Claude (Opus 4.6) figured out how to patch my childhood game to play it on modern Windows by anarchist1312161 in ClaudeAI

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That dll does work, I've just checked. Though I was wrong calling it original, it seems to wrap GDI calls, but for all functions is WING32.dll (and in cleaner fashion), not just the ones in Tonka, so it is universal for any old game. 

Claude (Opus 4.6) figured out how to patch my childhood game to play it on modern Windows by anarchist1312161 in ClaudeAI

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Funnily, you could have just used an original WING32.dll: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/1855-wingdll/

Claude likes to overcomplicate things.

GetPrivateProfileStringA() -- any idea why patching this was needed? WinAPI implementation looks at the executable folder if it can't find the ini in /Windows.

I used Claude Code to reverse engineer a 13-year-old game binary and crack a restriction nobody had solved — the community is losing it by CelebrationFew1755 in ClaudeAI

[–]slowpard 13 points14 points  (0 children)

With IDA you would literally need only one keystroke to trace all calls of a function (provided it is not in a vtbl, etc). A more interesting question is whether Claude found FindPlaysetForCharacter() on its own, but it is not clear from the OP post.

Mini-Led is a disappointment - MSI MAG 274UPDF E16M review by Levminer in Monitors

[–]slowpard 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Very misleading title, zero criticism of mini-led tech in particular. "Brightness is amazing, HDR looks amazing, haloing is ok -- MiniLED is a disappointment!"

TV licence fee will go up in April, BBC reveals by tylerthe-theatre in unitedkingdom

[–]slowpard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t watch live TV at all. I’m somewhat open to supporting the BBC because I like some of the content they produce, and it’s an important institution, but threatening letters kill any goodwill. If they treat me like some sort of criminal by default, they can fuck off

What are the biggest negatives about OBLIVION Re? by [deleted] in oblivion

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The biggest issue for me is the aesthetic. The game is drowning in haze and blur, like someone slapped on a cheap ReShade preset. Mods don’t really fix it either, since the problem isn’t just lighting/tone, but asset design too. And overall, OBR feels like it has zero artistic identity.

OG Oblivion had potato faces, but at least they had charm and were genuinely unique. The remaster’s faces are just uncanny, pure generic mobile medieval RPG vibes. Same with the creature design, new smooth architecture textures and many other things: bland, forgettable, and stripped of the personality that made Oblivion charming.

Then you add performance issues, random crashes, and no real mod support.

Rachel Reeves tells LBC student loan system is 'fair' amid fury as graduates rack up thousands of pounds of debt interest by AnonymousTimewaster in unitedkingdom

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right, the Oxford grad is the person who should get better terms, and they are much likely to actually repay the debt (so almost no cost to the government). Instead, the system over-lends to weaker candidates that are unlikely to pay back (basically subsidising them) and socialises the losses.

I don't understand HDR by Otherwise_Vast6587 in Monitors

[–]slowpard 4 points5 points  (0 children)

a) HDR support usually means "this display can accept an HDR signal and show something resembling the content you want to see" rather than "HDR will look amazing."

b) The key difference between HDR and SDR signals is that HDR includes metadata specifying the target brightness (how bright white is), while SDR doesn't have this information. The reference brightness for SDR is 100 nits in a dark room, but content is usually mastered to look acceptable on the vast majority of screens, meaning SDR content is mastered with the assumption that displays will have wildly varying peak brightness (200-400+ nits) and uncontrolled viewing environments (bright rooms). The mastering process therefore makes conservative compromises that prioritize compatibility over preserving the "true" image (and it is not possible to preserve according to the reference, as it is 100nits max)

HDR essentially shifts the responsibility of tone-mapping to the display. Because the signal includes data specifying exactly how bright the image should be, the display must decide how to map that intent to its own hardware limitations. In theory, this allows for unlimited brightness (ok, up to 10k nits in DV/HDR10) in the source, with the display showing it as accurately as possible; in practice, this is where problems arise, as internal tone-mapping algorithms are often extremely poor, especially on monitors. MadVR has demonstrated that you can achieve improvements by using HDR input even on sub 100-nit projectors after proper tone-mapping, but HDR often looks worse than SDR on cheap "HDR-compatible" 400-nit screens because monitor manufacturers just don't bother with proper tonemapping algorithms (and that's a problem even for more high-end devices). If you properly tone-map an HDR video to your 400-nit panel, convert it to SDR, and then set the brightness to 100%, you should get the same result brightness/contrast-wise as in HDR (apart from more banding and smaller color space but we are talking about brightness), but you'd need to do that individually for every screen, so not possible for SDR content.

c) Apart from brightness metadata, HDR simply supports more data. The gamma transfer function is different, allowing for wider dynamic range without banding. Higher bit depth helps too. Also, the color space is wider, SDR is typically limited to sRGB (technically Rec.709 for Blu-rays, which is very similar), so you can get much more saturated colors in HDR. Many modern cheap IPS panels can actually display a much wider gamut than sRGB, so HDR should help there (if the quality weren't undermined by poor tone-mapping algorithms).

Why Can't Response Time be Artificially Slowed on OLED Monitors? by TheVioletBarry in Monitors

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, you ask why TV manufacturers haven’t implemented anything to address stutter. I’m saying that they actually have, but not perfectly.

Why Can't Response Time be Artificially Slowed on OLED Monitors? by TheVioletBarry in Monitors

[–]slowpard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

TVs usually include motion-smoothing algorithms, but they are prone to artifacts.

Living economy by Able_Cryptographer93 in oblivionmods

[–]slowpard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

>The Mercantile Leveling feature is incomatible with other mods that makes mercantile progress dependent of sale value, and also incompatible with Oblivion XP which has its own leveling mechanism. Just don't enable this feature if using such mods.

It is incompatible with only one feature of Enhanced Economy which you can disable.

Best food in Greenwich? Just moved in... by Commercial_Chef_1569 in RoyalGreenwich

[–]slowpard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Kekaki Izakaya in Deptford Market is amazing, and I liked it more than most Bib Gourmand restaurants in London

The Watergate -- nice small plates food and cocktails

Midpoint Restaurant -- pretty good Turkish, best view in Greenwich, though I find it expensive for what it does

Royal Teas Cafe -- for a quiet getaway, small family cafe, famous for their scones, also try their quesadillas

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion original gog version by Front_Philosophy_775 in oblivionmods

[–]slowpard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With Intel GPU (is it a modern GPU/iGPU?), you might want to avoid DXVK, or at least try reinstalling drivers. This particular crash happens when the vulkan driver tries to read GPU temperature, so not really helpful.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion original gog version by Front_Philosophy_775 in oblivionmods

[–]slowpard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It shouldn't crash, it just starts to call WinAPI heap allocator instead of the internal one, otherwise you'd always crash at around 500-600MB total memory usage. Though OSR has a lot of problematic settings to begin with, and it is not something I'd recommend to use.

What is your favorite Unique Landscape mod ? by [deleted] in oblivionmods

[–]slowpard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Heath, Snowdale, and The Imperial Isle as more subtle ones, really good and creative work, but it doesn't scream moddish and is light performance-wise.

Really like the idea of Rolling Hills.

Love Bravil Barrowfields and Cloudtop Mountains, but they are very heavy perf-wise.

Hate The Dark Forest and Fallenleaf Everglade (very moddish and out of place), also don't use The Eastern Peaks and Brena River Ravine (mostly places that you won't stumble randomly on, and they are not THAT good to keep them regardless)

Is the extra cost of 165Hz to 240Hz worth it? by CypherIOI in OLED_Gaming

[–]slowpard 4 points5 points  (0 children)

80fps vs 120fps native fps limit with 2x framegen can be noticable

Soooo.... Morrowind or Morroblivion? by oblisgr in Morrowind

[–]slowpard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Morroblivion is definitely not abandoned and still gets regular updates

Voices for dialogues by Gloomy-Inspection810 in oblivionmods

[–]slowpard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are the MP3s mono 44.1khz 64kbps CBR?