Is(was?) fucking awesome. I miss it anytime i have to use windows 8 

Why is that? I'm honestly curious because I'm hard pressed to think of anything I don't like about Windows 8.1 

Broke a gazillion of awesome old games by ruining DirectDraw emulation.

I wouldn't even complain if compatibility mode worked, but it simply doesn't. 

 

So that was just my knee-jerk reaction from using it for ~1 day I'm afraid. First impressions were not good though, it seemed very naggy, it forced a restart without me being able to postpone. The mobile/desktop UI mashup was confusing at best, and enough's been said about the start menu.

I presume it gets better though use though? Or at least that the annoyances can be mostly tweaked away? I'm planning on building a windows gaming machine sometime soon, so I hope I can come to like the OS :) 

you can fix the DirectDraw problems in windows 8 but it involves changing registry settings. The problem is that it limits frame-rates in fullscreen mode but not windowed mode.

You can fix it by following steps on this guide -

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=99477#1202630

It's not a very well known guide at all and I spent a lot of time searching google for a fix. 

Windows 8.1 works 99.9% identically to Windows 7. 

It's a good operating system. The fact that direct draw is broken is a huge problem for me since I play a lot of old school games. There are other problems I have had running games on win 8.1 (like hotline miami 1 being broke, amongst other titles, because game maker isn't built for win 8.1).

For anything other than gaming it's really great, but gaming on pc is going through a golden age right now and microsoft needs to step it up. 

I've read that Hotline Miami 2 doesn't run on XP? 

but gaming on pc is going through a golden age right now and microsoft needs to step it up

what's fun is that it's not because of anything microsoft has done, but in spite of it. that's one of the strengths of the PC space, that even with msft's totally clumsy efforts with GFWL, constant driver fuckups, and their single-minded dedication to bringing every good gaming experience they can acquire exclusively to the xbox, it's still been entirely possible for other parties to do a total end run around the de facto owners of the platform. 

The advent of the internet allowed individuals to take the power of their own creativity and make stuff that the slow, short sighted and clumsy megacorp can't for various reasons.

I don't think its a golden age, because that implies that it will end. Instead things just get more and more possible as we improve our methods.

I can now 3d print a working gun I want, all media (which the megcorps want to gate access to) is effectively free, governments and corporations are fighting a constant losing battle against the rest of humanity, and they're giving ground each time a new startup appears with a cool idea and just does it.

The next step would be the dissolving of such cumbersome and wasteful institutions as we approach a type of creative singularity. Which will happen once the actual costs of production become low enough - which many smart people are currently working on.

Yes I'm talking more about physical products, but we've already reached a point where this same community is producing free content of a much higher quality than many paid digital downloads.

Someone is going to come up with a cool idea which frees this content creation from the licensor's.

Hm.

I should look into how much it actually costs to license Quake1 from id. 

So to wrap up my Throne Room posts from a little bit ago, the contest wrapped up and I managed to squeak into 10th place! Only the 9th loser, not bad!

But I got the prize I was shooting for so I'm happy!

Now, back to Qonquer jamming ...

http://www.polycount.com/2015/04/07/the-throne-room-10th-4th-place-winners/ 

Grats and well deserved! 

cool warren. probably only 10th because, well, it wasn't really a throne (if that's what the contest required), but it still looked cool. 

On noticing you're using Modo to UE4, what's your pipeline? I had some trouble exporting FBXes that UE4 would accept, and I'm just wondering if it might be that my Modo version is too old or if there is something special you have to do to make it work. 

I use the FBX 2010 exporter inside of MODO, if that helps. I use MODO 801 as well.

Does that help? 

Kona - It's funny because a bunch of people messaged me saying how much they liked my scene and it should have ranked higher. I even had a few judges tell me I was in their top 3 - yet, 10th place. :)

I don't mind tho, as the prize for 4th-10th was exactly the same so other than ego there's no difference.

Was a fun contest tho, and I had a blast making all those props... 

It helps in that now I know it's just supposed to work, and I don't have to do any conversion steps inbetween.
I'm still using Modo 501, so I guess my problem is it doesn't support the right format? Time to try to upgrade I suppose!
I did get it to correctly import geometry, but the UVs were missing. 

501 might be the problem, yeah ... I don't know how that version handled FBX files. :) 

It does output something that identifies itself as FBX 2010, but probably not the right FBX 2010.

Thanks for the info! 

If it helps, this is my FBX export settings in MODO ... and it's a screenshot so it's on topic!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/161473/Misc/2015-04-08%2006_27_38-Preferences.jpg 

this thread called screenshots & betas for purpose.