Finished the last three missions of the Protoss campaign in StarCraft, thus finally beating the game. The eight one was once again Protoss vs. Protoss (sigh). It was difficult, but still more manageable than "Homeland", since I could finally build Carriers. Nonetheless, I had to slowly draw out the enemies using hit and run tactics and lure them to my heavily fortified secondary base. Once the area around Tassadar's prison was (mostly) clear of aerial units, my Carrier fleet moved in and took out the structure, triggering the victory condition.

The ninth mission, where you hunt the Zerg Cerebrates, was much easier in comparison. Basically, build a dozen Carriers and you're all set. Destroying the Cerebrates completes the mission, but I took my time and actually wiped the entire map clean of the Zerg. Felt good being able to do that after the previous two missions.

The final mission, where you have both a Terran and a Protoss base, was pretty challenging, but not nearly as much as missions 7 and 8. I mostly used the Terran base for defense and mining, while I built up a fleet of 15 Carriers in the Protoss base. Again, I had to slowly expand and draw the enemies to my fortified outlying bases bit by bit. Occasionally, there were so many units on the screen that I had to turn down the game speed to better micromanage my fleet. Little by little, I managed to clear the entire map of the Zerg, while deliberately leaving the Overmind for last. This took a lot of time, but it made for a very satisfying victory, and provided a fitting conclusion to the entire game.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-30, 11:44:

The final mission, where you have both a Terran and a Protoss base, was pretty challenging, but not nearly as much as missions 7 and 8. I mostly used the Terran base for defense and mining, while I built up a fleet of 15 Carriers in the Protoss base. Again, I had to slowly expand and draw the enemies to my fortified outlying bases bit by bit. Occasionally, there were so many units on the screen that I had to turn down the game speed to better micromanage my fleet. Little by little, I managed to clear the entire map of the Zerg, while deliberately leaving the Overmind for last. This took a lot of time, but it made for a very satisfying victory, and provided a fitting conclusion to the entire game.

Yeah, I understand you. With that said, I remember being so fed up with the game at that point, that I just built a fleet of Battlecruisers and attacked the Overmind directly. 🤣

dr_st wrote on 2024-03-30, 15:54:

Yeah, I understand you. With that said, I remember being so fed up with the game at that point, that I just built a fleet of Battlecruisers and attacked the Overmind directly. 🤣

The Protoss campaign does drag on a bit much, so I get the feeling.

I was also tempted to just go for the Overmind, but by the time I had reached it, not much was left of the enemy bases. Figured I might as well wipe out the remaining Zerg forces. After spending a lot of time breaching the enemy defenses, and destroying what seemed like a hundred Hydralisks, it felt kinda relaxing to clean up afterwards. 😁

Sounds a bit anticlimactic...

Not as bad as some of the later levels on The Settlers though, you are halfway to getting everything built up for a massive final assault and the jerk goes and surrenders.

I just tried out Heroes of Might and Magic 4 on my P4 and boy does it ever suck! After about 5 minutes I closed it.

I'll probably give it a go again in a few days but for now it's back to HOMM 2 and 3 for me.

I have never gotten around to actually playing Heroes 4 or 5, but from a basic glance and also based on some evidence - it seems that H4 tried to change the gameplay formula drastically. Some liked it, many did not, and therefore H5 largely went back to the gameplay mechanics of the original trilogy.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-01, 04:09:

Not as bad as some of the later levels on The Settlers though, you are halfway to getting everything built up for a massive final assault and the jerk goes and surrenders.

Could be worse. I happened to give The Settlers IV a shot some time ago and on the third Roman mission I got my ass handed to me when I attacked the Mayans after easily defeating the Vikings, the Mayans had an insane amounts of soldiers that just kept coming. I checked the stats screen, which helpfully shows how many soldiers everyone has and turned out the Mayans had like 280 soldiers while I had about a 100. And I thought 100 soldiers was overkill!

Okay, so I sat down and started pushing out more troops, which is not very riveting gameplay wise in Settlers IV. After an hour of boredom I had about 300 soldiers or so, and I went to check the stats screen. The Mayans had about 500 soldiers!

While I was gasping for air wondering what the hell is going on still staring at the stats screen, I happened to notice that when I trained a new soldier the Mayans immediately got two new soldiers. And this kept going without expetion, every time I got a new soldier they got one or two for free.

Fun. Took a clue on what kind of game design the game follows and stopped playing.

dr_st wrote on 2024-04-01, 05:33:

I have never gotten around to actually playing Heroes 4 or 5, but from a basic glance and also based on some evidence - it seems that H4 tried to change the gameplay formula drastically. Some liked it, many did not, and therefore H5 largely went back to the gameplay mechanics of the original trilogy.

I remember being disappointed by many of the changes, but still managing to enjoy H4 for what it was. It's certainly not among my favorite entries in the series though.

IIRC, you can do some ridiculous things, like level up your heroes so much that they practically don't need an army most of the time, and can defeat many enemies on their own. This works because heroes actually fight on the battlefield in H4, and you can even have multiple heroes participate in a combat encounter. If memory serves, Heroes 5 was fine, and went back to the tried and true mechanics of Heroes 3. But dropping hexes for squares on the combat grid always felt weird to me.

I eventually switched to the King's Bounty series, which perfectly encapsulates everything that I like about HOMM combat. Not much of a story in those games, but the gameplay is superb. Armored Princess and Dark Side were my favorites of the bunch.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-01, 06:57:

I remember being disappointed by many of the changes, but still managing to enjoy H4 for what it was. It's certainly not among m […]
Show full quote

dr_st wrote on 2024-04-01, 05:33:

I have never gotten around to actually playing Heroes 4 or 5, but from a basic glance and also based on some evidence - it seems that H4 tried to change the gameplay formula drastically. Some liked it, many did not, and therefore H5 largely went back to the gameplay mechanics of the original trilogy.

I remember being disappointed by many of the changes, but still managing to enjoy H4 for what it was. It's certainly not among my favorite entries in the series though.

IIRC, you can do some ridiculous things, like level up your heroes so much that they practically don't need an army most of the time, and can defeat many enemies on their own. This works because heroes actually fight on the battlefield in H4, and you can even have multiple heroes participate in a combat encounter. If memory serves, Heroes 5 was fine, and went back to the tried and true mechanics of Heroes 3. But dropping hexes for squares on the combat grid always felt weird to me.

I eventually switched to the King's Bounty series, which perfectly encapsulates everything that I like about HOMM combat. Not much of a story in those games, but the gameplay is superb. Armored Princess and Dark Side were my favorites of the bunch.

Say what you will about the gameplay, it at least had a fantastic soundtrack. It was the first game in the series I played, so I see it a bit more rosey than most.

It started playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It started as a little experiment only because I did not expect the game to run that well on my Asus CUV4X-CME with Pentium 38 800 MHz, 128 MB RAM, and a Voodoo 3 agp. Especially the card is already outdated for that game. It turned out better than expected though. The game is certainly not as good as it would be on the more powerful system but it runs and looks nice enough so I have decided to finish it.

Decided to replay Star Wars: KOTOR on my overkill WinXP rig (i5 + GTX 970). I'm using the retail release with just the latest official patch 1.03 applied, and I wanted to see if there were any compatibility issues. Well, turns out I had to edit the INI file and add Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 to prevent the game from crashing constantly. After that, it ran fine.

I was initially playing at 1600x1200 with 8xAA and 8xAF and all the graphical settings fully maxed out. However, I noticed that my frame rate dropped into the 30s (due to V-Sync) when approaching an area filled with lots of smoke. Lowering AA to 4x solved this, but I still found it weird that even a GTX 970 couldn't handle those settings on a game from 2003. I googled this a bit, and it looks like KOTOR's smoke/fire/particle effects cause issues even on more powerful systems. Poor engine optimization I guess.

I do like the EAX3 implementation and the 5.1 surround sound. Overall, the audio in this game is top notch, though there are a few minor instances where the voice acting is a bit lackluster. And listening to some of the alien languages gets repetitive after a while. The music is very good, with some familiar Star Wars themes popping up on certain occasions.

Anyway, I'm playing as a Soldier who will become a Jedi Guardian when the time comes. I usually go for a more "magic" oriented build, but I thought I'd switch things up for this playthrough. The first planet is a bit boring, though not nearly as much as that overly long intro area in KOTOR2.

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-03-17, 10:27:

Under a Killing Moon
I just got through Day 1, and so far I'm loving this game! It took a bit of time to get used to the controls, since the game forces you to move in 3D with the mouse (and mouse only), but the interface itself is quite nice. I also find the goofy sense of humor to be charming, even though I normally would get annoyed by this stuff. It helps that the characters are interesting, fun, and likeable.
One thing I really like about this one is the built-in help system. You earn points as make progress in the game, and can spend those points on increasingly specific hints. My goal is to not use any of the hints at all, but the hint system also doubles as a sort of quest log, and it even breaks each "quest" down into individual steps that get added as you make progress. You can even tell if you've missed stuff since steps only get listed when you actually discover a clue in the game. I wish games like King's Quest V had something like this!

UAKM is fantastic, glad you like it ! 😀
Yes, the hint system is fantastic at not spoiling things too fast. It helps you just enough without spoiling the fun.
I also really love the fact that with DOSBox you can setup the four CD as separate drives, avoiding disc swapping entirely!
Attention to detail is everywhere in the game's experience, they truly cared about their product.

There is also:
- Mean Streets and Martian Momerandum (but personnaly I can't enjoy them, I started with UAKM and its 3D world)
- The Pandora Directive
- Tex Murphy: Overseer (I'd strongly recommend the MPEG-2 DVD version over the 5 CDs version. The DVD version is the one available at GOG)
- Tex Murphy Radio Theater Seaons 1 and 2 over at the Big Finish Games Youtube channel
- Tesla Effect (the most recent video game)
- Tex Murphy novels (a new one was being written last I heard) : https://bigfinishgames.com/games/tex-murphy-novels/

Sadly the Pandora Directive remaster seems to be temporary halted at the moment due to cash issues / the project taking too much time to complete.
Don't know how true that is, the last bit of news back in January of this year had a ton of videos showing how so much better the restored FMVs looked: https://bigfinishgames.com/the-pandora-direct … video-playlist/

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-06, 10:18:

I was initially playing at 1600x1200 with 8xAA and 8xAF and all the graphical settings fully maxed out. However, I noticed that my frame rate dropped into the 30s (due to V-Sync) when approaching an area filled with lots of smoke. Lowering AA to 4x solved this, but I still found it weird that even a GTX 970 couldn't handle those settings on a game from 2003. I googled this a bit, and it looks like KOTOR's smoke/fire/particle effects cause issues even on more powerful systems. Poor engine optimization I guess.

Hey, I'm not seeing any of these issues on my XP machine (Xeon 5690, 780ti), though I can only run at 1280x1024 given my monitor resolution of 1920x1080. I believe you are running the original release patched manually and not the GOG version correct? I wonder if GOG made some fixes. I also have the original version which I'm going to try look at on my 98se machine to compare. I wanted to ask you for slow down comparison is the corridor outside the starting room smoke enough to trigger performance issues?

Edit: Ran the original version on the 98SE machine (Xeon 3230, ATI 9800 Pro) and of course it runs at about 30FPS with everything maxed at 1280x1024, (No anti-aliasing its not available for some reason), but the smoke doesn't seem to change the framerate just by eyeballing it. Not a good comparison I should install the original version on my XP machine which is closer to yours to compare.

Edit 2: Tested it on my XP machine against the original version with 1.3 patch installed. Still not seeing any issues with smoke. I also haven't needed to modify any settings to prevent it from crashing. I wonder if something more is at play here. Although again Im running at 1280x1024 still.

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 15:34:

Hey, I'm not seeing any of these issues on my XP machine (Xeon 5690, 780ti), though I can only run at 1280x1024 given my monitor resolution of 1920x1080. I believe you are running the original release patched manually and not the GOG version correct? I wonder if GOG made some fixes. I also have the original version which I'm going to try look at on my 98se machine to compare. I wanted to ask you for slow down comparison is the corridor outside the starting room smoke enough to trigger performance issues?

Yes, that corridor filled with smoke outside of the starting area on the ship is enough to trigger the slowdown.

You do have to get in really close, so that the smoke completely envelops your character. It doesn't happen every time though. I'll see if I can find a different area where the slowdown occurs more consistently. You can see more reports of the smoke induced slowdown in this Steam forum thread. There's also a similar report by @swaaye here on Vogons.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:13:

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 15:34:

Hey, I'm not seeing any of these issues on my XP machine (Xeon 5690, 780ti), though I can only run at 1280x1024 given my monitor resolution of 1920x1080. I believe you are running the original release patched manually and not the GOG version correct? I wonder if GOG made some fixes. I also have the original version which I'm going to try look at on my 98se machine to compare. I wanted to ask you for slow down comparison is the corridor outside the starting room smoke enough to trigger performance issues?

Yes, that corridor filled with smoke outside of the starting area on the ship is enough to trigger the slowdown.

You do have to get in really close, so that the smoke completely envelops your character. It doesn't happen every time though. I'll see if I can find a different area where the slowdown occurs more consistently. You can see more reports of the smoke induced slowdown in this Steam forum thread. There's also a similar report by @swaaye here on Vogons.

In the corridor there is hella smoke after the first battle, even that doesnt cause any slowdown for me. I'm not seeing it at all. I wonder if the reduction in resolution is enough to totally remove that? I'm not doubting people have this issue, it just doesn't seem like a global issue from my experience with the game. There may be something more to the problem.

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:21:

In the corridor there is hella smoke after the first battle, even that doesnt cause any slowdown for me. I'm not seeing it at all. I wonder if the reduction in resolution is enough to totally remove that? I'm not doubting people have this issue, it just doesn't seem like a global issue from my experience with the game. There may be something more to the problem.

Did you set this in the INI as described here:

1Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 

From what people have been telling me, that disables some graphical optimizations. I have to set it on my system because otherwise the game crashes constantly. Also, I only see the slowdown at 1600x1200 with 8xAA (set from KOTOR's game options). If I go down to 4xAA, the slowdown doesn't occur.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:26:

Did you set this in the INI as described here: […]
Show full quote

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:21:

In the corridor there is hella smoke after the first battle, even that doesnt cause any slowdown for me. I'm not seeing it at all. I wonder if the reduction in resolution is enough to totally remove that? I'm not doubting people have this issue, it just doesn't seem like a global issue from my experience with the game. There may be something more to the problem.

Did you set this in the INI as described here:

Copy code to clipboard

1Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1 

From what people have been telling me, that disables some graphical optimizations. I have to set it on my system because otherwise the game crashes constantly. Also, I only see the slowdown at 1600x1200 with 8xAA (set from KOTOR's game options). If I go down to 4xAA, the slowdown doesn't occur.

I have since added what you specified and still no issues...here is the relevant part of my ini to see if I dont have something correct:

[Graphics Options]
V-Sync=1
Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1
Anisotropy=16
Frame Buffer=1
Anti Aliasing=8
Texture Quality=2
Emitters=1
Grass=1
Soft Shadows=1
Shadows=1
Brightness=57
EnableHardwareMouse=1
FullScreen=1
RefreshRate=75
Width=1280
Height=1024

Maybe the lower resolution is enough to avoid this problem. Let me try this on my Windows 11 machine that way I can set the res higher.

Edit: I give up, I can't get any of my machines to exhibit this issue. My Windows 11 machine (i9 12900k, RTX 4090) in 1600x1200 doesn't show any issues with the above configuration set either (60hz for this machine). I'll just consider myself blessed and move on, sorry I can't seem to figure out why I'm not seeing this.

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:38:

Edit: I give up, I can't get any of my machines to exhibit this issue. My Windows 11 machine (i9 12900k, RTX 4090) in 1600x1200 doesn't show any issues with the above configuration set either (60hz for this machine). I'll just consider myself blessed and move on, sorry I can't seem to figure out why I'm not seeing this.

Here's a savegame where I was able to consistently reproduce the slowdown. It's in the area where you're first shown how grenades work.

To trigger it, walk toward the door in front of you, then move left and right for a few seconds, letting the smoke swirl around you. It should slow down at that point. Though maybe not on a 4090. 😁

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-04-06, 17:53:

Here's a savegame where I was able to consistently reproduce the slowdown. It's in the area where you're first shown how grenade […]
Show full quote

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 16:38:

Edit: I give up, I can't get any of my machines to exhibit this issue. My Windows 11 machine (i9 12900k, RTX 4090) in 1600x1200 doesn't show any issues with the above configuration set either (60hz for this machine). I'll just consider myself blessed and move on, sorry I can't seem to figure out why I'm not seeing this.

Here's a savegame where I was able to consistently reproduce the slowdown. It's in the area where you're first shown how grenades work.

KOTOR_Smoke.zip

To trigger it, walk toward the door in front of you, then move left and right for a few seconds, letting the smoke swirl around you. It should slow down at that point. Though maybe not on a 4090. 😁

Ok, just tried out the save. I tried each machine with the settings above except for resolution where the Win11 machine was at 1600x1200. No slow down on the Win11 or WinXP machines. The Win98SE machine did slow down but it slowed down regardless of the Vertex buffers being on or off and like I said before the 9800 already runs at closer to 30FPS normally. I think what I'm seeing with the 98SE machine is evidence of what you are seeing, but I cant see it with the more powerful machines.

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-06, 18:44:

Ok, just tried out the save. I tried each machine with the settings above except for resolution where the Win11 machine was at 1600x1200. No slow down on the Win11 or WinXP machines. The Win98SE machine did slow down but it slowed down regardless of the Vertex buffers being on or off and like I said before the 9800 already runs at closer to 30FPS normally. I think what I'm seeing with the 98SE machine is evidence of what you are seeing, but I cant see it with the more powerful machines.

It's likely that more powerful hardware can just brute force through the issue.

In my case, lowering AA was enough to get rid of the slowdown, so I'm guessing even a slightly more powerful GPU wouldn't have any problems.