It's my swan song!
Music. Coding. Gaming. Life.
Descent was an awesome series. Hell, it still IS an awesome series. Six degrees of freedom, claustrophobic tunnels, murderous robots... what's not to love about this game?
The fact that it was made in 1995 for one. Originally written for MS-DOS, Descent was designed to run on computers that didn't know what a Pentium was. It ran great on those computers, but as computer processing power increased, it started to become obvious that the game was not written to scale well.
At first, the homing missile became impossible to dodge. Written to work fine at 30 frames per second, the homing missile began to turn faster and faster as that 30 became 60, 60 became 100, and 100 became 200. Fortunately, this bug has been fixed and has made playing Descent quite bearable.
However, recently, a new bug reared its ugly head involving mouse play. Descent plays at a constant 200 frames per second, assuming you don't have vsync on, or have otherwise limited the frame rate. The average mouse in Windows is only polled at the rate of 125 times per second. So, your graphics card is getting more frames per second than Windows is getting mouse positions. How does this cause problems in Descent?
One of the quirks about Descent is that, unlike traditional first person shooters, you are not allowed to just 180 your ship in an instant. The Pyro has a maximum turn rate, and is hard-limited in the code, throwing out extra movements that are made beyond the maximum allowed. This means that you can whip your mouse around the mousepad, and you won't move very much.
The turn rate for the mouse, however, is determined per frame. So, what'll happen is you'll move the mouse, say, an inch, within 2 frames. You only need to move it, say, a quarter of an inch to reach maximum turn speed. At the end of the first frame, the first quarter of an inch is processed and the next quarter of an inch is thrown out. Same thing for the second frame, the next quarter of an inch is processed and the final quarter of an inch is thrown out.
However, let's say in the first frame, your mouse didn't get polled at all. At the end of the first frame, Descent - and Windows for that matter - think you haven't moved the mouse. Your Pyro does not move at all. In the second frame, the mouse is polled and sees you moved an entire inch. The first quarter of an inch is processed, and the other three quarters are thrown out. All that movement for nothing!
Having a fellow pilot suffer greatly because of these issues, I decided to dive into the source code and develop a fix. Now what happens is that you turn on the Mouse Overrun Buffer setting, and then instead of throwing out the extra movements of your mouse, it is stored in a buffer, with anywhere between 1/16 of a second and a full second of movement stored, depending on how high you decide to set your buffer. Then, in the next frame, anything already in your buffer is added to whatever mouse movement was detected that frame, and that is used to determine how much your pyro moves, storing any excess back into the buffer again.
You can find this code in a pull request for DXX-Retro, a source port of Descent dedicated to the competitive community. If you own the original game, you can find downloads for DXX-Retro at the Descent Rangers download page.
And if you don't, go get it! Classic first-person shooter action.
The fact that it was made in 1995 for one. Originally written for MS-DOS, Descent was designed to run on computers that didn't know what a Pentium was. It ran great on those computers, but as computer processing power increased, it started to become obvious that the game was not written to scale well.
At first, the homing missile became impossible to dodge. Written to work fine at 30 frames per second, the homing missile began to turn faster and faster as that 30 became 60, 60 became 100, and 100 became 200. Fortunately, this bug has been fixed and has made playing Descent quite bearable.
However, recently, a new bug reared its ugly head involving mouse play. Descent plays at a constant 200 frames per second, assuming you don't have vsync on, or have otherwise limited the frame rate. The average mouse in Windows is only polled at the rate of 125 times per second. So, your graphics card is getting more frames per second than Windows is getting mouse positions. How does this cause problems in Descent?
One of the quirks about Descent is that, unlike traditional first person shooters, you are not allowed to just 180 your ship in an instant. The Pyro has a maximum turn rate, and is hard-limited in the code, throwing out extra movements that are made beyond the maximum allowed. This means that you can whip your mouse around the mousepad, and you won't move very much.
The turn rate for the mouse, however, is determined per frame. So, what'll happen is you'll move the mouse, say, an inch, within 2 frames. You only need to move it, say, a quarter of an inch to reach maximum turn speed. At the end of the first frame, the first quarter of an inch is processed and the next quarter of an inch is thrown out. Same thing for the second frame, the next quarter of an inch is processed and the final quarter of an inch is thrown out.
However, let's say in the first frame, your mouse didn't get polled at all. At the end of the first frame, Descent - and Windows for that matter - think you haven't moved the mouse. Your Pyro does not move at all. In the second frame, the mouse is polled and sees you moved an entire inch. The first quarter of an inch is processed, and the other three quarters are thrown out. All that movement for nothing!
Having a fellow pilot suffer greatly because of these issues, I decided to dive into the source code and develop a fix. Now what happens is that you turn on the Mouse Overrun Buffer setting, and then instead of throwing out the extra movements of your mouse, it is stored in a buffer, with anywhere between 1/16 of a second and a full second of movement stored, depending on how high you decide to set your buffer. Then, in the next frame, anything already in your buffer is added to whatever mouse movement was detected that frame, and that is used to determine how much your pyro moves, storing any excess back into the buffer again.
You can find this code in a pull request for DXX-Retro, a source port of Descent dedicated to the competitive community. If you own the original game, you can find downloads for DXX-Retro at the Descent Rangers download page.
And if you don't, go get it! Classic first-person shooter action.
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roncli.com Blog
This is my blog where I give my thoughts and opinions on various topics and share my creative endeavors with the world. I run two personal blogs, but combine them here for ease of access.
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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Is that... T-Pain?
Take a good hard look at the mother fucking float.
CatSaladππ₯ (D.Burch) :blobcatrainbow:
@catsalad @infosec.exchange
Did you know that Pavlov's hair was famously soft and silky?
It's because he conditioned it. :ablobcatlurk:
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
And when the groundhog saw its shadow, the people declared:
"FOUR MORE YEARS OF STRESS EATING!"
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Boss: "We need to come up with a number of hours it will take to do this super big project."
Me: "Do you want that number written out, or can I use exponential form?"
π
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I guess you CAN'T do it with True Value. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/business/true-value-bankruptcy
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Former 2 time world champion DogPlayingTetris becomes the first player to ever rollover the level counter in NES Tetris, performing what's known in the community as "Rebirth". Final score: 29,486,164, 4216 lines, level 347 (256 + 91)... all huge world records. #tetris
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Back row... Mother with screaming infant, 300 lb linebacker, and me. Or what's left of me. #airporthell
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I'd also love a 6 hour layover overnight instead of taking the red eye I was going to take and be 7 hours later getting into Cleveland than I wanted, why do you ask? #airporthell
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Why yes, I'd love to leave at 4:40 to get to the airport at 6:20 for an 8:20 flight that got delayed to 9:05 which is too late for my connection so now I'm on a 10:20 flight instead. Why do you ask? #airporthell
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I've never had as much fun on comms for a Tetris match as I did tonight with NinjaOfNinjas for the silver bracket semis and finals. What a show!
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I'm not done! I'll be casting the later rounds of the silver bracket today at 6:30 PM Pacific at https://twitch.tv/classictetris3. Cya there!
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I'll be live casting qualifiers today for CTWC at https://twitch.tv/classictetris2 at 1 PM Pacific and https://twitch.tv/classictetris3 at 3:30 PM Pacific. This year's CTWC is the craziest yet so don't miss it!
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Just a note to everyone out there who still believes 2020 hasn't ended that today is Unquinquaginember 21st, 2020.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
@shanselman Who at Microsoft do I have to bribe to fix ADO so that those of us on dark mode who copy/paste text from one task to another can do so without our friends on light mode seeing dark text on a dark background?
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I updated the blog post with a statement from Revival. While I'm not particularly happy with Revival's decision, I understand their motives. It's just a shame that it was someone from Interplay that had to go and do this. "By games for gamers" my ass.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Damn, got another Tetris world record! This time in the arcade variant developed by Atari. 6,008,005 points, 5,386 lines, round 363. Be warned, it's nearly FIVE HOURS. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2131759212
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I certainly didn't have "Overload but with web3 features" on my 2024 bingo card. WTF did Revival Productions just do?
https://roncli.com/blogger/3949527510668683306/wtf-did-revival-productions-just-do
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
@solitha New rule: cat tax. For every pun you post or repost, you're now required to pay the tax of posting one cute cat video.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Today was a special day. I scored 1,016,221 points in classic NES Tetris, the first time I broke the 999,999 maxout barrier.
With that maxout, I became the oldest person to get their first ever maxout at 46 years 319 days.
After I scored that, I learned that today would have been 7-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer's 43rd birthday.
I am FILLED with incredible emotion tonight.
https://clips.twitch.tv/AverageImportantGoldfishHassaanChop-bRfUxo4q5SxEgJvI
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
"I'm Sorry, What?!" The biggest bailout in the history of Descent II! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlTk7wa59A
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
βBART anime merch" are three words that I would not have expected to go together, but here we are. https://www.railgoods.com/bart/anime/
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Does anyone else sing the chorus to "Cherish" by Kool & The Gang to themselves whenever they play or watch streams of Balatro? Or is that just me?
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I'm fact that's what Lingo needs: a "phone" block. The clue is an incorrect autocorrected form of the answer. π
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
It's like my phone knows I've been playing Lingo. I typed in "exited" and my phone was all:
β¬οΈ EXCITED ------
βͺοΈ
βͺοΈ
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
A comparison of the classic Tetris and Descent communities. Not a post I write lightly, either.
https://roncli.com/blogger/3703157809000934742/a-tale-of-two-communities
martin
@luftlesen @mstdn.jp
Aptiz played #Pentis again. In the beginning you can see roncli asking in the chat for the right version. About an hour later, he broke the #PentisRankings record with 60K ! Congratulations roncli π π
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2052528360?sr=a&t=11267s
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Yeah, it's season 11. But the OTL Season 6 highlight reel is up, this time Fireball has taken the reins! Check out this video jam packed full of kills, deaths, silliness, and Sirius puns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXstLVjnaGo
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Over on #thatbirdhellsite, someone retweeted sympathy for the people being laid off today...
...and then said that Amazon Games was hiring. You know, the one that just had layoffs in NOVEMBER.
Honestly? Tech sucks right now.
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