Help. Okay, to start with the "purest" form of JK I installed from the CD with the alternate installer I found at JKHub. I've extracted the JKGfxMod to the directory and the game starts when I run inject.exe (the game balks when I try to start JK that I need to have at least 256 colors). Oh, I set the resolution in the config file to 1920x1080. For some reason I have no sound (I believe I had the same issue with the gog version). I have music but no sound effects. Kyle's view is also reduced, it does not take up the full screen although the hud is in the correct location (bottom left and right corners). Also, should the texture pack from ModDB be placed in the materials folder?

Did you go to the Display settings in JK to "verify" your resolution?

Basically just going to the display settings, enabling 3D acceleration and selecting your resolution from the list below (the one you put in the config file should be the only one appearing there).

If the game says you need 256 colors, there might be an incompatible shim installed. Run the command from previous page (I’m on phone now, I/someone should compile this stuff later)

Make sure 3d accel is turned on in display settings.

Set view size in display settings, or press + key when in game. Jk by default has a small view size.

That was done, should have said that.



It runs fine with the injector but I'll look at that.



I thought there was a key for this but I couldn't remember.

Thanks.

Yeah also remember that if you run jk without the injector, then with the injector, it seems that all the graphics settings get deleted, so each time you switch you need to go back into your display settings (in jk) and enable 3d acceleration, pick the resolution, etc., and maybe even set the screen size using + key or whatever.

I never had a problem with the sound effects.

Okay, so missing the view size was kind of embarrassing but I really had almost completely forgotten about that arcane setting. My sound problem is interesting. It's not entirely true that I get no sound effects. I hear the ambient background noise, basically just white noise and that goes away if I reduce the sound effects volume to zero. I do not hear any other sound effects. Of course I know this is completely unrelated to the graphical enhancement. I did put the texture pack files in the correct place now and the difference is quite nice. It seems that lots of other updates were mentioned earlier. So if somebody wouldn't mind repeating to me which, if any, are must haves to be installed as well. Also, I would really appreciate it if somebody can help with my audio situation. Google is not my friend in this case.

Well, it usually complains about my color depth if I try to start it directly which is weird because I installed the game with the alternate installer which launched the game, albeit in a tiny window, no problem. After I closed it and tried to start it directly I had that problem before I even extracted Jon's files.



Yeah, I never did either but I also don't recall running it on this PC before you brought JK up recently. I ran it on a rather old laptop (Vista 32 bit) a few years ago with no problem. I downloaded the backup from GOG so I'm going to try that one real quick.

Exact same issue so there must be something about this particular computer.

Okay, installing JK on a windows 10 laptop worked fine. Restarted this machine, no change. Drivers are updated. Doing a windows update now but I don't expect anything from that.

Okay, figured it out. A similar issue came up in Alan Wake (after I had been playing that game for quite some time). A setting in the Realtek Audio Manager gets changed to 5.1 and I have to change it back to stereo for the current setup. Jeesh.

Okay, so now the only unresolved question is what other mods are considered a must? I remember it used to be JKE but I don't know now.

Here's something to try out:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qymqfr0jzxerw1s/JKEGFX008.7z?dl=0

OMG, is that Jedi Knight? Nice work guys.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/123860/Opinion_Brian_Moriartys_Apology_For_Roger_Ebert.php#.US5KpTCG0vk

This is a really good article tearing into the "video games are art" stance so many people hold. Def recommend for anyone who cares about that.

OMG that is the most boring thing I have ever read. I got bored and started skimming. Then I got bored of that and stopped skimming even.

Try the Spanish version maybe?

As far as I can tell, our minds are fundamentally incompatible with what we find interesting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, I lost interest but that's probably just as much a function of my mindset this moment. I would like to go back to it at some time.

So, since the injector mod discussion may start to slow a bit now, I'd like to mention a game I finally finished playing. The funny thing is that when I loaded it up last week the save file was exactly two years old! Alien Isolation on the PS4. Freakin' awesome game. It was criticized for excessive length and difficulty and that's valid but I came to actually enjoy those attributes. The game actually isn't as hard as it seems when you play it "correctly". You almost never want to run in the game. You'll most likely get eaten. You want to learn how to craft and manage components and actually use the items in the game. I usually don't mess with that stuff too much in games and components become so plentiful the further you get in the game that if you're not managing your inventory and actually using items you really cheat yourself out of a lot of help. Puzzles are not insanely difficult. If you find yourself wandering aimlessly and lost you missed something quite obvious after the previous objective was met. Backtrack or load a previous save and you'll figure it out.

IGN recently released some digital shorts from the game but I don't recommend watching them unless you've played the game or never intend to. They'll spoil a lot and also actually make the game not seem very good (in my opinion). I picked it up on sale several years back. I'm sure it can be had for a good price now.

Video games are art, but they’re not literature.

I remember watching this talk when GDC posted it and thinking it was pretty facile & disappointing. He's making a lot of assertions that he (seemingly) hasn't really interrogated.



Does it? Says who? I don't agree w/this at all, for example.

He's also building a lot on the supposition that video games are, categorically, "games"--why? Because they're called games? People called them video games in the eighties or whatever and it stuck, but I don't think that makes it remotely self-evident that games are of a kind w/chess and soccer. Starfish aren't fish.

Don't get me wrong, I think games in general are still terribly immature w/r/t political & cultural expression

but

this talk is just bouncing garbage off rigid formal definitions w/o providing much original thought at all. I've seen better versions of this guy's argument on the something awful forums and they were wrong then too

also I'm drunk so sorry

I’m only tipsy and not sorry.

Here’s a hot take. Video games can’t be literature/“art” because the goals of authorial expression and reader agency are inherently at odds. The closer a game gets to art, the worse a game it is.

It’s an inherently different thing from everything else that came before, and we need to reason about it and analyze it using our own terms, rather than the terms of our ancestors.

TL;DR: if you go to your aunts Christmas party, turn to page 304. If you blow it off and grab Wendy’s and stay home with your increasingly distant wife, Greta, turn to page 97.

Is it a worse game? I'm not sure

I keep thinking back to installation art and sculptures. If I am looking at Michelangelo's David or whatever, I get to decide (to some extent) where I want to stand, from what angle I want to view this thing, and from how far away. I'm exercising agency. Is Michelangelo's expression reduced as a result?

Maybe your answer is yes (in which case, fair enough) BUT I think it's no. Most pictures of the sculpture are from the front, but I'm pretty sure it has some lovingly crafted buttcheeks, and if I were to walk around behind the statue and look at them I'd be seeing something Michelangelo intended me to see. I am exercising my agency in seeing different aspects of an intentional whole.

I think this extends to games--Dishonored might not be great literature but it absolutely makes a mechanical commentary on violence--if I play it violently, the game world reacts and becomes more monstrous and repugnant. If I play nonviolently, it stabilizes. Both of those are valid experiences of a work that are consistent w/its messaging, despite me exercising agency.

I should say, in fairness, that a lot of players complained that Dishonored gives them a bunch of cool ways to kill people and "punishes" them for using them, and that it's a worse game as a result. However I think those players are dumb and stupid and Dishonored is a great game, so there



Agree w/this very much

Counterexample: Morrowind is art because I pretended it was real and ignored the main quest.

Video games offer nothing that movies don't but the game mechanics/interactivity. That's why some people essentialize video games that way.

In any case I find his take on kitsch, what kitsch appeals to, and the fact that basically all games are kitsch, appealing.
And yes, indie games are just dressed-up kitsch.

I was recently recommended "This War of Mine" so I watched a video on it and concluded the game had nothing to say. First it basically lies about the Siege of Sarejeva, implying violence and theft were rampant when any account I could find suggests that people formed tighter bonds and helped each other more to survive.

Aside from that, all the game does is slather on a bunch of guilt tripping while statistically pushing you to steal from people. Some people think this is indeed somehow worthy of high praise? Aww, killing and stealing is wrong?

In reality it challenges you in no way morally, but it tries to make you feel like it did. Somehow I ended up on this article and yeah, basically all games when they try and include "morals" include the kitschiest bull**** they could.

Of course, that's not to say the medium doesn't have much potential. Of course it does. But the current ouevre is depressing.

A game can allow you to move through space w/o a "self-maximizing goal" as he puts it. How is that distinct from an art installation?

Also, what does a movie offer that a comic book doesn't, besides sound? Should we essentialize films as sound?


Agreed. A big problem is that a lot of games people still have a chip on their shoulder from the 90s/00s when they were treated as children's toys, and now they're making billions of dollars and feeling very self-congratulatory despite never having developed a cultural vocabulary beyond like, Star Wars and Blade Runner.

I do think Night In The Woods is good.

An important part of literature is an expression of meaning with the intent of instigating particular feelings or thoughts in the reader. You have agency in how you perceive/read Michelangelos David, but you have no control over the expression of David. It’s literally set in stone.

Video games are inherently different. It isnt just your choice how to experience the game, you’re given the choice how the game is expressed to you. A good game lets you choose how you want to feel about it. A game can take the reins, but then it’s not as fun. It’s not as good a game. Games and literature are almost opposites.

Like, imagine if James Joyce wrote a choose your own adventure novel. Would that be art???

TIL Microsoft Flight Simulator is art.

What control do I have over the expression of, say, Dear Esther? It's just a baked-out map that I walk through and it plays sounds at me. At the end there's credits.

A James Joyce video game would be the most boring and meaningless ****ing thing imaginable. Like all literature, the essence of his works were tied up in the choices of the characters - but unlike most literature, the setting and events aren’t even fantastical, they are quotidian in the dullest sense. A Joyce video game would be: you go to a boring house party, and you choose how you respond to it and how you feel about it. Later your wife seems distant and you get to choose whether you give a damn.

****ing woo.

Well, that’s really just an extreme example of what we’re talking about. And yes, there’s a famous indie video game where you go to a party. It is a wonderful tech demo, it is bordering on a work of art, and it’s also a ****ty boring game.

what are some of the themes dealt with in flight simulator

also come on, that's a bad example of a game being art, because it is pretty much an exact replica of something in real life.

I don't see much of a difference between Morrowind and LotR.

A lot of people thought Gone Home was ****ty and boring. Your agency over the story amounts to turning lights on and off and opening cabinets. I thought it was good. It's definitely still a video game.

So I guess I'm not sure how meaningful "good" or "****ty and boring" are as a metric.

I was actually going to dig up this old post, because it's an example where I remember Jon`C called a game "art", but, lo and behold,



he didn't like it!

(I'll ready confess that I am injecting the word "art" into a discussion in a way that overloads and confuses the distinct meanings of the word as it's used ITT.)

So what do you mean by this? Agency is unnecessary?

I can make a “game” where you walk down a hallway, and every few feet it plays a video file. At the end of the hallway you “win”. Is that even a game? Why? Because it has a 3D engine and a user interface?

Does it become a game when you can play the video clips in any order you want?

On this ****ing page dude

Imagine Taxi Driver where the viewer tells Travis to take Betsy ~not~ to a porno theater, they go on three dates and she says she's not interested, but since he's a well-adjusted and normal person moves on and finds another person.

Would that work be improved by that alternate timeline? lol

My DVD players remote control has a pause button. I can control the pace that I experience movies. Clearly, then, movies are also video games. Or at least as much as most “art” games are.


We haven’t matured enough to have developed our own solid academic analytical ideas about games, but we do have the beginnings of it. What is “gameplay”? Maybe it’s not obvious whether a hallway with cutscenes is a game or not, but maybe we can at least agree that it doesn’t have very good “gameplay”? i.e. it’s kind of a boring and ****ty game?

what about those telltale games that are basically a choose your own adventure book, but in a "video game" even though they are more like a movie with an occasional quick time event
(or that black mirror movie bundersnitch)

are those art or games or literature or movies

I don't think it's possible to not have agency--we can have more or less, sure. But we're also categorizing some forms of agency as meaningful and others as not here.

How much agency do I have in Call of Duty? I get a scripted sequence w/dialogue, then I ritualistically shoot dudes and walk forward until I get another scripted sequence with dialogue. I don't make any meaningful choices.

It's fun though. So is Gone Home. Some people hate one or both of those games. So I'm very wary of stuff like "good" and "fun" being used meaningfully here.


Yes. Or at least, of a kind w/Quake. I do think "games" is a bad name for them insofar as it leads to this kind of problem.


You can't fool me. I can do that with a DVD.

(you can play these semantic games with any medium, though--again, I don't think it's particularly meaningful. definitions are approximate)

Yeah, but maybe the sort of story one finds in a James Joyce novel, and that works so successfully as a novel, isn't the sort of narrative that is most appropriate to video games as a storytelling medium.