[X] My Assistant

You guys have no idea how much i hate games that take more than 50GB to install.

You guys have no idea how much i hate games that take more than 50GB to install.

What about games that have day 1 50gb+ patches?

That rustles my jimmies.




Windows 11 will have exclusive gaming features
-AutoHDR (originally planned for win10).... so if you have a real HDR monitor and old games that don't support it, you can emulate it a bit?

-Direct storage (originally planned for win10)... so future games may take advantage of fast NVMe SSD storage to load direct to GPU or advantage or something. Its also Microsoft's inferior version of the PS5 hardware version. Seems to be a way for Nvidia to take advantage of machines with loads of CPU cores and really fast NVMe storage to load games faster, stream more textures? and get higher FPS. It seems its based on using the GPU for lossless decompression...

Seems to be a weird response to the tech in the latest consoles.

You guys have no idea how much i hate games that take more than 50GB to install.

You have no idea how much I also hate them, then.
I am always terminally low on disk space and consider a game that's over 2GB to be pretty sizeable and anything larger than a dual layer DVD "too goddamn big."

One of many reasons I prefer older games. Phantasy Star IV is 3 MiB. I think FF6 is 4MiB. Kirby's Adventure is 768 KiB, and the largest official Famicom game ever released (Metal Slader Glory) is 1 MiB.

You can fit an entire generation of video games' library in less space than an installation of GTA V and get more hours of gameplay out of them.

It depends how good of a coder they were there were work arounds but it got fairly complex. Coding on old consoles was almost an art.
256 color images were possible or even simulated 4096 color images with dithering.

Not watching that video, but I know very well how they did it; I frequent #nesdev and #snesdev on efnet. Also I draw pixel art and own an Amiga. Things like palette changes between scanlines are tricks I know well. I also have repaired and modified Mega Drives extensively.

What you're saying about the software side doesn't change that dithering resulting in rainbow artifacting on the genesis is unavoidable in software unless you don't dither to begin with, since it's a result of a poor analogue circuit design baked into the hardware after it leaves the VDP. The rainbow artifacting is an artifact caused by luminance information with harmonic frequencies to that of the composite video colour subcarrier signal not being filtered properly when combining the Y (luminance) and C (chrominance) components together.

And when I say 'video encoder' I mean the chip responsible for converting the internal RGB signals in the Mega Drive to composite video. They used a really bad luma trap circuit which just exacerbated the issue.
Programmers/artists did abuse this to get things like semi-transparent water even though the Mega Drive didn't really support an "alpha channel" (translucent colour) more complex than a simple 'on/off.'

Pic related. Same game, same console, in composite video versus RGB. Model 1 VA6 american genesis with Sony CXA1145 video encoder chip. Look at the water. Smooth, but rainbow-y. Also notice how you can't see the characters' eyes.

Pick your poison.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/ziFNN2Ag.jpg)

Did developers use this smearing to their advantage sometimes? Yes, certainly. But they can't prevent certain artifacting from occurring if they're doing 'every other pixel' rendering due to inherent bandwidth limitations of composite video (if the subcarrier frequency were twice again as high, this issue would be less severe). S-video also solves the problem for the most part, but to my knowledge no Mega Drive with the possible exception of the Pioneer LaserActive (which I have never even seen) ever had an S-Video output. I added one to mine, though.

The circuit that is supposed to do this is called a "Luma Trap," and the Genesis/Mega Drive used an absolutely terrible one tuned to entirely the wrong frequency.
The CXA1145 encoder chip the early models used takes RGB inputs and a subcarrier frequency (used for phase modulating colour information into a monochrome signal), and exposes the Y and C components (essentially S-video, except that it's not capable of pushing a 75 ohm load, on pins 15 and 16) so that they can be filtered using external circuitry and then fed back into the chip to be mixed (input pins 16 and 17) and output as composite video on pin 20.
You're supposed to connect a delay line (of a delay of around one scanline, 180ns) between the "Y Out" and the "Y In" pins, and a band pass filter matched to the subcarrier frequency between "C Out" and "C In." The Genesis used a correct delay line, but an improper BPF. The delay line is necessary for the time needed to cancel out luminance artifacts by comparing to the previous scanline's subcarrier and cancelling out where they harmonize (this is an inverse comb filter, essentially; a comb or notch filter is usually used on the TV end to re-separate the luminance and chrominance information).

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/kTmRv9B.png)

For comparison, the SNES/Super Famicom had an excellent luma trap and encoder, and the NES/Famicom natively generated composite video which was pretty crisp but suffered from jagged edges and shimmering on scrolling because Nintendo used a triangle wave instead of a sine wave for the subcarrier signal. Early revisions of the Master System that used a Sony V7040 encoder also had a good luma trap.

In fact, on the early versions of the Apple II, the ONLY way to get colour was to abuse harmonic pixel frequencies relative to the subcarrier. That's why Apple IIe composite monitors had a 'monochrome' switch, so that you could display black and white screens in higher resolutions without the monitor interpreting the black and white high (horizontal) resolution video signal as having colours. You could get about 40 columns of clear text in colour mode and 80 in black and white, but there was no provision to actually turn off the colour burst part of the IIe's "NTSC" signal to force it to send out video that monitors would interpret as monochrome, so the subcarrier had to be ignorable on the monitor end.

If you have a IIe composite monitor, or any monitor with an S-video input and you connect colour composite video to the 'Y' pin of the mini-DIN, you'll see what I mean.

Sorry for the accidental double post, I swear I didn't hit the 'submit' button this time.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jul 12 2021, 16:54

S-video also solves the problem for the most part, but to my knowledge no Mega Drive with the possible exception of the Pioneer LaserActive (which I have never even seen) ever had an S-Video output. I added one to mine, though.

Pick your poison.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/ziFNN2Ag.jpg)

Sorry for the accidental double post, I swear I didn't hit the 'submit' button this time.

I was wondering about the S-Video upgrades, I was talking to someone who does RCA and s-video upgrades for master systems, I wonder if it makes that big of a difference?

Also I suppose the problem is that newer tvs may not have S-Video.

I was wondering about the S-Video upgrades, I was talking to someone who does RCA and s-video upgrades for master systems, I wonder if it makes that big of a difference?

Yes; it is a huge difference for Mega Drives and some (not all) Master Systems. For S-video, anyway. Read on.
The biggest part is that S-video nearly doubles the available color bandwidth and also prevents "chroma dots"/crawl.

By RCA, do you mean he adds an RCA jack for composite video and one or two for audio? I did that on my Master System to expose audio and RGB video without having to buy expensive cables. A lot of people balk at adding RCA jacks if you drill into the case like I do, but to me it's not sacred or anything and it improves video quality. I'd usually replace the RF modulator hole with an S-Video panel mount.

Is your Master System one with reset and pause buttons that take a good bit of force to push down and have long travel distance, and which only has snail maze built in as an easter egg, or is it one with the rubber dome kind of switch base like the Genesis systems have (which has I think Hang-On on it)? The early ones use a Sony V7040 which outputs very good composite, although it can be marginally improved by an S-Video mod. The later ones using a CXA1145 massively benefit from the mod. After I bricked my early one (to be honest I don't know if I bricked it or if it just had some SRAM that died), I got a later one to replace it and definitely improved the quality when I modded.

Mega Drive/Genesis, however, is an even greater difference:

It's not quite as great as RGB because I think the mod most people do still might benefit from a bandpass filter, but it is certainly a lot cleaner. Still some rainbowing, that's all. Details are still far more crisp. Since it can be expensive/difficult to find nice 15khz RGB screens stateside, I'd recommend it. I'll try to post a comparison picture once i've got a moment, but the S-video is a lot closer to the righthand (RGB) picture than the lefthand (composite) one; basically you'd just overlay a little bit of the rainbowing from the tiles on composite to the RGB image without overlaying any blur.
Left: composite video, right: RGB:
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/IPEENi0g.jpg)
Edit: here's S-Video. It's really close to being as good as RGB but there's still some slight coloring issues on vertical lines and it can be noticeable on 1px-wide text especially. I've also noticed that the fringing tends to be more noticeable on big flat panels, but that might just be because the individual pixels are larger.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/0hNWVdwg.jpg)

Also I suppose the problem is that newer tvs may not have S-Video.

Maybe, but 2008-era plasmas still do :)

The basic S-video mod is one commodity NPN transistor (a 2N3904 or 2N4401 should work just fine, maybe a 2N2222 as well), two or three resistors, and one or two capacitors; it's extremely simple, even on the systems where the encoder chip is surface mount. Do note that some NTSC Model 2's use a Samsung encoder chip which does not expose the Y and C signals, so to S-video-ize those systems you have to replace the encoder chip. I have never seen a Model 1 with the chip in question, however, and PAL systems never got them because Samsung didn't make a PAL variant.

I'd recommend avoiding the Model 1 VA7, however; it's got a horrible audio op-amp gain setup (clips like crazy) and to fix it you have to make a relatively large circuit. Also, the op-amp IC of choice for performing that mod (a TL074) is currently out of stock on Digi-Key and has an extended lead time. Anything that isn't an LM324 should likely be okay, though. I've modded one to fix the amp and it cleans up the signal dramatically; in fact, the chip they used on that model even has an improved DAC over the one in the older consoles which fixes a crossover "ladder" distortion effect; it'd be pretty nice if it weren't for the stupid op-amp design which they didn't change to account for the transition from some older process (I think NMOS?) to CMOS.

I still kept my older model and sold the modded VA7 though, because I actually like the ladder distortion and think it adds interesting additional harmonics to certain games' sounds (Phantasy Star II and Beyond Oasis spring to mind).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jul 13 2021, 04:04

Avast browser is nasty smart ass

Thermal pads are actually arriving today, so I can finally fix (maybe) the linear supply.

Making progress on the HV one, have a little board made up to plug the buttons and relays into, and made the relays and HV resistors into a nice little module and figured out where to mount it. I just have to drill 4 mounting holes, 2 button holes, solder the 2 each leads for HV, +/-15V power, and button output to existing front panel board..


I have to interogate steam to check my games, but pretty sure I have some that are mid 100s of GB. I think ETS2, ATS, and Satisfactory are my largest ones.
If you want gigantic games, get a flight simulator and download/cache high resoltuion maps, MSFS 2020 can fill all the drives you can stuff into a box that way.

Thermal pads are actually arriving today, so I can finally fix (maybe) the linear supply.

Making progress on the HV one, have a little board made up to plug the buttons and relays into, and made the relays and HV resistors into a nice little module and figured out where to mount it. I just have to drill 4 mounting holes, 2 button holes, solder the 2 each leads for HV, +/-15V power, and button output to existing front panel board..
I have to interogate steam to check my games, but pretty sure I have some that are mid 100s of GB. I think ETS2, ATS, and Satisfactory are my largest ones.

I think I technically have a Steam account because I tried to play TF2 with my brother once. Then discovered they wanted to force me to spend at least $5 on steam before I was allowed to trade items with him, so I said "fuck it," never played it again, and deleted Steam.

I have Portal and Portal 2, but those exist on my machine outside the realm of Steam. I love how it uses old vulnerable versions of SDL from 8-10 years ago still. Binary games are so great.

If you want gigantic games, get a flight simulator and download/cache high resoltuion maps, MSFS 2020 can fill all the drives you can stuff into a box that way.

I have Microsoft Combat Flight Simultaor for Windows 98. It's not that bad.

Flight Simulator X is a big one, it's up there with the 3 games I listed.

MSFS 2020 requires you log in with a microsoft account (which I do not have). Even for local only sessions that don't stream detailed terrain. Even 8f you vought the steam edition, or the physical disks retail edition. Bought the full $120 shebang of it shortly after it came out, ended up getting refunded and leaving a negative review.

I'm generally quite hesistant to spend $30 on a game and $40 is about my hard limit, but detailed simulators with liscenced vehicles I can feel okay about. Especially Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator, very detailed models even including accurate sounds (the sounds are modeled too- different views and positions give different sounds per truck).


I was a hold out about steam for a very long time, but finally bit the bullet and sucked valve's dick. I can't trade items though, because i don't have steamgaurd 2FA on.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jul 13 2021, 17:57

I hope Elon shuts the fuck up some day
(IMG:[i.redd.it] https://i.redd.it/3fr0tmxyl0b71.jpg)

Twitter is the Atari E.T. of social media platforms.

Gael Duval once wrote to Elon Musk, asking for backing his eelo OS project (the time before the name was changed to /e/). Was Musk the right guy to be asked in the first place?

Yeah because you might get meme money or just a response may get meme crowdsourcing.

Big games:
Beyond A Steel Sky 15.3GB
Large world with lots of detail and voice acting. Great game.
Blame Him 21.74GB
Indie horror game, I guess it's not optimizied or compressed.
MSFS X 17.14GB
Thought it'd be bigger tbh.
Satisfactory 15.71GB
Same.

ATS and ETS2, and the rest of my library didn't hit double digits.
will edit this...

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jul 14 2021, 13:08

Is steam going to censor my game's library? I noticed files and folders from the censored Chinese edition of steam being installed...

Yay. Tech dystopia ftw.

Biggest game I have installed is Cyberpunk 2077 at nearly 62 gigs.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Jul 14 2021, 13:41

I highly recommend playing Beyond A Steel Sky first, it's by the same people
It's an old game that's free now. It's kind of a cult classic, but IMO they did manage to follow it up- lots of little tie in and nods too. That weird statue when you first enter Union City is from it. If you like old-future stuff it's neat too- cyberspace feels 16 bit, old ATM style terminals to access the supercomputer, etc.

The devolper commentary is kind of neat, I need to finish my second playthrough to get the other ending to Songbird's story arc, and acheivemt I missed, and check out more commentary.

Setting seems to dystopian future in the australian outback.

[torrentfreak.com] Meet FitGirl, The Repack ‘Queen’ Of Pirated Games

My biggest PC game:

Star Wars Battlefront II (Pandemic, circa 2004-2005), around 1.5-2 GB I think, but I haven't done an install in a long time. Could be anywhere up to 4 GB.

Thought:

OK, so I've been making a lot of headway in Porting Monmusu Quest/Monster Girl Quest over to the Onscripter engine (from Nscripter, which is windows-only).

And holy fucking shit, NScripter is so goddamn bad to program in. It's fine for just printing text, but for everything else, if Apple Integer BASIC had a baby with FORTH, and then that baby grew up and had a baby with Intel-syntax 8086 assembly, and then that baby grew up and had a baby with Microsoft Visual Basic 5, and then that baby grew up and had an incest child with grandpa Intel 8086 assembly again, NScripter would be that baby.

Oh yeah, this game script is 11MiB of raw text, by the way.

[kaisernet.neocities.org] programming reference, an old version in English but it hasn't changed much since then.

At least the parser in ONScripter is relatively easy to follow in C++ (which is basically written like C with objects in this case), but comments are rare in the codebase. At least they're in english.

Frankly, I'm astonished that anyone ever used it for anything (and pretty impressed; I respect them and especially the game's translator even more now).

Onscripter (open source clone) additionally has several annoying differences/quirks to work around, so I'm playing through the game as I patch the script to add manual line breaks after all click-wait events. Also have to undo a lot of the hackery that was done by the translator to get Nscripter to not shit itself on single-byte characters (e.g., english/ASCII).

That said I'm making way more progress than I have on any prior attempt at fixing this up; if I finish it then it'll finally be properly portable. Someone claimed to have ported it to onscripter before, but they ignored a shitload of problems (text wrapping especially) and just overall did a shoddy job. I'm fixing their mistakes to make it behave as close to the original nscripter version as possible.
Had to apply one tiny patch to Onscripter to change the text size and kerning to match as well.

On the bright side, performs great on my Powerbook G4. Which is the entire reason I'm doing this instead of just running it in Wine like a sane person.

Overall, despite the weird differences, ONSscripter is a definite improvement over NScripter, since it can actually save games with single-byte text on the screen and has much better support for ASCII/UTF-8 than NScripter (which doesn't appear to have much of that at all). And even if I don't like the changes I'm having to make to the script to acommodate it, I'd say it's a bit better from a technical standpoint than the original engine was.

One thing I can't seem to fix is string composition (e.g., appending strings) with 'mov' refusing to obey the single-byte rule that I compiled forcing enabled. So spaces only get put into the resultant string if the word before it has an odd number of bytes (it's interpreted as UTF-16 I think, but then printed/rendered as 8-bit text).

So I think I'll need to make more extensive changes to the engine to make 'mov' work on 8-bit characters. I hope I'm determined enough to fix this properly.

As to why I don't use another fork, they all seem to suck in various ways and are bugged or crash regularly. The japanese Onscripter variant is the only one that can actually mostly play this damn game without dying horribly.

Also, fuck 1.8v SPI flash chips. I'd just now finally gotten the voltage shifting hardware for 3.3V stuff.from TTL (5v) levels.

Have a friend i'm trying to help recover his machine (bricked by windows 10 driver updates) and we're trying to flash his bios because he can't even get it to POST. Turns out AMD boards use 1.8V flash chips these days. So now we're waiting and hoping that the level shifter thing he ordered is using the good chip rather than th TI version (which is rated for 2.5v minimum and likely won't work).

If we get a dud I'm going to just try running diodes to do a voltage drop, or maybe even just hope the current draw is low and do resistor voltage dividers. If I fuck up the chip, it's an 8-pin TSOP so I'm pretty confident I can replace it.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jul 15 2021, 07:25

If you want to code then contribute to CDDA.