krant
New Member
Posts: 24
|
Post by krant on Jul 14, 2017 2:51:23 GMT -5
I'm obviously new to this forum. However, I'm actually one of the pilots I've been personally put into the profiles page in Zedo's main site a long time ago. You guys may not remember me, if at all, but I'm actually Jerelle Curameng from the Pilot Profile page. I contacted Zedo from his old email handle way back around 2002 to add me into his profile page because I am a huge fan of Hardwar and have been playing this game since 1999. Even up to this day, I still find myself coming back to playing Hardwar even long after the original developer went bankrupt for good in the beginning of 2003 thanks to the patches and mods built for this game to make it even more exciting and replayable. So many years have passed and my memories of Zedo's site haven't faded away to obscurity. I remember other Hardwar fan sites like Captain Krono's Paint Shop, the fan fiction site made by Arago Fett, Wez's Hardwar Walkthrough, Xaffax's Pirate Nest, etc. and they were enjoyable to visit. I've noticed that Captain Zedo has a mirror site to his original one as it seems his old site has domain issues. It scared me and made me fear that Zedo's original site would be taken down forever and I'll never be able to visit my favorite video game fan site ever again. But now that the mirror site exists, I've become a happy camper. All the fun in being a trader, scavenger, bounty hunter, and pirate, watching how life works in the city of Misplaced Optimism, progressing through the surprisingly well thought storyline; this game was quite ahead of its time and had it all. Nowadays, even if its dated when compared to the other video games out there, none can match the depth that is Hardwar. It's a shame that this game is underrated and even more undermarketed as otherwise this could have been the best [pseudo]-space trading/simulation game of the 90's.
But anyways, enough of a tangent, I want to say hello everybody!
|
|
|
Post by Max Darkmane on Jul 14, 2017 10:28:56 GMT -5
Looks like you've been around almost as long as I was, lol remember when F2.0/F2.1 were the only versions? These were times... Anyways, Welcome back!!!
|
|
krant
New Member
Posts: 24
|
Post by krant on Jul 14, 2017 14:15:00 GMT -5
Thanks.
Yeah, I remember the game was in F2.0/F2.1 back when it first came out in 1998 and seemed that way until 2003. It felt like the game was still a beta and after The Software Refinery folded completely, I, as well as the other dedicated players, thought it would remain in those gimpy versions forever. However, thanks to a few dedicated programmers and hackers several years after the developer went down under, Hardwar has now turned into the complete and enjoyable game that we know nowadays. Presently, I still am able to run this game on Win 7; I heard that it's playable on Win 10 if you can get it to work properly but I wouldn't bother because 10 has too many issues that keep me from switching from my preferred OS. Even after support from Micro$oft (or better, Microsuck, since that company always has its head up its arse whenever it does its "usual business") will end in 2020 for 7, I'm still holding on to my 7 OS till the time it becomes literally unusable.
|
|
|
Post by Max Darkmane on Jul 14, 2017 18:47:50 GMT -5
I still miss a few "features" of the original F versions, like IPX network support lol, that was the only reliable way to play on 10base-t lan sessions with 5+ players... good times and 3dfx glide support (this now bites us in the ass, if we still had glide support there would be no issues with intel integrated graphics, as you could use nglide wrapper instead...) Yeah, the only issue with Hardwar on win10 is that on intel graphics fog does not render and sky is flat black, otherwise once compatibility mode is set, appropriate network ports are open it works well!
|
|
krant
New Member
Posts: 24
|
Post by krant on Jul 15, 2017 14:08:07 GMT -5
Hardwar tends to get finicky when using non-ATI/AMD hardware. Yeah, I've tried running the game with Nvidia GPUs in the past and it got fussy with the hardware. The rendering wouldn't work properly and it lead to cut out textures while I was playing the game. In certain cases, the text in the menus would be left out and it made the game unplayable. That's why I stick to ATI/AMD hardware from now on whenever I play Hardwar. Ironic, since 3dfx Interactive was acquired by Nvidia and their GeForce GPUs shouldn't have problems running the game.
I never really was big into multiplayer in any game. I've had bad experiences with other players in the past and it kept me from being enthusiastic about getting into MP.
|
|
|
Post by Max Darkmane on Jul 16, 2017 14:05:38 GMT -5
Yeah, I've noticed that too, I'm on Nvidia cards now and the Z-buffer issue is still present, despite having W-buffering enabled, buildings are appearing floating/clipping above ground... It used to be a common problem with non 3dfx accelerators back in the day, which yes its bloody ironic. Nvidia bought 3dfx only for their IP notably SLI... Sorry to hear about your multiplayer experience, some pilots can be 'annoying' but as long as latency is not too bad you can own them in a basic Silver-Y On my multiplayer sessions I gave players a choice of a different starting ship (with same equipment as standard starting Silver-Y) or choice of one unique mod for their starting ship (engine #2 or pod bigger than small for their Silver-Y's) or $75000 starting cash, you'd be suprised how many people kept their starting ships... The games were memory edited server side, never hosted longer session than one week 24/7 so I don't know how that would affect stability over time, but man these were fun... I guess I should host a session like that again, and we'll see if you'll like it
|
|