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It doesn’t take too much of a graphics card to push a ten-year old game about, but you need quite a CPU to handle the emulation. I’ve just upgraded from a Ryzen 7 / 2700X (which struggled a bit, kept 30 fps though) to a Ryzen 9 / 5900XT, which does it quite well. Ironically, the RAM crisis seems to have made CPU upgrades a bit more affordable, since not so many people are buying either.
Higher resolutions need a fair amount of RAM, but we’re talking “a fair amount of RAM compared to a PS4” - if you’ve a few gigabytes of system and graphics card RAM, that should be plenty.
The licensing isn’t particularly difficult for Bloodborne - Sony own it, and their video game publishing arm is still a going concern. I doubt there’s any technical problem, since it’s on the same engine as Dark Souls 3, and that’s multi-platform. Could probably recompile it for PC and release it tomorrow, if they wanted to.
From consider it one of their masterpieces, and want to do any ‘HD’ remake themselves. They’ve had quite a few offers (I understand) by other companies who’d like to do it, but I think they’re aiming higher than unlocking 60 fps and a quick upres of the textures.
Sony have a bit of a complicated relationship with ‘primarily single player games’ and ‘multiplatform ports’. Since Xbox appears to be dying, they’ll have the only next-gen walled garden in town. Why share, when they could sell systems?
Any consolation, ShadPS4 can run BB at 4K / 60fps right now, if you want it? Need a bit of a beast of a PC, but can confirm you can play it all the way through, not too many issues.
“We’ve made a bang-average live service game that both costs money upfront and has ‘monetisation’ features built in. In addition, it’s in a somewhat niche hard-to-describe genre, has a nondescript name, and we pissed our advertising budget up the wall.”
Nice one, AWS. 100K players, easily.
Like you say, if you’re paying money upfront, you want it forever. From the initial “four player dungeon crawler” description, I thought they’d remade Gauntlet or something - I might be up for that, if it was made with love. Instead, they appear to have made an online collection of bonus levels from Spyro, with corporate-approved zaniness and 'tude that’s always asking you for your credit card details, and that they can shut down whenever they like. How about no?
AI is quite good at solving captchas; better than many humans. And it doesn’t really slow down the sloppers for them to set their machine running, come back in an hour and then solve a puzzle manually to submit it. Couple of minutes of work every day and they can still drown the world in bullshit.
Something needs to change, but I’m not convinced that would be enough…
Well, having not played the Xbox version… ;-) Once you’ve got it running, it remains one of the finest games of all time.
Getting it running is the real sands of time, tho. It has a particular hatred of multi-core CPUs, requires a graphics card that supports both hardware transform & lighting but also truly ancient versions of DirectX, and is obstinately not-widescreen. You’ll be wanting a fan patch; last time I tried one, it was a bit of a crash-fest (it wasn’t, back in the day) and some of the SFX looked plain wrong.
Graphics still held up perfectly - the art style is very strong - and the story remains charming. All I wanted from a remake was the damned thing to start up in a modern screen resolution, and it seems they’ve managed to spend years on it without even managing that.
The ArchWiki is the best hand-holding that you’re going to get on Linux, it’s the finest system administration documentation that the OS has available. But Arch doesn’t “do things for you automatically”, that’s not their ethos. So it’s hard mode until you’ve developed enough sysadmin skills to understand what the docs are telling you, and then it’s easy mode because it all works great together and you’ve a phenomenal reference source.
We run SUSE at work; and when SUSE is working, it’s a damn fine Linux - secure by default, up-to-date, efficient. But if it stops working, man alive, I wish we were using Arch instead. (Admittedly, we just redeploy anything on SUSE that stops working, which takes moments, whereas fixing Arch takes a while but at least you can fix it.)
I had 32GB of RAM in my desktop as 4x8GB; one of the sticks failed a couple of years ago, and it was cheaper to replace it with 64GB = 4x16GB than it was to get a replacement 8GB.
That’s convenient for work purposes (in fact, I could actually do with more) but massive pointless overkill for most games. Even games which do “big loads” - Witcher 3, say - aren’t noticeably quicker from RAM cache than they are off of an NVMe drive.
Well, an increase from (60 to 70) fps to (85 to 87) fps is nothing to complain about. It was obviously completely playable when it was managing “a bit over 30” since it was designed that way, but I’ve no problem with more.
Apparently they have fixed the “vertex explosion” bug as well, where your face would occasionally turn into a mass of spikes that obscured what you were doing so much it was unplayable - needed a quit out and restart, and was the major interruption to the game.
Indeed - most Java IDEs have FernFlower built in, so it’s dead easy.
Decompiled Java is surprisingly close to the original, especially compared to eg. decompiled C++; good luck with that. You get all the class, function and variable names back on the original line numbers.
What you do not get back is any comments. So you can see what and how, but not why. Admittedly, most comments are kind of useless and do not explain ‘why’ very well, but for weird-but-critical code they can be essential.
Indeed - I’ve seen more people recommend Hannah Montana Linux (apt-based) than any of those for newcomers recently.
You are entirely right that a Linux distribution is really just its package manager, the default packages installed, and some remote repositories which may (or may not) have had some customisation applied, which will have been pulled and built from a source repository somewhere. All that’s really needed to swap between eg. Arch, Manjaro or Cachy is to update the repo files and issue a package manager update command, although I’d probably like to verify my backups and get a stiff drink first.
The House of Linux is built out of bricks, and the bricks aren’t that scary - you can take them to bits and look at them if you like, they’re usually zipped-up folders of text files and the binaries you’d get from compiling them yourself. But if that’s not what you’re used to, then yeah - 🤯 .
In all seriousness, I wish that most distros had art half as good as what Void Linux has - got some really gifted people, there.
True, but network effects are important to that.
There were huge numbers of people that wouldn’t move to Linux because it didn’t support all of their games. Now it does, and lots of people are moving.
There are lots of people that won’t move to Linux because they have a random bit of hardware that’s not supported, or a highly-specific bit of software they need to do their job that only runs on Windows. The manufacturers wouldn’t support Linux because not enough people used it. Ah, but now we have all the gamers, so there are quite a lot of people using it.
Each domino that falls encourages the rest. Steam Linux users are more than 3x Steam macOS users, and we’re not that far from overtaking it for general desktop usage. In some regions, that’s already the case, and while the Windows 10 exodus can move to Linux easily, they’d need to buy new hardware fo use the Mac operating system. Not many companies would question providing Apple support; once Linux has a comparable share, it would be foolish to leave that out of consideration as well.
Games which run on Vulkan / OpenGL don’t have any GPU translation overhead, and some run straight-up better via Proton than they do on Windows. Doom 2016 does for me, for instance.
Of course, that game is so well optimised it’s the difference between 140 fps and 200+ fps, which is not terribly obvious, but even so.
From the article, sounds like the company founder is a complete bell-end, had no clear vision and kept changing his mind on everything. Half the games developers in Edinburgh probably used to work for Rockstar and will know all the ins-and-outs of developing a GTA clone, but if you keep fucking them around then you’ll end up with a mess.
From the reviews, sounds like even when it’s not being a buggy mess, it’s boring and the plot is completely stupid. You can hotfix the bugs and performance issues away, but if the underlying concept is shite then you can’t really polish that into something good.
Well, there are some ‘poorly optimised’ games out there. Am able to run eg. Cyberpunk 2077 near maximum (non-raytraced) settings and it happily trundles along at 80+ fps. Would really like to play Mind Over Magic, just my kind of game and which looks like it was done on the Quake3 engine, and I’m struggling since it runs like absolute ass regardless of what the settings are. Think that’s the joy of Unity, though.
I think a lot of the problem is that we’re long past the point where diminishing returns kick in. Doubling the amount of processing required for a few percent more lighting fidelity, that kind of thing. Half Life 2 was expensive for its day, mostly due to its extended development - about $40m then, equivalent of ~$70m now - but it still looks great, mostly due to its strong art style. (I realise Valve keep sneakily updating the engine, so things like the water effects are much better now than they were on release.) There’s games that cost ten times as much and which don’t really look a lot better, but which will get tagged as ‘badly optimised’ since they’re chasing the very latest graphical shinies.
I think the sheer price of producing all of those HD assets is a significant risk to any studio, and means that we end up with a lot of cookie-cutter AAA games where the industry is very cautious about taking chances of any kind. Maybe I’m not the main target for the shiniest of graphics, but my Steam games with the most hours - Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, the Dark Souls series, Crusader Kings - run the gamut from ‘charmingly simple’ to ‘functionally realistic’, but I’d not describe any of them as great because of their graphics.
InXile did Wasteland 2/3 and Torment: Numenara. All fine RPGs.
Completely agree that the talent needs to go elsewhere - this deal is the death knell for creative works at EA. I’d be careful about what you promise on Kickstarter, though. Signing up to lots of stretch goals is likely to burden your game with lots of tickbox features that don’t make any sense.
In fact, I’d say that Bloodstained (while generally excellent) would be improved by cropping out some stuff. The crafting, cooking and crop farming could just be chopped out whole, and put all the upgraded gear in the place where you find items. Would swap out some of the enemy and boss count for a bit more variety. And ‘hard mode’ could have done with some playtesting and a general rebalance, or just be renamed ‘infrequent crazy difficulty spike’ mode. But someone paid for those tickboxes and so we’ve got them.
Letting RPG designers run completely free from publishers can be a recipe for disaster, too. Pillars of Eternity? Excellent. PoE2? Unbelievably unfocussed and sprawling, disrespectful of your time, goes nowhere fast. Could possibly have made two games out of it if someone had told them to chop it in half and then polish the bits, but was a bit of a studio killer instead, could never sell enough to cover the costs.
No need to hold your breath for Bloodborne on PC, get yourself over to https://shadps4.net/ and get ready to slay a few beasts. It’s for your own good.
Even better with 0.10.0:
The big new feature this release brings with it is readbacks, which emulates shared memory on the PS4 by reading back memory that was modified on the GPU back to the CPU side, …, fixing vertex explosions in Bloodborne and similar games
The harpoon works just fine too, one-hits the stick insects and does her some damage as well if you can line it up. She’s not very dangerous if you know her moveset, but that’s an education learned by many runbacks.
Doesn’t say they’ve fixed the comedy bug where if you look at the map while on one of the collapsing platforms, then when you fall through then the game stops accepting input, Hornet just stares at it forever. Only glitch I’ve found, quite impressive for a day one purchase.
It’s an RPG set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland after the world has been destroyed by nuclear war. You set up your initial character with a fairly conventional set of RPG stats, plus a set of skills that you’ll use as you play. Some of these are combat skills, like conventional or futuristic energy weapons; some of these are thief skills, like sneaking and lockpicking; and some of them are just complete bullshit that do nothing, to punish you for not using a guide.
As you progress through the game, you’ll meet other characters that you might want to recruit into your party. Some of them are much more useful than others. It is a good idea not to hand them automatic weapons, as they’ll squander all your precious ammunition on the first rat that they see. There are a lot of random enemy encounters.
There’s a technologically advanced group who cling to the remnants of civilisation, who you can grab some very decent gear from if you play your cards right. The final boss is part of the children of the citadel, a cult that has sprung up in the wasteland. He has plans to convert humanity into a new hybrid species to better cope with the world after the nuclear war. You cap his ass.
Although it was a very influential RPG in its day, certain aspects of it - the UI, more than anything - have aged really badly. The plot still holds up, though, and it’s a lot of fun to play if you can push past the jank.
Think you could take it back a step there.
- Fallout 1 - exceptional world-building, fantastic game, great character writing, superbly replayable RPG. Your build is instrumental to what you can do; decisions affect the world. Held together by jank and bugs, alas, but generally superb.
- Fallout 2 - fixes most of the jank and bugs and has a much bigger and deeper world, but not quite as well-integrated a story. Worthy sequel, though.
- Fallout 3 - “Oblivion with guns”, but has a pretty decent story, lots of interesting side quests. Seems like Bethesda misunderstood the point of the setting a bit, but very promising. Has some RPG replayability - different builds and different choices change what’s available in the world.
- Fallout New Vegas - best game in the whole series. Good plot, great sidequests, great characters, reactive world. Actually makes it seem like the Creation engine can be used for ‘proper’ RPGs - everything by Bethesda tended to be a mile wide and an inch deep up till then. Obsidian actually understand the setting, which is not surprising since they had a lot of original Black Isle devs in their team. Held together by jank and bugs, which I’m going to pretend was a callback to Fallout 1.
- Fallout 4 - just what the fuck. Plot that you can barely believe is as stupid as it is. One-note, irritating characters. Dreadful writing. Gives up being an RPG in favour of crafting and base-building. “Talking” interface which was the butt of jokes at the time and an insult to the history of the series. Barely any decision is of consequence, you could save near the “final decision” point, see all the endings, and miss nothing of consequence. All of Bethesda’s worst habits, given free rein.
Not going to be spending money with Bethesda again unless the reviews turn up exceptional. After F4, I was expecting nothing from 76, and was not surprised. Was expecting nothing from Starfield, and was not surprised. Am expecting Elder Scrolls 5 to be a bag of shite as well - am whatever the complete opposite of ‘hyped’ is for it.
Resident Evil Village uses that, doesn’t it? If you obtain a, ahem, Denuvo-free version, it’s absolutely buttery smooth. Makes a great job of interiors, exteriors, character animation, and particle effects - especially smoke and fire. It just stutters like fuck to the point of unplayability if you try and run the version that you’d get through Steam.
I’ve found that disabling VSync in games entirely and then letting MangoHud do the limiting works a bit better. Some of that will be because I’m using Proton on Linux, which has DXVK as a translation layer. Games will be trying to limit their frames the DirectX way, whereas MangoHud is limiting them the Vulkan way and is ‘closer to the monitor’ for keeping the pace right.
Also, MangoHud has an ability to set fps_limit in a per-game way that generally results in much smoother frame-pacing than most games achieve by default. That’s awesome for eg. Dark Souls / Elden Ring, which are stuttery at 60 fps but buttery at 59 for some reason, but also for random strategy games which would be just fine at 30 fps but instead have all the fans roaring to render at 144.
Should probably run it quite well. BB was ‘designed for 30 fps’ and you’ll get more than that. Certainly run it better than it does on PS4, anyway.