Half-Life Was 95% Ready for Dreamcast (timemachiner.io)
from macstainless@discuss.tchncs.de to retrogaming@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 14:48
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/16785954

#retrogaming

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ptz@dubvee.org on 03 Jun 2024 14:52 next collapse

Semi-related, but to this day I remain impressed they got Half Life 2 ported to the original Xbox.

just_another_person@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 15:46 collapse

Why? It was just a PC on the inside with a slimmed down Windows 2000 variant as the OS. Storage concerns aside, it was probably a very straightforward port, just rip out the Steam bindings, and it probably ran pretty immediately.

ptz@dubvee.org on 03 Jun 2024 15:53 next collapse

Right, architecturally it was probably pretty simple. But the minimum system requirements for HL:2 versus the Xbox’s hardware is pretty stark:

Half-Life 2 minimum requirements for PC:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.00GHz
Memory: 512 MB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6100

Xbox System Specs:

CPU:  Intel Pentium III 733 MHz
Memory:  64 MB (shared with GPU)
Graphics:  Custom NVidia based on Geforce 3

Edit: Definitely meaning the original Xbox and not the 360. Was one of the last games I bought for the original and still have it :)

<img alt="" src="https://tesseract.dubvee.org/image_proxy/dubvee.org/pictrs/image/e6aa9359-ff6f-4514-b4f0-c4231550e571.webp">

magic_lobster_party@kbin.run on 03 Jun 2024 16:37 collapse

As a point of comparison, 360 has 512MB RAM. HL2 was targeting PCs comparable to PS3/360, but somehow they got it working on an Xbox.

mihnt@lemmy.ca on 03 Jun 2024 17:07 next collapse

Makes you wonder what corners they cut to get it functional.

altima_neo@lemmy.zip on 04 Jun 2024 07:15 collapse

youtu.be/c66hfqw4SKc

PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks on 04 Jun 2024 07:16 next collapse

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Blackmist@feddit.uk on 04 Jun 2024 08:12 collapse

So playable frame rate was the main corner cut.

Chee_Koala@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 23:17 collapse

The 00s Doom reboot shares a similar story, but for the 360!

TheDrunkard@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 16:40 next collapse

Noooo, it was not that simple. Search MVG hl2 port on YouTube and watch and see why the port is actually very impressive

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 03 Jun 2024 17:17 next collapse

That’s not at all how porting a game works.

just_another_person@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 17:59 collapse

No, this would make it much simpler. No translations, differing architectures, or OS bindings to struggle though. Asset and compilation tweaks, and controller bindings, and that’s a large portion of the work.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 03 Jun 2024 20:45 collapse

You have zero idea what goes on when porting a game, do you? It’s ok, not everyone does. Understanding you can learn is a good thing.

Watch this before replying, here:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=c66hfqw4SKc&pp=ygUHTVZHIGhs…

sorghum@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jun 2024 18:53 collapse

Half life predates steam

sploosh@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 19:59 collapse

Yes, but HL2 does not.

sorghum@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jun 2024 20:02 collapse

This is about half life on the dreamcast, not hl2.

otp@sh.itjust.works on 03 Jun 2024 20:44 collapse

This comment chain is actually about HL2.

UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk on 03 Jun 2024 15:03 next collapse

I swear I downloaded and played Half Life for the DC back when I had the machine. I think it was Blue Shift which was originally going to be on the DC first (as an exclusive?).

It was perfectly fine to play but I guess due to hardware limitations, the areas in which you played weren’t that large and loading times off the CD was quite slow.

macstainless@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Jun 2024 16:23 collapse

I felt the same way. I could’ve sworn I played it on Dreamcast a few years ago, but when I asked my buddy (who’s a giant gamer) I was corrected that it never hit DC.

UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk on 03 Jun 2024 16:52 collapse

The Blue Shift expansion definitely was released onto the internet, but the loading times put me off playing the game.

MacedWindow@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 15:03 next collapse

The prototype is out there if anyone with a Dreamcast wants to check it out.

Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 19:33 collapse

There’s a Half-Life mod that brings it to PC, along with one that ports the Decay co-op expansion.

tuckerm@supermeter.social on 03 Jun 2024 18:23 next collapse

I downloaded an ISO of it a while ago and played through maybe third of the game. I found it to be very playable. People always mention the long load times, but it's worth mentioning that long load times were much more common back then. (Although Half-Life on DC was even longer than usual.)

Also, I hate to be nit picky, but the blog post linked here manages to be weirdly wrong about two things and it's barely one paragraph long, lol.

Half-Life is one of the most successful video games of the early 2000s.

Ahhh, 1998. One of the best years of the early 2000s.

Half-Life was everywhere... except one notable place: Sega's Dreamcast. It has been a mystery as to what happened with a game destined to have a port on every possible platform.

Half-Life was a PC exclusive until the PS2 port in November 2001, ten months after the Dreamcast was discontinued. The PC and PS2 versions are still the only official versions to this day. Half-Life is not known for being on every platform. Was the author thinking of Doom, one of the best games of the mid 70s?

Jerkface@lemmy.world on 03 Jun 2024 20:14 next collapse

Doom, one of the best games of the mid 70s?

Who else here remembers late nights slaying demons to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water?”

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 04 Jun 2024 07:57 collapse

I mean… Bridge Over Troubled Water does kinda sound like it could be a level in Doom.

skullone@sh.itjust.works on 04 Jun 2024 01:19 next collapse

The ai doesn’t bother fact checking.

mctoasterson@reddthat.com on 04 Jun 2024 16:16 collapse

You are correct about the release year. If one were being pedantic I suppose it would be correct to say that thanks to multiplayer and mods, Half-Life was a popular PC game/engine all throughout the early 2000s. Come to think of it, there are probably still people playing CS 1.6 today.

tuckerm@supermeter.social on 04 Jun 2024 17:18 collapse

Come to think of it, there are probably still people playing CS 1.6 today.

Whoa, turns out to be a lot of them. 14,400 as of a few minutes ago! https://steamcharts.com/app/10

That's as many as the two most recent Battlefield games have combined right now. Battlefield 2042 currently around 8,000 and Battlefield V at 6,000. I'm sure console players would boost the Battlefield numbers quite a bit, but still. That's pretty cool.

VanHalbgott@lemmus.org on 03 Jun 2024 20:53 collapse

8D hehehehe so much goodness