lepidotós wrote on 2022-11-25, 17:25:

NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:26:

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2022-11-20, 10:50:

I tried to fix a PS3 having a bad power supply. Did turn on for a few seconds and then powers down. I shorted the plus and minus prongs from the psu to the mobo when getting it together. It doesnt power on anymore 😀

Still blows my mind to call the PlayStation 3 "retro." It doesn't feel that long ago to me but no, it's more than 15 years old at this point. What is time.

I think this video has a good perspective on what "retro" would be, at least regarding game consoles.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It really does feel like the evolution of gaming has really "slowed down" significantly since around 2008 or so. Graphics get more polished, controls smoother, but not a whole lot else has really changed in the past decade and a half. Unless you count the proliferation of microtransactions and gacha nonsese, ugh.

I am going to confess to this crime prior to committing it: the spare case I have that I'm about to install the K7V into has a Raidmax RX-630SS power supply in it. I don't really want to use it, but I don't have any other PSUs spare and the cable routing panel won't come off, despite there not being any screws screwed in. It'll just be to confirm the board powers up. If it hasn't killed the Maximus VIII Ranger in the last five years of the original builder throwing them together...

I am wondering if I need to confess the ripping apart of an external LS120 the other month... it came to me without PSU or interface cable and the front panel was falling off, the internal IDE LS120 drive went into an AM2 box. I feel like it was at least a leatherette purse out of a sows ear sitch so not feeling real sorry about it.

Old and random PSUs, I'm kind of a "smoke 'em if you got 'em" mindset, guided by intuition and the rule of thumb stuff like, is it worth it's weight in marshmallows? does it smell funny already? has the dust been shovelled out recently? Does it got UL/TUV approval so it is fairly unlikely to burn your house down? coupled with testing
along the lines of cheap things plugged in first etc. Hell, I've got a Deer brand ATX I run occasionally still. (I think Deer actually had a good year or two before they started bottom feeding)

NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-27, 14:18:

lepidotós wrote on 2022-11-25, 17:25:

NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:26:

Still blows my mind to call the PlayStation 3 "retro." It doesn't feel that long ago to me but no, it's more than 15 years old at this point. What is time.

I think this video has a good perspective on what "retro" would be, at least regarding game consoles.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It really does feel like the evolution of gaming has really "slowed down" significantly since around 2008 or so. Graphics get more polished, controls smoother, but not a whole lot else has really changed in the past decade and a half. Unless you count the proliferation of microtransactions and gacha nonsese, ugh.

Not true, there's also the cloud gaming fad, Software as a Service, and the reduction of disks to merely CDs with licenses on them to download them from central servers!

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-11-29, 04:08:

Old and random PSUs, I'm kind of a "smoke 'em if you got 'em" mindset, guided by intuition and the rule of thumb stuff like, is it worth it's weight in marshmallows? does it smell funny already? has the dust been shovelled out recently? Does it got UL/TUV approval so it is fairly unlikely to burn your house down? coupled with testing
along the lines of cheap things plugged in first etc. Hell, I've got a Deer brand ATX I run occasionally still. (I think Deer actually had a good year or two before they started bottom feeding)

I wouldn't call it "old and random", it's only from 2017 but it's from a highly notorious brand known to have zero QC practices.

lepidotós wrote on 2022-12-01, 07:14:

Not true, there's also the cloud gaming fad, Software as a Service, and the reduction of disks to merely CDs with licenses on th […]
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NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-27, 14:18:

lepidotós wrote on 2022-11-25, 17:25:

I think this video has a good perspective on what "retro" would be, at least regarding game consoles.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It really does feel like the evolution of gaming has really "slowed down" significantly since around 2008 or so. Graphics get more polished, controls smoother, but not a whole lot else has really changed in the past decade and a half. Unless you count the proliferation of microtransactions and gacha nonsese, ugh.

Not true, there's also the cloud gaming fad, Software as a Service, and the reduction of disks to merely CDs with licenses on them to download them from central servers!

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-11-29, 04:08:

Old and random PSUs, I'm kind of a "smoke 'em if you got 'em" mindset, guided by intuition and the rule of thumb stuff like, is it worth it's weight in marshmallows? does it smell funny already? has the dust been shovelled out recently? Does it got UL/TUV approval so it is fairly unlikely to burn your house down? coupled with testing
along the lines of cheap things plugged in first etc. Hell, I've got a Deer brand ATX I run occasionally still. (I think Deer actually had a good year or two before they started bottom feeding)

I wouldn't call it "old and random", it's only from 2017 but it's from a highly notorious brand known to have zero QC practices.

SHAW PSUs ..pretty sure they went by other names out side of SEA but here in Australia they are or were notorious power supplies well known for uhh .. blowing up and taking your entire PC with them, made by the lowest Chinese bidder using the lowest grade chinesium components.

That said I do still have a 600watt SHAW PSU that remarkably still functions perfectly and passes testing just fine, 100% sure that it could never supply the stated 600watts though but im not game enough to test that. I do have a pair of 4870X2 GPUs that could in theory happily test that 600watt limit but since they both work and they are in mint condition and worth quite a bit I wont ever be using them for that purpose. I wonder if a 3.2Ghz Presshot combined with a GTX480 would hit that 600 Watt limit or a pair of 480s ... I honestly wouldnt care about killing the 480 GPUs or the Presshot.

lepidotós wrote on 2022-12-01, 07:14:

NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-27, 14:18:

lepidotós wrote on 2022-11-25, 17:25:

I think this video has a good perspective on what "retro" would be, at least regarding game consoles.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It really does feel like the evolution of gaming has really "slowed down" significantly since around 2008 or so. Graphics get more polished, controls smoother, but not a whole lot else has really changed in the past decade and a half. Unless you count the proliferation of microtransactions and gacha nonsese, ugh.

Not true, there's also the cloud gaming fad, Software as a Service, and the reduction of disks to merely CDs with licenses on them to download them from central servers!

The proliferation of SaaS beyond the boundaries of traditional MMO's really has been one of the worst things to happen to gaming in the past decade, huh.
Oh but don't forget those games that go even further with the CD's and just give you a flimsy disc-shaped piece of cardboard, which I personally encountered for the first time with Doom Eternal and will likely never get over. What's even the point of giving me a fancy steelbook case for a piece of frigging cardboard? And not even particularly good cardboard either; it's the thinnest piece of crap I've ever seen.

For the past year, I wondered why I couldn't drag and drop files to my CD/DVD burner and create removable media like I used to...which turned out to be because I had the drive plugged into a sata 3 port on the motherboard instead of sata 6.

Strange, that works on some ATA33 configs. Or was it driver/windoze screwiness?

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-12-01, 21:39:

Strange, that works on some ATA33 configs. Or was it driver/windoze screwiness?

It's a more modern drive (LG Super Multi Blue) on Windows 10, x79 platform, so I'm not too sure. It could still burn discs using 3rd party software so maybe just Windows weirdness.

NovaCN wrote on 2022-11-27, 14:18:

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. It really does feel like the evolution of gaming has really "slowed down" significantly since around 2008 or so. Graphics get more polished, controls smoother, but not a whole lot else has really changed in the past decade and a half.

I've read multiple articles from 20ish years ago that interviewed developers and designers ( anyone else remember "The Game Gods" article in PC Gamer where they talked to Sid Meyer, John Carmack, Will Wright, and others? ). Several of them say the same thing: the people in charge of funding only care about risk loss and return on investment. Breaking even isn't enough. Small profit isn't enough. Investors expect everything to be hugely successful. Anything seen as even remotely risky is shot down.

A lot of people and teams can come up with brilliant stories and ideas. But ultimately, the idea has to be presented to a publisher, venture capitalist, or someone else footing the bill for development and distribution. Those people hardly ever have much creative spark or vision. All they know are spreadsheets, accounting, and what game characters they see plastered all over Walmart. And 9/10 times after hearing a pitch they'll say, "Yeah, that's nice. But you know that Lara Croft character sells a lot of games. Why don't you make something like that?" Very few dev studios have the financial means to pay their own development, or the clout to tell publishers "no." And in reality, most people aren't nearly as creative and skilled as they like to believe, so there are a lot of mediocre ideas too. But the financial wall makes it even harder for new, innovative ideas to actually get somewhere.

Same reason TV and movies are largely bland rehashes. It takes lots of effort to write a story that's in-depth, complex, and devoid of plot holes and problems. So a lot of stuff is just repeats and reboots designed not to offend anyone's sensibilities unless someone with a loud voice on the internet wants to launch a flame crusade against it. And if it doesn't make back all the money on opening weekend, it's a complete bomb and failure and we'll never try anything like that again.

Good reasoning above. Showing how the mainstream is defined as much by it's limitations as by it's ambition.

For additional context: large modern titles tend to be extensive in scope, requiring huge teams with multiple branches all beavering away, not dissimilar to cinema productions. (As compared to how it was a quarter-century ago - e.g. Doom, whipped up by a small garage team of buddies clustered around a core genius or two.)

Games don't have to be that way, but it is the manner of mainstream commercial market that's eventuated. Big hitters vying over the key demographics for maximum financial returns.

But hey - that's mainstream commercial markets for ya. This all is hardly unique to video gaming.

I've no idea what Expendable is. I don't know anything more about it other than that couple of seconds long footage Phil uses in his hardware reviews. Was it a good game? Was it a big hit in other parts of the world? Is it even a game or just some kind of techdemo/benchmark like Final Reality? People in the retro community seems to care about it, as I often see it being mentioned when discussion comes to 3D accelerator compatibility, but despite it seemingly have a lot of weight, I'm genuinely clueless what it actually is.

Expendable's more known as a console game here in the 'states. I never was fond of any Rage-developed games after Incoming's early pack-in version. I never test Expendable other for than "ugh, do I have to?" reasons to see if it works. Can't stand sprite flicker and faded saturated additive huds. It's basically Incoming meets Capcom's Mercs.

I have similar reasons for Forsaken (Though it's not obscure on PC here) since it's less detailed than Descent and is just a 'make weak cards have gooder bungholioMark bars' game for not doing so much as the other popular PC games of the time. (no multi texturing, complex geometry or constant tex upload)

lepidotós wrote on 2022-12-01, 07:14:

I wouldn't call it "old and random", it's only from 2017 but it's from a highly notorious brand [Raidmax] known to have zero QC practices.

"Power supply shaped objects" is the term I use for them, mostly because half their wattage comes from the 3.3V and 5V rails that are barely used in modern computers. Novices build moderate systems around them, thinking the "650W"gives them plenty of power headroom for upgrades. Except the effectually have a 450W unit that's already close to its limit. One GPU upgrade later and the mystic blue smoke is released. But hey, on a retro system where the load is spread evenly across the three rails, maybe they're not so bad.

Then again, I was using a Foxlink PSU in my XP system for over 15 years, and I have no idea how good/bad that is.

Haven't powered on my Amiga 1200 for around 2-3 years now 🙁

wiibur wrote on 2022-12-01, 21:28:

For the past year, I wondered why I couldn't drag and drop files to my CD/DVD burner and create removable media like I used to...which turned out to be because I had the drive plugged into a sata 3 port on the motherboard instead of sata 6.

My dad's old FX 8350/990FX is an absolute b*tch about what software you use to burn discs, along with the exact same things you have said. Burns blu-rays perfectly. But any type of dvd-r, rw, cd-rw, +R's. It will fail the disk immediately after it successfully burns it and crash Windows 10. Tried different SATA ports, drivers, cables, drives. Then discovered CD-R's work perfectly.

I fucking hate the guitar that are in AWE32/64 cards.... Like Doom as an example.
Sounds horrible and OPL3 version is better.

All the common gaming synth solutions suck, for any kind of crunchy or distorted rhythm guitar in the lower registers.

brostenen wrote on 2022-12-18, 19:39:

I fucking hate the guitar that are in AWE32/64 cards.... Like Doom as an example.
Sounds horrible and OPL3 version is better.

Creative Labs wavetables in general are pretty mediocre. Sound Canvas is the best way to go for that era of MIDI music.

Guitar distortion produces tons of sustain with varying complex harmonics in the waveform, which is far from trivial to simulate. And common playing techniques (palm muting, fifths/power chords, 'pinch' harmonics) modulate that even further. Wavetable or FM synths are just not equipped for the job.

On the other hand, crap guitar is kinda ingrained into the experience of playing DOOM by now...