Few people remember that PS2 compatibility was also limited (though probably not to the degree that XBox will be). If developers stuck to the API you were okay, but if your PS1 games tried to go against the metal or leveraged undocumented features that presumed a particular chipset... you were toast. My guess is that the same will hold true for PS3.
The PS2 has enhancements such as faster disk loading and texturing smoothing to make some games better. These features didn't work in some games but you could turn them off and the games run fine just and look just like they were on the original PSX. I can't find the complete list of incompatibile games however it was somewhere like 20 or so games that had problems with the enhancement features turned off and or were just unplayable. And when you think of the size of the PSX's library that is less than 1% of the games not working as opposed to the Xbox 360 only running certain Xbox games as we are currently all assuming.
I find that hard to believe. Normally the hardware and actual games will be priced higher in Japan and lower in America. We'll have to see what happens in about a year though.
Well it's not hard to consider that you can't tell the Dreamcast apart from the Xbox when you can't tell a modern console like the PS2 apart from an old IBM computer like the PS/2. Or is that some kind of funny joke to you in your little world?
I have to admit that with the first generation of games on the PS2 it didn't look all that more powerful than the Dreamcast; however, look at the games now. Try to compare games like GTA:SA and Metal Gear Solid 3 to anything on the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast's most graphic intense series Shenmue (which I personally love and still feel a minor lose that we won't ever get Shenmue 3 and the completion of the story) can't hold a candle to what is currently being done on the PS2.
Yes the Dreamcast had cool features like an included 56k modem so it was online out of the box, it supposedly had "water cooling" whether this was true water cooling or a heat pipe is open to discusssion. And finally it could output a VGA signal so you could play games on a monitor. While the Dreamcast was a great console for the time and it killed what the original PSX and the N64 could do, it just can't keep up with the PS2 released about a year after it and the Gamecube and Xbox released another year after the PS2.
The Dreamcst was more of a transition console rather than a whole generation ahead. It also had a lot of quirky games and was truely a hardcore gamer console but it didn't appeal to most casual gamers. Was Sony's original advertising of the PS2 verse the Dreamcast true? Not really but it was again advertising and if everything advertising was true all men would have 2ft long cocks and all women would have at least triple D's. But what truely killed the Dreamcast was that Sega was hemeraging from what happened with the the whole 32X/SegaCd, Saturn fiaso. The oddest thing with the dead of the Dreamcast was that it was the US where Sega first pulled out of, and at the time that was where it was actually profitable yet Sega Europe somehow keep going longer while not making money.
And while I could flame about how your view of comedy does fit the normal view of Mac Fanboy and general intelligence level, I won't.
I have to agreee with you about the lack of actually showing game footage; however, IMO the footage while it looks good it didn't look any different than games on a PC do now. At least we'll be able to go over 640x480 on our TVs and it will also do anti-aliasing.
Not really. The original not S Xbox controller was almost an exact duplicate of the Dreamcast's controller though. It had the extra white and black buttons that made it a 6 button face unlike the crappy location on the S Controller. And it had a back and start button as aposed to the Dreamcast's start button only.
While I can't say I like either chain very much, there is one Gamestop down in Dearborn, Michigan. Supposedly it's the best selling store in the chain. Everytime I've ever gone in there the staff was friendly and went out of their way to help. They were also gamers and even the manger didn't mind just standing around and chatting about games if other customers weren't waiting.
While this is a rare occurance, I do normally just buy where it's more convient. I used to goto the Gamestop by my college when I was in school, but I stopped then the fuckers jacked all the prices up to $55 from the MSRP of $50.. I could buy it from their website and pay shipping for the same price and save the 1 mile in gas trip. Thankfully, a EB was built 1 mile from my home and they stay at the $50 MSRP on new games. Even if it becomes a Gamestop I'll still shop there for the titles that Target and Bestbuy don't get.
It has a great selection and awesome prices. The 48 -hour deals are also a great way to pickup some older gems that you originally passed on. While the shipping is $6, you can buy up to 3 games without any additional cost.
I can't comment from first hand experience but the Dreamcast version of Quake 3: Arena was playable online against the PC version. And well... the console kiddies got their asses handed to them. Thankfully the Dreamcast and the Quake 3 port both support a keyboard and mouse so people could use them instead.
As for Quake 4 on the Xbox being playable again PC players? Not unless MS changes how they handle live, which it appears that they are in DX 10, but we'll have to see what they do. The PS3 version of Quake 4 should easily be playable against PC versions unless Sony does something stupid with their online play.
The Gamecube is a very bad example to use for load times as the drive and games are optimized to require just that 1-2 second load time you are seeing.
On the PS2 the load times can be very long, and the Xbox uses caching to the hard drive to help shorten some load times.
As for Sony shipping a hard drive with every PS2? Well it's kind of late in it's life for that to happen but we'll just have to wait and see if the PS3 will be including one. My bet it on that they do.
I can't really comment on how many people are playing FFXI but it did take a hit around the time WoW came out. However, the last month and a half has shown a lot of players returning to the game, along with new players that have not played before. One of my linkshell meembers thinks they might be people who waited for WoW and have now decided to give FFXI a try.
While I only see around 2,500 people on my server where I normally saw 3,000, there are always people on doing things.
I also found a dicussion on Sharky's forums from back in 2001 about this very issue. I doubt we'll ever see one, but you never know what those crazy people in Hong Kong will hack out next.
Didn't you hear? It is all the video games fault, just like it was music and movies, and before that there was that satanic game Dungeons and Dragons adn even comic books.
The only reason video games are being percussed now is that they are popular and the main new thing. This will all blow over soon enough.
The issue is that 1 or 2 groups would take complete control over that one drop, and while someone else might get lucky and get the claim, and then even more luck and they get the drop. With only 1-2 groups controlling this one item, they are able to set the selling price of the item to what they want.
In the case where a different player somehow get the the item, if they try selling it they will just go with the inflated rate to get the most money they can for the item.
Square-Enix is not banning people over the camping of rare spawns. They are banning people over teh monolization of the static spawns through the use of Grief tatics which result is MPKs or in english players being killed in a non-PVP game (there is currently a single PVP event, but that event does not involve the static spawns).
The main issue is that a few players who appear to be Chinese would camp this spawns 24/7 on the same characters, I don't know about you but a real player may be able to do this; however, it's unlikely they would do it for months on end. When other players would attempt to all camp the spawns, these "Gil Sellers" would do things use a puller harder monsters into a lower level section of the area to kill off the other people attempting to camp the spawns.
Numerous people complained about these issues, and many people have left the game due to these issue. It is definately news worthy is that Square-Enix is finally doing something to combat this problem.
Or you could just research creating an unattended setup script.
This script will allow you to configure Windows XP just the way you want it to be and even allow you to not install applications that are installed by default. Check http://unattended.msfn.org/ for a good guide to get you started.
If you have either an Xbox or Playstation 2, pick up a copy of Second Sight. It's a 3rd person action/stealth game developed by the Time Splitters team.
The game didn't do well in retail sales, but it just feels like Time Splitters, and you can't beat EBGames online price of only $15 of either version. They may even still be offering free next day delivery.
It might make the wait for Time Splitters 3 go a little faster.
1. You have defective card. It happens, if it's under warrenty try returning it for one that works properly. I had this issue when I bought my current GeForce 4200TI and it wouldn't run in at 2x AGP correctly. RMA'd it with NewEgg and got a new one that works wonderfully, even at 8x which my new Athlon64 MB runs it at.
2. Your Motherboard is crap and can't supply the card with the needed power. I had an old Gigabit Dual P3 board that caused with issue with an old SDR Geforce 1. That board finally died and I replaced it with a ABIT BX6R2 and everything ran great.
3. Your powersupply isn't powerful enough to deliver the needed power to everything in your computer. Are you running a manufactored Gateway or Dell? Does it have a 180W powersupply, and you added an extra HD, DVD Burner, and more powerful video card? This can and will cause problems.
4. You may have a corrupt driver or Windows installation. Try loading a new driver, and if that doesn't work see if reloading windows does.
Still have problems? I guess your just screwed then, either give up on computer gaming and switch brain dead setup consoles. Or maybe get an ATI and spank yourself to sleep with the box.
While I never said the banning of accounts was the best course of action, it is good to see a developer being able to finally have some recourse.
The two examples I posted where with the assumption that Valve was banning for the use of a nocd crack, while reading much further now the thread it appears that it may be due to a seeded bogus key.
If the bans are being driven by the attempt of accessing half-life 2 using a bogus key, then that eliminates both of my examples and leaves only people who were trying to illegally optain the game.
And yes it does suck they they were locked out of their accounts for all of the games they legally owned, it's not that much that was lost. A retail copy of half-life 2 is going for $55, for $60 you can get the silver package which includes all of Valves past library. It's a hard learned $5 lesson that will hopefully deter people in the future.
And as for losing money, sure people will say fuck them I'm not going to buy the game now. But in the end look at all of the copies they will sell, what's a few lost sales here and there. Who knows, a lot of these people might be buying half-life 2 anyways when the next killer mod that replaces Counter Strike for the source engine.
piracy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-s)
n. pl. piracies
Robbery committed at sea.
A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.
The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.
In my second example of using the nocd crack to illegally play the game on the friends computer without the cd, that seems like unauthorized use to me which would be piracy.
And while it doesn't give me a headache to have to go into great detail on precisely explaining everything I type, I do normally type for a certain intelligence level, where I assume the reader has a basic understanding of the topic I am presenting. In this situation stating that the people in the second case were illegally pirating software; that statement was just being just being used to confirm why Valve legal could and should ban the accounts.
Was my reply satisfactory in explaining my view point mister Anonymous Coward?
That isn't how Steam works, there won't be stolen cd keys like what happened with the original half-life.
Half-life 2 uses a MMO style activation where you create an account and enter your key. One account, one key. Once a key is registered to an account is cannot be used on any other accounts. The only thing that could possibly happen people getting their steam accounts hacked.
I suspect the people complaining fall into one of two catagories. They purchased the retail game and got pissed that they had to insert the CD everytime they started it while people who bought it over Steam don't so they downloaded a nocd crack.
Somebody bought it retail and also installed it at their friends house and had their friend login with their Steam account and used a nocd crack to allow their friend to also play.
In the first case it sucks to be them as they got screwed over by Vivendi in needing to use authenicate with a CD, and felt screwed over that online purchases didn't need this.
For the second case they were committing piracy, and well it really sucks to be them, but they were pirating something with activation. They took the risk and lost.
Slashdot Mirror
I could find it on Cartoonnetwork.com but I found it after a Google search: http://www.lego.com/starwars/default.aspx
I find that hard to believe. Normally the hardware and actual games will be priced higher in Japan and lower in America. We'll have to see what happens in about a year though.
I have to admit that with the first generation of games on the PS2 it didn't look all that more powerful than the Dreamcast; however, look at the games now. Try to compare games like GTA:SA and Metal Gear Solid 3 to anything on the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast's most graphic intense series Shenmue (which I personally love and still feel a minor lose that we won't ever get Shenmue 3 and the completion of the story) can't hold a candle to what is currently being done on the PS2.
Yes the Dreamcast had cool features like an included 56k modem so it was online out of the box, it supposedly had "water cooling" whether this was true water cooling or a heat pipe is open to discusssion. And finally it could output a VGA signal so you could play games on a monitor. While the Dreamcast was a great console for the time and it killed what the original PSX and the N64 could do, it just can't keep up with the PS2 released about a year after it and the Gamecube and Xbox released another year after the PS2.
The Dreamcst was more of a transition console rather than a whole generation ahead. It also had a lot of quirky games and was truely a hardcore gamer console but it didn't appeal to most casual gamers. Was Sony's original advertising of the PS2 verse the Dreamcast true? Not really but it was again advertising and if everything advertising was true all men would have 2ft long cocks and all women would have at least triple D's. But what truely killed the Dreamcast was that Sega was hemeraging from what happened with the the whole 32X/SegaCd, Saturn fiaso. The oddest thing with the dead of the Dreamcast was that it was the US where Sega first pulled out of, and at the time that was where it was actually profitable yet Sega Europe somehow keep going longer while not making money.
And while I could flame about how your view of comedy does fit the normal view of Mac Fanboy and general intelligence level, I won't.
I have to agreee with you about the lack of actually showing game footage; however, IMO the footage while it looks good it didn't look any different than games on a PC do now. At least we'll be able to go over 640x480 on our TVs and it will also do anti-aliasing.
Not really. The original not S Xbox controller was almost an exact duplicate of the Dreamcast's controller though. It had the extra white and black buttons that made it a 6 button face unlike the crappy location on the S Controller. And it had a back and start button as aposed to the Dreamcast's start button only.
While this is a rare occurance, I do normally just buy where it's more convient. I used to goto the Gamestop by my college when I was in school, but I stopped then the fuckers jacked all the prices up to $55 from the MSRP of $50.. I could buy it from their website and pay shipping for the same price and save the 1 mile in gas trip. Thankfully, a EB was built 1 mile from my home and they stay at the $50 MSRP on new games. Even if it becomes a Gamestop I'll still shop there for the titles that Target and Bestbuy don't get.
It has a great selection and awesome prices. The 48 -hour deals are also a great way to pickup some older gems that you originally passed on. While the shipping is $6, you can buy up to 3 games without any additional cost.
As for Quake 4 on the Xbox being playable again PC players? Not unless MS changes how they handle live, which it appears that they are in DX 10, but we'll have to see what they do. The PS3 version of Quake 4 should easily be playable against PC versions unless Sony does something stupid with their online play.
On the PS2 the load times can be very long, and the Xbox uses caching to the hard drive to help shorten some load times.
As for Sony shipping a hard drive with every PS2? Well it's kind of late in it's life for that to happen but we'll just have to wait and see if the PS3 will be including one. My bet it on that they do.
While I only see around 2,500 people on my server where I normally saw 3,000, there are always people on doing things.
I did a quite Google of the term and got http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_35_ide.php.
I also found a dicussion on Sharky's forums from back in 2001 about this very issue. I doubt we'll ever see one, but you never know what those crazy people in Hong Kong will hack out next.
Star Wars Rogue Squadran used the module to provide better looking graphics.
The second Zelda game Marjora Mask required the module.
I don't remember if Perfect Dark did come with the module, I thought it was the Donkey Kong game. It's been a while though so I could easily be wrong.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-02 -21&res=l 2 -23&res=l 2 -25&res=l 2 -28&res=l 3 -02&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-0
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-0
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-0
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-0
Penny Arcade's site has been running well for the past week or so, let's see if it can handle a Slashdotting.
The only reason video games are being percussed now is that they are popular and the main new thing. This will all blow over soon enough.
In the case where a different player somehow get the the item, if they try selling it they will just go with the inflated rate to get the most money they can for the item.
The main issue is that a few players who appear to be Chinese would camp this spawns 24/7 on the same characters, I don't know about you but a real player may be able to do this; however, it's unlikely they would do it for months on end. When other players would attempt to all camp the spawns, these "Gil Sellers" would do things use a puller harder monsters into a lower level section of the area to kill off the other people attempting to camp the spawns.
Numerous people complained about these issues, and many people have left the game due to these issue. It is definately news worthy is that Square-Enix is finally doing something to combat this problem.
This script will allow you to configure Windows XP just the way you want it to be and even allow you to not install applications that are installed by default. Check http://unattended.msfn.org/ for a good guide to get you started.
The game didn't do well in retail sales, but it just feels like Time Splitters, and you can't beat EBGames online price of only $15 of either version. They may even still be offering free next day delivery.
It might make the wait for Time Splitters 3 go a little faster.
It sounds like you have one of four issues.
1. You have defective card. It happens, if it's under warrenty try returning it for one that works properly. I had this issue when I bought my current GeForce 4200TI and it wouldn't run in at 2x AGP correctly. RMA'd it with NewEgg and got a new one that works wonderfully, even at 8x which my new Athlon64 MB runs it at.
2. Your Motherboard is crap and can't supply the card with the needed power. I had an old Gigabit Dual P3 board that caused with issue with an old SDR Geforce 1. That board finally died and I replaced it with a ABIT BX6R2 and everything ran great.
3. Your powersupply isn't powerful enough to deliver the needed power to everything in your computer. Are you running a manufactored Gateway or Dell? Does it have a 180W powersupply, and you added an extra HD, DVD Burner, and more powerful video card? This can and will cause problems.
4. You may have a corrupt driver or Windows installation. Try loading a new driver, and if that doesn't work see if reloading windows does.
Still have problems? I guess your just screwed then, either give up on computer gaming and switch brain dead setup consoles. Or maybe get an ATI and spank yourself to sleep with the box.
It might not look the best, but it will run and play just fine.
I'm not sure about it running better, but it would be funny if the stuttering is gone under Linux and Cedega.
The two examples I posted where with the assumption that Valve was banning for the use of a nocd crack, while reading much further now the thread it appears that it may be due to a seeded bogus key.
If the bans are being driven by the attempt of accessing half-life 2 using a bogus key, then that eliminates both of my examples and leaves only people who were trying to illegally optain the game.
And yes it does suck they they were locked out of their accounts for all of the games they legally owned, it's not that much that was lost. A retail copy of half-life 2 is going for $55, for $60 you can get the silver package which includes all of Valves past library. It's a hard learned $5 lesson that will hopefully deter people in the future.
And as for losing money, sure people will say fuck them I'm not going to buy the game now. But in the end look at all of the copies they will sell, what's a few lost sales here and there. Who knows, a lot of these people might be buying half-life 2 anyways when the next killer mod that replaces Counter Strike for the source engine.
piracy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-s) n. pl. piracies
Robbery committed at sea. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.
The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.
In my second example of using the nocd crack to illegally play the game on the friends computer without the cd, that seems like unauthorized use to me which would be piracy.
And while it doesn't give me a headache to have to go into great detail on precisely explaining everything I type, I do normally type for a certain intelligence level, where I assume the reader has a basic understanding of the topic I am presenting. In this situation stating that the people in the second case were illegally pirating software; that statement was just being just being used to confirm why Valve legal could and should ban the accounts.
Was my reply satisfactory in explaining my view point mister Anonymous Coward?
Half-life 2 uses a MMO style activation where you create an account and enter your key. One account, one key. Once a key is registered to an account is cannot be used on any other accounts. The only thing that could possibly happen people getting their steam accounts hacked.
I suspect the people complaining fall into one of two catagories. They purchased the retail game and got pissed that they had to insert the CD everytime they started it while people who bought it over Steam don't so they downloaded a nocd crack.
Somebody bought it retail and also installed it at their friends house and had their friend login with their Steam account and used a nocd crack to allow their friend to also play.
In the first case it sucks to be them as they got screwed over by Vivendi in needing to use authenicate with a CD, and felt screwed over that online purchases didn't need this.
For the second case they were committing piracy, and well it really sucks to be them, but they were pirating something with activation. They took the risk and lost.