Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

staniks.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 172 posts

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#71

Post by netmare »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #67
robertlagrant wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you make the guys with exploding heads who run at you and their scream gets louder as they approach? I can still hear them.

Why wouldn't they? It's called great sound design. Games of the 90s and early 2000s put a lot of effort in that. See Thief the dark project. Sound design can bring more immersiveness than graphics alone. It's something forgotten in many games of today that keep beating the ray traced graphics horse

I think it was a rhetorical question. I wasn't a big fan of the SS series, but those damn kamikaze still echo in my mind. I've even had nightmares about them...

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#72

Post by 082349872349872 »

defrost wrote: post #51
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow missed it was the highly educated, clerical class not some illiterate peasants, who burned him at the stake.

I don't agree with your implied 1:1 isomorphism between "traditional societies" and "illiterate peasants". Many would argue that the " highly educated, clerical class " of those times represented a rigidly traditional society that punished any who deviated slightly from their norms.

Orwell, in particular, via his character Goldstein, called out the highly educated, clerical class as the most likely to define deviation and punish deviants.

moderately educated, owning class: these can afford (at least some privacy for) their deviations, but in order to administer the economies which support their lifestyle, have need of the

highly educated, clerical class: these (having been deputised some power) must conform, lest they be rusticated into the

poorly educated, working class: these again get to deviate (because who cares); they've never ever been, and they're never ever going to be, any danger to the owning class.

But of course this tripartite division only holds true in Oceania (and Eastasia, and Eurasia); it clearly wouldn't in any actual earthly polities, right?

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#74

Post by raxxorraxor »

robertlagrant wrote: post #62
namibj wrote: post #60

Similarly, Factorio's architecture transmits (almost; notable experience is rail planner) just input events, relying on a lock-step simulation core.

I would love to work on a lock-step thing like that one day. Seems such a satisfying (and testable) design constraint to work with.

Their friday facts are very worth reading, not just for people that play computer games, it is interesting for any developer. If I remember correctly they had issues with parts behaving slightly differently on different platforms, which then lead to sync issues in multiplayer.

I have no experience here, but I guess the difficulty of such a strategy comes from ordering "events" in a game loop.

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#75

Post by stavros »

immortan wrote: post #48

I was one the developers responsible for implementing the netcode on Serious Sam. We often slept under the desks in the offices at croteam after lurking usenet. One post in particular described the QuakeWorld prediction system which inspired us. That night we coded a simplistic mvp as a colleague (hi dan) tested it over an old 486 nix machine acting as a router that we could simulate lag with. This was well before th…

I love how there's an article about how some legendary game was made, and someone in the comments casually goes "oh yeah, I built that, fun times". It's great.

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#76

Post by chungus »

vaylian wrote: post #66
siberianbot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found devastating that in The Talos Principle 2 they had dropped their own engine and used Unreal Engine instead.

Damn. No official Linux version :-(

https://www.protondb.com/search?q=talos

Gets a gold rating! I've been playing even the VR versions on Linux (through steam).

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#77

Post by nickpeterson »

robertlagrant wrote: post #64
givemeethekeys wrote: post #23

Starseige Tribes was massive and ridiculously fun on a 56k connection.

Tribes was brilliant. Skiing down procedural terrain (and watching other people ski up it), big maps, lots of players, in 1999.

Tribes was an absolute riot. Teams keep trying to make new versions but none feel like they capture the pure magic of the original.

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#78

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

kalleboo wrote: post #42
LarsDu88 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this due to the heterogeneity of client hardware?

Wasn't that even worse before? Games like Warcraft and Doom played across Intel x86, Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC

Fun time. Developers essentially have to dig very low into the stack and deal with multiple architectures. The way to build great programmers.

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#79

Post by mobiuscog »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #78
kalleboo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that even worse before? Games like Warcraft and Doom played across Intel x86, Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC

Fun time. Developers essentially have to dig very low into the stack and deal with multiple architectures. The way to build great programmers.

They didn't have to deal with agile/scrum though. Clearly not real programmers ;)

Re: Serious Sam handled massive amounts of enemies on 56k modem connections

#80

Post by eru »

pastage wrote: post #58
defrost wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with your implied 1:1 isomorphism between "traditional societies" and "illiterate peasants". Many would argue that the " highly educated, clerical class " of those times represented a rigidly traditional society that punished any who deviated slightly from their norms.

The original point was about the evils of traditional religious societies and brain washing. Religion is a convenient way to kill people, and a way to brain wash the masses. Of course it is both easier and harder than the meme religion is bad because of its apparent need of traditional catharsism through burning people. You seem to agree with this so what are we discussing?

> Of course it is both easier and harder than the meme religion is bad because of its apparent need of traditional catharsism through burning people.

Burning of people only happened in some parts of the world for some time. Religion is much more widespread phenomenon.

So it's hard to argue that one is a need of the other?

Post reply on HN