend to use my forum 'location' to reflect the game I'm currently playing. It was "Meredelain" when I was playing NWN2, and (on another forum) "The Wood of Sharp Teeth" when I was fiddling in Baldur's Gate, and so on. (It's "L1 Cache" at a programming forum I visit.)

 

You think my HL2 post is huge? Have you seen Jarulf's Guide to Diablo? Granted, I'm not going to make a 160+ page post; the point I'm trying to make is that it's not out of the ordinary for me to write a large post, especially when I'm getting technical or writing commentary.

 

I enjoy this HL2 machinima because Paul did a good job with the editing and I like the music he used. He could have used Unreal 2 as well, but he didn't. Which reminds me, I have an unfinished save in that game.

 

There I go again, making a large post. Sigh. Well, this discussion has been fun, regardless. Perhaps I'll post some Unreal 2 screenshots next, with copious amounts of technical commentary. :crazy:

[Darque]

I could easily have been an Ultima Dragon, except that they didn't exist in 1985 when I rewrote parts of Ultima 3, compressed it onto a single disk, and added high speed load/save functions. It took them until the mid to late 90s to do anything comparable. (The UDIC was founded in 1992.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hey, wow, that sounds neat

[Llyranor]

Childish, yes, but there was only one real choice here.

 

It was!

[Deraldin]

Childish, yes, but there was only one real choice here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So very true...

[Wistrik]

I could easily have been an Ultima Dragon, except that they didn't exist in 1985 when I rewrote parts of Ultima 3, compressed it onto a single disk, and added high speed load/save functions. It took them until the mid to late 90s to do anything comparable. (The UDIC was founded in 1992.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hey, wow, that sounds neat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

More than that, I had loads of fun doing that with one of my favorite games. It was great seeing it load in 8 seconds, compared to the 2 minute loads that were common back then.

 

If anyone here still has copies of Ultima games or enjoyed the Ultima games way back when, you might check out Ultima: The Reconstruction run by Voyager Dragon. There are Upgrade Packages (under the patches heading on the left) that give you VGA 256-color graphics in Ultima 3, 4, and 5. They also include midi music (ehhh...) and frame limiters :joy: to keep the games running at their original speed on newer computers. I've had no trouble running them in Win XP Pro's default command line 'dos' box, though that may not apply to everyone. The site also features links to and info about several fan-made remakes using newer game engines.

 

Anyway, here are some screenshots from Unreal 2. I know, it's an older engine, but I think it does an adequate job of rendering a 3D environment. I like the vibrant colors, and the story is somewhat interesting. Plus I can play it with everything maxed out, which is always fun. Unfortunately, the built-in screenshot key creates mangled BMPs that can't be used, so I used the Print Screen key instead.

 

Here's a scene from a TCA outpost. They're the folks you work for in this game.

 

 

You get to be captain of your ship, and Aida here is your second-in-command. She gives you all the mission briefings. Her VO actress has a nice voice. (For that matter, all of the VO is pretty good, in an 80s sci-fi movie fashion.)

 

 

This is your engineer and weapon load-out officer. That thought-controlled welding/cutting device sticking off of his shoulder doubles as a cigarette lighter.

 

 

This is a shot of a mining facility you visit on your first mission. Tried to get a shot showing the rich coloring of the fauna and architecture.

 

 

I mentioned copious comments earlier, but I'm too tired now.

[alanschu]

I'm unfamiliar with the technical aspects of older games, but was the source included with Ultima III?

[Deraldin]

Interesting. It appears as though you can't add attachments into the middle of your post. Looks like they've all be bumped to the end of the post.

[mkreku]

When I click on an attachment, I get a window the size of a stamp. What's up with that? I have to manually enlarge it before being able to see the picture.

[Deraldin]

I get the same thing. It's really annoying, or it would be if I wasn't used to "Right Click --> Open Link in New Tab".

[Dark_Raven]

Looks like the forum has some bugs to work out.

 

 

That first image of the planets looks awesome Wistrik.

[Tale]

[Wistrik]

I'm unfamiliar with the technical aspects of older games, but was the source included with Ultima III?

No. Back then there were no such things as "open source" or "GPL" though there was "Public Domain", but not for commercial products. However, I had Ultima III and IV on the C64/128 before I got my first Intel-based PC (a 12mhz 286 with EGA), and disassembling the game code was very easy to do. They didn't have EULAs back then either, so such hacking wasn't really frowned on so long as you weren't redistributing the game. In fact back then, the word 'hack' didn't have a negative connotation. Anyone who coded an assembler program was considered a hacker. The bad guys were called crackers, phishers, pirates, etc. As usual, word meanings change over time, so now 'hack' is a taboo word. Sigh.

 

 

Warning: tech-talk alert.

 

The C64 versions of the games stored data on the disk without directory entries; only the boot program could be seen if you read the directory. All else was accessed by direct sector reads. I didn't change this functionality. However, I noticed there was a lot of unused space on both sides of the disk (back then each disk side was treated like a separate disk) so I edited the game code and rearranged the files to fit onto one side. To assist in this effort, I implemented a simple compression algorithm (now known as RLE or Run-Length Encoding) for the full-screen title bitmap and user interface overlay. I removed the copy protection because back then a drive's response to a read error was to deliberately slam the r/w heads into a movement limiter in an attempt to re-align the drive, as if that might be the problem. This made quite a racket and resulted in numerous misaligned drives, so I generally removed the offending code from the games I played regularly. I also installed fast-load code, which combined with a sector interleave of 2 gave me an 8 second load time. The disk drives were full-blown computers with an OS, I/O chips, and RAM so you could send programs to them and then run those programs. I also completely rewrote the opening title sequence because the code was rather sloppy. It wasn't compiled, but rather hand-coded assembly language, and by then my skills were greater than those of the person who originally coded the game. That and every bit of optimization helped on a 1Mhz computer. (However, the C64's 6510 processor was more efficient with clock cycles; a 1 Mhz C64 performed about as well as an 8 Mhz 8086 PC. Most of the 6510 instructions executed in 2 or 3 clock cycles, which didn't happen for the Intel chips until years later.)

 

 

Re: the forum update: I see Obsidian doubled the max single upload size. It used to be 1 Mb.

[alanschu]

I get the same thing. It's really annoying, or it would be if I wasn't used to "Right Click --> Open Link in New Tab".

 

 

Pfft. The cool dudes just use the middle mouse button.

[Pidesco]

Really cool dudes have all new windows automatically open in new tabs.

 

HAH!

[alanschu]

Nah, I use the middle click because it's virtually every link I click on, including those that don't open up new windows.

[Deraldin]

Really cool dudes have all new windows automatically open in new tabs.

 

HAH!

 

I have it set to open in a new tab. The new attachments don't see to follow the rules though. <_<

[Slowtrain]

haha!

 

Check out this awesome fracas that broke out on the Red Ring Road.

[metadigital]

Nice swords.

[Darque]

Closed due to thread length.

 

Onto the next version.