🚀 go-pugleaf

Adam Williamson (Ad...@scss.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <4g9gnq$j...@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>, Branden Robinson
: <bra...@ecn.purdue.edu> writes
: >  1) The music/sound setup can't autodetect DMA channels for shit

: Really? Got my SB16 on DMA5 fine.

Does everyone use a SB16?  And does everyone use DMA5?  Thanks for playing.
I use a PAS-16, hardly an uncommon sound card, on IRQ's 5 and 10 with the
DMA's at 3 and 7.  These vary widely with the presence of other configured
hardware.

The point of an autodetector is so the clueless don't have to worry about
IRQ's and DMA's.  If the autodetector can't save those poor souls, then
they should include a README.TXT or a FAQ text file that says, "If you want
sound, be sure to determine the IRQ's and DMA channels that your card
uses."  In this age of Windows 95 and Plug and Play, Joe Q. User doesn't
know about these things.  Call it a difference in software design philosophy,
but I really think you have to design game software for the lowest common
denominator of user.  If, say, you're writing a sector editor or some heavy
hardware diagnostic software, it's safe to assume a little more knowledge
on the part of your customer base.

: >  2) The saved game thumbnails are corrupted 1/3 to 1/2 the time

: Never happened once to me.

Good for you.  It shouldn't happen to ANYONE.  That's why they call them
bugs.

: >  3) Game restores occasionally bomb right out of the program

: Same here.

Same here as in "never happened", or same here as in "I get that too"?  At
any rate, judging from the error message generator right before it drops
back to the DOS prompt, some variable is not being assigned.

: >  4) It likes to wegde machines HARD.  As in locking up the keyboard beyond
: >all hope of a three-finger salute.  Once I even crashed into some debug
: >code that blew my monitor into some half-assed 40x25 CGA text mode, rang
: >the speaker bell like it was a fire alarm, and dumped the processor
: >state to LPT1:, complete with the register contents.

: Try: typing mode co80, disconnecting your PC Speaker, and getting a
: better computer, as Duke's never crashed mine at all, once. Even dumping
: it into Paradise enhanced gfx mode on my Cirrus card didn't lock it.

"mode co80".  No shit, Sherlock.  Kinda hard to type that when the keyboard
interrupt is being ignored.  "disconnecting your PC speaker"  A real good
idea for hearing those POST beeps that the BIOS sends in that direction,
should you experience hardware problems at boot.  I hardly think that
deconfiguring any piece of hardware (especially a commonplace one) is a
solution.

"getting a better computer" -- mayhaps you'd like to send me the money to
do so.  The point is that games should be designed for a variety of platforms.  Mine is hardly unusual, in any case.  The problem lies in software.  If the
answer to all software bugs was hardware replacement, all software releases
would end with ".0".  

: >I guess these guys were so busy talking to their lawyers about how
: >"creating your own levels or reverse engineering the software" (i.e.,
: >writing your own level editors, sound/graphics extraction and replacement
: >utilites, etc.) is "a violation of the vendor's rights" that they couldn't
: >be bothered to debug their software.  Bullshit.  Id let the kids run
: >hog wild with DOOM and they made a buttload of money.

: Er, wake up, Apogee provide level and gfx editors with the registered
: version, and you can edit the sound in the shareware.

Read more closely.  You're not supposed to make YOUR OWN.  What if you are
dissatisfied with the editors they provide?  (Unlikely, perhaps, if these
are the same editors they used in the design phase...I hear Parallax's
in-house Descent level editor seriously rocks over what has been cobbled
together by users.  Nevertheless, this is a freedom that heretofore could
have been regarded as commonplace.)

: >One last word: DON'T TRY to run this game on a 486DX2/66.  It must drop 75%
: >of the frames.  You'll need a Pentium or one of those hopped-up
: >clock-ntupled AMD 486 chips to get any performance out of this thing.

: I run it on a DX33. Very nicely, thankyou. 8fps in the mode I play at
: (2/3 screen window, sound FX only - no music or ambience). I can bear
: 8fps.

*EIGHT* fps?  Read my reply to the other gentleman from the UK.  Maybe I'm
spoiled, but I like being on full screen, high detail, with full ambience,
music, duke talk, shadows, etc. etc.  And I still seldom dip below 30
fps.  If you can live with 8fps, more power to ya.

I do have one more complaint:

5) Has anyone else noticed some rather primitive sound-sourcing?  For
instance, stand next to a roaring fire -- it comes out equally from both
speakers -- it doesn't matter if the blaze is to your left or right.  I
thought Descent had this right with fans.

Oh well, despite your lambasting, the point of my post was to get off the
"Duke looks like a faggot, he talks like a wuss, huh, huh-huh, I'm gonna
flip burgers for the rest of my life" tangent.  At least you were talking
issues at least somewhat relevant to the newsgroups.  Thanks.

--
 "The key to being a Southern Baptist:  It ain't a    | G. Branden Robinson
  sin if you don't get caught."                       | Purdue University
                    -- Anthony Davidson               | bra...@ecn.purdue.edu