Upgrading weapons

[bb1]

I have the full blown release thanks to MSDN.

It chugs along just fine on 2gb PC26400. Wasn't a painful -upgrade- at all. I haven't attempted to run BZ1 on it yet.

[ssuser]

How different is it from Vista? Does it seem to be a better OS in general - features, stability, and so on? I will be needing a new PC soon - never did get Vista, heard it was bad - and I will be getting Windows 7 with it of course.

Visual Studio 2010 is supposed to be out fairly soon too, I heard, that is supposed to have some new stuff in it as well.

[bb1]

It is nice. It is more streamlined than XP and seems to have a better "flow." I particularly like the full screen thumbnails in the taskbar. Old DX games, you may want to install the redist that came with them. At least for bz2, I had to install the DX9 that came with 1.3ta5.1 before it would execute. It is worth the update. In general, it actually runs faster than my old XP install, may it rest in peace. I tried not to let this become the win7 thread... it IS the longest bz1 thread to exist in months if not years (factcheck if you want).

[sabrebattletank]

Windows 7 is beautiful.

It just works how I want it to.

[Avatar]

I grabbed Vista with the Win7 free upgrade offer, and plan on going to it when it comes out.  Even my most diehard M$ hating friends like Win7 so I'll have to see what mind control system it's using to change their attitudes. 

***

I said, "remember what was common then", not top of the line gaming machines.  That 486DX2-66 cost me $3000 back in the day...  My P2 system was over $2000...  Your average family wasn't about to buy a new system every couple of years just for their kids to play games on, that's what $200 Atari or Nintendo systems were for.

Things are amazing now, both highly powered and low cost, but times are tough also...  I tend to upgrade only when I absolutely have to, which is now.  I'm going from an Athlon XP 2000 (1.6 single core), 2Gigs DDR, GeForce 6200, 200Gig IDE drive to a Dual Core 2.98Ghz, 4G DDR2, GeForce 9800 1G, 320G Sata2.   Quite a jump...

And I'm not upgrading for BZ1 or BZ2, which I'll be playing primarily on my 1.6 Athlon still.   I need the new rig for Operation Flashpoint 2, and might finally get to see Hellgate and BF2 as more than just a lowres mess... 

In fact, I'm keeping a Win98SE P3 system around just to run BZ1 the way it used to be run... 

-Av-

[ssuser]

Good idea. I think BZ1 runs best on win98SE.

You are right of course about PCs costing so much more back then, they weren't so much a part of society as they are now. Prices didn't really start to drop until later in the 90s. The whole computer paradigm was different - not regarded so much as a gaming system in the early 90s - who would shell out $2500 plus just to play Doom? 

To get us back OT (at least to BZ1) what are some of the IA maps people really remember fondly from the early days? I am thinking of stuff that was around on the net pre-Battlegrounds. Toni Chaffin had some stuff floating around, and of course so did you Av. I wonder if there are maps people remember that are not around now.

[Dx]

I paid 2000 for my 486dx2 (big waste of money), after that, i built my own pc's, and still do.

Bz ran best on 98, 98se started the slidding i think.

The best IA missions was yours, ssuser.

[ssuser]

Mmm, thanks, but I was thinking of stuff that would have been out in 1998 to early 1999. I didn't start putting out missions until 2001. First one was hilltops, I still like that one.

My picks would be "Though I Walk" by Avatar (that mission start just blew my mind), "The Crucible" (m2crucbl) by Mick brown,  "Part Three" (on Titan) by slingshot, "Heroical", by whom I forget, and I have to include "Downhill" by BSer, even though that one came out a bit later on - still one of the best, IMO.

[Avatar]

That's basically my list also, although I credit Mowerman with how ThoIWalk turned out.  I just put the pieces together, he was the creative force behind it all.  He was VERY specific about how it should all work.

Crucible is VERY tough, I remember playing it out time and time again until I beat it.   Mick was a master at setting up huge paths for the AI to follow, spacing out the timing of attacks by mixed groups.

M3Runaway by Mick Brown is also one of my favorites, simply because of the feel of it.  It was the first mission that made me feel like I was a part of a much bigger war effort, guarding a huge convoy stretched out for a mile.  Very cool.

Floating Point had a map that included running a quick side mission to bring back a Power Supply to power a 'shield wall' for your base.  While he couldn't do decent terrain if his life depended on it,  he did have a way of pushing the engine in unique ways that made me love trying his maps.

There was a LOT of creativity shown in BZ1 using an engine that really wasn't meant to be modded.  Sometimes it's the limits that drive creativity, rather than the capabilities. 



-Av-

[ssuser]

Yeah, Runaway was good too, though not as good as The Crucible. I thought Floating Point's terrain was always pretty good - by which I mean it was fun to fly around on and admire. The AI had alot of trouble with it though, Vertigo was particularly bad in this respect - tons of stuck units. He did push the odf system to the max, didn't he? 

[Dx]

Ships can go almost over any hill with the right code change, i think scavies could go up a verticle cliff when i tested it.

[Avatar]

FP's terrain was all carved and very unnatural, which is very much NOT my style so it grates on me.  It suited his maps, and became part of his style, but it's still strange to navigate in my mind.  I much prefer a more natural look, like Lizard's stuff.

-Av-

[General BlackDragon]

spAce owns lizard when it comes to maps.   

[Nielk1]

I think BBB may own everyone now...

[Dx]

spAce owns lizard when it comes to maps.   

Oh.. is there a site i can see his maps? Any good 4 player strat maps?