Re: How to install and run vanilla Half-Life 2 without Steam

Posted on 2021-12-31, 16:37

by

by silikone

in Milliways

in Milliways

It turns out that you don't even need a Steam emulator. You can trick Steam into launching these old copies. Zero custom files needed. The details vary depending on the retail version. The GOTY release doesn't need decryption and can be launched directly from hl2.exe when placed in the correct Steam …

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Re: Old DX SDKs

Posted on 2021-11-28, 20:17

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by silikone

in Milliways

in Milliways

I saw a reference to directx_9c_Dec04sdk_redist.exe somewhere and was wondering if it's reflected in the SDK. I always assumed there was just one redistributable for DirectX 9.0c, and that everything else starting from February 2005 was just optional additions (D3DX, Xinput, etc). It doesn't really …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-07-30, 20:38

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The G400, Savage4/2000 and TNT2 Ultra weren't that bad at 32-bit, and then there's the no-32bit-frame-loss-at-all PowerVR Neon250. I had a TNT2 (not Ultra) back in the day, and using 32-bit color in any resolution above 640x480 incurred a non-trivial performance hit. Contemporary benchmarks like …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-07-30, 16:00

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I always saw Voodoo's strength in the software. Compatibility in an age of API immaturity and low overhead on systems that still had crippled floating point capability was crucial. Old benchmarks really show how horribly little some cards did to ameliorate CPU cycles. Glide was fortunately very …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-07-29, 19:20

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

No matter how good Voodoo's color depth filter is, it will never make up for its lack of quality texture formats. In fact, the better the output quality, the more quantized textures are going to stick out.

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Re: MMX/3DNow!/SSE usage

Posted on 2021-07-21, 23:57

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

https://github.com/TheBearProject/UnrealEngin … Surf.cpp#L14034 https://github.com/TheBearProject/UnrealEngin … nLight.cpp#L582 Absolutely beautiful usage.

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Re: How to install and run vanilla Half-Life 2 without Steam

Posted on 2020-09-27, 22:57

by

by silikone

in Milliways

in Milliways

How do you "just" extract the GCF contents? They were encrypted last time I checked. Is this a quirk of the GOTY edition? In that case, I should get my hands on it.

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Re: MMX/3DNow!/SSE usage

Posted on 2020-03-31, 10:56

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unreal used to not start at all on 486s on initial release, it was a slightly later patch that did (though more likely for getting that to run on early 6x86s). Also when I did try an early enough Unreal on my 486 some decade back, I was getting around 5fps with my Voodoo2 on an empty DM map . Also …

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Re: Half-Life Alyx

Posted on 2019-11-22, 21:12

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by silikone

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's an odd feeling to not be excited for a new Half-Life game, but a part of me is optimistic about this being a proof-of-concept for a modern take of the franchise, serving as the foundation for Half-Life 3.

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Re: USB 1.0 (1996) vs. USB 1.1 (1998)

Posted on 2019-10-06, 23:02

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by silikone

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As far as I remember, the only meaningful change is to the power management. If you take a look at the 1.1 spec, you will see some weird bit designations in the descriptors related to power. Otherwise virtually identical.

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Re: Ancient DOS Games Webshow

Posted on 2019-09-10, 22:46

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by silikone

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

The thing is, Youtube's a very powerful tool, and as a showrunner, you bear the responsibility of having an opinion that many younger fans would find and treat as the authority. I've had situations where my first-hand experiences were disputed by someone parroting misinformation from a DFRetro …

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Re: GeForce2 Ultra with unclean VGA output

Posted on 2019-07-07, 00:36

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Aren't the early Geforce series infamous for having objectionable VGA quality from certain manufacturers?

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Re: GeForce 256 DDR for vintage pc

Posted on 2019-05-21, 04:02

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I think for NV1x architecture the major bottleneck is the memory bandwidth. Fillrate is not that important. Therefore GF 256 DDR will be always faster than any GF2 MX... even OC models like 200/200 MHz Asus V7100/pro. GF4 MX440 is nice, but only 128-bit models... 64-bit is more or less the same …

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Re: Geforce256 driver performance

Posted on 2019-05-06, 00:31

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

No big loss as Epic's own OpenGLDrv was a very feature incomplete and buggy mess anyway. No overbrights, no volumetric dog, no detail textures, etc. D3DDrv was preferred for nVidia then. Nvidia's extension wanking in 2001 broke a lot of stuff including some professional applications. Did Unreal …

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Re: Geforce256 driver performance

Posted on 2019-05-04, 21:44

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Ah yes, the good old extension string overflow. NVIDIA appears to employ extension limits for certain old applications automatically in their modern drivers. Haven't been so lucky with Intel.

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Re: Interest in archiving old GPU documentation?

Posted on 2019-04-29, 07:48

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

To clarify, many of said documents pertain to programming of specific GPU architectures or paradigms. I don't expect these to have much practical value... just the way we* like it. I stumbled upon an official collection of some of these documents packed up in a zip file, hosted on a now defunct …

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Re: Interest in archiving old GPU documentation?

Posted on 2019-04-26, 16:50

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Sure! Sounds like a good idea. It may be good to put them up on vogonsdrivers.com in the documentation section. If you don't already have an account, either message SquallStrife or put them someplace we can download them from and then we can upload them. Is there actually a section for in-depth …

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Interest in archiving old GPU documentation?

Posted on 2019-04-26, 13:05

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Over the time, I have accumulated a myriad of GPU-related PDF's, DOC's, and whatnot. Within them, tons of obscure information that may be relevant to certain enthusiasts can be found. Some of them have been difficult to track down, requiring me to meticulously scan the depths of NVIDIA's old sites, …

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Re: Geforce256 driver performance

Posted on 2019-04-20, 19:37

by

by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The 1999 driver holds up surprisingly well. What's causing Unreal to not function on anything else?

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Re: general colour depth queston

Posted on 2019-04-15, 23:01

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by silikone

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Even native 24-bit frame buffers fall short of providing a banding-free viewing experience on a high-contrast display. A disturbingly high amount of people seem to think that dithering is an obsolete practice in the year of our lord 2019. It's of course not as crucial as it is with 16-bit color …

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