Quoting: x_wing

Quoting: HamishCertainly an interesting option, if I can find my way past the 3dfx tax. :whistle:

It's pointless. The only "beauty" of a voodoo GPU in a build is glide support, but you can already get it with nglide (and it's probably the way to go on Linux).

Keep in mind we are talking about building a period computer here, so doing it with the original hardware is kind of the whole point of the exercise. Just for the fun of it.

There are also a few commercial games using SVGALib on Linux that will only provide full acceleration with 3dfx hardware. Still not enough to make me shell out hundreds on the dumpster computer though.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BumadarYou can still add a voodoo2 pass through ;)

Certainly an interesting option, if I can find my way past the 3dfx tax. :whistle:

View this comment - View article - View full comments

A few contemporary articles from early in the development of the DRI:

The Puzzle of 3-D Graphics on Linux
By Matt Matthews and Daryll Strauss published September 1, 2000 (Linux Journal)
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4083 [External Link]

Graphics: Pick a Card... Any Card
By Matt Matthews published October 1, 2000 (Linux Journal)
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4152 [External Link]

Linux Video Card Comparison - October 2000
By Jeff Brubaker published October 9, 2000 (AnandTech)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/632 [External Link]

A New Generation of 3D Gaming in Linux
By Matt Matthews published October 2000 (LinuxGames)
http://www.linuxgames.com/articles/nextgen3d/ [External Link]

XFree86 4.1.0 and ATI RADEON
By Robin Rowe published November 1, 2001 (Linux Journal)
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5425 [External Link]

DRI Beginner's Guide
By Frank Worsley
https://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIbeginner.html [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: scratchiLet me know if you need parts. I'm in Toronto, so if you're from this part of Canada, I can drive it over to you...cuz I'm definitely not gonna power it up for another 12 years but just don't want to trash a fully functional PC no matter how useless :)

Thanks, I appreciate the offer, but you would be in for a long drive. Clear across the country from you.

Quoting: BogomipsYou need to put a 3dfx Voodoo card in that setup. But I'm not sure if it is a retro build or just an old build. To me retro is more the era before the Pentium. I still have around 286, 386, 486 DX2/66, Pentium II and Pentium III machines. But I ditched all the CRT monitors.

I would love to have a 486 machine turn up at some point. Or a Voodoo card for that matter. :wink:

Quoting: NanobangThat looks alot like our old Micron PC, Hamish. Of course, everything looked like our old Micron back then: big beige and boxy. It came from Micron with Windows ME installed from the factory. It was around $2,000.

I kept the OEM system information from the original Windows 98 install before I wiped it just for the novelty. It looks like the computer was put together special by a local IT outfit.


Macrotronics - Edmonton
10577 109 street
Edmonton
(403) 428 0916

They are still operating out of Cold Lake now apparently:
http://macrotronics.com/ [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestIf you can get Win98SE running on it though, Shadow of the Horned Rat and of course the Mechwarrior 2 series.

Not going to disclose too much obviously, but the previous owner seemed to have kept the machine around as an Age of Empires II box. He had saved games dated as recently as 2011 on it. My guess would be he just switched over to the Steam version at around that time.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: FaalagornI would also like to remind that Chromium is losing sync among some other functionalities; it will work only in closed-source Chrome. Here's the recent news from Arch Linux: https://archlinux.org/news/chromium-losing-sync-support-in-early-march/ [External Link]

I turned off Sync about a week ago in Chromium and have noticed no difference. It thankfully was not a feature I ever became reliant on, but others are not so lucky.

Considering I am currently using a Galaxy S4 I am damn sure I could get away with switching to a Linux phone when this one finally succumbs to time. My requirements are minimal.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

So I just went back and finished Icewind Dale after leaving it parked right before the final boss battles for a year and a half. Guess I will wait on starting Heart of Winter until after the update is available for GOG.com buyers.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Is that Blackbox I see there? Good man.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: elmapul1)i dont remember the last time i pirated something, but last time i checked i didnt missed any feature, it was an offline game anyway.

I already gave an example with Duke Nukem Forever earlier in the thread. Sure, you can come up with a list of games that do work flawlessly once cracked, but I can do the same for Windows games running in WINE. It is not that they can not be made to work, it is the uncertainty and volatility that is the problem. In both cases you are left on your own without support.

Quoting: elmapul2)with the current marketshare we dont have both, drm-free games or games with drm, currently we dont refuse to play games with drm because we want to boycot drm, but because we CANT play then.

I mean, that is exactly what I have been doing. There are many Linux native games I refuse to purchase and play because they come with DRM solutions, most prominently Steamworks. And I am happy to say I still have a large backlog of Linux native DRM free games to get through.

Quoting: elmapulyou would still have the option to only play drm free games, the difference is that you will be able to play everything else. its not just about us paranoid with privacy , security and freedom, but about everyone else too

Sure, as things stand it is a personal consumer choice. But the way you presented it makes it a false dichotomy. You can have both, or neither, and one compromise is not greater than the other. Your preference is for more titles on Linux no matter what, my preference is for more DRM free titles. In the end we are both buying Linux games and supporting the industry. I am not hurting Linux marketshare by using Linux to only play DRM free titles.

What I will say is a DRM free Windows game that works well in WINE is in the end more accessible to me than a Linux native game that requires DRM in order to function. And while my objections to Windows native games are on a technical level, my objections to DRM systems are on an ethical one.

Quoting: elmapul4)drm seems to be an thin layer compared to an operating system, there is a reason why it take so little time to break the drm of most games, but its taking years to make some games work on linux.

DRM is deliberately antagonistic by design, unlike the APIs that make games work on other platforms. You are both hugely underestimating the effort it takes to break DRM systems and underestimating the effectiveness of emulators like DOSBox or compatibility layers like WINE. But I am not going to deny that both take a great deal of talent and effort to pull off. And the difference still remains that one is legal and the other often is not.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Actually, to answer my own question, there is a difference: running a game through WINE is still legal. In Canada at least ANY attempt to break a digital lock is explicitly forbidden by law due to the Copyright Modernization Act, even for software you paid for and otherwise have a licence to use.

I knew someone who after thirteen long years wanted to finally play Duke Nukem Forever but was old school enough to not want a Steam account. So he played a cracked version of the game which, by deactivating Steamworks, also meant that the Ego system in the game was broken. He completed the entire game with the lowest amount of health possible, not even getting the first boost you get right at the beginning of the game from using the urinal.

My playing the copy of Shadow Warrior 2 I was gifted by GOG.com through WINE and DXVK and having a few issues with video playback is a small point in comparison.

View this comment - View article - View full comments