Quoting: BlackBloodRum"What's the problem with DRM?" "What's the problem with always online DRM?" "It doesn't really affect me, I can still play my games just fine!"

I often hear people say.

Well this. This is why it's not cool.

Anyway, for those who may or may not care.. shameless plug:

https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ [External Link]
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:tongue:

TBF in this case none of the unreal games have DRM, which is the only reason why they'll still be playable after this. Even the CD key in 2k4 is only used by the old cd installer and for master server auth, if you're not using the master server you can still join and create games.

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Quoting: omer666At least there is now an official line drawn between Epic MegaGames and Epic Games.
As for the master server, as with many late 90s multiplayer FPS, players have been using their own server lists for a long time now.

I just hope that some day, a (yet to be known) dev is going to release titles as groundbreaking as Quake 3 or UT, so that we can live another golden age of the arena shooters...

For a time it looked like Nexuiz was going to be the more modern successor when they licensed out the name and design to be produced under THQ with some actual money behind it but it was so laughably inferior to the older free version and just played like garbage, it was literally online for like...8 months total before it was taken offline, and the quick join didn't work 90% of the time it was up. The name licencing also split the community as they had to change the name for future versions of the free edition to Xonotic. (still a great game, but nowhere near the playerbase it once had, and while I love it...it's definitely not unreal).

People were also saying for a while splitgate was going to be the modern UT replacement, but the game felt more Halo than UT.

It seems like any modern shooter once money gets involved it invariably turns to shit so they can force in things like battle passes, day 1 DLC, or they invariably become a hero shooter with limited maps for some reason.

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Oh, as far as archival of UT2k4 content goes, if anyone ever needs a file feel free to hit me up on masto at @[email protected] , I have a cache of every single file (every map/mod/texture pack/etc) from every single 2k4 server that I built from my own backups when I ran servers and connecting and skimming cache from the 2k4 client itself over years and years...If you're looking for something I probably have it, it's a 675GB backup. I'm fairly sure I have every map, texture pack, sound pack, weapon pack, etc ever made as well as server specific variants.

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Quoting: GuestI wonder how much maintaining these servers costs? there are places where you can rent a multiplayer server for 10-15 bucks. Either Epic is really desperate cutting costs or dunnoh because it doesn't adds up.

otoh Epic Online services is so great that it doesn't work with their inhouse games, It's like Left for dead or Portal not working with Steam imao.

They don't even host the game servers themselves, just the master server which does nothing but validate the "cd key" and provide a list of ip addresses and names for the servers. (when you bring a server online it connects to the master to add to the list), you could literally host the service on a RPi3 in someone's closet, and it wouldn't even break a sweat. Them taking it online doesn't kill the ability to play, it just kills the ability to find servers through the ingame server browser, and the ability to ban by account (instead of IP).

The game servers themselves especially for 99/2k4 I was running back until 2010ish, I ran a few and my average cost back then was around ~$2-3/month per server.

It's clearly not a cost savings thing though, half the games on that list are single player.

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They don't even host the online play in 2k4, they migrated that to steam's server browser instead of their services a while ago...this is just petty. Thankfully it'll still be playable as everything in 99/2k4 is just direct ip join anyways (the browser just downloads a list to your client, so a manual list can just be made available) but still...

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A full household at 160 watts? Unless you live like the middle ages I'm not sure how that's possible, the average household in the US uses 1200 watts when not at peak, 150 watts you could literally run your entire house off a single small solar panel and a car battery...hell you could run off just the car battery for 10 hours a day and just swap it out daily. (not even a full size panel, like a 1/4 size panel). Furnaces aren't "another 150 watts" the blower alone is around 800 watts, (can peak over 2000 during initial startup) assuming yours is gas. Do you not have any appliances? A refrigerator uses far more than that alone, a central fan uses almost 800, etc...the only way you average 160 is if you're offsetting your usage with home solar or you do nothing but sit around reading books by candlelight all day.

No, I'm thinking you dropped a 0 and you mean 1600, which is closer to average.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: raptor85

Quoting: ShmerlAnd as above, for games I care about I'm not even getting 100 fps so far.

Driver/wayland issues maybe? There's no reason your card, which is newer than mine, should be getting worse FPS in games.

No, games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Star Citizen are just very heavy / demanding. So I use this as a metric for target framerate / resolution balance, and 4K would clearly not be optimal for that yet :)

But I agree, a lot of that depends on the games. For less demanding ones it's less of an issue.

Interesting, I'm more of death stranding, elden ring, FF15, SMT, Monster Hunter, residient evil, etc as far as the AAA games in the past two years and while they're all pretty demanding they all run great, (Elden ring and Monster Hunter i bump to 1440p, both of them have weird spots that lag which sucks because 99% of the game works just fine at 4k :/) I've heard horror stories about cyberpunk being poorly optomized though so that's probably part of it :/

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Quoting: ShmerlAnd as above, for games I care about I'm not even getting 100 fps so far.

Driver/wayland issues maybe? (I'm using xorg, as it's still where games perform best and I'm not sold on wayland yet, it still has way too many issues) There's no reason your card, which is newer than mine, should be getting worse FPS in games, I'm often breaking 200fps at 1440p.

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Quoting: ArehandoroAm I the only one to think that even AMD's new cards are better than Nvidia's on power consumption, 300/355 TDP is still crazy high?

With climate change creeping up on us, current international political affairs affecting prices and availability of energy, and the market saying yes to devices like the Switch and the Deck, perhaps it's about time to demand these companies to release things more align with what the world needs.

We need to use much less energy. Not the same, and definitely not more.

There's still 100 watt and less cards on the market widely available, nobody's putting a gun to your head forcing you to get a higher end card. An extra 200 watts is also not really a lot compared to most other things in a normal household, you can literally offset that usage by not watching TV while the computer is on.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: raptor85though it's pretty borderline on many so I tend to keep it at 1440p to maintain 120+ fps

That's exactly the point. Why pay for 4K screen if you can't run many games at high enough framerate and need to lower resolution? To me it would feel like paying and not using it. That's why I think 2560x1440 is still the optimal resolution that GPU can handle currently.

Movies/streaming, work, there ARE other things we do on computers besides games you know :P

Also remember my card is 2 full generations behind and not even the highest end of it's generation and can run 4k 99% of the time just fine, a 3xxx or 4xxx series or any newer radion should do 4k just fine at 60/120fps.

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