Thief III System Requirements: A Play in One Act.

[Miscreant]

Setting: Electronics Boutique in Anytown, USA. Fairly Tech Savvy Customer and picks up Thief III box.

Fairly Tech Savvy Customer:  The new Thief is here! GeForce3 is supported, and I have a brand new GeForce4.  I'm set!  (buys, goes home)

Ion Storm: You have a GeForce4MX, you're screwed.

Customer: But I bought this card last week.  It's the single most popular gaming card in the world!  It cost me 100 bucks!

Ion Storm: Ha ha, it's your own fault!  You didn't carefully read the 25 lines of requirements.  Just because your card is new and has a bigger number doesn't mean it's good enough.  See, let me explain pixel shading pipelines to you...

Customer:  Shut up. I got an ATI 9800.

Ion Storm:  You have Windows98 -- you're still screwed!  It's your own fault; let me explain hardware cursors...

Customer: Shut up. I upgraded.

Ion Storm:  Now just get the latest drivers and pray ATI didn't break anything in them.   Figure out your AA settings and check your hyperthreading status.  How's your AGP memory? Can your CD drive handle the copy protection?  Sound card right? Now let's talk chipset drivers...

Customer: Fuck you. I'm buying an XBox.

Ion Storm:  Fine! If you don't want cutting edge features like dead guards twisted into a bizarre pieces of performance art, you can just ... What?  We all have to make console games now because most people don't have a Ph.D in PC bullshit? We quit!

EIDOs: Too late, you're already fired.

Nvidia and ATI and PC makers: We suck.

All together: We all suck.

[geldonyetich]

GeForce MX cards are a sham.   I found out firsthand that TNT 2 Ultras outperformed GeForce 3 MXs.    You're talking about what's bascially a 3 year old video card that started at literally *half* the potency of a good video card at the time.    I've heard of planned obsoleteness, but that's rediculous.

As for the Windows XP/2000 requirement, that is a bit of a bummer.   However, I can't say it's any more unjust than requiring players to upgrade from their Win 3.1 rigs for Win 95/98/ME systems a few years ago.

Ultimately, technology moves on.   Computer gaming is a very expensive hobby.

[Morfiend]

Setting: Electronics Boutique in Anytown, USA. Fairly Tech Savvy Customer and picks up Thief III box.

Fairly Tech Savvy Customer:  The new Thief is here! GeForce3 is supported, and I have a brand new GeForce4.  I'm set!  (buys, goes home)

Ion Storm: You have a GeForce4MX, you're screwed.

Customer: But I bought this card last week.  It's the single most popular gaming card in the world!  It cost me 100 bucks!

Ion Storm: Ha ha, it's your own fault!  You didn't carefully read the 25 lines of requirements.  Just because your card is new and has a bigger number doesn't mean it's good enough.  See, let me explain pixel shading pipelines to you...

Customer:  Shut up. I got an ATI 9800.

Ion Storm:  You have Windows98 -- you're still screwed!  It's your own fault; let me explain hardware cursors...

Customer: Shut up. I upgraded.

Ion Storm:  Now just get the latest drivers and pray ATI didn't break anything in them.   Figure out your AA settings and check your hyperthreading status.  How's your AGP memory? Can your CD drive handle the copy protection?  Sound card right? Now let's talk chipset drivers...

Customer: Fuck you. I'm buying an XBox.

Ion Storm:  Fine! If you don't want cutting edge features like dead guards twisted into a bizarre pieces of performance art, you can just ... What?  We all have to make console games now because most people don't have a Ph.D in PC bullshit? We quit!

EIDOs: Too late, you're already fired.

Nvidia and ATI and PC makers: We suck.

All together: We all suck.

Change the names to UBI Soft and Splinter Cell: Pandoras Tomorrow, and tadaa. It works perfictlly.

I guess the reason for the GF4MX not working is that is it running the same chipset as the GF2, and so it doesnt support Cell Shading, and thats how these games do all their fancy shadows and stuff.

[eldaec]

I can understand why they wouldn't support MX cards, but it does seem a little early to be droppping WinME. /shrug

[schild]

Windows ME was pretty much Windows 98, but worse than Windows98SE (Second edition). It was bug prone and a piece of shit. Optimizing for it is a waste of time, the people who own it probably don't own a good graphics card.

[Sky]

PC Gamers used to be fairly knowledgable. Now that pcs are selling at walmart, somehow all hardware and software is supposed to be magically easy to use?

If you are using WinME with a Geforce MX card, buy an xbox you troglodyte, pc gaming isn't for you. That combo is known as a 'joke' in gaming circles.

If you can't be bothered to learn about pc hardware and software, at least the basics of 'what's good for gaming', well, that's why consoles are so popular.

Bitching about those jokes here on a failry hardcore pc gaming site makes you look pretty silly.

[Murgos]

This thread makes me wish I still had the old config.sys and autoexec.bat files I used to have to use to play games with.  Actually I recall having several tweaked sets depending on the game I wanted to play.  Kids today got it so easy.

[Big Gulp]

Actually I recall having several tweaked sets depending on the game I wanted to play.  Kids today got it so easy.

Yep, right after the BIOS ran I had a menu set up with every game on my hard drive numbered with a customized autoexec.bat and config.sys for each one.  Back then you actually had to display some degree of competency.

Oh, and Windows was for suckers, you just didn't launch games from it.  In fact, the only luxury I allowed myself was Norton Commander, basically it was a monochrome, arrow key driven shell for MS/DOS.  That was the shiznit.

As far as "online gaming" went, I had a whole shitload of BBSes saved that I could dial up and play door games over my blazing 2400 baud modem.  Oh yeah, and there was no guarantee that you'd get into the BBS.  Most local ones only had one line to their computer, so you just left your modem on autodial for hours until you finally got in.  When the Sierra Network started up it was like gaming Nirvana.  Shadows of Yserbius, Red Baron online...  Good times.  And it was a bargain at something like $3.00 an hour!

[schild]

Good times.  And it was a bargain at something like $3.00 an hour!

What fools we were back the..*ding* You have been charged $45 for games this month you didn't have time to play.

Damnit.

[Rodent]

Oh, and Windows was for suckers, you just didn't launch games from it.  In fact, the only luxury I allowed myself was Norton Commander, basically it was a monochrome, arrow key driven shell for MS/DOS.  That was the shiznit.

Ah. Norton Commander, nostalgia!!!!

[Phred]

I loved norton commander. Might still have a copy around here on 5 1/2 floppy. Might even have a drive that would run it but that's less likely.

The Geforce 4MX cards were a scam through and through. When the regular GF4 cards came out, they wanted to price them high but not lose the low end money so they put out thos POS cards with, as mentioned, a GF2 core. Only by reading the fine print did you find out they supported none of the advanced features of Direct X that the 4000 series cards did.

I had to warn several friends off those cards back then, dealers would happily sell them as gaming cards dispite them being crap.

[TripleDES]

Was funny to witness the proud owners of GF4MX' being upset to see that my Geforce3 performed better on Far Cry on a lower clocked CPU system than theirs. And oh, I told them not to buy that card, but as you know: Teh Shiny > Reason.

[daveNYC]

I'm suprised they didn't get sued for that.  That's like Intel selling 486s as P4-lites.

[TripleDES]

Funny that you mention that, considering that future Intel CPUs will be based off the P3 core again (though the usable new stuff from the P4 ported over into it).

[schild]

I thought they dumped the next two roadmap milestones for p4's and replaced them with desktop pentium-m units. Hrm.

[TripleDES]

The Pentium-M is the P3 based core. It has all the funky stuff, like a souped up FSB and the SSE2 instruction set. Hyperthreading is going to follow as I've read. Vanderpool (virtualized CPUs to run multple OSes) will go into it in near future, and it will be made multicore capable. I don't know what happens to the Xeon series of processors, but the current NetBurst architecture won't be used in future consumer CPUs.

[schild]

Ok, so I wasn't going insane. I'm gonna like the new processor, my 1.7centrino laptop is as fast as my p4 2.8 desktop and emits a LOT less heat. I'd like a cooler system without modding my shit. Though, part of my hear problem comes from having a Shuttle case. I'll never have a fullsized nasty beast again.

[HaemishM]

PC Gamers used to be fairly knowledgable. Now that pcs are selling at walmart, somehow all hardware and software is supposed to be magically easy to use?

Welcome to the promise of Plug-n-Play Architecture and OS'es.

Oh, we still aren't there yet? Fuck it, I'll just play on my X-Box, removing yet another game customer from the ranks of PC gaming.

I have an GF4 MX and Win98SE. Forgive me for being teh broke. I wrote about this subject over on WTO a few months ago. It's shit like this which will keep PC gaming a niche market... forever, really.

EDIT: And yes, the reason I have a GF4 MX is that it was only $27, and that was all the shit I could afford. It does a reasonably good job at CoH, which does use all those fancy pixel shaders and shit. It IS possible to make a good game without that shit, it just isn't as shiny. I'm happy with it til I have the money to upgrade.

[Daeven]

This thread makes me wish I still had the old config.sys and autoexec.bat files I used to have to use to play games with.  Actually I recall having several tweaked sets depending on the game I wanted to play.  Kids today got it so easy.

Goddamn. I remember spending hours to tweak the startup configuration just to get that extra 10K in the inital block so the game would load.

Not to mention downloading a patch with my 14.4 modem to make Darklands or MoM playable.

Spoiled kids with their new-fangled interweb thingy.

[WayAbvPar]

Not to mention downloading a patch with my 14.4 modem to make Darklands or MoM playable.

Ooh! Two of my fav (but flawed) games of all time. Would love to see these updated ala Pirates!.

[Furiously]

Not to mention downloading a patch with my 14.4 modem to make Darklands or MoM playable.

Ooh! Two of my fav (but flawed) games of all time. Would love to see these updated ala Pirates!.

Device=emm386.sys
files=38

Darklands was pretty darn fun once they patched it to be playable.

[TripleDES]

Welcome to the promise of Plug-n-Play Architecture and OS'es.

That shit could become usable if these goddamned hardware manufacturers would specify universal hardware interfaces for the different types of hardwares, you know, a la IDE. If that's done, then there'd be no need for 3rd party drivers or anything, everything would be supplied by the OS. Like it is the case already for a lot of USB devices. NVidia can design a fucking universal hardware interface across years of graphics card, just requiring one driver for all of them, why can't the complete fucking industry do so? DirectX hardware style! At least with future soundcards, the troubles will stop, because the HDA specs define an universal hardware interface, which is a standarized one, means one driver (from Microsoft) for all HDA-compliant soundcards.

[geldonyetich]

Device=emm386.sys
files=38

Darklands was pretty darn fun once they patched it to be playable.

If you think Darklands was tough to get running on an MS-Dos box, what about Ultima VII?   That's "Voodoo" memory manager of theirs required about 600KB (out of 640kb) of the conventional memory.   I'd have to write up a really complicated config.sys that looked something like this.  (Granted, I'm probably a bit rusty at writing config.sys)

Code:

device=himem.sys
device=emm386.sys NORAM
devicehigh=mouse.sys
files=40
buffers=40

There's a really good reason why people decided to write Ultima VII emulators than try to use the original executable ;)

Welcome to the promise of Plug-n-Play Architecture and OS'es.

I remember when they used to promise you could change your IRQs, DMIs, ect with the GUI in the PNP Architexture.   I know that's sure not the case in Windows XP.    Go into a device property and it'll tell you which IRQ/DMI/ect it's using, the gui element to attempt to change them is greyed out including the "automaticly assign" element which is checked against your will.   Windows 95/98/ME usually had such elements grayed out as well.    

I guess the hardware developers decided that the user can't be trusted to decide which system resources get which IRQs and whatnot.   It's a pity, because sometimes genuine conflicts result which you have no power to change on your own.

[Rodent]

Hell Dreamweb was another nightmare to get up and running. Well, I lie, like most DOS games it was a breeze, the trick was getting sound. Heh.

Luckely QEMM solved most of of my memory issues.

[SirBruce]

Yeah, QEMM was great.

I maintain an old DOS/Win 95 Pentium box that I use for all my DOS games.  QEMM saves a lot of trouble.

Bruce

[geldonyetich]

Come to think of it, I tihnk both emm386 and QEMM were listed as incompatible to run with Ultima VII.  Their "Voodoo" memory manager was just that picky.

[Murgos]

Not to mention downloading a patch with my 14.4 modem to make Darklands or MoM playable.

They actually had good support then, you filled out your registration card and sent it in and they actually mailed you patches on disk!  Huh, whoda thunk it?  Making sure your users can play the game.  I was still getting patch disks for Darklands well over a year after it came out.  I recall that one of the patches was huge too, came on something like 8 or 9 1.44 MB floppies.  Shipping must have cost them a fortune.

[Phred]

What really pissed me off back then was it was just starting to get sorted out when Microsoft brought out Windows 95 and fucked it all up again. There were 2 or 3 C compilers that compiled in extended memory management right into the game binary. I can't remember the name now but Doom used one of them, as did almost every new game I saw around that time. Plus there were companies that were putting out Vesa libraries game programmers could licence and sound libraries as well (Miles was the big sound library and survives still).

Then Microsoft basically paid the big game companies to start making Win32 games, with the promise that with Direct X, all interfaces would be standardized and as Microsoft would certify the drivers from the hardware companies the game companies would be relieved of all the hassles of having to program to a dozen video cards and sound cards. We can see now how well that all worked out.

[Tebonas]

Ah, Darklands! Really sad that Microprose has gone under now that I think of it. Guess the Patch discs for Murgos broke their neck.

Replayed that game some months ago, running around your hometown in a roleplaying game and kicking ass still has a certain appeal. it runs flawlessly on my WinXP machine with the Dosbox Dos Emulator.

[Alrindel]

What really pissed me off back then was it was just starting to get sorted out when Microsoft brought out Windows 95 and fucked it all up again. There were 2 or 3 C compilers that compiled in extended memory management right into the game binary. I can't remember the name now but Doom used one of them, as did almost every new game I saw around that time.

DOS/4GW

I don't have any false nostalgia for the DOS days at all: I remember to this day the struggle I had trying to find some magic system combination to run Privateer.  Gaming under DOS was a dead end and a support nightmare.  DirectX had a rocky start and took a long time to live up to its promise (like every Microsoft thing ever) but for the past few years, getting games to run on Windows has been one thousand times easier than it ever was ten years ago.