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Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

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Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#181

Post by RobotCaleb »

benj111 wrote: post #174
fizzbuzzbarbazz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood his question. Given two files, a compressed file which must be uncompressed to play, and an uncompressed one which does not require extra processing - why would the game ever bother uncompressing te compressed file when the same data is already available uncompressed? There's no true use case for that that I can see.

I would guess to save on installed size?

It's not about size or file count or disk space consumed. The question is about why would you require the extra overhead of playing the compressed version which involves decompressing it on the fly in some way, versus just playing the already decompressed version.

In this case it was stated that both the compressed and decompressed versions live side by side. So there is no install size saved.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#182

Post by skhr0680 »

Lorkki wrote: post #124
virtue3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

If I remember correctly, actual pirated copies would have been maybe tens of megabytes, since they didn't include the CD audio. But that would still have been a hefty modem download.

The common pirated version of Quake was a 20MB pre-release leak that had oodles and oodles of minor differences to the final version. All of the actual levels themselves are playable and completable. The funniest differences are a mean trap that was removed from the final E1M1, and E2M6 still begins with the eponymous oubliette, banished from official releases until 2021 (!).

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#183

Post by ChoGGi »

gblargg wrote: post #99

From the title I was expecting this to be about them packing 700MB of data on the CD, a common thing at the time by spacing the tracks slightly closer together, as some CD-Rs did.

This is hacker news, not packer news. What are you, some sort of Green Bay fan?

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#184

Post by dole »

Lorkki wrote: post #124
virtue3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

If I remember correctly, actual pirated copies would have been maybe tens of megabytes, since they didn't include the CD audio. But that would still have been a hefty modem download.

People were still replacing their 14.4k modems with 28.8s in 1996. I remember seeing the Quake 15 x 1.44 zips on local BBSes, which would've taken at least 3.5 hours over a perfect 14.4 connection so definitely a daunting phone line tie-up for the average kid (I had the CD.)

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#185

Post by moribvndvs »

classichasclass wrote: post #5

Man, those CompUSA and Computer City pictures take me back. Spent too much time there (when the 7300 was my regular Mac, the CompUSA "Apple store" was my primary source of software). Probably still have some of those free Computer City floppies in a drawer somewhere.

I worked the parts counter in 98-99. It was a coveted position, as the juice was the retail channel programs where qualified employees got pretty significant discounts from Intel, AMD, and the likes. Reps would also shower you with free or discounted stuff, I recall having a good friendship with a Creative Labs who rigged contests and gave away shit constantly. Lots of free software to be had as well. It was effective though because I happily and aggressively shilled for the companies hooking me up. CompUSA was actually a pretty miserable place to work but it fed MY insatiable hunger for new hardware.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#186

Post by sporkland »

beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

For me the music on the Monkey Island CD-ROM remaster was a real jaw dropper.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#187

Post by KellyCriterion »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #73
dylan604 wrote: post #38

"The CD was announced[4] on July 3, 1996 and released on August 30th[5]. The hacker group GNOMON released Quakecrk.zip only 39 days later[6]." While not being familiar with the Windows side of things, I did frequent the a.b.m.a newsgroup being a broke student. It was always impressive to me to see how quickly someone would post a binary before the crack was posted. I remember one app I was very interested in posting…

I remember old games shipping with huge lists of codes on paper. Paper made, on purpose, too big for an US legal/A4 photocopier. And moreover the codes would be using "light blue characters on slightly less light blue paper". Very annoying for casual piracy (as in: copying your neighbor's version of the game). > Later, the apps that would clone a USB dongle came along, and one software company that used USB dongles a…

Wasnt Monkey Island II delivered with this color-code-wheel?

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#188

Post by unregistereddev »

Uvix wrote: post #173
fizzbuzzbarbazz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood his question. Given two files, a compressed file which must be uncompressed to play, and an uncompressed one which does not require extra processing - why would the game ever bother uncompressing te compressed file when the same data is already available uncompressed? There's no true use case for that that I can see.

With hard disks, I could see reading the compressed version from disk and decompressing giving you the bytes faster than reading the uncompressed version. With SSDs that advantage likely went away.

Yep. If you had the CPU overhead available, you could speed up your entire computer by enabling full-disk compression and then defragmenting. It's difficult to accurately describe just how slow it was to move data to and from a spinning platter over a PATA interface.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#189

Post by oniony »

beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

Remember the Commodore CDTV, which came out at the height of the "multimedia" hype: https://obsoletemedia.org/commodore-cdtv/.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#190

Post by guhcampos »

beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). "

To me the Saturn made the absolute best choice. The whole game's OST would be burned as audio tracks. I used to - and still can - just drop a game CD into an audio player and enjoy emblematic OST's like Daytona USA, Sonic R and many others in full 44100Hz 16bit audio.

I recall a few PC games did that too: Total Annihilation comes to mind: I also still own the physical media and still can listen to the OST that way.

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