Live data from Hacker News

Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

github.com

141–150 of 302 posts

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#141
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wonder if part of the reasoning is built around those phrases, and therefore it can't get rid of them easily. > "now I have the full picture" I always interpreted that phrase as a sort of marker to delimit the phase in which it explores the codebase and gathers information from the phase in which it implements the changes. Not sure if it's still done, but I think some months ago there was discussion that some…

Yes these things happen as part of RL Training. Same way that you can see the "But wait ..." phrases in thinking traces. They get rewarded.

Out of curiosity, how does something like "But wait..." get rewarded?

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#142
I spent countless hours on this game as a kid and as I got older I found that trying to go back and play the game got more and more difficult as the technology scaled beyond the platform it was originally intended for.

A great use for what AI can help with, especially in the hands of dedicated fans. Maybe I will find some time to try and experiment with custom maps or units, the modding scene of C&C Generals was always pretty lively.

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#143
post #71
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get the Bun thing. Bun is running Claude Code which is probably the single most actively used development app there is. You say this was a bad use of LLMs, but it's been in production for a while and I haven't heard of any evidence that Claude Code has increased a significantly larger quantity of errors, segfaults, etc, than before.

Some people, myself included, think that announcing a conversion from Rust to Zig as an experiment then jumping to putting it in the alpha train for public testing/consumption without any real explanation in the span of around 2 weeks is irresponsible and reckless. Blogposts were promised, details were hinted, but no, it’s just full steam ahead because the AI worked so well. The converted unit tests all worked, all t…

They are looking for a different human buy-in.

"Yes, the AI rewrote the code. No, we do not pretend that we've scrutinized the code, or that we understand it. It works, tests pass, so we don't care, and so shouldn't you."

The "recklessness" is offered as the new normal. Because it kinda, well, works for them.

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#144
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "jargon-as-shorthand" not exactly that? On another note, I find AI instructions like this (e.g. "Don't hype findings. Skip "a critical finding changes everything",...") more harm than good in my own uses. It changes behavior in subtle ways that makes it less predictable to me. I'd rather it has its own AI-isms and quirks, that I've fully gotten used to, and I know what to expect. I know when it says certain things…

Lol! Good point. I did use Claude to write the rule, and it ironically wrote the exact thing I asked it to avoid. I agree that it might be best to use the model as-is, to get the intended experience.

Also I find it interesting to learn the jargon. It basically compacts information in fewer words, although more complex words. But when you are familiar with the jargon, you can unpack the sentences in your mind. And like that, you need less text to read and write prompts. So less reading, writing, and tokens!

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#145
post #47
post #42

IMHO, this is an actual good use of what sounds like a person guiding a model to do a mass conversion. Although, I wish the porting docs were a little wordsmithed by a human, the AI generated text style is grating. The stakes are low, it’s mostly for fun and you can iterate on it. Compare this with Bun which was just like, “hey we converted everything to Bun to Rust from Zig, of course it works, what could possibly g…

I don't really get the Bun thing. Bun is running Claude Code which is probably the single most actively used development app there is. You say this was a bad use of LLMs, but it's been in production for a while and I haven't heard of any evidence that Claude Code has increased a significantly larger quantity of errors, segfaults, etc, than before.

> which is probably the single most actively used development app there is

Seems doubtful, I'd put money on it being something like Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code. Maybe CC could claim the (odious) title of most actively used vibe-coded development app, though.

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#146
post #42

IMHO, this is an actual good use of what sounds like a person guiding a model to do a mass conversion. Although, I wish the porting docs were a little wordsmithed by a human, the AI generated text style is grating. The stakes are low, it’s mostly for fun and you can iterate on it. Compare this with Bun which was just like, “hey we converted everything to Bun to Rust from Zig, of course it works, what could possibly g…

I have a port of BuildGDX in the project backlog that was basically just throwing Claude at it to go from Java to .NET. The only thing it really got hung up on was Java's byte being signed.

What I ended up with was a port of Duke 3D that uses half the allocated RAM as DukeGDX.

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#147
> Long sessions on iPad can be killed by iOS for memory (~3 GB+ resident); the app exits to the home screen with no dialog. Session logs (current + previous) are in the Files app under the game's folder. Under investigation.

Wait. It's a port from a game from 2003. I don't think PC had 4 GB of memory back then (unless my memory is fuzzy, ah!): I mean, maybe some had that, but not the majority. I doubt the requirements for the original C&C Generals were 4 GB of memory.

OK, I just checked on a box of C&C Generals on eBay: requirement 128 MB of RAM (I know I could have asked a LLM, but checking a picture of an actual box is kinda fun).

I understand the need for a bit more graphics etc. but that's still a big jump: if the reqs were 128 MB or RAM for the PC, the game wasn't using that.

So we're talking something like a 32x inflation in RAM usage during the port (unless I didn't understand the caveat).

Why can't a game requiring 128 MB in 2003 run on machine 20 years more recent without using all the RAM?

Is there a plausible reason or are we to consider that when porting using Fable, we can expect the RAM usage of a program to go up by 32x?

EDIT: the original game has more asset than I would have guessed, skimming through the port's docs I found this:

> the game requires .big archive files (INIZH.big, MapsZH.big, etc.) totaling 4-5 GB. These files cannot be committed to repository due to copyright (EA Games property).

4 / 5 GB is not nothing. I wonder if the memory issue could be related to the way these are loaded?

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#149
post #42

IMHO, this is an actual good use of what sounds like a person guiding a model to do a mass conversion. Although, I wish the porting docs were a little wordsmithed by a human, the AI generated text style is grating. The stakes are low, it’s mostly for fun and you can iterate on it. Compare this with Bun which was just like, “hey we converted everything to Bun to Rust from Zig, of course it works, what could possibly g…

IMHO, this is an actual good use of what sounds like a person guiding a model to do a mass conversion. This is quite the understatement. Actually, it's probably the understatement of the year. "Pretty good, not bad, great use case". Dude. Fable fucking did what ?

It hallucinated that people play games on Apple products.

Re: Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

#150
post #46

I'm doing something similar, using AI to make Battle for Middle Earth (same engine) "open source" with AI: https://github.com/dginovker/BFME-Source-Code

I've been doing something similar for some of my favourite older games. But the "byte for byte" claim has me worried. Isn't simply decompiling the sourcecode from the binary and releasing that problematic? It's not the "clean room" approach and companies could still claim it violates some kind of copyright and get it taken down.

That's my understanding. Decompilation is legally protected in the US, and you can do a reimplementation based on a decompilation. Sony v connectix is aiui the precedent.

Theoretically you could clean room by having different agents/models/context windows to do both decompilation and reimplementation. This is untested in court afaik and I don't think anyone wants to spend money to find out.

There was a non-clean room reimplementation of gta3 a few years ago. The gta publisher DMCAd and of course the fans who did it didn't have any money to fight in court (and probably couldn't find anyone who would take a big complicated case on such bad facts pro bono). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/02/take-two-interactive-h...

Post reply on HN