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Gaming Then vs Gaming Now

Meme transcription: A table comparing the steps to start a game ‘then’ vs. ‘now’.

Content of the “Then” column:

  • Double-click GAME.exe
  • Play game

Content of the “Now” column:

  • Launch Steam

  • Steam updates

  • Steam opens

  • Close Steam’s ad window
  • Select Game

  • Game launcher starts

  • Game launcher launches Game launcher updater

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Ok

  • Would you like to sign up for our newsletter?

  • No

  • Our EULAs have changed. Please review them before continuing

  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes, sell my soul
  • Start game
  • Skip vendor intro
  • Skip vendor intro #2
  • Skip vendor intro #3
  • Sit through nVidia The way it’s meant to be played
  • Skip opening cutscene

  • Main menu opens

  • Would you like to connect your Steam account to account?

  • No
  • Press play.
  • Play game.
coffinwood ,

I don’t know what time in the past you compare the present to, but my current PC boots quicker into Windows, starts up Steam, and launches a 70 Gigabyte game than a 286 could count its two Megabytes of RAM on POST.

To “double-click an .exe file” one had to manually launch DOSShell or Windows, because else one would have to traverse into the game’s directory (by heart). But launching a game via Windows would often leave the machine with too few resources to run the game.

Did I mention the constant reboots to switch RAM and driver configurations because not every game would just run? The hassle to setup sound cards? Having to have the game disks ready all the time?

altima_neo ,
@altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

And screwing around with irqs because some games were picky and expected your sound card to use a certain one. The were ruined when I had to decide between using a joystick or having sound.

TheOakTree ,

Legitimately why I still pirate games that I purchase through Steam.

The pirated copy runs better 95% of the time, and people can’t even argue that you’re meaningfully stealing because you already own access to the same exact game.

JokeDeity ,

The enshitification of everything.

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

To be fair, the vendor intro 1-2-3 taking a while has been a problem since PS1 era. With the PS2 came an extra serving of infinite cutscenes

AngryCommieKender ,

You cannot tell me that the opening/title cutscene of Chrono Cross is anything less than a legendary example of a proper opening sequence both visually and musically.

youtu.be/180sjeAMKPE?si=xRFXcywMYCQo7TyR

youtu.be/PZ595N9NZVg?si=T76rJ3M3tGO1zUu8

Thorry84 ,

Agreed, it has been around way before that. The Apogee intro is still engrained in my brain.

elxeno ,

EULA bullshit

  • uninstall
  • reinstall
  • uninstall
  • reinstall
  • uninstall
  • reinstall
  • uninstall
  • reinstall
  • uninstall
  • reinstall
  • uninstall
  • refund

😬

pineapplelover ,

Itch.io is pretty straightforward. Download .exe and play.

sounddrill ,

Same with gog except it needs installation

Glifted ,

Ya’ll motherfuckers are forgetting the days when you had to have a fucking paper-slot decoder thing or read word 3 on page 50 of the manual to start your game.

strawberry ,
@strawberry@artemis.camp avatar

pirated games don't have this issue. been doubleclickjng exe files for all my games

BackOnMyBS ,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

Vulcan Shaders have stepped into the ring

doctorcrimson ,

TBF it used to take a really long time with multiple disks to install literally anything.

Atomic ,

Diablo 2 was like 3 different discs. One for every 2 acts i believe.

chillhelm ,

It was a “Game Disc” and a “Video Disc”. You could choose to copy the Videos during install or you would have to physically swap discs when you got to a rendered cutscene (which was only between acts, but still).

Blackmist ,

You guys were installing things?

I used to load my games from scratch. Every time. From tape.

Dave ,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

From tape? Amateur. Why doesn’t anyone key in the code for games that were printed in magazines anymore?

Zerush ,
@Zerush@lemmy.ml avatar

I hate this, above Steam client is slow as hell (GOG isn’t much better). But you can hack it in most games to start the game clicking in the Icon. Look at the properties of the games in the folder, there is usually a game launcher, it is this one whose icon appears when this game is installed, it is this one that launches Steam (or GOG), but apart from that there is usually the original executable (look also in the subfolders, mostly in bin) which directly launches the game without Steam or GOG.

Atomic ,

If your steam client is slow. Try disabling hardware acceleration. Worked wonders for me. Steam went from being slow to super responsive.

Zerush ,
@Zerush@lemmy.ml avatar

Maybe, but anyway I use it only to install the Game, but not to play it. All this shit when launching a game, with all the Steam loads makes me sick, plus it stays resident after finishing the game, having to close it separately, uselessly spending RAM on my poor Laptop which is not very bulky in this sense either.

AlexWIWA ,

This is why I just went back to playing Red Alert 2. My install from 2001 still works.

Shady_Shiroe ,
@Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world avatar

I hate that this is so accurate

bleistift2 OP ,

From very recent memory, unfortunately.

Redredme , (edited )

It’s nowhere near accurate. This guy clearly never played wingco 3 with it’s 15 minute intro.

This guy clearly also had never played mechwarrior 3. A game by microprose no wait fasa interactive no wait microsoft no wait some other investment party.

This guy clearly also never fucked around with EMS or XMS.

This guy also never lived in the pre windows era. (clicking on an exe, come on people.)

Reality was:

Installing a game was an afternoon. Ever swapped 14 floppy disks? Then came cdrom which made it better (double speed master race @300 KB/sec! Yes! Now it only took an hour!

Then

D: CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

GAME.EXE (enter)

this game needs 605 KB free base ram. You have 585 KB. Please free up ram and try again

(muck around with qemm386 and if you where poor emm386) Reboot, reboot, reboot.

CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

GAME.EXE (enter)

Crash.

Reset.

CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

Config.exe (enter)

Scroll with arrow buttons to sound Config. Check. You can’t remember the dipswitches you set on your soundblaster pro. Open the cabinet, remove the card. Look at the dipswitches on it. you see now you set the dipswitch to irq 5 instead of 7. Fuck, that’s it. You also make a mental note of the dma channel and the memory address. Fuck that, you couldn’t remember it last time so you write it down. Irq5, dma 1, 220h.

Reinsert to the ISA slot, close cabinet. Reboot. Fuck. No sound from the cdrom. Guess you knocked that flimsy cable loose again. Fuck it, this game fortunately has no cd audio.

CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

GAME.EXE (enter)

Crash.

WTF?

Oh I’m so fucking dumb, I didn’t set the irq in Config.exe of the game, I just wrote it on this piece of paper. Ffs. Reboot.

CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

Config. Exe (enter)

Scroll to soundcard, change the irq from 7 to 5, check the dma… That’s good, check the memory address… 240h… Fuck. Good I catched that as well. Change that also to 220h.

Exit,

Game.exe.

Crash.

Godfuckinghelldamnit.

The fucking retarded mouse driver conflicts with qemm. I don’t need that fucker for this game, remove it from Config.sys. Reboot.

CD\GAMES\GAME (enter)

GAME.EXE (enter)

Glide3d error on line 2365. You need version 2.13. You have 2.10.

Oh fucking hell.

CD windows Win.com

No mouse detected.

Fuckingthefuckfuck.

Edit Config.sys, unrem The mouse driver, remove the qemm optimisations because they clashed with the mouse driver.

Reboot.

Win. Com. Click on netscape. Start the modem. [modem sounds] 56k6 baby! That fucker is fast!

Click on the address line (netscape crashes)

Sigh. You’re to tired to even curse at this moment. Click on netscape again. Click on address bar, www.3dfx.com

Wait… (loading at 4k a second)

Click on support

Wait… (loading at 4k a second)

Click on drivers

Wait… (loading at 4k a second)

Click on glide

Wait… (loading at 4k a second)

Click on download latest.

Wait… For 30 minutes for it to download. (loading at 4k a second)

Your mum wants to call your aunt. You have to hang up that computer bullshit NOW.

Fuckingthefuckhelcuntshit.

Mum, it’s only 5 minutes remaining! I don’t care, I’m out of eggs and I need them. Maybe you’re aunt has some otherwise I have to go to the store. Hang up now!

Fuck. Hangup.

Wait.

Do it all again.

Finally downloaded. You just know you’re going to get your ass chewed up by your dad because you where downloading for over an hour, it probably costed somewhere around 5-7 bucks to download this driver because of the egg fiasco. Anyway, install the driver.

First unzip it.

C: Cd\temp Unzip Glide3d.zip

Error unreadable byte at 435543.

Sigh.

Download it again

(now you know for sure you’re going to get it)

This time it unzips.

Install.exe.

It installs.

Finally.

Reboot. Start game. Not enough memory because of the new glide driver. And you forgot to unload the mouse driver.

I’ll take current day ads, tracking and the sacrifice of the soul of my firstborn due to EULA’S any fucking day

It’s like jack Nicholson said in a few good men:

THE TRUTH? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

(I lied a tiny bit, Glide3d usually meant a dos4gw game which finally meant 32 bit addresses and no conventional memory bullshit. But you can change that for any other driver you needed)

Shady_Shiroe ,
@Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll be honest I didn’t read most of that but I see you are a tormented soul and sorry that we are not that old to know or had the misfortune to play many buggy games.

9488fcea02a9 ,

Insert disk 14…

[Angry grinding noises]

Failure reading drive A Abort, Retry, Fail? R

[More angry grinding noises]

Kids these days have it so easy…

snowe ,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

The meme clearly isn’t about installing games, it’s about starting them. And I seriously doubt OP is referring to any sort of floppy games at all. They’re most likely referring to many of the cd rom based games that literally were “click exe to start” and they just did. Everyone here is focusing on their experience with floppy games and completely ignoring that there was a time where games did work like this.

Redredme ,

The meme’s is that it was better back then.

It truly really wasn’t.

I know. I was there. There was no “just clicking an exe” in the nineties. Pc’s where work machines. Made for boring stuff like excel and typing letters. Getting them. To play a game was a task on its own.

To play games on them you really had to go through several burning hoops. Every time. Because game A used xms, game B didn’t care, game C must have ems. Etc. You where reconfiguring your pc for each game in a different way.

Later, win vista and XP solved a lot of problems but caused several others just as worse.

It was with win7 it finally all started to work like it more or less should.

And really, I meant it: I take current day tracking and ads any day. 3 steps forward, one backwards.

snowe ,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

I’m saying that OP might not be talking about the 90s. They literally might be talking about windows vista or 7. You have no way of knowing.

Redredme ,

In 7 and vista you already used steam and battle.net. The last time you clicked on an exe really was a long time ago.

Every installer ever since windows 95, made an item in your start menu. No clicking an exe.

unless you pirate your games, but then you’re still just clicking an exe and this post doesn’t make sense.

But hey, he made fun with his meme, I had fun typing my response, that’s all there was to it, no?

snowe ,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

Yeah I don’t really think they meant actually clicking an exe file, it’s just that’s a lot shorter than saying “click the shortcut in your start menu”. It’s a meme, not a diatribe. But yeah it’s a joke so we can just move on. Thanks for the conversation.

such_lettuce7970 ,
@such_lettuce7970@kbin.social avatar

I dunno about all this, I just play games from Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Playstation, etc. Maybe I'm simple but I'm also having fun :P

Weirdfish ,

Yeah, I went console when I realised I wanted to spend time actually playing the game.

Sure I’m missing out on the absolute highest settings, mods, etc.

However, I spend 55 minutes out of an hour actually playing the game.

revlayle ,

I had ME legendary edition in my steam library. I wanted to play. It asked me to sign up for all the EA bullshit.

I still haven’t played it.

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