> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> Oh, I'd love to have it increased *ELBOWS VALVE IN THE RIBS*
>
> However I asked Eric about it, 2 years ago. He said they couldn't
> increase it because Half-Life must remain compatible with the specs
> listed on the original cardboard box.
For the love of... (grabs HL box)
who seriously uses half-life on a p100, 16mb ram, no 3d accelerator, on
win95?
my oldest system can run it, if it ran windows (p133, 24mb, voodoo3) but it
runs linux.
my current system is considered a bear by those specs (duron 900, 320mb, GF
Ti4200) but is slow to current specs (my next machine is an athlon above the
gigahertz barrier, with DDR).
Why not branch the codepath? have a -slow branch, netcode compatible with
the -current branch? mods can choose to support HL-current, HL-slow, or
both. that way, you can appease the snakes^HLawyers and the mod community,
who want more features. (IE: implement specular highlighting, or bump
mapping, or increase the limits, if you feel the need.
Just because you have to commit to the boxed specs, doesn't mean you can
create a patch which copies the HL executable, and applies itself to that
copy, renaming the resultant file to HL-current. you still have an
executable which is box speced, but you also have an executable that gives
developers and more powerful systems more "bleeding edge" graphics output.
of course, that might be a way of skirting the rules.
I just checked the install EULA:
>7. Limited Warranty. SIERRA, ID SOFTWARE AND SIERRA’S LICENSORS
>EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, EDITOR, AND MANUAL(S).
>THE PROGRAM, EDITOR, AND MANUAL(S) ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT
>WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT
>LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
>FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND/OR NONINFRINGEMENT.
Now, I might read this wrong, but the way I read the sharkspeak, you make no
guarantees that the software will even run. ("Fitness for a particular
purpose" in this case, displaying graphics.) Which means you _don't_ have to
commit to the specs. You might want to chat with your friendly lawyer and
see if this might hold water in court, if you take my proposal seriously...
-- Chris
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