Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm currently reverse engineering a few games too. It's quite easy with AI now. But I'm worried about the legality of it all. Any thoughts on this?
Many of the games have bo copyright owners any longer. They are literally abandoned.
DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
61–70 of 78 posts
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#62Noob question. I really hope this doesn't come across as negativity. I love that people spend time on making old games work, but why do people decompile games that can be emulated by DOSbox or the like? Surely a game this old runs absolutely fine on even very low end hardware?
[deleted]
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#63Noob question. I really hope this doesn't come across as negativity. I love that people spend time on making old games work, but why do people decompile games that can be emulated by DOSbox or the like? Surely a game this old runs absolutely fine on even very low end hardware?
I had a few reasons, when I tried tackling RE of a DOS-era game a number of years ago. I wanted to document the file formats, look through the data and find unused media, identify and fix some of the more egregious bugs in the game, build modding tools for it, understand the techniques used to build something that was memorable from my childhood, reduce the friction of running it on a modern system, make available optional improvements like higher resolution, texture replacement, and so on.
It ended up being more than I had the patience to finish. It might be doable for me now.
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#64Noob question. I really hope this doesn't come across as negativity. I love that people spend time on making old games work, but why do people decompile games that can be emulated by DOSbox or the like? Surely a game this old runs absolutely fine on even very low end hardware?
It's not about running the game, it's about having it open for modification. Patching a game in binary form is ridiculously hard, anything than simple bugfixes is mostly a no-go. With the source code available we can add entire features, port it to Windows 10, implement 4K HDR, textures, new models, new missions... the sky's the limit. Additionally, it's really hard to analyze the game from assembly opcodes with hard…
And personally, I prefer doing ./game, rather than having to install a bunch of stuff and see my system cluttered by hidden folders.
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could do “clean room engineering” approach where the reversing agent generates a specification from its findings, and then have a separate agent reimplement the code without seeing the original binaries/code. You’d just have to make sure the specification doesn’t include actual source snippets (the AI will try this if you don’t specify). Pseudo code would be sufficient I guess where necessary.
Unless you develop your AI agent from scratch or you clone a never-released game, it would be extremely easy for the rightholders to claim that both agents have most certainly ingested the binary during their training phase, since it's well known that the hyperscalers have pirated everything that could be pirated to train their LLMs. Which is why malus.sh is a parody, not a real service. One should be honest about wh…
> ingested the binary during their training phase
That's extremely unlikely. The pirating seems to have been of eBooks, which were first converted to text, losing graphics and such too.
That's my understanding anyway, from reading a few reports. :)
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could do “clean room engineering” approach where the reversing agent generates a specification from its findings, and then have a separate agent reimplement the code without seeing the original binaries/code. You’d just have to make sure the specification doesn’t include actual source snippets (the AI will try this if you don’t specify). Pseudo code would be sufficient I guess where necessary.
Unless you develop your AI agent from scratch or you clone a never-released game, it would be extremely easy for the rightholders to claim that both agents have most certainly ingested the binary during their training phase, since it's well known that the hyperscalers have pirated everything that could be pirated to train their LLMs. Which is why malus.sh is a parody, not a real service. One should be honest about wh…
Reality would disagree. If the models are large enough few legal consequences are to be expected because governments don’t want to lose out on AI investments. And in the US the industry owns the executive, legislative and well, thoughts and prayers.
This creates an interesting problem via the normative power of the present - only people willing to accept the erosion of copyright can partake in the AI economy and since the AI economy has become essentially all growth, money and power rapidly concentrates on these people.
There won’t be a legal reckoning because the regulatory capture is complete - these models are “national security level” too big to fail now.
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#67Noob question. I really hope this doesn't come across as negativity. I love that people spend time on making old games work, but why do people decompile games that can be emulated by DOSbox or the like? Surely a game this old runs absolutely fine on even very low end hardware?
It's not about running the game, it's about having it open for modification. Patching a game in binary form is ridiculously hard, anything than simple bugfixes is mostly a no-go. With the source code available we can add entire features, port it to Windows 10, implement 4K HDR, textures, new models, new missions... the sky's the limit. Additionally, it's really hard to analyze the game from assembly opcodes with hard…
Ok but - and again I'm trying not to be negative, simply trying to understand - if you want a flight sim that works on Windows 10 and supports 4k HDR, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just build it from scratch, rather than trying to decompile a game from 1989 that came on 5¼ inch floppies? I mean, even if someone just _gave_ you the source code of the 1989 game it would be more work to port it to Windows or as a feature than it would be to just build your own 90s era air combat game in c++ without any baggage.
Is it simply about squeezing more out of a classic game we love?
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about running the game, it's about having it open for modification. Patching a game in binary form is ridiculously hard, anything than simple bugfixes is mostly a no-go. With the source code available we can add entire features, port it to Windows 10, implement 4K HDR, textures, new models, new missions... the sky's the limit. Additionally, it's really hard to analyze the game from assembly opcodes with hard…
Ok but - and again I'm trying not to be negative, simply trying to understand - if you want a flight sim that works on Windows 10 and supports 4k HDR, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just build it from scratch, rather than trying to decompile a game from 1989 that came on 5¼ inch floppies? I mean, even if someone just _gave_ you the source code of the 1989 game it would be more work to port it to Windows or as a featu…
be negative, no problem - the goal is different - we are foremost developers that like the challenge to get the game back into its source state - its interesting to see on an algorithmic level how the devs got it working at that time with all this hardcore constrains (It's like the joy of an archaeologist unearthing an old wooden tool.) - for many developers gaming was the startpoint of interest in software development, and reversing is the gold-class, all your life long expirience needs to be on point to be able to reach such a goal, maybe hard to understand for non-developers - and only a few people on the world are able to do that (even with LLMs) and developers praise these ones :)
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about running the game, it's about having it open for modification. Patching a game in binary form is ridiculously hard, anything than simple bugfixes is mostly a no-go. With the source code available we can add entire features, port it to Windows 10, implement 4K HDR, textures, new models, new missions... the sky's the limit. Additionally, it's really hard to analyze the game from assembly opcodes with hard…
Ok but - and again I'm trying not to be negative, simply trying to understand - if you want a flight sim that works on Windows 10 and supports 4k HDR, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just build it from scratch, rather than trying to decompile a game from 1989 that came on 5¼ inch floppies? I mean, even if someone just _gave_ you the source code of the 1989 game it would be more work to port it to Windows or as a featu…
For an example of what a "finished" product of this work looks like, check out Cannonball at https://github.com/djyt/cannonball/wiki, an Out Run remake preserving the original game logic.
Re: DOS Game "F-15 Strike Eagle II" reversing project needs DOS test pilots
#70If it's the game I'm thinking of, floppy copies were going around my middle school in France at the time but this was a game that without the manual, good luck even getting the plane off the ground. I seem to recall a mode where you started out in the air. Fun times.
That happened to me, at least, with F-29 Retaliator. Your best bet was starting a mission already in the air, as the game (IIRC) didn't include any tutorials.
The mission scenario descriptions were circulating both as a text file and in the hint section of a computer magazine we had, but I didn't get either for a long time. "Zulu alert" mode lets you take as many enemies off the sky as you can, with infinite ammo.
Edit: I now remember that the first training mission is something like "shoot two target practice boards in sector E5". You have to be very meticulous to find those just by flying around!