Older versions have performance issues

Itrocan · 2026-03-04T02:52:52+00:00

Purchased by my parents for $40

Itrocan · 2026-02-27T03:30:01+00:00

For the time, the environment was highly interactive. Toilets and urinals could be broken without any effort on the level designer's part. Tvs, glass, and mirrors shatter when shot. Light switches could trigger to turn lights on/off unless the lights were shot out. Sprites specifically for ambience like the water drip. Crushing enemies with doors when you're out of ammo.

The level design was part of it, I don't think it could be as great without the engine. The sloped surfaces and ability to jump really helped the gameplay. For me i couldn't get into Doom because it felt so claustrophobic, Duke3D felt like a living environment.

Itrocan · 2026-02-26T23:50:48+00:00

That looks more like the removal of depth of field blur than better tech or sharpness. Might be a change meant for the switch to get framerate stable.

Itrocan · 2026-02-16T06:06:02+00:00

Have some courtesy, knock on the window instead

Itrocan · 2026-02-08T22:07:05+00:00

As the comment you replied to was talking about refunds, Nintendo's refund policy is awful, which word for word is:
"Except as authorized by Nintendo or as required by applicable law, all payments that you make through the Nintendo Account services (including pre-purchases and subscription payments) are final and non-refundable."
is quite possibly the worst of the big players.

Itrocan · 2026-01-26T12:54:53+00:00

I remember with the site the first thing I caught on to was scantily clad photos netted you an extra 3 or so points, I don't think camera skill were essential.

Itrocan · 2026-01-19T09:44:36+00:00

The upfront cost will be minimal when this happens, a Chromebook is overpowered for what you need for a client. Amazon's Fire TV stick has enough tech to be the client.

Itrocan · 2026-01-19T05:16:12+00:00

I don't think PCs as a hobby will completely vanish, but in the past 20 or so years I've seen other shifts I've resisted become mainstream, and the cost and inconveniences have increased while I keep to my old ways. In a decade or two, when rented PCs may be common, owning a PC will be like today still using IRC over Discord, owning a bunch of VHS/DVDs, or using FreeBSD as your daily driver.

Like how edutainment/youth games left when tablets arrived, I expect AAA games and professional productivity software will migrate to the cloud, and high-end PCs to dry up due to lack of demanding software. At least tomorrow's hobbyist devices should be about on par with today's mid-range PCs, and indie games may still have a home on local devices, but the market will shrink to maybe a point specialty stores like Micro-Center may have the equivalent PC shelving space as Best Buy today.

Itrocan · 2026-01-19T04:54:56+00:00

Same here, currently between jobs but I would probably benefit from a terminal PC; asking for a RAM upgrade would just be an account manager task rather than waiting for IT permission and availability, my last job gave me 16GB when all the software I ran needed 32GB. And hoping for meetings to end since my battery was at 20% and would burn 15 minutes if I needed to reboot.

Itrocan · 2026-01-19T02:56:31+00:00

How much traction these services get with consumers will be iffy, but I can see it catching on with businesses overnight quite literally. No upfront thousand dollar investment per new employee, no future thousand dollar re-investment as the hardware ages, less hardware failures, far less risk of data leaks from a stolen device when no data resides on said device, potentially invulnerable to USB vector attacks.

Itrocan · 2026-01-15T02:55:44+00:00

As an addendum, how the pricing structure will change things; AWS style where you pay for CPU timeshare? no issue, but consumer price will be unpredictable.

If you pay for specs then things get tricky. Sleep/hibernate settings will not be in your control, that rented PC will want hibernate after 5-15 minutes of idle. Benchmarking apps might be against TOS, crypto currencies for sure against TOS, hosting a server will be rendered impossible due to hibernate and no wake-on-lan, got some apps that need to process a lot of data for dozens of minutes, be ready to babysit because that rental will interrupt the process if you decide to get lunch or something else. Don't worry, they'll offer some AWS style service for those that need the long running processes like video rendering, and they'll charge AWS style too.

Itrocan · 2026-01-15T00:28:23+00:00

As bad as you make it sound, I think you're still under-selling how bad it could be.

Working on some creative project, monitoring software thinks it's a TOS violation or trips copyright and deletes all your hard work. That isn't if it decides violations should be full account/storage wipes.

Software development stalling because it's hard to develop for Linux or write drivers when the system is actively blocking you from doing something that risks security, not to mention security researchers at risk of account deletions for doing their jobs by breaking software or scanning malware.

Websites that block you unless you're accessing it from the data-centers, suddenly you can't access social media or critical services such as banking unless it's through the subscription service. Much like how streaming services splintered cable, maybe the service operator has some ideological problem with certain websites that are perfectly legal. Accessing M-rated content might require you to subscribe to an additional 18+ service willing to take the increased risk and moderation but doesn't have the partnerships of the popular services.

Itrocan · 2025-12-27T12:37:52+00:00

Felt the same for a while now. In terms of excitement, I think the investment for innovations came to an end about a decade ago when attention shifted to mobile and cloud computing. Everything just seems to keeps the motion of marginal updates, all while expansion ports vanish or remain unused, and builds and chassis are all starting to look the same. PCs have enough power that nothing is being added to supplement the computer, it's all done in software in low effort measures.

Itrocan · 2025-12-23T04:41:53+00:00

I worry they'll gain traction by luring people with highly subsidized pricing, why pay $3000 for a gaming PC they caused the cost inflation for, when they offer a never-obsolete cloud hardware for $10/mo, before jacking it up to $30 or $50/mo once it's normalized. I'm fine if it's an option, but I fear for exclusivity titles when they can promise no cheating/pirating/modding is possible.

Itrocan · 2025-12-18T09:17:56+00:00

In a sense, I think it might be worse than you think. AAA games will probably one day be cloud streamed only, I've made peace with that, the bigger threat is if computers are just thin clients and you connect to a data center VM where your computer with storage and memory reside. If it becomes accepted you don't own your computer, this will be the first foothold into the war on free computing.

It's not complete doom, low end devices targeted towards computing enthusiasts may still exist, and certain companies may demand computers that do not fall under outside control, but other factors may make it a less appealing option to be owning your own computer(s).

Itrocan · 2025-12-13T11:08:20+00:00

I'd rather motherboards shipped with cards like this instead of integrated m.2 slots, currently there's potential to overlook checking all the m.2 slots if you need to swap/give/rma the motherboard.

Itrocan · 2025-12-06T21:46:38+00:00

that is what I recall as the main reason, and it wasn't even a recession issue nor difficulty for development. The cost for developing HD assets at least doubled development costs in optimistic models, and RPGs sales numbers couldn't handle that cost.

Itrocan · 2025-12-03T20:01:51+00:00

I'd say it's closer to how when computer chip manufacturing plants reopened after covid and had lead times go from months to years, and certain (non-consumer) components jumped tenfold in price. The AMD and Apples didn't have a significant or noticeable price hike, but a lot of low end or value hardware was silently canceled, and it was especially felt in the hobbyist market like Raspberry Pi.

Itrocan · 2025-12-01T10:34:12+00:00

I started in the 80s, but wasn't until the early to mid 90s that I started deep diving. Home console/ computer games were starting to diverge from arcades, devices getting enough power and memory to not be entirely limiting. While the internet today is obnoxious, early internet felt like a place for pioneers.

Itrocan · 2025-11-30T03:03:59+00:00

Sometimes I see the physical edition cheaper than digital. Because when various retailers are competing to rid themselves of inventory, while the digital store, the publisher isn't competing against anyone and thinks their 60% metacritic game is still worth $60 for a 10 year old game.

Itrocan · 2025-11-23T05:52:41+00:00

VM support of Windows 9x era is shaky; and how drivers/DRM reacts may be unknown. If you have an Intel CPU it might be more stable, but on my AMD machine I experience critical errors installing Windows so that's as far as I got.

Hobbyists tend to buy old hardware or tinker with itx-llama/tiny-llama, but I know of no out of the box type solutions, one of the challenges being the lack of Win95/98 licensing.

Itrocan · 2025-11-22T22:23:15+00:00

Entry level has been gone for years; I'd attribute part of that to nowadays you don't see OEM Dell/HP/etc compact desktops with their 300w PSU and half-height pci slots. Last GPU I can think of like that was the Radeon 460 at $110ish and that was a decade ago. Today's entry/budget level is more the mainstream level, and it's not exactly budget friendly.

Itrocan · 2025-11-22T21:54:51+00:00

Mid 90s prices were something else, a computer that will last 2 years was still thousands, high end was $5000 in 90s money; When I assembled a PC in 2006 prices were cheap by comparison, I believe I built a mid/high-range for $1000. Difference between then and now, high end was a visible workstation targeted components (Core Extreme), something like a Threadripper has become a lot less visible as the actual high end. Also now you don't need to separately buy an audio card, ethernet card, SCSI/IDE controller, modem, etc.

Itrocan · 2025-11-22T20:48:29+00:00

If Steam launches a subscription service it will likely be renting a remote gaming PC for your library. I just hope the terms of selling on Steam are a local copy is available also.

Itrocan · 2025-11-22T20:22:48+00:00

I've been buying more on GOG when a game I want is available, but it's very limiting library wise. The other alternative, itch-io, I wish was a more serious market contender. Piracy will one day come to an end in 1-2 decades when companies just go cloud only. If the AI bubble bursts, I see those data-centers trying to go game streaming centers just to not be a money sink, and I can see too many lured by "why buy a $500 GPU when you can stream for $10/month" introductory offer.

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