[Phredreeke]

Oh that's what I thought. The way you phrased it made me think there was a pirate ship on the Saturn version as well

[Aristotle Gumball]

Ah, yeah. I was just saying I also wish to play the Saturn one without emulation. I think the differences between it and PSX version are massively overstated however. The devs considered the latter to be the "definitive" version of the game.

[axl]

thricecursed, on 22 December 2019 - 12:29 PM, said:

The devs considered the latter to be the "definitive" version of the game.

Ah ? I didn't know that. Weird, cause it seems that most people prefer the saturn version over the psx version.

[Phredreeke]

My understanding is the PSX version simplified the geometry while at the same time made the game harder. Also had proper transparency effect on water surfaces instead of a dithered mesh

[Aristotle Gumball]

axl, on 22 December 2019 - 02:09 PM, said:

Ah ? I didn't know that. Weird, cause it seems that most people prefer the saturn version over the psx version.

"Although the final PlayStation layouts were slightly more confined overall, they were also more refined and had better balance in my opinion. The process of revising the levels presented the chance to add more polish to the flow and pacing of the game."

But they also hated the Saturn with a passion, so I dunno. Can't give my opinion as I've never played it, but developing for it sounded like a chore to put it mildly:

"The Saturn was really an insane abortion"

[Radar]

thricecursed, on 22 December 2019 - 03:54 PM, said:

"The Saturn was really an insane abortion"

After the left-wing exodus on NeoGAF, it is surreal reading anything on that site, especially the politics section.

[Phredreeke]

Would anyone be interested in a compilation of sprites which are different between the beta and retail release?

Attached File(s)

•  tile1706.png (9.75K)
  Number of downloads: 34

[MetHy]

Phredreeke, on 20 February 2020 - 06:14 AM, said:

Would anyone be interested in a compilation of sprites which are different between the beta and retail release?

Yeah, I had started writing down some differences including sprites/textures in this thread, but never turned it into a real thing:

https://forums.duke4...post__p__320013

Make sure to check every version, each beta and demo; some stuff are unique in some of them. IIRC the only ones that is not interesting is the post release 4 level demo which is just a chopped up version of the full game.

[Phredreeke]

I compiled an archive of tiles from the official beta that either don't exist or are different from the same numbered tile in the retail

Attached File(s)

•  psbetadifferenttiles.zip (1.73MB)
  Number of downloads: 8

[Phredreeke]

Cartaphilus, on 22 December 2019 - 12:29 PM, said:

Ah, yeah. I was just saying I also wish to play the Saturn one without emulation. I think the differences between it and PSX version are massively overstated however. The devs considered the latter to be the "definitive" version of the game.

Having just watched a speedrun of the PS1 game I can't see how that version is definitive. The lighting is washed out compared to the Saturn and the framerate really tanks in places.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Phredreeke, on 02 August 2020 - 08:46 AM, said:

Having just watched a speedrun of the PS1 game I can't see how that version is definitive. The lighting is washed out compared to the Saturn and the framerate really tanks in places.

What the devs meant was that PS1 version is more streamlined (I think I posted an interview somewhere). They had time to go over the levels one more time and fix any issues, while also removing some of the bloat. Saturn framerate tanks in places too. I agree that it looks better, though.

[alias conrad coldwood]

Got several harems too. Here's the one on Luxor (it's in the boss room so you can't miss it: follow the ledge surrounding the arena all the way to the 2nd health up and push the wall on the right side, then wade through the lava river and reach the elevator platform to the left to get a vantage point of the scene.)

EDIT: damn, wrong thread. My bad.
EDIT2: ahah, now I'm still on topic. Nice save.

Attached File(s)

•  Luxor.png (581.91K)
  Number of downloads: 51

[MetHy]

Just relaying the news:

Powerslave released on GOG

Published by Throwback Entertainment.

[jkas789]

alias conrad coldwood, on 02 August 2020 - 01:27 PM, said:

Got several harems too. Here's the one on Luxor (it's in the boss room so you can't miss it: follow the ledge surrounding the arena all the way to the 2nd health up and push the wall on the right side, then wade through the lava river and reach the elevator platform to the left to get a vantage point of the scene.)

EDIT: damn, wrong thread. My bad.
EDIT2: ahah, now I'm still on topic. Nice save.

Wait this room I have never seen before. Is this in DOS Powerslave or in one of the other versions of the game?

[MetHy]

That's a secret room in lev10

[jkas789]

Huh, gonna have to play it again now that I know this exists! For uh... reasons

Powerslave babes are the best looking babes in any Build Engine game

[MrFlibble]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but a guy in the Old-Games RU forum shared his alternate 4x upscale pack:
https://www.moddb.co...ck-for-buildgdx

These were made with ESRGAN as a base (various models), but then heavily edited manually in Photoshop. Furthermore, the author meticulously went through available images of Egyptian reliefs and decorations and found sources for all or almost all textures based on such imagery, which were then used to update the respective textures. Some examples:
https://postimg.cc/MX3cYbgW
https://postimg.cc/0KYNYDSs

[Phredreeke]

Textures are good. Several sprites appears to be taken from my upscale pack and further upscaled

[MrFlibble]

Poor sprites should've be left alone I'm afraid. I'm talking to the guy over the Old-Games RU forums but not sure if any further work is going to be done considering the amount of effort already put into this.

IMO the contribution to find the source images (please note that "source" here means that he found good quality photos of bas-reliefs and other decorations shown on PS textures, but most likely not the same images of said reliefs as those that were the base of the original textures) is of itself invaluable. Still I think there is room for further improvement in the department of tweaking the ratio of upscaled and authentic hi-res content in the textures (towards the latter I mean). Also some of the ESRGAN models used were obviously not optimal.

[Phredreeke]

If you're talking about my upscale pack then yes. I would say the vast majority used the Manga109/DeviantPixelHD interpolation with my own PSP antialiasing script.

I'd be willing to help the guy out but I don't speak Russian.

[MrFlibble]

I was referring to the alternate upscale. The author told me that he had worked through several thousands of images (hi-res source photographs plus upscales using different models). The project could certainly use your expertise in the field of handling upscales, but what I mean is that so far it is not certain if he'd be willing to work further and/or make the source stuff available.

If yes then perhaps you could look at them and see if it was possible to make textures mostly of photographic sources with the low-res/upscale stuff reserved for reference. Like you can see on examples, he updated the faces but many hieroglyphics were left in the upscaled state, looking like pencil scribblings in some cases (likely due to a suboptimal model being used for the upscale). Your previous work with photos suggests that you can successfully make a very good hi-res version even if the photographic source is not entirely the same as for the low-res original.

Everyone speaks English these days so don't worry about the language barrier.

[Phredreeke]

That was more referring to the project originating on a Russian forum

What I did with the faces in Duke3D doesn't really apply here, as I relied on this site to reposition them before merging them with the upscaled original.

[MrFlibble]

Well then Google Translate has become fairly robust these days, at least for the relatively simple tasks like this. What it gets wrong you can figure out because you kinda know the context already.

I just took a portion of one of Eyefinity's (the upscale author's) posts and ran through Google Translate, it's pretty decent. Not perfect English but you can clearly understand what it is about.

Here's the link to the forum discussion of the upscale:
https://www.old-game...-4#post-1697044

[jkas789]

If all else fails you can always talk to him by way of slav slang. I've had success talking to slavs by saying to them "А ну, чики-брики и в дамки!". They always respond with "иди на хуй" though. I wonder why?

[MrFlibble]

Because criminal jargon =/= slang.

Also let's not forget that Slavic languages are a large macro-family so maybe you tried to talk Russian to Poles?

[jkas789]

...it was a joke. I know that what I wrote was stupid.

The magic is gone so I guess I can spoil it. "А ну, чики-брики и в дамки!" is the meme phrase from Stalker. "иди на хуй" means fuck you.

 Duki smile.png (215.04K)
Number of downloads: 2

[Phredreeke]

Isn't Stalker Ukrainian?

[deus-ex]

Yes, indeed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is Ukrainian.

Did you know that each letter actually stands for something: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers). I wasn't aware of that all those years.

[MrFlibble]

I never player STALKER and never heard that phrase but it does sound like criminal jargon to me. The game was certainly released both in Russian and Ukrainian but no idea which came first or which was the original release.

[Phredreeke]

The developer is Ukrainian so I assume that version came first?