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Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
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Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#362I remember when Far Cry came out. Around the time, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were the most anticipated games for quite a while, mostly because they promised graphics far ahead of anything released so far. But as they were delayed multiple times, Far Cry stole a lot of their thunder when it came out months before them, with similarly impressive graphics. We don't see technically ambitious PC exclusive games like this any…
Huh? That doesn't seem right. We absolutely have ambitious games on pc that bring generational leaps in graphical fidelity. Like the Witcher 3, which was absolutely stunning when it first released. Similarly (although originally a console exclusive) Red Dead Redemption 2 looks incredible on PC. We also have releases like Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice which pushed the limit of what was possible to achieve with limited r…
You're undermining your own point but listing a bunch of console games.
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not zombies, I remember mutants. Dr Evil[1] created mutants from people, etc, etc [1] I don't remember the name. It was so long ago that it was when I first got married, the first time!
Dr. Krieger
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Competitive FPS games did even exist on the N64 (James Bond Golden Eye, Perfect Dark), and in the next generation they were very common and mostly had the modern two stick controls which is still used today. So I don't think that had anything to do with it. > The PC gaming market is actually bigger now than it was back then. This might be true, but I'm fairly certain that the market share of the PC platform has stron…
The "next generation" after N64 was Xbox/PS2. In my previous comment, I pointed out that FPSes on consoles became viable during that time. There were FPSes on consoles even prior to Golden Eye/Perfect Dark. For instance, there were SNES ports of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. They were just all pretty bad. Even the "good" ones like Golden Eye don't really hold up against the PC shooters of the time. Shooters didn't become…
By the time Far Cry, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 came out, shooters were very common on consoles. There were many more console shooters apart from Halo. The fact that we see hardly any PC-exclusive AAA shooters anymore, but did back then, calls for an explanation. And it's not just shooters. In general there are few AAA games nowadays that are PC-exclusive or mainly targeted at PCs and only ported to consoles. The situation was very different in 2004.
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In general, open-source all abandonware. Here's a few examples of non-game old software that would benefit the society if open-sourced: That's not the heuristic companies use to determine whether or not to release source code. > Windows 9x and classic Mac OS. No one has sold these OSes for 20+ years and they turned out to be evolutionary dead ends. It would make sense to release their sources so people could learn…
> The biggest competitor to Windows 10 was not Linux or Mac, it was Windows 7. I have to wonder how relevant Microsoft will remain in the long run. There are several projects maturing that allow people to run Windows apps — the one reason people use Windows in the first place — without any Microsoft involvement whatsoever. The fact that Win32 API has barely changed over the last 15 years also helps. Wine compatibilit…
the one reason people use Windows in the first place
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a real world project that focused on shipping a good game rather than have perfect code. There is a reason perfectionist devs do not run big projects. They focus on minutiae rather than the big picture. Even in my own experiences, one of my most successful projects (eventually acquired by Amazon) was a quickly written hacked together project that solved a big issue well. Over time it became better enginee…
Or maybe, just maybe, 'good practices' simply changed over the span of literally 20 years? Naah, it must simply be those 'perfection vs practicality' dichotomy again. ...Not to mention that your point is the definition of survivor ship bias. Maybe the devs actually were super mad at themselves how the codebase looked cause it slowed down their development. Maybe they initially had 3 more times the ammount of anti-pat…
I don't really think good practices changed that significantly in the last 20 years. Good practices must be seen like guidelines, not a strict dogma. They are mostly for the benefit or other humans to read and modify it without introducing (many) bugs. So, it's always a balance between the time you can reasonably imagine that code base will still be relevant, the number of people changing it, how much harder certain bending of the guidelines make it to change the code in future, etc.
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Umm, anything windows can't be open sourced because significant parts are still in use and source access would create serious security issues due to how MS handles legacy components, right?
Windows 9x is based on DOS. The last release of that lineage was Windows ME. The only thing modern NT-based Windows has in common with it is many application-level APIs. Everything else is different. There may be some common code, but if that's so important to keep private, fine, strip it. Heck, release just the kernel of 9x, that definitely can't possibly share anything with any commercially-relevant products. > sou…
You've conflated being able to use legacy apps which require a very specific stack of components with the complete absence of any such components.
Additionally you've failed to recognize that where legacy code is maintained Exactly As Is (bugs included) because users (corps and gov mostly) explicitly depend on behaviors remaining exactly as they have been for 20 years, there is effectively zero means/will to fix dangerous problems which are not being actively exploited.
And the mantra around obscurity is too often misused and misunderstood:
It's not that obscurity is not a form of security it's that its not a meaningful form of security On Its Own.
Obscurity is in fact the first line of security.
Just like with physical security, the first step is in preventing attackers from knowing it exists at all and Then having security measures to prevent access/theft/etc if they do happen to find what is being protected.
Y'know, like safes behind paintings, which are a very real thing....
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The biggest competitor to Windows 10 was not Linux or Mac, it was Windows 7. I have to wonder how relevant Microsoft will remain in the long run. There are several projects maturing that allow people to run Windows apps — the one reason people use Windows in the first place — without any Microsoft involvement whatsoever. The fact that Win32 API has barely changed over the last 15 years also helps. Wine compatibilit…
the one reason people use Windows in the first place The other reason is UX and people's familiarity with it. I tried switching to ubuntu a few times but small inconveniences adds up eventually and at some point I don't see a reason to switch. Windows works just fine and I like its UX (however we will see if that will change with 11), Linux needs to provide a bit more for people like me to switch for their personal c…
Well, ReactOS is a reimplementation of most of Windows, including the shell and the kernel.
Anecdotally, I once installed Ubuntu + Wine for someone non-technical who broke several Windows installations by infecting them with ransomware. He used it for like half a year calling it "this strange Windows" because some people don't know what an operating system is. He eventually irreparably broke its file system because apparently he was shutting down his machine by pulling the plug while it was running.
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
We’re not talking about patents. Software licenses are about me allowing you to use code that I wrote, which is copyright.
Literally the person I initially responded to said: > The only problem might be the software patents that their code leverages. We are talking about patents because Wengo brought it up and I was asking how they are applicable here.
If the licensed code was written by a patent licensee, then to replicate it in-house you’d also need to license the patent yourself.
In other words, the patent licensee may have a license to write and distribute their specific piece of software, but not to sublicense that to other people to write their own software, just to use the parent company's patent license. That is actually probably a common patent-license scenario, microsoft doesn't automatically get sublicensing rights just because they bought software developed by a licensee.
Re: Far Cry 1.34 source code (2006)
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Depends, if it’s code calling a console SDK API then you are bound by terms of the NDA to not publicly share it — forever. Even just function names! This is not true. API itself (function names and parameters) does not hold copyright. Otherwise you wouldn't have open-source applications on any proprietary OS, since they have the function calls of proprietary APIs inside. What can be copyrighted are the header files…
> you are bound by terms of the NDA > This is not true. You usually have to follow contracts you sign.
Not where the law says such terms are unenforceable.