Steam Summer Sale 2014! Is everyone ready?

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29 Jun 2014, 5:28 pm

Didn't buy anything. I was about to buy The Stanley Parable, but then I realized it's not for Linux. So no purchases for me this time.

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SabbraCadabra
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29 Jun 2014, 5:59 pm

Well crap, I had this all typed out and accidentally closed the window >_<

Looks like the sales are just about done, so here's what I got:

From Steam: Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi, CoC: The Wasted Land, Brutal Legend, Batman: Arkham City GotY, Gone Home, The Dungeoning.

From GoG: Carmageddon Max Pack, Red Baron Pack, Pathologic, FarCry, FarCry 2, Penumbra Collection, Wizardry 8, Tales of Monkey Island, and I accidentally clicked on the free giveaway of Magrunner.

From Humble Bundle: Home.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

...it's a whole other thing to make something that should be relatively simple fairly computationally intensive (like Minecraft).

That's another good example...it doesn't help that it's all in Java.

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Misery
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29 Jun 2014, 7:17 pm

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

SabbraCadabra wrote:

Misery wrote:

And simply because a game is 2D, doesnt mean there isnt alot of stuff going on in the background that has nothing to do with simple display issues.

Sometimes, but usually it's just a case of poor programming. A lot of computers have huge limits these days, so most coders don't care how sloppy and un-optimized their code is, as long as it's running (especially with indie games). Also, by default, XNA requires a card with...I think it was pixel shaders 2.0? There's a way to get around it, but the game has to be programmed that way.

On the opposite side, we have games like Retro City Rampage, which was originally going to be on the NES, until he got tired of struggling with limitations. I can only imagine how clean and concise the final game's code is.

I wish this dumb trend of bloated, un-optimized, resource-intensive programming would come to an end. I mean, it's one thing to code a resource-demanding program if the final output is something impressive (like I dunno, Crysis 3), but it's a whole other thing to make something that should be relatively simple fairly computationally intensive (like Minecraft). I mean, what happened to the demoscene, and its programming ethic? Demoscene programmers write really cool graphical demonstrations, often with really strict size and/or hardware limitations, and as a result their code has to be efficient and concise. Back when the demoscene was a bigger thing, mainly in the 80s and 90s, demoscene programmers would actually sometimes join game development teams, and bring their style of coding into the programming of various games. This lead to some really impressive titles, such as Zero Tolerance on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, a surprisingly decent FPS for a 16-bit system with a 7MHz CPU and 64k of ram!

Actually even when it is optimized..... as there's a huge been-continuously-developed-and-worked-on mod for it.... it's STILL a drain. Minecraft, that is.

Alot of the normal drain it puts out isnt actually what you might call a lack of optimization; it's the game's bloody irritating saving method, as well as the fact that it's always had issues loading chunks. The game saves EVERY TWO DAMN SECONDS. Why? Hell if I know. It can only be slowed down via mods. And then the chunk loading is also.... well, anyone that's played it knows what's wrong with that.

But even when optimized the game sucks up power like crazy. Just not nearly as much, and the graphics can be increased quite a bit at that point at least (whereas if the unmodded version were to try that, it'd explode). ...and of course Java also doesnt help.

As for the other stuff... not sure how alot of programmers come to be bad at that aspect, but it happens. Hell, it sure as heck aint something I'm any good at. Or knowledgeable about. I'd never even heard the word "demoscene" till you mentioned that.

Though it is indeed true that unoptimized programs can be annoying.

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30 Jun 2014, 2:06 am

To give you an idea of what the demoscene is about, here's Mental Respirator, a demo created for the Gameboy Color:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUqIYZw3at4[/youtube]

And here's one for text terminals on Linux:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ukhOAUseKY[/youtube]

And if you want to see something really crazy, someone managed to do video playback on a Soundblaster Pro-equipped IBM PC 5160 with the stock 4.77MHz 8088 CPU and CGA card!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWdG413nNkI[/youtube]

And here's perhaps the most famous demoscene production of all time, "Second Reality" by Future Crew, an MS-DOS demo released in 1993. Fun fact, members of Future Crew went on to form Futuremark and Remedy Entertainment, the respective companies behind 3DMark and the first two Max Payne games.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFv7mHTf0nA[/youtube]

The demoscene isn't "dead" per se, but at the moment its something mainly relegated to the European retrogaming/retrocomputing scene. I first stumbled across it when I ran "BB" on a Knoppix live CD my uncle burnt me about 10 years back, and then I heard more about it later on when I rescued an Apple IIGS from a dump, and started looking up stuff about it online.

Misery
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30 Jun 2014, 3:14 am

Well. Those really are something else. Geez.

Aint something I'd be able to do, that's for sure. Stuff I make tends to be the equivalent of someone building a car by duct-taping all of the parts together.

Either way though, those get a "wow" out of me, they do.

Almajo88
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30 Jun 2014, 4:07 am

Okay so I bought a few games for the end of the sale. Dynasty Warriors, Stanley Parable and Bioshock Infinite, the latter one of which I know I'm going to hate but sales make me do terrible things.

Been playing a lot of Black Flag since I bought it. Found out that you can force Triple Buffering by using Ctrl-Alt-Del, bringing up the task manager and then going back to the game. I don't know why. Now it's much more playable. Also the game has a hard limit of 62.5 frames per second for reasons I also couldn't possibly understand. What I do know is that I'm having a surprising amount of fun given that I quit AC3 after the prologue. Looks nice with SMAA applied too, I'd like MSAA ingame too if only it didn't also apply FXAA...

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30 Jun 2014, 10:59 am

Picked up the early access bundle for Wasteland 2.

Now I REALLY need to find some play time...

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mr_bigmouth_502
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30 Jun 2014, 6:12 pm

Misery wrote:

Thanks.

I just wanted to show how talented demoscene coders could be. I really think the gaming industry could make great use of them, if it were willing to respect their ethos.

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