Hardware Only?

[Blunt Force Trauma]

I haven't used software mode since day one.  Personally, I may have finished the single player if I only had software mode, but surely BZ would have been ancient history if BZ had no hardware mode or I had no 3D card. . .which was a 3dfx Rush BTW   .

Hardware accelaration is what made me fall in love with BZ.

A new release of BZ should attempt to move on to better graphics if it can, newer preferably, or we will continue to dance around the 800lb gorilla in the room. . . . . .the fact that only 2 maybe 3 dozen play BZ, or one its variations online now.

So I for one would never want any extra work for someone willing to improve on the classic.

[Firestorm29]

I think having software mode maybe a good idea, although it should be a low priority. I could just be a portability nut though.

[Ultraken]

The software renderer imposes a lot of structural constraints that I'd like to lift.  It's also a fairly large amount of code, so dropping it would shave an appreciable amount off the size of the executable for what it's worth.

[Avatar]

Software mode for BZ1 was amazing, as it allowed you to see what that new-fangled 3D video card was really doing.  The difference was stunning, and you'd never know that without being able to compare the two modes.

Once everyone had a 3D card you couldn't find a game that even had a software renderer.

As stated earlier BZ1 software mode is a major advantage to modders using the Shift-F9 screen.  It gave you a slightly messier display in return for actually showing objects, dialog windows, etc..

I also used software mode to run BZ1 windowed when walking around inside the objects in the editor and recreating them in Max.  Seems to me that BZ wouldn't run in a window in hardware mode, although maybe this was probably more of a driver issue?  It's been awhile...

So, dump the software renderer and if any major issues show up with Shift-F9 I'm sure it'll be easier to fix those, or live with them...

-Av-

[ssuser]

Yeah, I will go with what Av says. Software mode is really not needed in this day and age - I certainly don't play in sw mode - on the other hand a working editor is kind of mandatory, if you can get all the SHIFT-F9 stuff working ok in hardware mode, that would be the way to go.

On those rare occasions when I want to edit in BZ1 these days, I actually fire up win98 anyways, as I never was able to get BZ to run in edit mode under XP properly and reliably - black screens in hardware mode and crashes in software mode. So for me it really makes no difference, and I'm sure there are others running "legacy" operating systems as well for the times they want to play those older games.

[Avatar]

Of course I'm keeping a P3-500 with Win98SE just to run BZ1.   Seriously, I am. 

The black screen in XP might be what I keep running into, which is you have to back out to menu and then go back into the game to get your view back after shelling out.  Much easier just to keep the old hardware around...   

-Av-

[Blunt Force Trauma]

Of course I'm keeping a P3-500 with Win98SE just to run BZ1.   Seriously, I am.  

-Av-

Hehe. . .currently fate and keeping the family in decent PCs have me also running an ancient 500mhz with as ancient nividia Ti 4200 under 98se

[ssuser]

Heh, I still have an old IBM 300GL running DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 - works perfectly, too. Good for those times when you want to run some of those REALLY old games...  

[sabrebattletank]

Windows 3.1 was the best. Rodent's Revenge anyone?

[Nielk1]

Windows 3.1 was the best. Rodent's Revenge anyone?

What about Chip's Challenge?

[eddywright]

What was the name of that side scrolling helicopter game? Man, I was soo addicted to that one.

[Avatar]

I was an Apple guy, so Choplifter comes to mind...   There were a few good side-scrollers back in the day of 16 colors or less...  Commander Midnite was also a great side-scroller, with missiles and such.

Funny that only Duke recognized the side scroller for the genius that it is...     We don't need these 3D worlds!  We can get by on only 2 directions!  lol...

-Av-

[AHadley]

Side-scrollers are a bit before my time, but I have had my share of Codename Gordon.

[technoid]

Choplifter was fun, played that when it was still in the arcade rooms in the early 80's, but I still have that on a floppy for my C64's.  There were also some nice sidescrollers made for PC during the late 80's-early 90's, once 256-color VGA became fashionable (and multi-color Amiga, etc).  And yes, I have my share of vintage equipment also, like an IBM 8088 terminal box with an FM (not MFM) harddisk, as well as a big NEC harddrive from the 1970's, the size of a desktop and weighs about 150 lb. It's got the huge platters in it.  Powers up, but that's all.  Probably hooks up to a S100/mainframe system. Not to mention 6502's/6811's, other 8088's/V20's, 80286's/386's/486's and earlier Pentiums/Cyrix's on Windows 3.x/9x/Me/NT/2k.  Also have an Atari 2600 and Coleco Telstar game console from 1976/77... Pong!

I'd say ditch the BZ1 S/W renderer also.  I mean do we want Ken to be quick and have fun, or to be slow and have pain, updating BZ1? 

[ssuser]

Jeez, technoid, where do you store all that stuff? I hate having too much old hardware around.

There are alot of emulators floating around on the net for running old software, you can even go back to the days of the old mainframes.

As an aside to one of Ken's comments, I don't think reducing the executable size means very much these days, but if stripping the software renderer out means the project will go quicker, then I guess I'm for it.