Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store  

Artlover

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    6,341

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Artlover

  1. Posted

    sorry if I didn't directly answer your question

     

    No problem.

     

    I'm sorry if I seemed unthankful.

     

    I'm still mad at RUN magazine from 1986, when I wrote them a letter asking for advice on how to use a specific programming technique, and the basicly answered me saying (paraphrasing here): "Thats not the way to do things. Do it like this, and here are some resources for doing it this way". :x

     

    8)

  2. Posted

    Whoops forgot to answer your question, AL:

     

    If you go to www.pricewatch.com and type in Voodoo 2 you'll find a couple of places still selling them for cheap, $17?

     

    Cool, thanks. I'm going to check them out.

  3. Posted

     

    I didn't realize you were concerned about image quality but are the emulators that came out in '98 or '99 for the Voodoo cards really an graphical improvement? They might be I just don't remember because I've always gone for fast' date=' playable emulation.

     

    And now I'm spoiled with a fast Athlon XP and a Geforce2, so sorry if I didn't directly answer your question but when I said modern video cards I was assuming modern Geforces or Ati's.[/quote']

     

    Well, not having a GeForce or modern ATI card, I can't say 100% that they wouldn't provide for good gfx translation. :ponder:

     

    I am remembering back when UltraHLE came out. I had a 8meg AGP RageII and VooDoo1 card. Zelda ran around 60% full speed and looked almost exactly like my real N64. Because of the speed issues thou, I lost interest. I ended up taking out the voodoo card when I put my SCSI in (didn't have any more empty pci slots). Later I upgraded to the 32meg AGP Sis300 card, and while it was better then the RageII, it still just couldn't handle N64 emulation very well. :(

     

    I'll admit, Sis300 is not exactly the best chipset, but I'm on a budget. :|

  4. Posted

    The first N64 emus used Glide which was the exclusive 3d system in Voodoo cards.  But these days if you computer is P3 or better you don't need to downgrade to a Voodoo card, they make several Glide wrappers to use the real early emus, and the better, new ones use OpenGL and Direct3D which is included in all modern video cards.

     

    Not to sound disrespectful or snotty, but thats really matter of opinion, nor does it answer my question.

     

    I'm using a P3-650, OC'ed to 780, and a 32meg AGP SIS300 svga card.

     

    I have yet to find a Glide wrapper that isn't slow and emulates all the features correctly. So those are not really an option.

     

    As far as newer emu's, I'm not really happy with them. They are nice and fast now, and make for playable emulation. But I'm not happy with the GFX, which do not look as good as what I used to get from my old voodoo card.

     

    While that is probably a result of my current SVGA card, I'm happy with it, and am not changing it. I would rather have a another newer voodoo passthrough card.

     

    So my question remains open.

     

    Thanx.

  5. Posted

    Know what I would like to see for sale.....

     

    How about an auction where the prize is just winning. Thats right folks, you're bidding on nothing. No items or products here. Just the satisfaction of out bidding everyone else and being able to say you "won".

     

    BIN for $5000.00. :D

  6. Posted

    Speaking of N64 emulation....

     

    Besides EBay, does any one know where I can still buy a Voodoo chipset based gfx card. Voodoo II or better.

     

    Don't know what it is exactly, but as far as PC's go, most N64 emulators seem to work best with a Voodoo card. They seem to have better fire & fog effects.

  8. Posted

    Suits like that could work. Napster was not distributing copy righted songs itself. They were providing a "service" and the users were distributing the copy-righted material. Look what happened to them.

     

    Napster made some inherent mistakes. Such as having their own network and how their servers were storing info such as server addresses, user names, files names, etc.. Not to mention how the network worked in general, based on using their stored information for establishing connections.

     

    It wasn't a peer-to-peer system. It was a dedicated network that they had control of. But simply ingorned how it was being used.

     

    That's why/how they got shut down.

     

    Peer-to-peer systems like WinMX and Imesh are still operating, and have been so far, untouchable. Due to the fact they have nothing to do with the operation or use of the product.

     

    MAME is in the same boat. They have no control of who gets their product, and no control of how it's used. They have no copyrighted roms. They do not have any information on where to get roms. Not even so much as a link. Even the existance of the product at all is not subject to question because of all the fair-use value is has. Public domain roms, people that own arcade hardware, etc..

     

    If anything, the only thing that would get MAME shut down is the fact that they have sample sets for download. I would have assumed that the audio samples would have the same copyright restrictions as the rom code itself. But I guess that is not the case.

  9. Posted

    Mendon,  by guys like this one in this topic doing what they are doing, the game makers have a path now back to mame to sue it's makers for such a great product.

     

    If MAME had been distributed with ROMS (which doesn't seem to be the case on these CD's in question), that would fall on the person(s)/organization(s) that distributed said package.

     

    What MAME is doing is not illegal, and since they have no copyrighted content on their end, they have nothing to worry about. They have no way to control how an end-user may choose to use the product. Any suit against them would be totaly merritless. Much like trying to charge ammo makers for murder every time a gun is used to kill someone.

  10. Posted

    That is illegal,  

     As MAME programmers point out, they can not distribute the game ROMs with the MAME program per copyright laws.   The laws are international, so even UK version of Ebay should be made aware of what this user is doing.

     

    Who said MAME is being distributed with these CD's. No where in the descriptions of any of those mame disc sales does it say that. All references to what is included is roms, artwork, marquees, etc.. for use with MAME.

     

    I've downloaded some older MAME CD's from the news groups a while back, and from my own personal experience I can verify that they only contain ROMS & extras. Nothing to run any of them with.

  11. Posted

    I would just like to make a comment if I may.

     

    I've been reading this thread about people killing BIN's, and apperently, it's upsetting to some. Quite frankly, I do not understand why.

     

    As far as I am concerned, the BIN feature shouldn't exist at all. Ebay is an AUCTION house, not a personal store. Someone puts an item up for, and ultimately it will sell for however much someone is willing to pay for it. That's how it works.

     

    If someone decides to put in a BIN for something that is more then what I want to pay, but it's an item that I want, then you better believe that I would kill the bin, and make a bid for the amount I would be willing to part with.

     

    If someone who would have consdiered the BIN option still wants it, they are still free to bid on the item. It's certainly not my problem that they didn't see the item first, or took too long to decide. :|

     

    But then that created a subthread about people who don't want to spend all their time tracking & bidding on an auction. They wanted to just BIN and be done with it. So my question would be why are you wasting your time at AUCTION site to begin with then. :roll:

     

    It makes about as much sence as someone who doesn't want to have fun going to the arcade and bitching that there arn't any non-fun games.

     

    If you don't like the rules, don't play. Simple as that. I think that would be a lot more productive then all the "sour-grapes" whining and complaining. :idea:

     

    Just my .02.

  14. Posted

    I find it amusing that 2 decades later, the same old debate is still taking place. But at least now a days, it is much more friendly. Fights between the Atari & CBM people were quite passionate back then.

     

    Personaly, I grew up on the C64/128. But I've also got an Atari 800 & an 800xl w/512k & pokey/gumby.

     

    In a nut shell, both platforms had their advantages and disadvantages. I personaly prefer the C-64/128 when it comes to programming, but only because that is what I learned on, and know.

     

    However, I always liked some of the features Atari's had. First was the larger color pallet. But the color cells tended to be blocky. Regardless, viewing a .GIF on an Atari 800 looked much better then on a C-64. Althou with the IFLI modes on the CBM, this isn't as valid a point anymore.

     

    Another thing I always liked about the Atari was how easy it was to do digitized sound captures. Basicly just plug a radio or something into the joystick port, and read the paddle lines. Atari was fast enough to make this effective, in basic no-less. This was simply not possible on the C64. I tried. Digitizing on the CBM required assembly language and external hardware. Not that that was a bad thing. It's fun building hardware. I built a few. Including a stereo one and wrote my own software to work with my stereo sid. It was pretty sweet. Not to mention that hardware sampled sound sounded better then atari paddle port samples. But again, on the other hand, Atari tended to have much longer samples then the C64/128 could effectively deal with, at least as far as memory resident samples go. Thou I did write another bit of code to work with my 2meg REU, and could record/play directly to it. Was able to get over 4 minutes of, acceptable for the time, quality. Saving & loading those were a pain in the butt thou. I was always tempted to re-write the code to play/record directly to a 1581 drive, since it was capable of 8k/second sustained transfer rates, which would have been enough. But I went PC around that time and never got around to it. :ponder:

     

    Maybe one day I'll get around to it. 8)

  16. Posted

    Piracy maybe was a problem.There were many high-quality games before 1984/85 and after all the big companies left.

     

    The piracy argument doesn't hold water with me; the C64 had loads of pirates, the ST and Amiga as well and we should remember that the demo scene is a close cousin of the cracking scene, the former evolved from the latter during the period we're talking about. Blaming piracy is a common line for software houses who want to find an excuse to be elsewhere or who feel a certain user base need a kick up the arse to support them.

     

    Agreed. Piracy has no real valid negative impact on any media. Quite the contrary, if anything, it helps generate legimiate sales. I've got 3, somewhat long winded comments to make about it.

     

    1) Most people who pirated something never would have bought the product to begin with. So the concept of "potential sale lost" is a total crock. Me seeing a game and not wanting to buy it, or me downloading the game both equal the same thing: 0$ made for them. Me downloading a game is not the same as shoplifting it out of some store. I am not depriving them a sale. The product is still sitting out there for whoever wants it.

     

    2) When you buy a game or music or whatever, you're stuck with it. You can't take it back and get something else just because it sucks. Compound that with the high prices of the stuff, and people will shy away from wasting their money. I've bought many a game for my A2600, C-64, Atari 800, PC, NES (etc.), some were worth it, many were not. More then half the stuff I've bought I wish I hadn't, and why I almost never bought stuff unless I knew I really wanted it. I have bought games after downloading them. Why, because I liked them. I verified they wern't a waste of money, and would be something I would play for more then 5 minutes. Maniac Mansion for example. Great game. Only bought it after I downloaded it. Never would have gotten it other wise to tell you the truth. This is a factual point, that is even proven in the industry. Look at music. Complaining that the sale of CD Singles went down 33% in collage towns where filesharing was common place. True enough. But they also kept forgetting to mention that the sale of full CD Albums went up by 27%. Why? You could go buy the single, but since they can still cost as much as $4.99 sometimes, after you do, you arn't going to turn around and spend another $20 to buy the full album. But you doesn't want to buy the full album because you don't know if most of it is going to stuck or not. But if you download some of it first, you can make a better judgement as to where to spend your money. On the single or the album. But the industry is so stuck up & narrow minded that they fail to see the obvious... "Napster caused a 27% INcrease in full CD album sales".

     

    3) The only thing piracy accomplishes is exposes what ever the product is to a greater base of people which ultimatly results in new sales. Music is a good example. If it doesn't cost you anything, you're more likely to try something then if you gotta pay. IE: Would you spend $20 for an album from some unknown group in an unfirmilure genera just to try and it see what it sounds like? I've been turned on to punk/industrial music from groups like P-Childern. A group I never would have known existed, producing music I never would have listened to, if it wasn't for filesharing. So thanks to filesharing, there is now another potential customer out there that wasn't there before.

     

     

    It doesn't matter if you are talking about games, or music or movies. The logic and results are generaly the same. The war against piracy isn't about profit, it's about control.

     

    Sorry for ranting.

     

    Just my .02.

  17. Posted

    As for more faithful ports Pole POsition and Dig Dug are better on the Atari.

     

    PP wins all categories hands down

     

    Dig Dug looks better on the C64 but the gameplay is terrible (of course Im not referrring to the original 800 release which sucked raw eggs)!

     

    Which C64 port? There were several. The DataEast ports of PP & DigDug weren't bad.

  18. Posted

    The fact that there is a real label above it that reads "This device complies" etc., the standard label size, and the simple looking print of the label itself leads me to think this was stuck on long afterwards.

     

    I'd say that after the test unit passed it's calibration tests, they started production while waiting for the FCC to approve the application. Any units that left the factory before this happened, like preview/demo units, would have to have a notice that it's not approved yet.

     

    What I've learned today from the FCC websites is that having an FCC ID & "This device complies..." message doesn't mean it's FCC approved.

     

    FCC is a joke sometimes. To quote Grandpa from The Munsters, "F--- the FCC". :)

  19. Posted

    Ok, this may explain it. Here is a snippit from a website with resources for obtaining an FCC ID (along with the link).

     

    http://www.i-spec.com/EMC/usa.html

     

    2. Certification

     

    Certification is an alternative route for those products requiring a Declaration of Conformity. Certain other products (e.g. scanning receiver, intentional radiators) always require certification. The manufacturer must:  

     

    Get the product tested at a laboratory which has been listed by the FCC.  

    Submit the test report, together with a proposed FCC ID Number to the FCC  

    If approval is granted, mark the product with the FCC ID number and compliance statement, and place the required FCC notices in the user manual.

     

    So it looks like the FCC ID from some types of certification available are company generated, not FCC issued.

  21. Posted

    If CD-ROMs burnt out the drives quickly, Sega would have never built a CD player into it's BIOS for the Dreamcast.  The excuse of the lens burning out was a reason to deter people from pirating games, instead of actually trying to pursue the pirates in the first place.

    Audio CD's are fine because the lense doesn't have to jump from track to

    track. Audio is read in a linier(sp?) manner.

    Pirated games DO burn out the lense motor because the lense has to move

    around twice as much to read game data on the inside tracks.

     

    Not to be a simple "ditto"man, but I did want to jump in any say ditto, share my own experience.

     

    The laser/transport assembly/logic are fully CD compatable, as was already mentioned. The damage a burned CD's causes comes from the excessive and wild tracking many of those games have, as was also already said. There is also another problem, that more has to do with the quality of the rip/packing. I've encounted a few games where the image just will not burn correctly and I'll hear my DC constantly changing the speed of the CD as it trys to track. While it's normal to change the speed while tracking at different spots, I doubt the motor was designed to be constantly doing it by extreme degrees it all the time.

     

    I've had my Dreamcast for a few years. Have bought around 60 games for it. Burned around 185. Mostly, because you can hardly find games for sale anymore anywhere. Even my favorite place, GameXchange, only has about 25-30 used titles to pick from, all of which I had already bought (cheaper no less) at CompUSA & BestBuy bargin bins.

     

    My unit is still working fine. I simply try to shy away from any burned image that has very excessive tracking, or spin speed issues. I also have another Dreamcast unit shrinkwraped and sitting in storage, just in case.

     

    I'm not too worried thou. My experience with CD players of all sorts is that the controlling logic typical fails before any of the mechanical bits do, and I have no reason to suspect the Dreamcast is any different.

  22. Posted

    "as midgets dressed like Alex 6005321 from "A Clockwork Orange" dance around your coffin to loud industrial style techno music and strobe lights, and I will sleep soundly at night knowing another successful conquest of Darwinism has been attained."

     

    Hahahaha.

AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2021 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...