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kano

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Status Updates posted by kano

  1. Why do we see people selling fan art and models from games online? How and why do they not get ripped a new one by publishers? I mean there are some companies who just sit on franchises and do nothing with them; they tend to be the most litigious, while more active ones who have actually made good games in the last 15 years seem to ignore it? I guess sitting around, hoarding franchises and not developing games all day means you have more time to go after fans. :) But still, I do feel that profiting off of someone else's work without their permission is wrong.

    1. jaxa

      jaxa

      It's difficult/expensive to police, might not be competing with the actual product, and alienates fans who are giving free advertising to the works. It may be in a legal gray area if trademarks aren't used.

    2. jaxa

      jaxa

      Using Nintendo as an example, they tend to go after emulators, unauthorized ports, and fan games. They aren't as likely to go after fan art. There was a recent DMCA request sent to SteamGridDB, but that was more like reworked box art, I assume used for emulator GUIs:

      https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/11/nintendo-goes-after-fan-made-custom-steam-icons-with-dmca-takedowns/

    3. SeriousToni

      SeriousToni

      Well, there are even people who sell tshirt prints of the thief games for their own profit without legal pursue. I think doing fanart without profit is fine, but selling them for their own pocket to be printed on clothes and posters by using the fame of games other people / companies made is not right.

  2. The cool part of Canonical's Snap, is that my machine can now ray-trace an entire (simple) scene faster than it takes the web browser to start!

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. OrbWeaver

      OrbWeaver

      Snap is complete garbage. Another useless me-too duplicate project by Canonical that nobody else will ever use and will hopefully go the same way as Mir once Canonical come to their senses and start using FlatPak like everybody else.

    3. kano
    4. datiswous

      datiswous

      Linux mint also banned Snap afaik.

      But personally I'm not a fan of Flatpack either. Appimage is much nicer. You put the file on any drive and run it.

      Although I'm running a rolling distro, so it's less needed.

  3. No need to get yourself infected with malwarefor that good old Windows experience of ads and nag screens.

    https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-is-now-injecting-full-size-ads-on-chrome-website-to-make-you-stay-on-edge/

    1. datiswous

      datiswous

      To work around this issue, you could download Firefox first and then with Firefox, download Chrome.. 😜

      Or install an addblocker on Edge before visiting the Chrome download site.

    2. SeriousToni

      SeriousToni

      I seriously don't understand why this would make sense. Also the occasional update screen before you can use Windows. Where you must click carefully through 5 screens trying to avoid installing Office Demo or set Edge as your standard browser and all that shi...

    3. Xolvix

      Xolvix

      @SeriousToni Regarding the screen that appears after updates, the guaranteed fix is as follows:

      • Open Windows Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions
      • Uncheck these items:
        • Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what's new and suggested
        • Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows

      As for the issue kano mentioned, I have a directory on separate drive that I keep all my installers is whenever it's time to install/reinstall Windows. Saves having to hunt down the individual installers and also avoids dealing with this sort of crap. I'm sure someone will mention Linux but I've evaluated it for many years and it's still not suitable for my purposes... yet.

  4. Ran TDM on a 5950x in pure software rendered OpenGL mode. lol Shows you just how powerful modern CPUs actually are. Also, anyone on the dev team or any mappers need a Ryzen 3700x? I've got a spare; and since you gave me a free game, might as well give you some free hardware.

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. lowenz

      lowenz

      MESA LLVMPipe 22.3? Remember to NOT add dxil.dll or explicit the llvmpipe path for gallium.

      Otherwise it will use the D3D12 backend (so of course it runs well)

    3. lowenz

      lowenz

      batch file with:

       

      SET GALLIUM_DRIVER=llvmpipe

      .\TheDarkModx64.exe

       

      remember to disable the AF

    4. lowenz

      lowenz

      Six core (no HT) i5 11600, normal detail, stencil, no soft shadows/no SSAO, no AF

      1280x720

      image.jpeg

  5. Don't you hate it when there's a quality discussion on a forum somewhere online about something, but then two disagreeing users derail and transform it into a back-and-forth poo slinging competition at one another?

    1. Show previous comments  6 more
    2. lowenz

      lowenz

      'cause there's no hot headed members.

    3. datiswous

      datiswous

      Well not anymore at least..

    4. Xolvix

      Xolvix

      Create a new thread called "Linux vs Windows."

      There, now you've got the means of bringing out the hot-headed members. :)

  6. Did I mention how absolutely grateful I am that TDM didn't get (and can never be) assimilated by a huge company like Microsoft, as is what happened to Minecraft?

    1. thebigh

      thebigh

      Yes, I too like that The Dark Mod is not crappy, overpriced bug-ridden gruel.

    2. datiswous

      datiswous

      Somewhat unrealated, but I told some woman about trying modding in TDM and then she sad that sounded what her doughter was doing in Minecraft. Ugh, this is when you remember not to talk to people about this outside the intrest-range.

    3. OrbWeaver

      OrbWeaver

      That's the major advantage of FOSS of course: all the money in the world cannot take over the project (since it can just be forked for continued community development). Although for some reason FOSS games seem to be extremely rare apart from arcade stuff like Frozen Bubble.

  7. Still working toward the cause and spreading the word about TDM through the Internet on discussion forums. "Thanks for the link, will be downloading this tonight!"

  8. You might be wondering what happened to all your firefox extensions. Well, ready, set, cluster***k! https://betanews.com/2019/05/04/mozilla-fixes-firefox-add-ons-problem/

    1. Show previous comments  5 more
    2. demagogue

      demagogue

      Epic and entirely preventable blunder on their part. At least they've fixed the root issue they should have done years ago, for what it's worth I guess.

    3. stumpy

      stumpy

      the signed certificates are built into the addons, just that firefox wasn't recognising thoses signed certificates.

      or something at firefox end was,'t recognising things.

    4. Tafferboy

      Tafferboy

      Stopped using firefox a while ago due to v60 breaking half my addons, now currently using waterfox.

  9. You might be wondering what happened to all your firefox extensions. Well, ready, set, cluster***k! https://betanews.com/2019/05/04/mozilla-fixes-firefox-add-ons-problem/

  10. Since the tax software industry is hiding the fact that they must now let you complete taxes for free when you fall within a certain financial bracket, it seems fair that we spread this story. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/26/us_tax_turbotax/

    1. kano

      kano

      Gotta love the good old Straisand Effect! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

    2. jaxa
    3. AluminumHaste

      AluminumHaste

      I love the response from TurboTax!

  11. Been using computers for 25 years, and I've finally run my first java/.jar file. This awesome project: https://m210.duke4.net/index.php

    1. kano

      kano

      I guess Java is a perfect way to port these old games, because they become cross-platform easily, and performance isn't important; it will run 100+fps on any even slightly decent machine.

  12. Still spreading the word about TDM on forums to new peops... Funny to see people say "Awesome, I loved playing Thief back in the day!"

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. kano

      kano

      Yes it was in a discussion where someone was saying how unhappy they are with the way game companies grant themselves permission to do whatever they like to your PC and personal info today. I pointed out that giving up games completely is an unnecessarily overkill solution when there are free games like TDM to play.

    3. Epifire

      Epifire

      Honestly the mod/Indie genre is still really booming right now. And they aint got no reason to do shady invasive privacy bs.

    4. Petike the Taffer

      Petike the Taffer

      What Epifire said. :-)

  13. Welcome to 2019, where safety features of a plane are sold as additional DLC. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/boeing-safety-features-charge.html

    1. stumpy

      stumpy

      guess one of the optional upgrades allows a pilot to turn off the MCAS system.

    2. RPGista

      RPGista

      Brilliant idea. Bet the executives that came up with the model received a well earned fat bonus for the scheme.

  14. When your free phone from the government comes with malware installed out of the box. https://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/936458-why-does-google-chrome-open-up-scammy-game-page.html

    1. freyk

      freyk

      then you go to xda and download and flash a clean rom (as possible) on the phone.

    2. freyk

      freyk

      and that topic, its a replacement phone. Maybe not factory resetted?

    3. chakkman

      chakkman

      The answer is in the first reply of that thread. "I have a cheap ANS UL40 android phone "

  15. Why smart people don't want crap like this in their PC. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/12/intel_sgx_hacked/

    1. kano

      kano

      Sooner or later I'll have to switch to an architecture that isn't mainstream X86. If I wanted a computer that was compromised by Hollywood, I would just buy a Sony CD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

    2. OrbWeaver

      OrbWeaver

      Hollywood are so fucking stupid it's unbelievable. Their worthless DRM snake-oil has been failing for the last two decades or more, but the solution is always MOAR snake oil...

  16. Goes to company's website, sees link called "why choose us", clicks it, and gets a 404. FAIL!

  17. So Wine on Android is now a thing, meaning that you could play Thief TDP on your Android phone. No Direct3D support as far as I know, because mobile devices only implement OpenGL ES, which is a subset of OpenGL.

    1. Show previous comments  3 more
    2. freyk
    3. jaxa

      jaxa

      Too bad my older Chromebook doesn't support Android or Linux. But some ChromeOS users could be able to use that to play TDP/TMA.

    4. freyk
  18. So, what's the best way to play vanilla Doom 3 with soft shadows? I mean, like, the TDM soft shadows would be nice to have...

    1. nbohr1more

      nbohr1more

      Currently the best option is to get BFG and use Robert Beckeban's RBDoom3 fork. Someone could backport TDM shadows to vanilla though.

  19. Old fx6300 running at 4.3GHz takes 5 minutes to compress 26000 small files into 1. New Ryzen 1700 at 3.6GHz on all cores takes 2 minutes and 9 seconds to do the same thing. This machine stomps that old one into the ground...

    1. jaxa

      jaxa

      Ryzen 3000 series is going to curbstomp everything with mainstream 12 and 16-core chips: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18055-2016-cpugpu-news/page-13#entry430695

    2. kano

      kano

      Yeah looks like I made the right choice in picking sides for once. And for those wondering, the data set is my collection of Doom/Duke3d/Blood/other 2.5d game levels. There are more than I can ever play, about 4.3GB (uncompressed) of them. They fit into a 1.2GB squashfs image.

  20. We're seeing 1TB SSD's coming in at $120 now. The hard drive manufacturers must be starting to sweat. Reports are that costs of flash will fall even more next year. I hope the hard drive manufacturers get thrashed by cheap SSDs, for not decreasing the price of 2-3TB drives much at all in the past four years.

    1. Show previous comments  7 more
    2. jaxa

      jaxa

      @Bikerdude, the performance metric that makes SSDs great is random I/O. It's unfortunate that sustained writes would drop off a cliff, but not the end of the world.

    3. Bikerdude

      Bikerdude

      @Jaxa, yeah that was my primary reason for getting one. On the Sustained reads/writes - I had to reimaged my PC last night so coped my games folder (200gb) to my Crucial P1 1TB, and sure enough 75% of the way through the write speed dropped off a cliff, 400-500mb/a down to 95mbs (that speed I think is only slightly faster than my old WD mechanical HDD.

    4. teh_saccade

      teh_saccade

      Can't knock the read speed though - got decent chipset and RAM, then you're always first in the game and get pick of the roles in Red Orchestra 2.

       

      It's nice to push the on button and have windows boot up before you've had a chance to sit down and take a sip of tea.

  21. Updated my Uefi the other day and suspend to RAM finally works correctly! It took more than a literal year to be fixed. But I suppose I should be happy it got fixed at all.

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. kano

      kano

      The machine I gave her is an old AM3 system, so that bug will never be fixed. But thankfully it is triggered by a USB device that she doesn't need anymore anyway.

    3. Bikerdude

      Bikerdude

      UEFI is a blight on the computer landscape, due to how inherently insecure it is - but we cant do much about it now. And regarding ASrock, I will only consider buying from them when they start offering 3yr warranties.

    4. Bikerdude

      Bikerdude

      And lastly, rule of thumb, only have kb/mice plugged into any USB ports if you can help it.

  22. Anyone else get a major Thief vibe from the photo on the top of this article? https://www.howtogeek.com/394427/what-is-a-dark-web-scan-and-should-you-use-one/

    1. kano

      kano

      I suppose it is the lighting, the hood, and the color that makes me think of Thief, though our man Garrett would never use something resembling a laptop.

    2. Petike the Taffer

      Petike the Taffer

      Sort of. It's clearly a modern hoodie, though.

    3. freyk

      freyk

      To me its a stock photo. Seen it on several online articles.

  23. How to design a not-very-good Doom level. Pack fifty high-tier monsters into a small hallway where the only way to fight them is to lower a lift that brings one or two down at a time. The player is stuck slaying them until boredom sets in. Of course he can take the lift up, but then he gets ripped a new one, emerging in the middle of the pack with no room to dodge.

    1. kano

      kano

      But, the level that preceded this one was quite fun.

    2. Zen3001
    3. Sotha

      Sotha

      Could the player get them to fight each other? At least in the original Doom (1993) it was possible to lure baddies to fight each other, which was hilarious.

  24. PSA: Latest Linux distros like Ubuntu 18.10 contain an updated version of Mesa which significantly improves performance and compatibility with games and open drivers like Intel and AMD.

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. kano
    3. freyk

      freyk

      Tried this with tdm?

    4. kano

      kano

      Yep, it seems to run faster on my old laptop with Radeon 6700 graphics. But I don't have stats of the performance before the upgrade to compare it to. Also, games like Gzdoom used to suffer from graphical glitches on that hardware, and they're gone.

    1. Bikerdude

      Bikerdude

      I have never used WD el-cheapo & nasty nas boxes for various reasons, so this dosen't surprise.

    2. kano

      kano

      Sworn off WD myself. Why? They started building the SATA-to USB bridge into the hard drive itself, so if it fails, you're screwed. Sometimes those bridges do fail, not the actual hard drive. And with a proper one, you can just rip the drive out and hook it straight to SATA. But they really want people to use their $3000 data extraction service.

    3. kano
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