Frobozz

Not surprising. ATI Rage was around the time when OpenGL was first becoming available. Earliest models lacked it altogether with later models only barely supporting it. Biggest problem is that, until "DirectX 10" cards came out, there was no guarantee you would have all the features for the version of OpenGL your card was made for. You could, and typically would, end up with a card with virtually no support for anything and just barely enough 3D acceleration to call itself 3D. Unfortunately, as is typical with any all-in-one computer, any upgrade options available simply aren't going to upgrade the most vital areas like the video. Unlike a PC from the time period where you can pay $20 for a GeForce 6200 and be done with it. Personally, I say its time to bury the dinosaur and buy a new computer. Fortunately with technology as advanced as it is now, a low-end Mac Mini would probably suffice for a good decade given the rate at which Jeff upgrades his engine. Better yet, buy one that hooks into a TV and play Geneforge 5 on a big "monitor".

At the upper right from the topic menu should be a combo box that reads something like "Show topics from last X days". Change that to a higher number. You can also set your default viewing options under your profile settings.

Quote: Exile games didn't have the animations. Meh. Since the topic is started again for the short ten minutes it'll stay open... I could've sworn the original games had animations. Or at least the 3rd game.

This will probably be shot down, but if 3D graphics were used it would be easier to add effects like different armor colors (or textures). It would also make adding attacks easier since you wouldn't have to draw each position the character could potentially be in - you'd just rotate the model. This might not sound like much of an advantage until you consider that games using Geneforge's engine have around 16 positions along with around eight or so frames per position. That's 128 individual graphics cells that have to be drawn. Even if you drew in such a way that you could copy and paste whole chunks it is still time consuming and possibly quite expensive. Edit: Before anyone complains about the increase to system requirements, consider other games. Age of Empires 3 for example has pretty fancy graphics and yet it runs on cards from up to three years ago (friend of mine has an FX 5700 which is really on par with GeForce 3 Ti). Granted the engine is highly optimized compared to most but it also makes use of fancy shader effects. Spidweb games would probably do well even without shader effects - especially if things like lighting were pre-calculated.

So what features were dropped? Or are you on an NDA and can't say without being stabbed repeatedly?

Quote: Originally written by Jawaj: and it would increase download size a lot. Not if he used the Amiga module formats that older DOS (and Amiga) games used. Jazz Jackrabbit for example has 32 music files for only 3MB of space.

How about instead of music, Jeff makes the game use surround sound effects! Wouldn't it be fun to hear your party getting hit by a fireball from behind?

Quote: Originally written by Rinoa Heartily: I got cursed, went to the bazaar got a quest to get a dragon scale.. err am i supposed to do this early? I don't see anyway around it, since i am cursed, i am weaker (that's what the quest says) I don't see what the curse actually does to you unless it happens after a period of time has passed. Only once did it seem to do anything and in that instance it merely made me get hit by a monster when I normally wouldn't have. Or maybe I missed. Something like that.

Quote: Originally written by Dintiradan: Methinks this wasn't changed, and the Mac testers didn't pick up on it. And who would? I only briefly glance over portal dialogs - if they're short they aren't important enough to read closely. I just enter or ignore.

Under Windows, I go into the directory Geneforge is in, double-click Data, then the save directory I want to delete and remove everything except the "temp" file. Works great.

CDs are nice but they scratch so easily. I'd readily pay more if he were to say switch to TDK Scratchproof DVDs.

Quote: Originally written by PGLB: Cool. One question - will it be on CD like the original or the registration code like the other games? Why? Thinking of keygen'ing it? I suspect the original use of a CD was since the vast majority of people at the time were lacking high speed internet.

Heh. Speaking of price - I just checked the order page and the original Nethergate was $30 new. Seems a bit odd that Jeff is selling the remake to new comers for only $25.

Quote: Originally written by Bored flak: I just checked A1 and A2, they both are sparing in their use of resources. G2 hogs the resources, and G3 crashed while I was checking, but it was around 96%. Think of it this way. How much does the Avernum engine update in the background when you aren't moving? And how much does the Geneforge engine? Also take into considering that the mouse is software-based meaning everytime you move it, the screen has to do a complete redraw. Redrawing isn't a quick and low-resource application when you have so much on the screen. Edit: The above is taking into account that the software doesn't refresh unless input is received. I doubt that's the case - it probably refreshes constantly.

Actually I was just the opposite. I managed to get used to the interface by the time I was halfway through the goblin lairs. When around the Motrax caves it warned me about the shareware barrier was close and I just went ahead and purchased at that point. I think I had only been playing for about four or so hours. I personally love the new engine with everything being more or less on the same map. No more listening to stupid fanfare when I enter a city for example.

Quote: Originally written by Derakon: Quick question to the original poster - are you using a Macintosh or a Windows machine? Because if you're using the latter, then you're lending credence to a concern I had earlier. Windows machines tend to have a much darker "gamma" setting (basically the reference point for "white"; high gamma settings make for darker screens). On the Mac, the "second layer" caves are dark but still mostly navigable and comprehensible; I fear that a Windows user would be completely sunk, however. Just change the gamma setting. The location depends entirely on your graphics driver though. Under my nVidia panel it is located in "Color Correction". Another possible culprit could be your monitor. As monitors age they tend to get darker - especially if constantly left on.

Quote: Originally written by Few probed waitress: I checked as well, 100% usage. Something is desperately wrong with this game and how it interacts with the CPU on Windows computers. I've written small and short programs in C++ myself and I've noticed something similar. I believe it is more of a problem with Windows than with the game. Really it is not a serious problem. How many people are going to run an intensive program in the background while playing the game? Like others it has paused temporarily for me while autosaving and loading difference sections of the map. Good reason too - the save games around around 20MB and up!

Quote: Originally written by Infernal666hate: or you could just save before difficult fights. if it fills over a slot that you didn't want it to, just reload. Or just edit the savegame.

Quote: Originally written by ixfd64: 3. Release the BoE source code: This would no doubt solve the most problems. However, the company may lose money. Sure, it's said that releasing something as open-source will not make the developers lose money, but people will leech the products instead of donating. A possible solution is to release only certain parts of the source code (eg. will only work with the registered version - you cannot just compile the program from the source code alone). If Jeff were to release BoE as open source, which I seriously doubt, he'd be best off releasing all of it rather than small portions which wouldn't be beneficial. Personally I'd rather see someone try to remake the entire engine. But then - isn't that done in BoA? Just buy the stupid thing already and give up on BoE. Oh and as for compiling, I'd probably port the engine to something like SDL which can handle the formats he uses - BMP, WAV, etc.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: Quote: Originally written by Frobozz: So what does CMG stand for? Would be interesting to make a converter, but I'd have to know the name along so I could atleast find the file format. CMG isn't really an official file format -- it's something Jeff made up. It's just a resource file with a lot of PICT resources in it. Ok so if it is his format, why store PICT files? Why not raw files. Raw files are basically color data with no header file. Simple enough to load if you know the height, width, and color depth.

Quote: Originally written by Flagellation: Can't be done, I'm afraid. The only way to successfully call move_to_new_town is if it's called by the party stepping on a special rectangle. I don't see the point in Jeff not allowing this at any time. What would be his motive?

So what does CMG stand for? Would be interesting to make a converter, but I'd have to know the name along so I could atleast find the file format. Quote: The thing you have to remember is that even Jeff admits that Jeff isn't a very good programmer. Perhaps. But then I know of one guy to say that and then turn around and code a simple operating system. So that doesn't necessarily mean much.

Quote: Originally written by Kibbles: Oh yeah, something that is useless to macs is going to go over big time with such a large number of mac users. Depends on the compiler. If he used Mono, it would work just fine since Mono is available for Mac as well as Windows. Why even bother with a window-based program when you can just use command line? Something like saveedit --savenumber=0 --strength=30

3D doesn't always mean lower quality. The current engine being used for Geneforge could be remade to be 3D and quality wouldn't differ that much (except in any special effects that could be added). Remember, 3D doesn't mean just first-person you know. Also you wouldn't need a very impressive system to do isometric in Direct3D or OpenGL. Homeworld, while not isometric, runs nicely off of my older system's 8MB video card.

I say go grab UltraEdit . Some of the features: * Syntax highlighting * Spell checking (for multiple languages) * Changing the indent for large sections of text * Highlighting the matching brace/parenthesis you are currently selecting * Retrieving files from FTP, sending via FTP and email * Handles DOS and Unicode (the "squares") * Can sort chunks of text * Ability to run external programs (ie a compiler to compile the current document) * Comparing the differences between two files For a more complete list, go to the features page on their website. All for $39. Oh and no, I don't work for UltraEdit.