DirectX 7



  • I just had to share this because it made me laugh so hard.

    Since they updated the engine for counter-strike source, people running directx 7 have been having issues. Baiscally they have dropped support for directx 7, since it came out 10 years ago.

    So this guy starts complaining that the specs required for the game are no longer the same as when he bought the game.

    Now TRWTF is people are still running hardware the doesn't support directx 8 or above (so at least a geforce 3).

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620

     

    mod: linked yo' link -dh



  •  Woah, even the no-name graphic chipset from the mother board of the actual low cost laptops can run DX8 (or 9 if you're lucky).



  • @CrouchSoft said:

    So this guy starts complaining that the specs required for the game are no longer the same as when he bought the game.

    Now TRWTF is people are still running hardware the doesn't support directx 8 or above (so at least a geforce 3).


    TRWTF is that the spec changed. If it was free to upgrade the hardware and drivers, than it would be a very, very mild WTF not to complain rather than just upgrade. But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.



  • @CrouchSoft said:

    Now TRWTF is people are still running hardware the doesn't support directx 8 or above (so at least a geforce 3).

    The source engine performs better in DX7 mode then in DX8 mode. So the hardware might be DX8 or higher compatible, but for speed they run it on lower settings. (Worked wonders for DoD on my laptop)



  • @Bulb said:

    TRWTF is that the spec changed. If it was free to upgrade the hardware and drivers, than it would be a very, very mild WTF not to complain rather than just upgrade. But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.

    I agree. Take Nintendo: they have released some updates for the Wii during the last years that added no new features, but disabled homebrew for the console. Now while that's pretty stupid and pointless, at least you don't [i]have[/i] to update.



  • @derula said:

    @Bulb said:
    TRWTF is that the spec changed. If it was free to upgrade the hardware and drivers, than it would be a very, very mild WTF not to complain rather than just upgrade. But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.

    I agree. Take Nintendo: they have released some updates for the Wii during the last years that added no new features, but disabled homebrew for the console. Now while that's pretty stupid and pointless, at least you don't have to update.




    Or Sony, where you have to choose between Linux and Playstation Network

    you don't have to update, but if you do, you loose features, if you don't, you loose features

    i sold mine on ebay




  • @derula said:

    @Bulb said:
    TRWTF is that the spec changed. If it was free to upgrade the hardware and drivers, than it would be a very, very mild WTF not to complain rather than just upgrade. But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.

    I agree. Take Nintendo: they have released some updates for the Wii during the last years that added no new features, but disabled homebrew for the console. Now while that's pretty stupid and pointless, at least you don't have to update.

     

     

    Yeah, because game consoles were totally subject to the same upgrade & ever-changing requirements bullshit as PCs.



  • I wonder where they even got DX7 hardware, or rather, why they still have it after more than ten years. If they'd set aside a paltry $10 per month in that time, they could have bought a brand new current system with the latest gear.

    That lemoog user claims Valve did this to open a Mac market. That may be true, and is still entirely reasonable: you drop the 5 PC gamers that still run on antique hardware, and you gain a good percentage of the Mac share.




  • @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.




  • @dhromed said:

    @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.my dick


     


  • @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...



  • @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...



  • @DemonWasp said:

    @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...

    Can we consider this thread recursive ?



  • @ltouroumov said:

    @DemonWasp said:

    @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...

    Can we consider this thread recursive ?

     

    Not until someone posts in that thread how pathetic it is that this thread exists.

    Also the guy with his dx7 card is mostly right. However, when taken before a judge I'm pretty sure the judge will rule that it is inherent for this type of product to change and that the changes that were made are within reason.

     



  • @ltouroumov said:

    @DemonWasp said:

    @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...

    Can we consider this thread recursive ?

     

    Absolutely not. This is a meta-thread.



  • @b_redeker said:

    @ltouroumov said:

    @DemonWasp said:

    @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...

    Can we consider this thread recursive ?

     

    Absolutely not. This is a meta-thread.

     

    So to make it recursive someone should create a thread in a third forum which links to this and quote the newly created thread into steams forums.

    Or we can stop talking about this.



  •  I'm wondering why so many guys on the steam thread are saying that they need 200+ fps to play "properly" and "have fun with your 80 fps". Is there something I'm missing, or are they all dumb because the screen can only draw much less than that frames per second anyway? 

    If there is some reason to need hundreds of frames per second, I can understand why some people would be irked that DX7 is no longer supported (as it gives higher frame rates than when running under a later DX version) but just irked, not "OMG I WILL SUE U", but this is the inflammatory internet admittedly. 



  • @EJ_ said:

    I'm wondering why so many guys on the steam thread are saying that they need 200+ fps to play "properly" and "have fun with your 80 fps". Is there something I'm missing, or are they all dumb
    Game boards are usually full of 1337 15yr olds whose grasp of computer performance is restricted to "PC 1 has more $random_number than PC 2, therefore PC 1 is superior". Draw your own conclusions.



  •  I thought DX7 was banned in most servers because it made it easier to wallhack?



  •  Yes, except newer games 'require' the new OS so you can't play the game unless you update it first. Unless, of course, you've got the homebrew stuff going on.



  • @EJ_ said:

     I'm wondering why so many guys on the steam thread are saying that they need 200+ fps to play "properly" and "have fun with your 80 fps". Is there something I'm missing, or are they all dumb because the screen can only draw much less than that frames per second anyway?
      well, it's probably just their stupidity (douchebagism?) , but it comes from a real case - play some first person shooter capped at 30 FPS, and then try one capped at 60 (or not capped at all). you should be able to notice the latter to appear/feel much smoother, and you'd be true, but the difference is not obvious anymore, above 100fps or so... (imho)



  •  @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    @EJ_ said:

     I'm wondering why so many guys on the steam thread are saying that they need 200+ fps to play "properly" and "have fun with your 80 fps". Is there something I'm missing, or are they all dumb because the screen can only draw much less than that frames per second anyway?
      well, it's probably just their stupidity (douchebagism?) , but it comes from a real case - play some first person shooter capped at 30 FPS, and then try one capped at 60 (or not capped at all). you should be able to notice the latter to appear/feel much smoother, and you'd be true, but the difference is not obvious anymore, above 100fps or so... (imho)

    The human eyeball can only see ~90 FPS, so yes, they are being douchebags if they claim anything under 200 is unacceptable.


  • @Schlagwerk said:

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:
    @EJ_ said:
     I'm wondering why so many guys on the steam thread are saying that they need 200+ fps to play "properly" and "have fun with your 80 fps". Is there something I'm missing, or are they all dumb because the screen can only draw much less than that frames per second anyway?
      well, it's probably just their stupidity (douchebagism?) , but it comes from a real case - play some first person shooter capped at 30 FPS, and then try one capped at 60 (or not capped at all). you should be able to notice the latter to appear/feel much smoother, and you'd be true, but the difference is not obvious anymore, above 100fps or so... (imho)

    The human eyeball can only see ~90 FPS, so yes, they are being douchebags if they claim anything under 200 is unacceptable.
    That's not really true, and certainly not technically true.  The limits of perceivable frame rate are effected by such things as brightness, color, shape, alertness, etc.  Also, different parts of the eye are more sensitive to that than others. Flashing a white object on a black screen for 1/100th of a second is different than flashing a black object at a white screen.  I've read that some trained folks can identify the silhouettes of aircraft after being shown it only 1/200th of second.  (oooor something like that.  I forget the exact conditions and source of this rumor).

    Of course, none of that really pertains to an overagressive, mouthbreathing, douchebag of a gamer who can't leave his basement without squinting, but it's all pretty interesting stuff. 



  • Oh, probably I got it from this:  [url]http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm[/url]
    It's an interesting read.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.


    Amen! Maybe it would look less like shit then. (Probably still not-- Blizzard's WOW staff are the laziest game developers on earth.)



  • @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    What really makes it for me is his insistence that it's a malicious act by Valve.

    Valve Manager: "We've almost taken over the world, gentleman, but one obstacle remains-- that DX7-using thorn-in-our-side in the UK! We need to have him take a little vacation
    Engineer: "We could remove DX7 support-- our intel shows he only has one 12-year-old laptop to play CS with. But there's no technical reason to do that!"
    Valve Manager: "We'll just say we're doing it for Mac support! They'll eat it up. Muahahaha!"



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.


    Amen! Maybe it would look less like shit then. (Probably still not-- Blizzard's WOW staff are the laziest game developers on earth.)

     

    Worse than Wizards of the Coast?



  • @DescentJS said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.


    Amen! Maybe it would look less like shit then. (Probably still not-- Blizzard's WOW staff are the laziest game developers on earth.)

     

    Worse than Wizards of the Coast?

    No, Wizards are incompetent, not lazy. There's a difference.

    Blizzard is more like, "hey let's introduce new PC races." "Ok, which ones?" "How about original creations!" "Nah, let's just recycle the 5-year-old worgen and goblin models and add the bare minimum of animations required for PC characters." "That's much lazier!"

    Hell, even in the first expansion-- I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that the Blood Elves were a recycled model with very very slight tweaks, and only the Draenei were new. Which is why the Draenei look marginally better than all the other PC models in the game-- still bad, but marginally better.

    Non-lazy developers might, for example, re-skin models with textures big enough that they don't need to be stretched ridiculously far. Or fix whatever the hell bug makes anti-aliasing not work by default. (Although if you have an NVidia card, you can have the driver force it, I found out-- game looks tons better now, just from that.) Or triple the poly counts on all the models, even if they made it an optional upgrade and left the original models in place for people with crappy GPUs.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @DescentJS said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Bulb said:

    But as long as it's not free, the spec should not change. It is never ever a WTF to use old hardware.
     

    Oh, quit your black & white nonsense. It is sometimes a WTF to use old hardware, and this is one of those cases.

    Look, it's a luxury that Counterstrike is still alive. It would be an even bigger luxury to retain support for the decidedly obsolete DX7. It was old when the game was published. Nobody can reasonably expect this game to be supported indefinitely with the exact same specs as when it came out.

    It's only a matter of time before WoW stops supporting really, really old systems.That would be an excellent event that I would embrace with both my arms.


    Amen! Maybe it would look less like shit then. (Probably still not-- Blizzard's WOW staff are the laziest game developers on earth.)

     

    Worse than Wizards of the Coast?

    No, Wizards are incompetent, not lazy. There's a difference.

    Blizzard is more like, "hey let's introduce new PC races." "Ok, which ones?" "How about original creations!" "Nah, let's just recycle the 5-year-old worgen and goblin models and add the bare minimum of animations required for PC characters." "That's much lazier!"

    Hell, even in the first expansion-- I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that the Blood Elves were a recycled model with very very slight tweaks, and only the Draenei were new. Which is why the Draenei look marginally better than all the other PC models in the game-- still bad, but marginally better.

    Non-lazy developers might, for example, re-skin models with textures big enough that they don't need to be stretched ridiculously far. Or fix whatever the hell bug makes anti-aliasing not work by default. (Although if you have an NVidia card, you can have the driver force it, I found out-- game looks tons better now, just from that.) Or triple the poly counts on all the models, even if they made it an optional upgrade and left the original models in place for people with crappy GPUs.

     

    Developers don't make character models, nor do they texture. Developers develop software. you are probably thinking of 3D modelers and texture artists.



  • @stratos said:

    Developers don't make character models, nor do they texture. Developers develop software. you are probably thinking of 3D modelers and texture artists.

    Forgot about the pedants! Sorry about that, everybody. I'll make sure you completely qualify every single word next time I type anything at all-- God forbid you mistake my use of the term "game developer" to mean what 99.9% of the population thinks "game developer" means!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Or triple the poly counts on all the models,
     

    What does it look like with that?

    My initial google image search produced tons of lowpoly junk.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Or fix whatever the hell bug makes anti-aliasing not work by default. (Although if you have an NVidia card, you can have the driver force it,

    Fallout 3 is the other way around, with Ati cards at least. Forcing AA fails and you get non-AA. I now just use all games' built-in AA settings, which is the same call anyway.

    I'm still unsure of Valve's motion blur. It's a very small effect, and I think it just reduces fidelity rather than increase gaphical tastiness "as if it were video".



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Forgot about the pedants! Sorry about that, everybody. I'll make sure you completely qualify every single word next time I type anything at all
     

    You implied!

    You implied!

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Or triple the poly counts on all the models,
     

    What does it look like with that?

    My initial google image search produced tons of lowpoly junk.

    Kind of confused on what you're asking... but yes, WOW = low poly junk, if that's what you mean.

    Edit: At some point, people made models for the cinematics that look like this or this, so there's high res models somewhere. (Obviously not suited for a game, but they could probably be adapted.)

    @dhromed said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Or fix whatever the hell bug makes anti-aliasing
    not work by default. (Although if you have an NVidia card, you can have
    the driver force it,

    Fallout 3 is the other way around, with Ati cards at least. Forcing AA fails and you get non-AA. I now just use all games' built-in AA settings, which is the same call anyway.

    I'm still unsure of Valve's motion blur. It's a very small effect, and I think it just reduces fidelity rather than increase gaphical tastiness "as if it were video".

    Have you played the 2010 Aliens vs. Predator? It's motion blur is way out of control, but I think it works for the type of game (and darkness of the environment.) It makes the Halo: Reach motion blur that everybody was making so much noise about look restrained by comparison.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    pedants

    everybody

    completely

    every single word

    next time

    anything

    God

    population

    thinks

     

    Could you qualify that?



  • @ltouroumov said:

    @b_redeker said:

    @ltouroumov said:

    @DemonWasp said:

    @DOA said:

    @CrouchSoft said:

    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6f74f96984b57bf792eda3f9c948d705&t=1363620
    Oh, god, there's an entire thread about this. They really have absolutely nothing to do with their lives...

    And yet, somehow we find the time to make a thread about their thread...

    Can we consider this thread recursive ?

     

    Absolutely not. This is a meta-thread.

     

    So to make it recursive someone should create a thread in a third forum which links to this and quote the newly created thread into steams forums.

    Or we can stop talking about this.

     

    I think some people need to learn what recursion is.



  • @Obi-Wan said:

    I think some people need to learn what recursion is.

    Well I know about recursion in programming, but in forum threads it comes out of my area of expertise.



  • @Xyro said:

    Oh, probably I got it from this:  http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm
    It's an interesting read.

     I figured it was just "my X is bigger than your x" syndrome, but wasn't sure if I was missing something technical about the game :D thanks for that website, it's nifty



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @stratos said:
    Developers don't make character models, nor do they texture. Developers develop software. you are probably thinking of 3D modelers and texture artists.

    Forgot about the pedants! Sorry about that, everybody. I'll make sure you completely qualify every single word next time I type anything at all-- God forbid you mistake my use of the term "game developer" to mean what 99.9% of the population thinks "game developer" means!

     

    Always happy to point out mistakes. No problem.

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    At some point, people made models for the cinematics that look like this

    You know, I'm not an expert in hand-to-hand combat, but it seems to me that armor which covers no more than a bikini would leave one somewhat open to attack. Are women just that much more agile than men that they can get away with running around in chain mail thongs while the guys have to don layer after layer of stainless steel plate armor?

    As for framerates, I recall something about certain games - back in the day - running internal physics at framerate, and having bugs which would allow people to run faster / jump higher / etc with absurdly high framerates.

    I'd think that kind of thing has been stamped out for a while now, though.

     

     

    ...oh, and one other thing: If I ever have a sword fight with some elf chick dumb enough to leave her entire midriff showing, the ears are going to be the first thing to go. Seriously, they must be a foot long - you're inviting disaster there, baby girl. For god's sake, tie those things back or something.



  • @PeriSoft said:

    You know, I'm not an expert in hand-to-hand combat, but it seems to me that armor which covers no more than a bikini would leave one somewhat open to attack. Are women just that much more agile than men that they can get away with running around in chain mail thongs while the guys have to don layer after layer of stainless steel plate armor?

    Platemail in WOW is highly sexually dimorphic. Note that they've gone beyond "chain-mail bikini" (although there are those, too) right into "plate-mail bikini."

    @PeriSoft said:

    ...oh, and one other thing: If I ever have a sword fight with some elf chick dumb enough to leave her entire midriff showing, the ears are going to be the first thing to go. Seriously, they must be a foot long - you're inviting disaster there, baby girl. For god's sake, tie those things back or something.

    They also clip through your platemail helmet. So even if your head's all armored up, oops.

    But to be fair to WOW, if you actually get a character to a high level, the armor's pretty good: Sacora, Weetamoo, Ioana. Although I guess Sac's showing quite a bit of cleavage there.

    Strangely, the lower your level, the more revealing the armor. Here's Gombezi.

    Also notice that the Flash-based character renderer on the website is actually better than the in-game engine. For one thing, it does anti-aliasing.



  • Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.



  •  @The_Assimilator said:

    Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.

    In my day we played short, unnervingly violent rounds in Quake2. None of this levelling/loot crap. When someone came at you with a rocket launcher you hauled ass. We didn't ask for a healing spell. We didn't hang out with our mates. You dodged those missiles like Neo in the Matrix and nailed the guy in the left eye with your railgun in mid-jump.

     Kids these days... now get off my lawn



  • @DOA said:

    In my day we played short, unnervingly violent rounds in Quake2. None of this levelling/loot crap. When someone came at you with a rocket launcher you hauled ass. We didn't ask for a healing spell. We didn't hang out with our mates. You dodged those missiles like Neo in the Matrix and nailed the guy in the left eye with your railgun in mid-jump.

     Kids these days... now get off my lawn


    QFT



  • I'd have thought that DX9 and above with plaintext shader scripts would make it easier to wallhack - alter the pixelshader code to do nothing and you don't even need to touch the driver or the game binary.



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.

    No, in WOW, you actually do things... instead of watching a laser hit an asteroid for 20 hours in a row.

    If you like EVE, you live EVE. But unless you're completely delusional, you have to admit that WOW has the kind of gameplay that attracts 11+ million people, while EVE has the kind of gameplay that attracts maybe 100,000 people. I'm not the EVE type.

    Saying "vastly superior" as if there's a simple single linear measure comparing two completely different game genres to each other-- that's just silly.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Saying "vastly superior" as if there's a simple single linear measure comparing two completely different game genres to each other-- that's just silly.
     

    Surely the Non-Human Cleavage Index is such a measure.



  • @DOA said:

     @The_Assimilator said:

    Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.

    In my day we played short, unnervingly violent rounds in Quake2. None of this levelling/loot crap. When someone came at you with a rocket launcher you hauled ass. We didn't ask for a healing spell. We didn't hang out with our mates. You dodged those missiles like Neo in the Matrix and nailed the guy in the left eye with your railgun in mid-jump.

     Kids these days... now get off my lawn

     

    In my day we played MUDs over telnet on 2400 baud modems. An 8086/88 XT was sufficicient. For example Infinity at the Virtual World Club of New Mexico, or later Dutch Mountains which we ran ourselves on an printer server because the lag from Europe to the USA was sometimes enormous, while on our server there was only a problem in the rare case someone printed something.

    We still chose a class and a race, levelled to level 60, did quests for the Infinity Gauntlet or the Dark Sword and slew monsters like the Purple Snorklewhacker, Puff the Fractal Dragon and Tiamat the Dragon God. These required groups with at least two tanks, preferably an anti-paladin, three healers and 6 damage dealers with complex tactics for the more advanced bosses. We often had up to 80 people online. A fresh level 60 would have around 1300 hitpoints and/or mana, but if you had the best gear and achiements, top players could have up to 5-6k HP if you were a tank, or 4k mana if you were a caster. For the damage dealers the top was if you could generate bug messages in the server log. My Half-giant Monk didn't get further then damage messages in capitals.

    WoW is just a graphical MUD.

     

    As for the graphical challenge of WoW, the polygon count of a lot of models might be relatively low, as is the resolution of the textures. But the number of textures and models is huge. This has the effect that it is often more dependent on the amount of video RAM and RAM you have then which GPU you exactly have. It can make all but the highest end cards struggle in places like Dalaran or 25man Lich King. On max settings my 9800GT/512 only manages 3 frames/s on the LK fight, I have to put settings to LOW to manage 10-12 fps. Even people with the latest quad core and faster cards like the GTX250 or GTX295 have noticeable dips in their framerate on that fight. My system runs games like Supreme Commander 2 and Bad Company 2 much smoother than some parts of WoW.

    The Wrath of the Lich King already looked much nicer than the original and first expansion, and with the next expansion they're going to make another step. Minimum specs have gone up for both expansions. I tihnk they can't do better with current hardware, from the benchmarks I've seen, the limiting factor seems to be texture memory and fill rate of the current video cards.

    http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,689378/WoW-Wrath-of-the-Lich-King-Benchmarks-with-Ati-and-Nvidia-graphics-cards/Practice/?page=3



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @The_Assimilator said:

    Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.

    No, in WOW, you actually do things... instead of watching a laser hit an asteroid for 20 hours in a row.

    If you like EVE, you live EVE. But unless you're completely delusional, you have to admit that WOW has the kind of gameplay that attracts 11+ million people, while EVE has the kind of gameplay that attracts maybe 100,000 people. I'm not the EVE type.

    Saying "vastly superior" as if there's a simple single linear measure comparing two completely different game genres to each other-- that's just silly.

     

    So you're saying that the only thing you've seen in EVE is the tiny section related to mining?



  • @RogerWilco said:

    In my day we played MUDs over telnet on 2400 baud modems. An 8086/88 XT was sufficicient. For example Infinity at the Virtual World Club of New Mexico, or later Dutch Mountains which we ran ourselves on an printer server because the lag from Europe to the USA was sometimes enormous, while on our server there was only a problem in the rare case someone printed something.

    We still chose a class and a race, levelled to level 60, did quests for the Infinity Gauntlet or the Dark Sword and slew monsters like the Purple Snorklewhacker, Puff the Fractal Dragon and Tiamat the Dragon God. These required groups with at least two tanks, preferably an anti-paladin, three healers and 6 damage dealers with complex tactics for the more advanced bosses. We often had up to 80 people online. A fresh level 60 would have around 1300 hitpoints and/or mana, but if you had the best gear and achiements, top players could have up to 5-6k HP if you were a tank, or 4k mana if you were a caster. For the damage dealers the top was if you could generate bug messages in the server log. My Half-giant Monk didn't get further then damage messages in capitals.

     

    Ahh yes, I remember my first BBS too.  2400 baud rate modem connecting to the Wizards Realm BBS.  Can't remember the name of that MUD though that they had, something about taking on the four elements: earth air water fire.  There was some sphinx that would fuck you up.  It was some local (at the time) BBS, a lot of the people would meet up on Friday nights.  I'm from New Mexico and I never heard of the Virtual World Club though.

    Found their info surprisingly.

    Name:           The Wizard's Realm BBS
    Location: Albuquerque NM
    Human-email: SYSOP@WIZREALM.COM
    HTTP: http://wizrealm.com/twrmore.html
    Modem: 505-839-0612 (28.8), 839-0067 (14.4), 839-0048 (2400)
    Prices: 0.40/hour dialup; 0.80 telnet


  • @DescentJS said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @The_Assimilator said:

    Nah, I'm just going to mock you for playing WOW when you could be playing the vastly superior EVE instead.

    No, in WOW, you actually do things... instead of watching a laser hit an asteroid for 20 hours in a row.

    If you like EVE, you live EVE. But unless you're completely delusional, you have to admit that WOW has the kind of gameplay that attracts 11+ million people, while EVE has the kind of gameplay that attracts maybe 100,000 people. I'm not the EVE type.

    Saying "vastly superior" as if there's a simple single linear measure comparing two completely different game genres to each other-- that's just silly.

     

    So you're saying that the only thing you've seen in EVE is the tiny section related to mining?

    At the time I played (shortly after the game came out) the "section related to mining" was all there was. I'm sure it's better now, but they don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

    I played Eternal Struggle MUD for 9 years, and admined it for 5. (Overlapping.) Our level cap was 50, I think, but we were a strict RP MUD with a non-level-based combat system, so nobody really cared what your level was.


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