DOOM: The Dark Ages

ShakyJake

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I didn't think that they had something to do with the games themselves I just didn't know people were running basically a synthesizer to redo the music for old games like that.
I mean, the music wasn't 'redone' for the Roland. Back in 90s, if you had a Roland SoundCanvas in your PC, DOOM, Duke Nuk'em, Descent (I say Descent because that also had a fantastic soundtrack), etc would sound like the videos above "out-of-the-box". If all one ever had was a SB16 you just assumed that's how the music sounded. But, no, it was due to the limitation of the hardware.
 
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Denamian

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Yeah, back in the day, what sound card you used literally changed how games sounded.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Yeah, back in the day, what sound card you used literally changed how games sounded.
Was it Turtle Bay that was the bee's knees as far as sound cards back then? It's been a while but I want to say that something I remember if you were picking out a sound card.
 
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Denamian

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Was it Turtle Bay that was the bee's knees as far as sound cards back then? It's been a while but I want to say that something I remember if you were picking out a sound card.

They were the main competitor to Sound Blaster. Never used one myself, but the day I got my SB AWE64 was a good day. Tie Fighter and X-Wing sounded so much better.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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They were the main competitor to Sound Blaster. Never used one myself, but the day I got my SB AWE64 was a good day. Tie Fighter and X-Wing sounded so much better.
Ahh shit, yeah I guess I probably had sound blaster in most of my older computers. I just forgot that sound cards were a thing when you were building something, but then everything went on board, and the only thing you might run would be an audio processor or external rack if you were doing any sort of music stuff. Pretty crazy how things have evolved since those old days.

Was it American Robotics that made modems? I just remember getting a 28.8 for Christmas one year. That's close to 30 years ago.
 
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Denamian

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Ahh shit, yeah I guess I probably had sound blaster in most of my older computers. I just forgot that sound cards were a thing when you were building something, but then everything went on board, and the only thing you might run would be an audio processor or external rack if you were doing any sort of music stuff. Pretty crazy how things have evolved since those old days.

Was it American Robotics that made modems? I just remember getting a 28.8 for Christmas one year. That's close to 30 years ago.
US Robotics. I remember coming home from college fiending for the T3 connection we had there. I ended up getting a of their 56k modems, though It was rare when I got even half that speed due to the shitty copper in the house.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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US Robotics. I remember coming home from college fiending for the T3 connection we had there. I ended up getting a of their 56k modems, though It was rare when I got even half that speed due to the shitty copper in the house.
That's what it was!

It's a hilarious when looking at buying a computer or putting one together way back in the day, those were the things you had to consider, and I don't really know what year they kind of disappeared.

Goddamn, playing one on one command and conquer or Warcraft and somebody calling the house and kicking you out of your match. It was even worse when playing UO back in the 97 and 98, getting kicked off and logging back in after your stupid sister got off the phone and finding out you were a ghost and lost whatever gear you were sporting.
 
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Denamian

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Remember having to configure this shit? Never enough IRQs.

Screenshot 2025-05-19 004041.jpg
 
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Bald Brah

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Never really understood the allure of a PvE shooter. Hell most of the best shooters didn't even have much of a PvE campaign.
 
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Jovec

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US Robotics. I remember coming home from college fiending for the T3 connection we had there. I ended up getting a of their 56k modems, though It was rare when I got even half that speed due to the shitty copper in the house.

I was able to get bonded 56k ISDN lines for "free" (paid Telco for the ISDN lines, but Internet was free as I worked for an ISP). Only 112kbps instead of 128kbps, but still :) Also got one of the first DSL lines too, I forgot the bandwidth, but company expensed that too and I remember it being ~$330/mo at the time. But man, that ping advantage...
 
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Never really understood the allure of a PvE shooter. Hell most of the best shooters didn't even have much of a PvE campaign.
I’m the opposite. I don’t see the allure of a PVP shooter. I only prefer PVE campaigns and won’t buy a game unless it has one (exception being Helldivers II).

I used to be ranked top 50 for USA halo 4. Back around 2020-2021. Around this time I only had two games for Xbox: halo MCC and doom 2016. That’s it. My wife asked me a few days in a row if I was even having fun and at that point I realized I needed to quit PvP games (and I did). I just wasn’t having fun playing a sweat match all the time. And I don’t want to use a headset to talk to strangers. I’ll talk to my brother while playing helldivers but that’s about it.
 
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Gravel

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Spot on.

I also tried to run it last night on my lenovo legion go, and it wouldnt run it. But it does run Eternal and 2016 on ultra graphics at 144+ fps, so not sure why it won't run Dark Ages. The Xbox SX runs Doom Dark Ages. I tried to speed up the projectiles, but it only speeds up ballistic projectiles and not the slow moving green laser things that you have to parry. Overall. I think I'm over this game. It had a lot of potential but just isn't quite Doom imo.
You do realize 2016 was almost a decade ago, right?
 
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Utnayan

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Had the best set up back then. 486DX2-66. Soundblaster Pro (A220, IRQ5 lol)

Running memmaker to get every bit of conventional ram out that you could - usually topping around 629-631k :p

We also had a USR HST/V.32/V.32bis dual standard but yeah copper in older homes sucked so you usually saw 14.4k18800 if you were lucky.

Man those were the days.

"How come Falcon 3.0 looks so much better from a HUD persepctive on your PC"?"

I have the math coprocessor bitch!

And then Bi-Modem came along earlier and you could upload and download at the same time and chat with the sysop too of the BBS you were on and it was revolutionary :p

RIP Trade Wars and Operation overkill 2. Then shareware and Doom came and it was awesome.
 
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Phazael

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Yeah Doom 2 was a modders paradise and had so many great custom maps made by the community. I remember a Hoove Dam one that was flat out amazing. It was also one of the best early coop experiences in gaming at the time.

Side note, why not just make a modern Hexen or did ID Soft let the trademark on that expire?
 
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Phazael

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Had the best set up back then. 486DX2-66. Soundblaster Pro (A220, IRQ5 lol)

Running memmaker to get every bit of conventional ram out that you could - usually topping around 629-631k :p

We also had a USR HST/V.32/V.32bis dual standard but yeah copper in older homes sucked so you usually saw 14.4k18800 if you were lucky.

Man those were the days.

"How come Falcon 3.0 looks so much better from a HUD persepctive on your PC"?"

I have the math coprocessor bitch!
This. Had a SB 64 Awe Pro (was also doing music comp on my PC) and had a pair of 3dfs cards SLA'd with passthrough from the old Matrox Millenium 2 card for standard graphics. So much work to get it all to play nice. I used to hand build all my PCs but I don't think I have touched that shit in over a decade and a half now.
 
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You do realize 2016 was almost a decade ago, right?
Sure, but these games get graphics and textures update. It looks like the most recent update was 2018. However, graphic-wise it seems to look better than Doom Eternal. Games have pretty much remained stagnant when it comes to graphical fidelity improvement. 1985 to 1995, to 2005, to 2015 all saw massive jumps in graphics. However, graphics and textures from 2015 to today remain marginally better.

My Lenovo can still run Doom Eternal at 144 fps (with upscaling) at Ultra settings and that last update was in 2021. The 2025 game is a bit of an unoptimized mess and that's likely due to ray tracing. You can't turn it off and that hurts fps significantly. Also, in RE4 remake, you cant turn off ray tracing and it hurts performance.
 
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Lanx

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They were the main competitor to Sound Blaster. Never used one myself, but the day I got my SB AWE64 was a good day. Tie Fighter and X-Wing sounded so much better.
i think most everyone grewup w/ a sb16 b/c the cdrom 2x connected to the soundcard, cuz they were tethered, i forgot why, it was just a regular 40pin ide cable, maybe mb's only came w/ one ide back then

and who could forget these hunkers
0031403cbaa8eeb3d2edb9f9b02a1f9a.jpg
 
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Rajaah

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Got ahold of Warhammer: Space Marine 2 and played some of that this weekend after playing the first few levels of this new Doom, and it's amazing how similar the two games are aesthetically. Main difference is that WH is third-person and Doom is first-person. Both focus a lot on lore and plot despite the gameplay being more suited to heavy metal murderfests.
 
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