Posted by: Dark Jaguar - 21st February 2009, 10:23 AM - Forum: Tendo City
- No Replies
Ever since my last update to my computer, I have been unable to use Windows 98 for my retro needs. The hardware is simply too modern and a lot of components lack 9x drivers, namely my sound card. So, I've had to scrap that. I had few alternatives. For some time I was considering digging up the components to make a really old computer specifically for this task. After making a number of changes to DOSBox, I don't think I'll need to any more. The biggest change was realizing I could install Windows 3.11 in the latest version of DOSBox :D. So I've got that working now, with old drivers for the S3 graphics card and SoundBlaster 16 which DOSBox emulates, and after installing some needed components in it, like Windows Video, I've got access to the full King's Quest collection in glitch free mode. Yes, I could play the DOS versions of them, but in the case of KQ5, the music is aweful, just aweful, and in KQ6, the character portraits are in VGA instead of SVGA resolution and don't look nearly as nice (plus the starting and ending movie files are much lower quality). Plus, after finally getting extended midi support working in my emulated 3.11 experience, the music in KQ5 6 and 7 were even better than what DOS could offer. In the case of KQ7, the DOS and Windows versions are identical (In windows it doesn't even have the title bar) so I may just go with DOS for that one for simplicity. Windows 3.11 starts basically instantly so it's not like there's any wait. Oh, ABF you have noted the "larger black bars" around KQ5 and 6 before and I never quite got why they would be like that. I get it now though. Nothing is cut off the screen. It's just that there's a different aspect ratio. Since Windows 3.11 is locked in a 640x480 resolution, and those old KQ games are in 320x200, something had to give. Displaying it in DOS just means using that exact resolution, but in Windows they had to "double" it to fill the screen space, which works except it's then 640x400. In other words, nothing's been cut off, it's just in a pseudo wide screen mode. Since the aspect difference is so negligable, I never really noticed it before, but as that's how I originally played them, I prefer it that way, and in the case of KQ6, it was actually designed around that aspect ratio so it works better. I prefer smaller more accurate cursors to larger ones too, so the cursors being black and white doesn't bother me either.
There is one last thing to deal with. For some reason KQ7 under 3.11 has issues with it's cursor. Whenever it animates, which is often in KQ7, it blinks away and back in, making it hard to see sometimes. I may just go with the DOS version after all for that.
Oh yes, The Dagger of Amon Ra works flawlessly now! It works better than it did in 9x in fact. That one ONLY has a Windows version so DOS wasn't even an option there. Running a true DOS game under 3.11 under DOSBox under Windows XP seems to be a step too far though, as they glitch like crazy in that environment (and the characters wax too philosophical about their world within a world, nope guys, I'm at the top), but that's fine as I just set up a standard DosBox environment for them, and heck, the earliest KQ games using the AGI interpreter still work perfectly under XP anyway.
Firstly, it's odd no one seemed to notice this in RE4. Secondly, I'm not sure how much of a problem racism is in Japan, at least compared to xenophobia. At any rate, I at least recognize that Africa is the "setting" where the original zombie story came from, and wouldn't you know it, a lot of people are black there. That doesn't help too much to cover up the sting of seeing an upstanding white guy shooting down the savage blackie though, considering certain... historic precedent.
At least there's also savage white people thrown in the mix now.
Robot and mantis shall never dwell together in peace...
You've probably all seen those sci-fi shows where someone wipes away bad memories, and then some moral about how that's bad follows. Well, it seems there's a much better way to go about it. Instead of deleting a bad memory, just delete the bad part and keep the memory. If you have a scary memory of being stalked, you can keep all the details of being stalked and get rid of the fear you experience recalling it, so it's just bland.
Seems they conditioned people to fear images of spiders by shocking them after showing an image of a spider. Then, afterwards they injected this drug, and due to how memories are rebuilt, they remembered the spider image, they remembered that shocks come later, but it didn't scare them any more.
This sounds like a great way to treat post tramatic stress disorder.
I've said "marketers are idiots" before, but I think now I actually believe it. These people are morons! Either that, or they make a regular habbit of lying just to maintain the illusion that they are in any way needed.
Some products can sell themselves. I'm pretty sure if I ever invented teleportation, all I'd need to do is make a website and pass a crumpled note along to one person and within a month I'd be a trillionaire. Then some fool kid would come along and go through while concious... Oh the lawsuits...
(And incidentally I think the new logo is kinda dumb looking anyway, but then again I suppose the target audience was marketting executives so it must just fly over my head.)
Okay what gets me is that all this time I thought yeah I think it's dumb but they've got samples of test audiences confirming this. You know, like regardless of my own opinion on those test audiences, the numbers don't lie. No, just this nonsense! That's all they did! They don't even need the kinda badly gathered evidence of a badly picked test sample any more, they just make this stuff up!
I really can become a marketter if I wanted to! I bet they came up with the logo first and then ran around trying to tie as much deep philosophical stuff into it as they could to give the illusion that those millions were spent well. Is this all there is to maretting? If so, I could do it, but unfortunatly my moral standing against bull prevents me from doing so, just like becoming an astrologer or psychic or any other scam artist.
Explorer 2.0!
This is a little programing project I've been working on for 2 days. I rewrote Explorer.exe!
I'm running the new interface on WindowsXP SP2.
The screen shot shows some of my new features....
Such as the clutter less task bar (Which is a drop down now)
Cool new interface, with window shadows
And the new folder icon which shows it's contents right in the icon!
Everyone let me know what you think...
PS. I'll make this a free download as soon as I'm satisfied it's stable.
Had a chance to play it today. Very nice graphics, controls are great with the Wii Wheel (great accessory... :)), lots of tracks, remakes of a lot of classic Mario Kart courses, lots of characters to choose from... great stuff, an amazingly large improvement over Double Dash. Of the Mario Kart games I've played (that is, all but the DS one) only Mario Kart 64 compares... I'd need to own it and play it more to decide which I like more, but it's clear it's a great game. :)
Two satellites just smashed into each other at a speed of about 1.2 miles a SECOND, which is normal considering orbital speeds, but still a massive amount of energy. The resulting cloud of particles is spreading out, and it's not entirely known what will happen (since it's a cloud), but one thing's for sure, lots of debris flying in random directions at orbital speed is a danger to anything nearby. If another satellite is destroyed by one, that's even more debris, and of course there's the ISS.
It may not get as bad as that, the debris are in, to put it mildly, rapidly decaying orbits, and there's a LOT of space between things up there, but there is the possibility for an ugly chain reaction.
So, I was in Portland yesterday and today (had to go down there, unfortunately), and as expected, I picked up my Sega Saturn. Yes, I have one now, with both a 3d controller and a standard (model 2) controller. :)
Games -- (multiplayer titles, all two player) NiGHTS into dreams..., Galactic Attack (RayForce), Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition, Astal, Cyber Speedway
... However, in addition to getting that a few weeks before I thought I would be able to, while there I looked in the stores that sell used games, as usual... and found an amazing opportunity that I simply could not ignore as a classic games collector: A TurboGrafx-16! Now, in the five years or so I've been looking at older games, I haven't seen one single TG-16 anything, not one game, controller, anything, much less system. I heard that evidently one local place had one four or five years ago which I didn't see at the time, but that sold quickly and for a lot of money, and there's been nothing else since...
But there it was in the store (one of my favorites, for sure... :)), guaranteed to work, for $50, with the system, power supply and RFU, TurboTap multitap (required for multiplayer, as the system only has one controller port), two controllers, and seven games, six complete with cases and the seventh with its slipcover and manual. So yeah, I bought it.
I don['t really have any great multiplayer games for it, and it came with no shmups, which are the platform's best genre, but it's amazing to have... and there are a few good games, if single player.
(multiplayer titles) Takin' it to the Hoop (2 player) (no slipcover), World Class Baseball (2 player, this is the one without the case but with manual and slipcover), Battle Royale (fighting/wrestling game, 5 player if I had three more controllers) (no slipcover)
(single player titles) Bonk's Adventure, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, China Warrior (no slipcover), Victory Run (no slipcover)
So yeah, the last two days were great, despite the travel (note: I hate travel). Finding that TG-16 made up for everything. :)
Some thoughts... I've only played saturn for like an hour (I will more tonight!), but I like the 3d controller already. The analog stick on it is very unique and different -- it was obviously designed for NiGHTS... and the game, on first impression, is perfect with it. I don't know if it'll work quite as well with other games, but I'll try it on my other games with analog support (Mechwarrior, Panzer Dragoon, Cyber Speedway) and see how well it works. The controller design is great, though. Haven't really used the standard controller yet. The Saturn has an interesting window on top, so you can look in and see the disc spinning...
Now all I need is a memory cart for it. :) The internal save will do for now, but I need a memory card soon; the internal storage is very small, and is battery-backed (by a user-replaceable CR2032, which I just replaced), so I'd definitely rather have files backed up on one of the flash-based memory carts.
As for the TG16, I don't know what to think... I had no expectations of owning one of these anytime soon, so actually having one is weird, somehow... very cool, though. It's amazing that I do! The controllers are essentially blatant ripoffs of model 1 NES controllers, but with turbo switches on them. They work, but more buttons would have been good (indeed, several of the games I have use select as an action button...). Oh well... There was a 6-button controller late in the system's life, but only a few games (fighting games like Street Fighter II') support it.
Anyway, the major negative? The controller cords are about three feet long. When using it you virtually need to have the system at your feet, even with the multitap that adds another foot... very annoying. At least the power and RF cords for the system are long...
Oh, and the other negative is that only one HuCard (TG16 cartridge games are on thin cards called HuCards; think a credit card size, but two or three credit cards thick) has oncart saving; for all others that save, you need to either use passwords or the internal save... but the base TG16 doesn't have internal save support. The only way to get it is ify ou get a Turbo CD drive or Turbo Booster Plus addon, which adds backup support and A/V jacks in addition to the built-in RF. (The standard Turbo Booster adds just the AV jacks; you need the Plus for backup too). None of the games I have yet support saving (well, the baseball game has passwords), but still, it's annoying. It does go into the other drawback of the TG16, though -- a LOT of the best games are on CD, and the Turbo CD or TurboDuo are very expensive now. The cart systems aren't too bad (this $50 here is a good price, below the average Ebay price for such a package I'm sure (particularly including shipping!), but is a reasonable price for the system. A Turbo CD, though? That'd be $150, minimum, and very likely more. Turbografx CD games are region-free, though (the cards aren't, they're region-locked, though you can get around it with (expensive!) card adapters or a mod), which is really nice, and opens the option to instead get a PC Engine CD or Duo, or preferably a Duo R or RX, which fix the dying-sound (bad capacitor) problem of standard Duo models.
Of course, those systems are very costly as well. So yeah, I won't have Turbo CD support anytime soon I imagine, sadly... but hey, I have the base system now, which is a lot more than I thought I'd have two days ago! :)
I just saw a fully grown women peeing upwright in a mans uranial.
And suddenly I find that don't understand the birds and the bees anymore...
I have a million questions! Did she a penis or a mangina? Or can women actually use a mans urnal and I just fucked up on sex edd from day one from my lovley teacher Internet.
Adultswim just turned my world inside out....
Up is down and blue is penis.
Someone explain this to me now!
Who here has a vagina? Some one speak up!
Damn you comidy central! Why would you do this to me! :psyduck:
