[deuxsonic]

Duke Nukem: Time To Kill (PS1), Duke Nukem: Land of The Babes (PS1), and Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (N64) were only ever released on these respective platforms. Obviously there is using emulators to play on PC, but I'm curious if anyone has ever tried to go further and port or remake them to have them natively on PC?

[Steve 64]

When I talked to Fred months ago he talked about it and he posted a photo of it somewhere on Duke4.net

[MusicallyInspired]

Whatever plans that may have been in some form of motion most likely aren't now...

[Steve 64]

Yup

[NUKEMDAVE]

There were definitely plans to do something with Zero Hour, with or without the source code. I suppose it's safe for me to say that much now that all rights are out of the hands of 3DR.

[Fox]

Demon Duke, on 22 June 2016 - 04:54 PM, said:

When I talked to Fred months ago he talked about it and he posted a photo of it somewhere on Duke4.net

Months ago? It has been a few years since they lost all rights of the Duke IP.

[MusicallyInspired]

? Nuh uh. They lost it on the eve of 2016. I know because that's when I bought the 3D Realms Anthology game pack before they took it down just before the new year.

[Fox]

My bad. It has been less than a year.

[DNSkill]

I think Zero Hour could be done but it would take a lot of effort without the assets from the 3DR archive. The others might be more difficult.

I think the easiest one to do would be the GBC Duke Nukem game.

[deuxsonic]

I had fun with them decades ago; I wish there was an easier way to enjoy them on PC that didn't involve having to set up an emulator which tend to be sprawling with options and different DLLs and it takes a LOT of tweaking to get things just right.

[Altered Reality]

I prefer emulators with lots of options, so I can get things to run just right for me. For me, not for whoever made the emulator and decided how everyone should run the games.
I still remember when, in 1999, I had bought a PS1 demo disc just to emulate the demo of Duke Nukem: Time To Kill. I had two PS1 emulators back then: PSEmuPro and VGS. The latter was the most immediate (you just popped the CD in, clicked Run and it ran the game), but the former was what gave me the most satisfaction. You could render polygonal games at higher resolutions, add bilinear filtering, mute annoying music, use a debugger, use CD images... all things that VGS couldn't do.

[deuxsonic]

The problem is that I'm paralyzed by indecisiveness and trying to get those perfect settings becomes an exercise in frustration for me. The PS1 and N64 emulators are so flush with modular parts and settings that I feel like I could tweak until the end of time and still not be satisfied.

[Altered Reality]

It just needs to be good enough. Seeking perfection is detrimental, so don't be like George, or you won't ever get anything done.
To me, my monitor's native resolution, bilinear filtering and 32-bit color is good enough.
Controls are simple enough to configure if you want to use a joypad. It's also possible to configure N64 emulators to control Duke Nukem: Zero Hour with a mouse and keyboard, so, if you need help, just ask.

[deuxsonic]

Last time I was emulating the 64, I think 1964 was the emulator I used, and I found graphically it actually looked the best using a glide wrapper strangely enough (I seem to remember at the time trying to work out some visual anomalies that different options were creating.) The PS1 and N64 emulators are kind of bewildering. What are the suggested emulators and settings for PS1 and N64? I have a DualShock connected from the last time I was doing emulation but trying to play these games with mouse and keyboard seems like it would be easier since I am best with mouse and keyboard.

[Altered Reality]

For Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, I use Project64 1.6.

- Video plugin: Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6 (this supports widescreen).
Settings: full screen resolution=1920x1080 32 bit 60Hz; always use texture filter; adjust game aspect ratio to match yours

- Controller plugin: N-Rage's Direct-Input8 v2 1.80a (this supports the mouse).
Digital pad up = Q
Digital pad left = mouse wheel +
Digital pad right = mouse wheel -
Digital pad down = E
C button up = W
C button left = A
C button right = D
C button down = S
Start = Return
A = unassigned
B = mouse button 01
L-trig = Tab
R-Trig = Space
Z-Trig = mouse button 00
Analog stick = Range 100%, real N64 range
Analog up = mouse Y-axis +
Analog left = mouse X-axis -
Analog right = mouse X-axis +
Analog down = mouse Y-axis -

This way you'll move with WASD, look around with the mouse, scroll through weapons with the mouse wheel, scroll through inventory items with Q and E, activate the selected inventory object with Tab, shoot with the left mouse button and use interactive object with the right mouse button.

[deuxsonic]

Nice. Any suggestions in regards to the PS1?

[Altered Reality]

PS1 emulators won't let you use the mouse except to emulate a PS1 mouse, so the best control setting is the one that best approximates the layout of a PS1 joypad on your physical joypad.

For graphics, I use Pete's OpenGL driver 1.76 because it's the fastest, with these settings:
- Fullscreen mode
- Resolution 1920x1080 32 bit
- Texture quality: R8 G8 B8 A8
- Hi-res textures: none
- Texture filtering: 2 (this applies bilinear filtering to every texture and sprite)
- Use FPS limit
- Autodetect FPS/frame skipping limit
- Off-screen drawing: 3, enhanced
- Framebuffer textures: 2, gfx card buffer
- Framebuffer access: 0, emulated vram
- Alpha multipass, mask bit, advanced blending

I keep everything else deactivated, because they are debug options or options to imitate the limitations of a CRT screen, which I don't want.

[deuxsonic]

I just think about how the games would play as PC ports and it would be SO much nicer... Mouse and keyboard is so much nicer than a gamepad. I do work in Photoshop with a mouse and keyboard. Can you imagine trying to draw anything with a gamepad's sticks? I think of like Descent and how awesome it is to play on PC with FPS controls and how cumbersome by comparison it is on a PS1 controller.

[icecoldduke]

deuxsonic, on 28 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

Mouse and keyboard is so much nicer than a gamepad.

Driving games with non binary inputs on controllers is way better then a mouse and keyboard .

[Altered Reality]

It depends on the type of game and what you're doing. When I play DNF, I play the walking sections with mouse and keyboard, and the driving sections with a joypad.

[deuxsonic]

I do everything with mouse and keyboard unless I'm forced, like with consoles, to use a gamepad.