running old games on your new PC

[drunken_chef]

that was because it didn't like Vista and dual core

well WT, i don't use vista but i did find a nice little app from THG that lets you easily preset CPU affinity.

[WalkinTarget]

I saw that one as well ... and truth be told I have tried to wean myself from ET, as I had a terrible addiction to that game and if I could get it running on my Vista box, I bet I would go back to playing it.


I don't know if that exactly was my issue, but it was ... weirdly laggy. I would equate it to running a game with a barely adequate PC hardware-wise, but with some spyware or other process yanking away your CPU cycles every 4 or 5 seconds.
Clearly, my PC wasn't the issue in regards to hardware, but it does bring up an interesting discussion nonetheless on what, if any, games others still play but have to 'tweak' a bit to get running on new boxes.

How do emulators fare with new rigs ???

[darth_nevus]

i got a few to work great, throttling the cpu back. dosbox in particular, but i haven't tried vista yet.

[random_id]

but it does bring up an interesting discussion nonetheless on what, if any, games others still play but have to 'tweak' a bit to get running on new boxes.

Well, I am currently re-playing KotOR on Vista x64... At first it had a weird stutters every few seconds, but then I simply made it to run in a WinXP compatibility mode and the game became smooth as a butter, with no stutters or visual/audio glitches whatsoever...

Oh, and I also just installed teh old ET (version 2.60) just to see how it runs... Created a server, ran around a little bit (which brought a lot of positive memories), didn't notice any stutterings/glitches or anything like this.

[WalkinTarget]

Oh, and I also just installed teh old ET (version 2.60) just to see how it runs

Wow .. I'm surprised at this !! You're running the same version I ran, so I wonder if it has something to do with the server tickrate now ?? Was this vanilla ET or were you running in Win XP compat. mode ?? I may just need to check back on ET to see if things work.

I've been in need of a fresh install for months, as my server browser is now borked, and I have to use a dedicated program to launch the game and connect to my fave server.

I've been away from ET for so long that I'm sure I'd get owned, but any game you play for 4+ years you can safely assume you'll pick up within a week of hard core practice.

[random_id]

I've been running plain ET in a default mode, didn't change a thing for it... Anyway, if it doesn't work at first - the good things to try are the "compatibility mode", as well as disabling the "threaded optimizations" in Nvidia's control panel (if you have Nvidia-based video card).
Oh, and don't worry about getting owned - if you used to play it a lot, you'll quickly remember all of the moves/tactics the first few minutes you'll start to play on a familiar map... At least that's what happened with me, and I haven't played this game in like 2 years.

[darth_nevus]

Wait! whats ET?

[random_id]

Wait! whats ET?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfens...nemy_Territory

[darth_nevus]

Wait! whats ET?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfens...nemy_Territory

hahaha, i thought you meant it was a cpu scaler. i love that game. it runs on every pc i own, which makes for great fun

[random_id]

Yea, it does, it has very well-optimized engine... Too bad it already looks extremely dated and unattractive (games like Crysis have really spoiled me with their high-res textures and fancy visual effects).

[darth_nevus]

agreed. but the computers i gave my kids can run it. and they still play command & conquer renegade! if they can kill eachother there, it saves on the bloodshed IRL. lol.

[WalkinTarget]

Too bad it already looks extremely dated and unattractive

Hush, you !!!! I can go drop a quarter any day of the week on Asteroids ... does that look dated ?? Doesn't mean its crap ... you guys and your need for photo realistic graphics just flat out stun me. You aren't as attentive to the gameplay, but you want it to look as real as can be.

:P

I usta play games like Unreal Tournament '99 and GLQuake, and they sure do look like crap ... but I'd play either one 99 times and try Crysis maybe once.

Darth is such the n00b ... he even ate a few of my rifle nades in his young existence, but I'd pay a pretty penny to have ET back on the Lair and a new crowd trying it out. I'm sad that it folded over its latest incarnation, but less than 20% of the guys on this forum today were around to play ET on the Lair. Its been that big of a turnover, so time moves on, but some games are timeless in their simplicity and overall action.

[random_id]

I never said anything about teh gameplay, I merely commented on the looks of teh game, which does look unquestionably ugly compared to modern games, regardless of whether its gameplay is still good or not, that's all :P

[WalkinTarget]

Sorry for sounding harsh, random. I take offense to the whole gameplay/graphics argument, as it always comes out sounding like we need better graphics to make a better game. I've been playing games since the graphics mode was something called CGA ... thats a four color palette, and we didn't think it was to be rated better than the gameplay at the time.

[drunken_chef]

M.U.L.E. FTW!