Admiral LSD

What I wouldn't mind seeing is an OpenGL port for Terminal Velocity. Not so much for the updated graphics, I can live wothout those, but so I can actually get the game running on my nVidia graphics card. Some bright spark at nVidia decided it would be a good idea to leave paletted texture support out of the Riva TNT (and every successive chipset too I believe) and since TV relies on paletted textures I can't play it.

With an ISA soundcard like the AWE64 the easiest solution would be to bypass XPs sound emulation by engaging the Win95 compatibility layer and tell the game exactly where the soundcard is since the compatibility layer bypasses the NT HAL and allows the program to directly access the sound hardware. If you have a PCI sound card like the SBLive! you're just going to have to grin and bear it since PCI sound cards use a higher address and interrupt (my Live! is on address &H9800 and Interrupt 10) than most DOS games can access and on top of that PCI sound cards don't support DMA meaning thats its impossible to get them to work in most DOS games. Manufacturers historically solved this problem by supplying drivers that virtualised the required settings allowing DOS games to use the card. Getting back on topic I think I know your problem: that crappy onboard sound chip. My folks computer with an AC'97 sound chip can't run Shadow Warrior with sound even under Windows 98. Maybe you should think about buying a real sound card?

Quote: Error: Unable to initialize DirectX 8.0 -- Device creation failed! File: c: \projects\RF_PC\vsdk\gr\directx\gr_direct3d.cpp - Line: 1872 A critical error has occured. The program cannot continue to run. Press ok to exit the program. I used to see this problem posted all the time on the games official forum... Its caused by having drivers that don't support all the DirectX 8 stuff the game needs. In nearly all cases the problem was solved by a driver upgrade.

Quote: LOL, I didn't realize I would hit a sore spot with Descent (I forgot you played it) in comparing it to Forsaken. Did you bother to play D3, or was it simply too much of a rehash to bother with? With it utilizing the same muddy mechanics as its predecessors but with a pig of an engine, I didn't care for it much more than the other 2 of its line. I guess this would mean that Aquanox isn't worth playing, as it's just another 6DOF game anyway. So, what do YOU consider a great game? What makes a game worth playing? What makes a game so good that you wouldn't call its players (and members of this board) "lemmings"? Its not that you hit a sore spot, I couldn't care less whether you like Descent or not, however you indicated that the difference between a good game and a bad one was something as simple as whether it had good graphics and I can't stand that. The reason for that is games are getting poorer and poorer because mindless sheep want prettier and prettier visuals.

Quote: I loved Forsaken but hated Descent 1 and 2 because of the poor graphics. Just an opinion from a "shallow lemming". It sure is...

Easy CD Creator 3.5 has never let me down yet (unless you count that time when NAV started its periodic scan in the middle of a burn) but then the machine I do all my burning on runs Win98. It may suck but since it came with the machine concerned and I don't have the time, money or inclination to get anything else I'm not complaining.

I'm knocking it based on what I see on the surface, I'm prepared to give it a shot but I'm not prepared to spend AUD$650 on an Xbox for it. When the PC demo arrives I'll try it but unless M$ deliver something that I can get really excited about (that isn't also being released on PC or PS2) I see no point in buying an Xbox.

I can tell you for certain that NFS3: Hot Pursuit works since its humming along on my machine right now. However for it to find the 3DData registry keys you have to run it under either the Administrator account or with Administrative privileges by either right-clicking its shortcut and selecting Run As or by setting the shortcut to run with different credentials. As for Red Faction well, its a bit of a gamble. The game has no inherent issues with either 2k or XP but some people have complained that it crashes or stutters and a multitude of problems. As for the others, a general rule of thumb is that if it runs under 2k then it *should* run under XP (I had problems with Descent 2 under XP whereas I had none under 2k) and if it doesn't then theres a chance that M$ have rectified it but it probably still won't run. Try it and see but keep a dual-boot around just in case.

Quote: so the sound does work for the most part. Does MIDI music work too along with sound effects? Yep, with Build engine games you shouldn't need VDMSound (I don't think it works with them under XP anyway) just set your game up to use a Sound Blaster 2.0 on Interrupt 5, DMA 1, Address 220 and General MIDI music on Address 330. Most games *should* work but a few don't.

In my experience Duke nukem 3D and Blood worked fine but Shadow Warrior's sound was very choppy.

Quote: Halo has not gone where other games have gone, well most of it anyway . Have you been under a rock for the past decade? Played Doom? Quake 2? Duke Nukem 3D even? The notion of you being some sort of space marine fighting an alien enemy has been done to death and if Halo didn't have its great graphics and 2^255 different deathmatch modes then shallow lemmings like you wouldn't even touch it. Halo looks to me like a very mediocre game. When the PC demo arrives I'll give it a try but I don't hold out high hopes for it. If M$ want my AUD$650 then they are going to have to show me more to get excited about than that.

Quote: HALO HALO HALO Cant say enough about this game. Reason enough to buy the XBOX. And DOA 3 is icing on the cake. Just plain good fun NO! NO! NO! Not only am I not interested in 2^255 different deathmatch modes, Halos single player game has been done so many times before its not funny. And as for DOA 3 well... I could just get DOA 2 for the PS2 but bouncing jugs aside, I haven't really been interested in fighting games sice I was 12.

Its trying to initialise a DirectSound device but since NT4 had no DirectSound drivers its bombing out. Does Diablo have a facility to change the sound output from DirectSound to the Wave Mapper?

Quote: I guess a hardcare gamer likes a little of each. Thats me, I go wherever the games take me. While some of my favourite games are on the PC a few are on consoles too so I play both. Widest range of games = Maximum amount of fun. From what I've seen so far I'll be sticking with my PS2 for the time being, neither the Xbox or the GameCube offer me anything to justify buying them yet. When some games appear for either platform that I simply must own (I read somewhere that Rare are making a Perfect Dark game for the GC so my interest in that has risen a little) the situation will probably change.

Personally I try not to get caught up with screenshots alone. I'll wait for the single player demo before I make up my mind.

I'm having this problem with Descent 2 whereby whenever I go to play regardless of what resolution I choose (I want to be able to play in 640x480 but the problem occurs on the other 2 as well) it always defaults to 320x240. I tried installing as per Win2k and the same thing happened. I know that 640x480 works under NT since it worked under 2k. Does anyone know whats wrong and how to fix it?

I've solved the problem. The trick was to run it in Win95 Compatibility mode, set the resolution and then turn of the compatibility mode. Now the question is why did it screw up in the first place when it worked fine under Win2k? I'm starting to suspect DirectX 8.1 since thats the only major thing that differed between my installations of Win2k and WinXP but does anyone else have any better ideas?

Quote: ...with Pro you can't play A LOT of games because it's NT. Something that doesn't occur with Xp Home. ;( You do know that both XP Home and Pro are based on the same NT codebase don't you? Microsoft have killed off Win9x for good. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

I'm using the Opera 6 beta too and its pretty good. It has a couple of annoying problems like the page loading bar occasionally disappearing before the page is loaded and a new, funky way it loads images but other than that its great. Although the option exists, I for one won't be turning off the MDI any time soon since thats one of the best features of the program. Code handling seems to have taken a small step backwards as well. A menu at a site I visit (which never worked properly anyway, the options would scroll down but wouldn't scroll up again) is now completely messed up. I hope they get that sorted out although if it involves breaking Operas standards compliance (the absolute est part about the program, none of that M$ garbage HTML) I won't have a bar of it.

I figured out what was causing FF7 to stop functioning on my machine: I was playing around with the Application Verifier thingo and accidently left some dud settings floating around. LSD =

Quote: "Our software will not allow playback of DVDs with graphic boards that contain a TV out component unless they use Macrovision to prevent the creation of an illegal copy of the DVD title." So let me get this straight, unless your video card manufacturer is a butt buddy of the MPAA no DVDs on your TV with WinDVD? Does anyone see anything wrong with this?

I've conned myself into reinstalling it as well since I don't like to leave problems unresolved. Through experimentation I've discovered that whatever is causing FF7 to stop executing gets loaded as part of a Diagnostic Setup (which means its probably not a service or anything that loads into my systray) but doesn't get loaded in Safe Mode. Does anyone know what I'm looking for and can recommend tools to help me find it?

Thats funny, my PC has never had a problem with the sounds in Duke Nukem 3D (apart from a slowdown in the music when it says "Loading" at the very beginning but its been doing that the entire time I've had it) even at 16 bit 22khz. They sounded choppy in the setup program (as did SWs) but when I got into the game they were fine (unlike SWs).

I had this same problem when I tried to play Shadow Warrior on XP. I think the problem is due to the fact that Shadow Warrior uses higher quality samples than, say, Duke3D and XPs DOS Sound Emulation (its anloy an SB2.0) has a hard time handling them but I could be wrong.

Quote: Well, first off that link doesn't work. OK, I fixed that. I thought the pic had uploaded when it hadn't. Quote: Second, if you have a PS2 than WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO USE THE PC one? Because I got the PC one first.