Author Topic: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?  (Read 9270 times)

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #15 on: October 16, 2012, 09:46:35 am »
GDI+ wasn't really the performance killer for the SlimDX versions of the game.  It prevented us from being able to run fullscreen, but if anything it was actually a performance boost because the GDI+ stuff will run in a different thread than everything else.  The framerate stuff is based on the general inefficiencies of a lot of how we were handling things back then, and the fact that we were relying so much on the Direct3DX extensions for instance.

But for the main menu, none of that was actually an issue.  The issue there was that the game is framerate-locked.  I could have sworn it was locked at 20fps rather than 40fps, though.  We didn't unlock the framerate until the unity versions.  So if your game is running really well, you just get really low CPU usage in the slimdx versions, not a higher framerate.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline LaughingThesaurus

  • Master Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,723
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #16 on: October 16, 2012, 10:13:48 am »
Oh, after playing around further, the 20 FPS was on the title menu, it jumped to 40 when I hit new game, and I'm pretty sure it dropped back to 20 when I started a game.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #17 on: October 16, 2012, 10:19:55 am »
Ah, yep -- that sounds right.  It's not a matter of that being the max it can do, as noted, it's just locked into that timing.  Many older games were framerate locked, actually, depending on their needs for precision.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline KDR_11k

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 904
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #18 on: October 16, 2012, 01:09:14 pm »
I kinda wonder what version is in this AI War retail copy but I don't want to unwrap it.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #19 on: October 16, 2012, 01:11:01 pm »
Oh, cool, you've got one of the retail copies! :)

That would have been version 3.011, I believe.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline KDR_11k

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 904
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #20 on: October 16, 2012, 01:12:13 pm »
Aw, that's probably not much older than the first version I played.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #21 on: October 16, 2012, 03:34:22 pm »
You'll probably enjoy this 2.0 vs 1.0 retrospective, too: http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-20vs10
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Cinth

  • Core Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,527
  • Resident Zombie
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #22 on: October 16, 2012, 03:45:14 pm »
I actually had to go back and see where I started. Nov 2009, from D2D.

Been a long and fun road to travel.
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Volatar

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,055
  • Patient as a rock
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #23 on: October 16, 2012, 04:11:33 pm »
You'll probably enjoy this 2.0 vs 1.0 retrospective, too: http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-20vs10

Sheesh. Now I want to do a 6.0 vs 1.0 comparison. I wonder how many pages the patch notes are between those two.

Anyone got a copy of 1.0 lying around?

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #24 on: October 16, 2012, 04:14:29 pm »
The patch notes just from 5.0 to 6.0 were I believe 245 pages the other day.  About 65k words.  From 1.0 to 6.0 is longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I'm quite positive. :)
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Volatar

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,055
  • Patient as a rock
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #25 on: October 16, 2012, 04:21:44 pm »
From 1.0 to 6.0 is longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I'm quite positive. :)

I must know. For science. :D

Offline Coppermantis

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,212
  • Avenger? I hardly know 'er!
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #26 on: October 16, 2012, 08:34:10 pm »
Sorry, but LotR has 147k across all three books.

« Last Edit: October 16, 2012, 08:44:02 pm by Coppermantis »
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline LaughingThesaurus

  • Master Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,723
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #27 on: October 16, 2012, 08:42:02 pm »
I'm not really used to that. Any super old games I've played, like Doom, I've played using GZDoom or similar so that my frame rate goes way off into the multi-hundreds... and is then brought back down by increasing the resolution as much as possible and such.
I've also read a good deal of your posts actually, the ones about game design. It's interesting to read about different thoughts on the subject. I like to see what remains constant and find the differences. And, for the people who are fairly successful, I can trust that their theories are things that have worked for them, which are things I can pass along to friends working on programming courses for game design. Me, I'm just taking the ol' game design courses. Programming might just destroy my brain.

We also must know how many words in patch notes there are across all versions. It's one of those curious tidbits that I have.

Edit: And, because I don't want to remove my brain failure there, I will instead say that I meant "tidbits of curiosity"

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #28 on: October 16, 2012, 08:45:15 pm »
Sorry, but LotR has 147k across all three books.
Why sorry?  If 5.0 to 6.0 is 65k words, it's reasonable to think that 1.0 to 5.0 accounts for at least 83k.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games? Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline LaughingThesaurus

  • Master Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,723
Re: Is there an archive of old versions of AI War?
« Reply #29 on: October 16, 2012, 08:47:53 pm »
Quote
Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (revised to be in line with the rest)

The Fellowship of the Ring: 187k
The Two Towers: 155k
The Return of the King: 131k

Total: 473k

I think there was a typo somewhere. 473k might be hard to crack.