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Cake day: November 21st, 2024

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  • I did find something which did use CRT effects. However the Dosbox Staging one is still a bad one. Elder Scrolls Arena.

    With.

    Without.

    I will make the edit clarifying the mistake.

    However it does not change that the others do not use the effects (there is no indication the pixels in might and magic book one were for the CRT effects, unlike here. The pixels in Might and Magic Book One are also too sharp), and the problem has always, and solely, been the title of the post and nothing more.

    And as I stated it is not too much of a problem for me, already. Not something I cannot ignore.


  • No-CRT filter screenshots that I have available. I do not have screenshots for the CRT filter. I suppose I could boot up and try to put the filter for this one; I have Heroes 2 installed too but it is currently a pre-configuration I do not want to mess with in case I possibly mess it up. It feels like a pain to do so though as I’m already occupied for the day, and would like my PC time to, you know, play. Since this is unrelated to help requests, in which case I may have made time for it (I’d usually do it in the past, but not for a while).

    Edit: Changed No CRT to No-CRT for clarity


  • Which one? There a dozens commonly used ones

    Dosbox Staging has one CRT filter which is the one I’ve used. The town wall graphics (edit: In might and magic book one) get completely messed up with it. It is possible the bad effects for each of the 4 games mentioned was caused by a bad CRT filter.

    That said it would’ve been better to include screenshots which do use the CRT filter. I have played all 4 of these games with and with Dosbox Staging’s CRT filter and they all have had black lines obscuring the screen. Not having it enabled, on the other hand, the games looked like these screenshots.


  • Might and Magic Book One does not. Heroes of Might and Magic 2 does not. Carmageddon does not. Elder Scrolls Arena does not. (It does, the pixels are designed for CRT effects but the Dosbox staging filter adds black lines to the game still).

    I played them. With the filter. That’s where I got the idea from.

    Edit: These are pre-2000’s games, sure. It isn’t big enough of a problem for me anyway, I can ignore the title.


  • “You’re emulating retro games wrong” is not the best title. For example, Dosbox Staging enabled the CRT filter by default at some point; there is no graphical interface, you need to open a file and change a line to revert it. Moreover, there was no indication that the black lines were not a bug but were a filter.

    Playing DOS games on operating systems which do not support DOS programs natively is still emulation. However, the number of DOS games which utilised CRT effects are much fewer such that I primarily played DOS games in 2022–23 and none of them made use of CRT. However, the black lines were enabled till I figured it out (because there were no support requests surprisingly, and the default filter being changed was mentioned in an unrelated request regarding bad performance issues—where it was made known and the recommendation was made to change the setting).

    The (slight) problem is with the title itself. It is not a big issue for me, but the statement made in the title is the problem because it is only in a comment that it was mentioned not all old games use CRT effects. Clickbait might not be the best word for describing the situation, but the title will be annoying for many who play old games which were not designed for CRT effects. But then, it is not a big problem and I more or less ignored it (to be clear, for being wrong as far as the title itself goes) before seeing this thread. It would’ve been better to state directly instead that many old console games and games of the adventure genre, among others, were designed with these filters in mind and for practical reasons (like actually having the graphics show what they were meant to show) because like in your other comment that specific scene does not show the background at all without the effect, and it will be a fairly common occurrence for games which were designed to use the CRT effect.

    Edit: spelling


  • Yeah, I’m at 1080p and have usually not had any issue with the games I’ve wanted to play. From Might and Magic Book One (1986) to Monster Hunter World/Iceborne. But I’m very selective with the games I play—usually do not tolerate bugs or unnecessarily resource intensive ones where it would’ve needed a lot less for the same thing with more care taken.







  • In the end I just settled with the logic based ones like minesweeper and sudoku. F-droid has a good version each (and more than one maybe).

    PlanetCon is a decent strategy game on its basic settings. I haven’t customised it but have had a fair amount of fun in it. But it is nothing perfect, do not expect too much out of it. If you learn how to not attract the ire of all AI opponents simultaneously though, you can have short bursts of decent strategy enjoyment.


  • No wonder they sold it at 95% off on steam recently. Did they at least complete the story of this one? It was supposed to be a mobile-like live service thing (whatever is wrong with providing a complete story in one go?).

    I’ve only really plaued Arkham Asylum from the Rocksteady Arkham series. It is a decent one, I found it easier to get into than the hour of Arkham City I played. Perhaps I’ll try that again sometime. Though recently I got into Hand of Fate which has a similar combat system.



  • Started Mech Armada, a roguelite which is turn based and with a fairly good customisation system which gives full freedom in making units from what you ‘find’ (pay to unlock randomly by paying a resource which is also used for other things so you have to choose) in the run.

    Required a fair bit of learning through experimentation but now I, at least keep winning the first map and have just reached the boss of the second. Without any of the ‘roguelite’ bonuses. Which you can unlock with a separate currency earned. I chose not to unlock anything to see how viable it is without unlocks. It is decent. That said, there are more pieces added to the ‘gacha’ as you play. Through an experience system. The experience system carries over between runs but is not really a ‘boost’ since it just unlocks a bigger pool of more varied parts.






  • Big corporations cannot survive in a real free market. For that very reason real free markets do not exist. So the ‘legitimate businesses’ which do not do things as well as others do can survive.

    As horrible as it sounds, no regulation is what makes a free market. But there is no free market because when there is talk of free market, it just means extreme regulation to stifle small, extremely small business. These businesses run by people who work with their own hands are what give the large ones a run for their money. They’re the real obstacle to large entities which do things in not the best way (so almost all of them). What people are left with are legitimate small businesses allowed under regulation after everything has been restricted already… and with the methods these follow, they’re no harm to the big entities. The common human be damned, they’re forced to choose from the least bad option for anything.

    ‘Free market’ in politics is a joke, an intentional joke. It wouldn’t be a little bit surprising if the ones who advocate for free markets most have a laugh, outside of public view, at people who actually believe their points.

    To be fair… real free market would see the crashing of many industries as things go back to being a bit more practical. A slow process which takes even luxury to be affordable—but the meaning of luxury changes. Things inessential for survival would then be deemed luxury and such things, good things which are also very accessible, would be fairly common around. The main flaw with that, however, is the purpose of luxury. Luxury is hardly used to refer to things merely inessential for survival, they’re considered mere vehicles of showing your status and power (even though a relatively simple trick would be to not pay no heed to them). They are objects to enable one’s pride, ‘pride comes before the fall’ be damned to them. One can have solace in the thought that the fall really does come, though.

    Note: I do not support deregulation, it just means to allow big corporations to fuck around at the cost of other humans. But then, I do not really support anything.