The Brazilian economy was booming 10 years ago but has been in recession since 2015. This has several causes but is primarily due to low oil prices. It's the same problem that Venezuela has. All energy producing countries have been hit by this.

Errius wrote on 2020-05-22, 19:43:

The Brazilian economy was booming 10 years ago but has been in recession since 2015. This has several causes but is primarily due to low oil prices. It's the same problem that Venezuela has. All energy producing countries have been hit by this.

This is part of my problem but not the main reason. I could go back to Spain or fly to USA and buy the parts straight from there. The money I'd put on it is enough for me to buy it, spend a few days walking around, and come back. But I do not feel the need to buy newer parts just because just one game requires it to be playable. I can't deny the thought that it is bad usage of my money and actually prefer to give up on that game and look for something else that may be cheaper. And this is the problem, because I really wanted so badly to play that game but... simply put, can't, because the game requires that "amazing graphics card" to be playable.

Take for example, rFactor 2 once was a DX9 game, and when Studio 397 took over it, they switched to DX11 and thus changed the game requirements. Most mods for rFactor 2 are made to run with the DX11 version and will not work with the (now deprecated) DX9 build. This is one of the biggest reasons why I am angry with the game devs.

I downloaded Mafia II Definitive Edition and holy crap, it's several times the size of the original, 64-bit, uses (slower) D3D11 renderer instead of D3D9 one, loading times are longer, physics effects are a bit glitchy, stutters a bit, even on consoles, positional audio seems inaccurate in places, its benchmark detects my CPU frequency being whooping 10000 GHz. It crashed before I got control in the chapter 2, I guess it ran out of RAM.

There's a sharper texture there and there, some new option there and there in menus, some removed, tweaked lightning, but it's not some radical overhaul of the original, yet still so much bigger. In the folder with the executable, there are literally dozens of redundant DLLs, even 32-bit ones. You can delete all but 3 of them.

Fortunately, Take2 is not all video games.

UCyborg wrote on 2020-05-22, 21:50:

I downloaded Mafia II Definitive Edition and holy crap, it's several times the size of the original, 64-bit, uses (slower) D3D11 renderer instead of D3D9 one, loading times are longer, physics effects are a bit glitchy, stutters a bit, even on consoles, positional audio seems inaccurate in places, its benchmark detects my CPU frequency being whooping 10000 GHz. It crashed before I got control in the chapter 2, I guess it ran out of RAM.

There's a sharper texture there and there, some new option there and there in menus, some removed, tweaked lightning, but it's not some radical overhaul of the original, yet still so much bigger. In the folder with the executable, there are literally dozens of redundant DLLs, even 32-bit ones. You can delete all but 3 of them.

See, this is exactly what I am talking about...

Bruninho wrote on 2020-05-22, 22:45:

UCyborg wrote on 2020-05-22, 21:50:

I downloaded Mafia II Definitive Edition and holy crap, it's several times the size of the original, 64-bit, uses (slower) D3D11 renderer instead of D3D9 one, loading times are longer, physics effects are a bit glitchy, stutters a bit, even on consoles, positional audio seems inaccurate in places, its benchmark detects my CPU frequency being whooping 10000 GHz. It crashed before I got control in the chapter 2, I guess it ran out of RAM.

There's a sharper texture there and there, some new option there and there in menus, some removed, tweaked lightning, but it's not some radical overhaul of the original, yet still so much bigger. In the folder with the executable, there are literally dozens of redundant DLLs, even 32-bit ones. You can delete all but 3 of them.

See, this is exactly what I am talking about...

I was brought up that if it wasn’t done in pure assembly it was probably bloated and wrong.

Same with HTML, I would have flunked the coarse if I made any of the modern webpages as we see them today.

Yup, one can always find things that could be done better, sometimes significantly better. I still find it crazy how software in general manages to work as well it does, so much stuff to write before anything interesting happens and things to look out for.

I've spent some time patching some of my old favorite games where stuff didn't just work as was supposed to. 😜

More on topic, does anyone have NBA Live 97 on the list?

Any of you played Warcraft 2 during 96?

UCyborg wrote on 2020-05-23, 09:16:

Yup, one can always find things that could be done better, sometimes significantly better. I still find it crazy how software in general manages to work as well it does, so much stuff to write before anything interesting happens and things to look out for.

I've spent some time patching some of my old favorite games where stuff didn't just work as was supposed to. 😜

More on topic, does anyone have NBA Live 97 on the list?

I have 97 or 96 and 2000. I need to check where I left my discs

I subscribed to this forum just for this reply:

Best 1996ish games (in no particular order)
Z
Warcraft (and Warcraft II)
Death rally
Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (if you haven't played it, it is absolutely a must)
Super Maze Wars (Macintosh game, really rare, simple and beautiful, they definitively should make a mobile version of this, it would be such a success)

From 1998
MechCommander (beautiful beautiful, the sequel MC2 was ok)
Warhammer: Dark Omen (the best game ever)
Baldur's Gate (wait THIS is the best game ever, together with its sequel BG2)
Fifa 1998

If you have the combo of at least three of these games (together with Hitman: Contracts or Rome Total War, Medieval 2 Total War, Unreal Tournament, CS1.6) please mention some other games to check out!

Muz wrote on 2020-05-23, 15:46:

Any of you played Warcraft 2 during 96?

How about who didn't play it? I am guessing noone.

I didn't play Warcraft, never liked it...

Heresy.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-05-24, 03:20:

I didn't play Warcraft, never liked it...

I recently fired up Warcraft 1 and then Warcraft 2 with the intention of replaying them, but I just couldn't get past the clunky interface, especially in the first game. It's funny because I spent hours upon hours on those two games as a kid, and the UI funk didn't bother me at all back then. But nowadays, playing RTS games without build queues and hotkey unit groups just feels too awkward.

I hear the Battle.net Edition of Warcraft 2 made some UI improvements, so I might try to track that down and give it another shot.

I don’t like Warcraft but I have played both 1 and 2 back in the day.

Dune 2 is my favourite RTS though - the first and the best.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-05-24, 03:20:

I didn't play Warcraft, never liked it...

Me neither, but I tried playing it.

Warcraft 1 was a good option for LAN gaming if some of the machines weren't good enough for Doom.

In my time, Counter Strike 1.6 was more popular, in fact you could find me in a LAN house playing it. Today, I can’t barely play a game without being asleep. The time is going by too fast for me.

Damn you Ferris Bueller, you were right!

Teen Agent CD