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What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? My buddy won a Quake tournament in 1996 keyboard-only (though I believe by 1997 we had all converted). I still laugh thinking about how he made fun of his finals opponent as a guy with a mouse, we thought he was a "ringer" sent by the company because no normal person would play FPS games with a mouse
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# ? May 16, 2023 16:24 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 09:22 |
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I played with a mouse but actually pushed it fwd/back to move. and held the "strafe" key to move left/right instead of turning. man the pre-WASD days were rough
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# ? May 16, 2023 16:30 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse?
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# ? May 16, 2023 16:37 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? Seconded. It’s only 2.5D so you don’t need z axis.
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# ? May 16, 2023 16:47 |
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Minidust posted:my RAM story is that the last level of Doom II was basically unplayable, then when my Dad upgraded from 4MB to 8MB it was like I could move and breathe again My second PC was an Amiga 500 (my first was an A1200, oddly enough) and it had a little switch built in which turned on the 1 MB RAM expansion that was built into the machine. Fun things happened when you'd flip it while the computer was running. (Once I got old enough to use a soldering iron I wired the expansion to be permanently on and disconnected the switch because turning it off was only required for three games and they all loving sucked.) Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? That would be literally everyone at id. The demos that came with the game were clearly recorded with a mouse.
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# ? May 16, 2023 17:07 |
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Turning with the mouse, moving with the small arrows, or maybe even the numpad. Took me until at least Q3 to bed in wasd
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# ? May 16, 2023 18:31 |
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Team Fortress for me, but only after I tried playing with inverted mouse and it suddenly loving made sense.
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# ? May 16, 2023 18:45 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? Everyone in my research group who were always deathmatching with each other on our workstations. Use a mouse or die!
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# ? May 16, 2023 18:51 |
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SCheeseman posted:but the market was flooded with them at the budget end. Freaking 286s were still being sold when my family got the 386 SX in the early 90s.
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# ? May 16, 2023 18:58 |
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ExcessBLarg! posted:So DOOM was funny. Moderately-spec'd PCs in 1993 were either a 486/25 or 486/33 with 4 MB of RAM. DOOM was one of the earlier games that ran in 32-bit protected mode with a DOS extender, and it was actually quite flexible about the memory configuration of the system if you had enough memory. The problem was that DOOM required 4 MB of RAM, and most computers at the time were configured with QEMM or EMM386 to provide as much conventional memory (lower 640 kB) as possible, and the additional RAM used by the memory manager itself was often enough that DOOM wouldn't start. Or you could use OS/2 Warp which came with a configuration file for Doom (among other games)
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# ? May 16, 2023 18:58 |
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My RAM stories: I installed an extra 1M of RAM (SIPPs) into a Laser 386-sx16 so that Wing Commander would display the hand of the pilot navigating a joystick. Iirc i split the cost with my dad because i was like 14. This was not worth it. Years later I had a better computer, probably a 486DX-33 or DX2-80 (wish i remembered which) where I spent idk $250 out of pocket to add 4MB RAM to get to 8MB to be able to play Dark Forces. That was worth it. Then RAM finally dropped to under $50/MB, Pentium Pro's and whatnot came and all that poo poo got cheap and i don't remember much after. Here's a pricelist I dug up from a local computer place years later, it's dated 1996-03.
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# ? May 16, 2023 20:58 |
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lol Laser was the brand of mine as well.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:40 |
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Or you could use OS/2 Warp which came with a configuration file for Doom (among other games) Doom runs under OS/2’s VDM but not with sound. They never fixed that for some reason. IBM did contract a source port out (they contacted id, who weren’t willing to do the port but provided a copy of the Doom source) that ran under the OS/2 equivalent of WinG, but it was never officially released, other than being shown at trade shows. The beta version leaked ages ago and it runs just fine on period hardware, like Doom95 does under Windows.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:48 |
NyetscapeNavigator posted:Freaking 286s were still being sold when my family got the 386 SX in the early 90s. I think Windows 3.11 may be where manufacturers entirely dropped the 16 bit CPUs, since that was the first version to require 32 bit. Then with Windows 95, having 4 MB RAM was absolute minim, and you really wanted to have at least 8, and a Pentium class was a really good idea too.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:50 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? Right click forward! Left click shoot! Never strafe!
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:53 |
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wolrah posted:My first PC has a 486SX-25 and shipped with 2MB of RAM. I convinced my parents to buy another 4MB for it when SimCity Classic wouldn't run (even though it said 2MB as the minimum requirements) and then it got handed down to my grandparents who replaced the original 2MB with 16MB for a total of 20 so it could handle running AOL and IE 3.0 until it was finally retired from daily use some time in '98 or '99. PS/2 mice and keyboards can still be bought new for pretty cheaply so I'd say just do that
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:00 |
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Luigi Thirty posted:Doom runs under OS/2’s VDM e: I looked into it and it just hibernates the OS/2 session to HDD and runs PC-DOS. It's a better DOS than DOS, as far as things go, especially since it did come with ready-made configurations for all the popular games of the day. As far as the user is concerned, it's perfectly seamless. Running a DOS game in a virtual machine or whatever VDM is sounds like a bad idea anyway. Or, as Dijkstra put it, "virtual machines are a fake idea". 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 07:24 on May 17, 2023 |
# ? May 17, 2023 00:05 |
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I first played Doom on some form of 386 with 4mb ram but no sound card. My first x86 pc was a 486 25 with 2mb ram. I recall it was around 200 1995 dollars to get to 4. Eventually that machine got to 12 megs and a Cyrix 133 chip which was fine for all but the last days of DOS as long as I stuck to 320 200 resolutions. (Some of this could involve the on board svga only having 256k of vram and no real way to get it back then. The machine had a battery bukkake a few years back so even less point caring now. Plus I'm far from a purist and Dosbox more or less does everything I want and usually better.) Ram has always been weird in retro computing. You rarely need as much as the machine can handle outside of high end applications or Origin Systems games. Yes my Mac iisi has 65 megs of it but almost nothing I can run at a decent speed is gonna demand more than 8 tops. (And getting the Nubus adapter with its math coprocessor n maybe adding a card on top is gonna be low end upgrade for the cash spent anyhow.) My Amiga 500 is already stupid upgraded but 1 meg chip or fast or the 50/50 covers 95% of all Amiga 500 games so the extra gob my ACA500plus has is just dickwavingly useless. (Also why I have yet to get an Ace2b board to max it out in 2mb chip or whatever trapdoor options go beyond the 512k default ones. 300 bucks or around 50 with soldering for what? Just to say I CAN? The silly appeal is there but the reality is that its mind-bogglingly STUPID.) For gaming most pcs have a point where it wasn't worth it then and its even less bang to buck now outside of TEE HEE LOOK WHAT I CAN WASTE MY MONEY ON TO DO ON REAL HARDWARE THAT IS EASY AND FREE ON A MODERN MACHINE which again is amusing n fun but its not necessarily a wise use of money. (But it can be fun to do. Like ) Most of my retro computer stuff is mostly because its already here so why not upgrade it a bit? Otherwise not so much. But I keep this mindset for modern computing n other bits too. But for Doom? Bitd it was kb only or Gravis Gamepad if you wanted Easy Mode. For most 2.5d fps games its ideal. Hell thanks to USB and programs I can even get styling on iBooks! Edit: vvvv Personally a mid era XP rig is gonna rock the 98se. Like past a machine made in 06-7 or so might be dicey but before that is generally gonna be jamming. You will probably still need some files from the unofficial service packs and files from Phil's Computer Lab but overall good times. Especially if you don't want to pay the Voodoo 3/5 tax. A better era Radeon or GeForce that is good in 98 should handle whatever extra load if any dgvoodoo might place. The Pixel Pipes youtube channel had some great videos on cards for older oses and the eras. But its more if you are building for power, price, ease of use, or period accuracy that will determine things. At best? YOU GET TO PICK TWO OUT OF THE FOUR. Not to mention sometimes finding working components for your chosen build can be an ordeal. Vvvvv Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 11:43 on May 17, 2023 |
# ? May 17, 2023 04:57 |
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I'm actually thinking of building close to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vsj5OPjsUA https://youtu.be/7D01We2aAu8 As just a stupid project, and then have it (both heavily firewalled, on its own network, and 99% of the time just unplugged from its router) route everything through archive.org as a part of a bigger project where I'm recreating the year 1998 except bigger and better (it's already a PVM with 3 months of 90s and early 2000s recordings and shows, a 120 inch projector, fullsets for every console up to GC being emulated with a 5900x a 4090, soon a mister, and a whole lot more.) I can actually get the parts he had trouble getting very easily because Shenzhen is a place here. But I've heard that some of that very late "officially supported" stuff is a half rear end kind of support at best and often doesn't work how you'd expect it to work in 98se. But then, where is the sweet spot? Where is the "ultimate" in 98se hardware that actually runs well? Or is that late stuff actually running well but people think it doesn't because they forgot how garbage 9x was?
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# ? May 17, 2023 06:59 |
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3D Megadoodoo posted:e: I looked into it and it just hibernates the OS/2 session to HDD and runs PC-DOS. Also, anyone shipping anything "PC compatible" in 1994 made sure as poo poo that DOOM would run on it. That was the litmus test. 3D Megadoodoo posted:Running a DOS game in a virtual machine or whatever VDM is sounds like a bad idea anyway. Or, as Dijkstra put it, "virtual machines are a fake idea". And while compatibility was generally good, you could run into issues with QEMM, EMM386, etc. Microsoft really QAed the poo poo out of the Windows 95 VDM which is why Windows sometimes ran DOS better than DOS if you had the memory to do it. Protected mode games don't necessarily run under the EMM kernel though. Either the protected-mode kernel provides DPMI services (which again, Windows 95 was a really good DPMI host), or for something like EMM386 games would use VCPI to wrestle away control and run their own DPMI kernel. 3D Megadoodoo posted:It's a better DOS than DOS, I ran DR-DOS 7 on my retro PC in the aughts and liked that well enough. I think it had a legitimate claim to being a "better DOS than (MS-)DOS" though I ran it about a decade out from its contemporary usage. These days I'd just assume run FreeDOS. ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 14:37 on May 17, 2023 |
# ? May 17, 2023 14:32 |
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I played through the original Doom with that classic two-button Flightstick by CH Products. I bought it for Wing Commander and it was great for that, Wing Commander 2, Jetfighter 2, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, etc but it sucked for a first person shooter. I didn't start using mouse and keyboard until Doom 2, when I started playing deathmatch on a local BBS and a total stranger taught me how to use it. I have vague memories of wrangling memory for DOS games. My dad was the expert, and he spent an hour or two messing with config and bat files to get the aforementioned Wing Commander games running for me. I remember having a 386 from 1990 to 1994, when I got a 486DX2-66 with 8mb ram and marveled at how that ran X-Wing.
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# ? May 18, 2023 02:31 |
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Bruteman posted:I played through the original Doom with that classic two-button Flightstick by CH Products. I bought it for Wing Commander and it was great for that, Wing Commander 2, Jetfighter 2, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, etc but it sucked for a first person shooter. I didn't start using mouse and keyboard until Doom 2, when I started playing deathmatch on a local BBS and a total stranger taught me how to use it. I didn't play FPS games with it, but I use that same stick to play driving games. F1GP and Stunts come to mind.
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# ? May 18, 2023 05:21 |
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I have the Flight Stick Pro (not sure on the difference between it and the non Pro), and always loved how well built it is. I have owned it since new. Played many space sims, Comanche and car games on it
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# ? May 18, 2023 06:19 |
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You Am I posted:I have the Flight Stick Pro (not sure on the difference between it and the non Pro), and always loved how well built it is. I have owned it since new. Played many space sims, Comanche and car games on it Pro had more buttons and a hat switch.
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# ? May 18, 2023 07:30 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:What kind of pure maniac was playing DOOM with a mouse? Doom with a keyboard at all times. Decent also with a keyboard but using wasd and the number pad so that you could strafe up/down/left/right and also rotate in all directions, but then discover that you couldn't press more than 4 keys at once or something when you tried to do all the things at once. In the middle of a ludicrous fight of course. If n-key rollover keyboards existed then I would have been unstoppable! Pewpew!
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# ? May 18, 2023 23:10 |
Thinking about getting a mister for old PC stuff. Likely the single 128MB ram config should be ok. I’d missed the 16 bit era so the Amiga is like jumping into the deep end of a complicated and utterly foreign ecosystem of hardware and software. It’s like the people who started out with the Apple II when it was new, watched it grow into a set of ‘OSes’ various capabilities from later models like enhanced IIe / IIgs. Still, you can’t get by without a PDF manual on the side because you won’t get too much help in the system. And non PC keyboards are a bit of a learning curve, lots of extra functions on Sinclair keys. ExcessBLarg! posted:
It worked… swapped like a motherfucker on startup, enough to audibly lag the map01 music … but it worked. Under DOS, on the same machine, Doom started up in a few seconds! I can see why Game devs were “Run under windows? Naw, that’s MY RAM, MY CPU!” and it wasn’t until the pentium II era where it seemed like dos games were the holdouts.
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# ? May 22, 2023 10:51 |
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Coffee Jones posted:Thinking about getting a mister for old PC stuff. Likely the single 128MB ram config should be ok. There’s a pcjr / Tandy 1000 core now and it’s fantastic for early pc shenanigans to go along with the ao486 core for some early 90s stuff as well.
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# ? May 22, 2023 12:47 |
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Apropos of nothing, really, I idly checked to see what an A1200 would run me on eBay and jesus wept… I’m a few chips short of my A500++ motherboard build and I was going to kind of just put that aside for a rainy day if I could find a reasonably priced 1200 but I think “reasonably priced” and “A1200” no longer really exist in the same reality. So back to hunting for chips it is :[
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 11:37 |
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some kinda jackal posted:Apropos of nothing, really, I idly checked to see what an A1200 would run me on eBay and jesus wept… I got into my retro computer revival phase just early enough that Amigas were still affordable. I think my A1200 was 180e (although I did recap it for some extra cost) and I've had two A600s that cost probably 120e each. I sold one of the A600s because I don't like to hoard. Prices are high now, but soon our age group will die out and all these expensive machines will end up in the land fill.
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 11:46 |
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I got my A1200 for free from a friend of a friend probably 20 years ago I bet he's still kicking himself over it
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 13:51 |
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r u ready to WALK posted:I got my A1200 for free from a friend of a friend probably 20 years ago
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:29 |
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At this point if you don't already have original hardware it's probably best to just stick to emulation where possible when it comes to retro computing
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 22:11 |
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Pretty much. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't something amazing about knowing the thing you're mashing buttons on is the same thing that was pushing 1s and 0s around 30 or so years ago, but there's definitely an upper price on that desire that I hit a long time ago.
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 22:21 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:I both received and then subsequent gave away an Amiga for free about 15 years ago. EASY COME, EASY GO at least the guy I gave it to was a huge Amiga fan so he undoubtedly at least put it to good use I got two free Amigas (a 2000 and a 3000) circa 2019 and gave them away in 2021 in exchange for a token bottle of wine. The recipient has put them to much more and better use than I ever did, so I'm not too bothered.
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 23:44 |
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drrockso20 posted:At this point if you don't already have original hardware it's probably best to just stick to emulation where possible when it comes to retro computing I’m sort of the opposite in this regard. I’m more interested in the hardware and getting it to work. Having an emulator sort of defeats the purpose for me, even if it is much easier and painless
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# ? Jun 26, 2023 23:59 |
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Pham Nuwen posted:I got two free Amigas (a 2000 and a 3000) circa 2019 and gave them away in 2021 in exchange for a token bottle of wine. I hear you though, I also gave away an original Mac a few years ago. I mean to the guy who originally gave it to me in the first place but still The only reason I want to sell my retro stuff now is because I would rather swim in a kiddie pool full of quarters than own old computers I never power on
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# ? Jun 27, 2023 01:15 |
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I was hoping to buy a refurbished amiga from the guy here in Canada, but he passed away a few years ago. Think I'll never own an amiga at this point, I'll stick to my IBM.
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# ? Jun 27, 2023 16:30 |
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I like the idea of original hardware on paper, but I also really like modern displays, modern input devices, modern storage media, etc. It gets expensive when every additional platform means a new set of adapters, DIYing, and sometimes even hardware modifications to make the original hardware operate as close as possible to the idealized version my nostalgia remembers. I don't want to be dealing with floppy disks, waiting on old hard disks, have to juggle installed games, etc. even while I do want to push that chunky AT power button My old IBM 486 is probably one of the easiest retro computers to use because most of the interfaces it has either still exist on modern-ish hardware for legacy support or adapters are in the bargain bin, but it's still enough of an annoyance that if it weren't my actual first ever PC I would not still have it around. Everything I could ever want to do with it can be done just as well (usually better) in DOSbox or a VM that isn't running on creaky 30 year old hardware. I mean if I won Powerball, sure. I'd have a room full of all kinds of old computers and consoles with all the toys. In the real world I am really thankful for all the wonderful emulator and FPGA core developers that let me have basically the entire history of personal computing with full support for modern storage and I/O contained in a MiSTer and a Steam Deck that combined take up less space on my A/V rack than the Xbox Series X sitting next to them. In the end none of us are doing this for any reason but our own entertainment so if it makes you happy then you're doing it right. --- Sort of on that topic though, a while back I was looking for USB to PS/2 adapters to use modern input devices with my old PC and I figured I'd share that I found what looks to be the answer I was wanting here: https://github.com/No0ne/ps2pico https://github.com/No0ne/ps2x2pico The first one is keyboard-only but has AT support and an XT fork, the second does both keyboard and mouse but is PS/2 only. I haven't tried either yet as I don't have any spare RP2040s around and haven't gotten around to ordering any more but it seems like it works. wolrah fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jun 27, 2023 |
# ? Jun 27, 2023 22:20 |
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I like the hardware, personally. Especially for systems I never got to use before, like the MSX. Compared to software a lot of hardware is still a bargain, with some notable exceptions.
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# ? Jun 27, 2023 23:53 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 09:22 |
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I also struggled with displays for a long time, with both retro games and retro computers. I finally bit the bullet and got a small Sony trinitron for old computer use and I’ve discovered that half the vibe with old OS’s for me is seeing them the way I originally saw them, on CRT screens. There is just something about things like System 7,8,9, DOS, Windows 3.1 and 95 that just looks right on a CRT. I can also accept period correct crappy laptop screens.
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# ? Jun 28, 2023 01:06 |