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Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

hostilevolume.com

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Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#81

Post by hyperman1 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #35
Waterluvian wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so confused by the CD drives of that era. They all had a volume wheel and a headphone jack, but never once did I experience those working. The audio CDs were always “owned” by the OS, which piped the audio through the normal channels out my speakers or the PC headphone jack. I imagine the existence of those means that CD drives had their own DAC and other logic. I guess there was an idea of wanting to play CD a…

Did you ever try using the drive with the computer switched off?

When a computer crashed, cd audio continued to play. My PC just kept playing trough a hard reset/reboot, in fact. It would only stop playing when DOS booted far enough that it loaded mscdex, a step I could skip with a startup menu. I've always wondered why it managed to survive a reset pulse on the wire.

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#84

Post by malnourish »

arnitdo wrote: post #71
darknavi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because Microsoft Teams does this today, in 2026.

Good solution that works is setting up something like voicemeeter, passing audio through a virtual device and then muting it in vb panel

Until you invariably end up dealing with sampling rate disparities and other bugs that lead you to hear crackling or make you sound like a robot.

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#85

Post by watwut »

danjl wrote: post #25

...and, of course, there's really no need for a volume control in any app, since there's already a system volume...

Please dont. I do not want to do that much clicking to mute your app. Have own slider and have it easily instantly accessible.

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#86

Post by anyfoo »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #66
anyfoo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like that was super common. Apart from changing the volumes of entire channels (e.g. changing the level of Line In vs. digital sound), volume was a relatively “global” thing. And I’m not sure if that was still the case in 1997, but most likely changing the volume of digital sound meant the CPU having to process the samples in realtime. Now on one hand, that’s probably dwarfed by what the CPU had to do for deco…

I mentioned this in another thread now, but it was definitely noteworthy to me that it did this since I was used to other programs not doing so, for example Winamp, I would also have thought Windows' Media Player did not do this, but I can't remember for certain.

Winamp had a software equalizer with a preamp, which was noteworthy. Are you sure changing the volume did not mean changing the preamp level in Winamp?

If you turned off the preamp (could be directly done in the EQ window I think), what did the volume control actually do?

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#87

Post by jonathanlydall »

anyfoo wrote: post #86
jonathanlydall wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned this in another thread now, but it was definitely noteworthy to me that it did this since I was used to other programs not doing so, for example Winamp, I would also have thought Windows' Media Player did not do this, but I can't remember for certain.

Winamp had a software equalizer with a preamp, which was noteworthy. Are you sure changing the volume did not mean changing the preamp level in Winamp? If you turned off the preamp (could be directly done in the EQ window I think), what did the volume control actually do?

Maybe we're not understanding each other correctly here.

It's 30 years ago now, but my recollection is that Winamp did not change Windows' global volume.

I am less certain, but I thought Windows' own Media Player similarly also did not change Windows' global volume.

What I definitely recall correctly is being surprised that Real Player would change the Windows' global volume and this would not have been so noteworthy to me unless it was unusual compared to other applications I typically used.

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#88

Post by anyfoo »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #87
anyfoo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp had a software equalizer with a preamp, which was noteworthy. Are you sure changing the volume did not mean changing the preamp level in Winamp? If you turned off the preamp (could be directly done in the EQ window I think), what did the volume control actually do?

Maybe we're not understanding each other correctly here. It's 30 years ago now, but my recollection is that Winamp did not change Windows' global volume. I am less certain, but I thought Windows' own Media Player similarly also did not change Windows' global volume. What I definitely recall correctly is being surprised that Real Player would change the Windows' global volume and this would not have been so noteworthy…

No, I get you. I'm stating that Winamp might have been "special" because it had a software equalizer, and its volume control might have actually changed the preamp level. This would be fairly unusual for other app of its time, and I also wondered what would happen if you turned the Preamp off with its big shiny button, and whether that would let the volume control control the global volume instead, or whether it maybe would disable the volume control entirely.

What I'm saying is: I still feel (perhaps wrongly, quite possibly so) that in 1997, changing the global volume was more common, and that even being able to change app-specific volumes required some non-trivial features from the app who can do so.

Re: Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI

#89

Post by efilife »

darknavi wrote: post #41
jonathanlydall wrote: post #23

My favourite bad volume control was in Real Player around 1997 where changing the volume in the application actually changed the global volume of Windows.

It's funny because Microsoft Teams does this today, in 2026.

Too many programs do this. MPV and VLC too
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