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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Multiplayer Shooters For Modems And Slow PCs? 46

Posted by simoniker from the catchy-logon-noise dept.
rekrutacja writes "Soldat is a multiplayer action game which takes the best from games like Liero, Worms, Quake and Counter-Strike, and gives you fast action gameplay with lots of gibs and gore. It only requires a modem and a PC with a 333mhz processor, since it was written to meet the reality of the Polish Internet, still dependent on modem connections and cheap computers." For those countries and locations where you can't get broadband, and PCs just aren't that swift, what other action-based shooters are still reasonably playable?
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Multiplayer Shooters For Modems And Slow PCs? More

Multiplayer Shooters For Modems And Slow PCs?

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  • wonder.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @07:03AM (#5935509) Journal


    I have often wondered what would happen if someone put a FPS out that had amazing error correction, cheat protection to the hilt, great game play, and crappy graphics. Sometimes I really think that the above would do much better, then I see something like DoomIII and I go into a trance and mutter "ewwwww, ahhhh" for about 30 minutes and can't remember what I was talking about....

    • Re:wonder.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Samedi1971 ( 194079 )
      Global Operations [globalopsgame.com] fits somewhat closely with your criteria. It's not so much that it has a lot of cheat protection as it just isn't popular enough to spawn any signifigant cheats.

      It's got pretty decent gameplay, it's cheap ($10), runs great on a somewhat dated computer since it's got dated graphics, and doesn't require quite so many different key presses as some of the other 1st person shooters out there.

      So, no, it doesn't do better. It has a small following, but enough people that you can always find a

    • Re:wonder.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @08:37AM (#5935904) Homepage
      Beautiful graphics engines seem to be the anthesis of flexible gaming engines. Asheron's Call II, for example, sacrificed the flexibility and dynamic world changes of Asheron's Call 1, but in exchange recieved some very pretty, rediculously high-res textures. SecondLife has some truly, truly hideous vistas, but allows any player to create and script any object they may desire in-game. Worms 3D has fully deformable terrain that resemble lumpy marshmallows.

      Personally, I would prefer to keep Counterstrike or earlier level graphics and create fully dynamic worlds that are fun to play in. Otherwise, what is the point? Hopefully soon we will have both, but as Hollywood blockbusters dominate with hundred million dollar special effects and a six hundred dollar script, so too will the back end engine of many major releases be ignored.

  • I wouldn't call it 56k friendly... (Score:4, Informative)

    by szemeredy ( 672540 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @07:28AM (#5935604) Homepage
    I tried soldat out about two weeks with a bunch of friends that have cable or DSL. The game lagged quite a bit even with three people playing simultaneously. More than six people was annoyingly lagged and nearly unplayable (like Ragnarok Online in open beta). And yes, we did rotate game hosting duties, so no it didn't lag because the person hosting the game was slow.

    Yeah, you might be able to play Soldat on a slower computer, but you can't do medium to large multiplay on a 56k with it...

  • Tribes 1? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Komarosu ( 538875 )
    I always remember playing Tribes 1 on a low spec K6-2/300 with a Voodoo2, now that was a game!

    Fast action, excellent teamplay modes, also the bonus was it run nice on dialups (even with my 33.6!) and it seemed alot less ping orientated which i liked alot :)

    Fine it may be a bit OT, but old games still pack the punch imho, i still play on T1 with a few mates...always a good laugh to get that mid-air snipe :P
  • I played the original Quake multiplayer on a 14.4k with a Pentium I 160...I was using an external USR modem, and I got some pretty good pings, wherever there were less than 5 players and no one was grenade spamming.
  • No offense to the fans of the game, but the screen shots looked pretty ugly.

    I recommend Unreal Tournement (the 2000 version, not 2003) for those with low-tech computers.
    • If what is said was true then it would be much better then UT. UT has low requirements but you really need a 500MHz computer and a 16Mb videocard to play it. Which might be a bit too much for the polish users.

      BTW, I think that more games should be made with good gameplay in stead of games being made with better and nicer graphics all the time. If I wanna see something nice I'll go watch X-men 2 (go Halle! ;))
      • UT has low requirements but you really need a 500MHz computer and a 16Mb videocard to play it

        Not really. My ad-hoc gaming LAN includes my wife's ancient Thinkpad (300 Mhz P2, 2 megabyte NeoMagic 256 card) and an old P2 / 266 with a Voodoo 2 daughtercard. UT is playable on both systems.

        Granted, you have to dial the graphics down to 320x200 to play on the thinkpad but it's still more than playable at that resolution, she gets 30+ fps at that level.

        We generally play Quake (I or II) more because they are

    • >>I recommend Unreal Tournement (the 2000 version, not 2003) for those with low-tech computers

      But certainly not for people with dialup. Heck, with DSL its often laggy.

  • stick to basics: DOOM&QUAKE (Score:5, Informative)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @08:05AM (#5935751) Homepage Journal
    doom and the various 3rd party doom engines now available should run splendidly(doomsday engine provides hw acceleration too, and 3dmodels if you wish).

    and then, of course, quake. heck, quake2 even.. combined with the various mods for them that come in boatloads should provide enough gameplay for the next millenium... switch to tribes1/2/ut if you get bored with it. mw2:mercs, it-76...

    if a game only has ipx gameplay you can use programs such as kali(http://kali.net) to wrap it to work over internet easily.

  • Any older game (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @08:18AM (#5935809)
    Why go 2D for 56K gameplay? Tons of 3D FPS are playable on a good hardware dialup modem. As for the slow computer requirement? Well, why do so many people like Half-Life and it's mods? Because the game runs on just about anything.
    • Half-life is one of the few notable exceptions which combined a great game/engine with good community work. The amount of mods is just big cause it's not too hard to create them. It was also the reason counterstrike could become a huge success.

      I guess Half-life would be an answer to low bandwith too, since it actually does run about anything. However as with most games, bandwith does help.

      Maybe I-maze is a good one too, runs on very slow bandwith as well ;)
    • But why go 3D? Every deathmatch situation doesn't have to be an FPS. I think it definitely adds variety to an otherwise kind of stale gamescape. I don't think that the game is 2D for the 56k, I think it's because it is easier to program and was something unique that the makers could call their own(i.e. not as derivative of other games their friends would be importing).

    • Re:Any older game (Score:4, Informative)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @11:47AM (#5937293)
      Because if you look up some facts about Poland:
      http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factb ook/geos/ pl.html

      You'll notice the the per capita GDP is $9,500. Nobody has the money to purchase expensive gaming systems
      • Half-Life doesn't need an expensive gaming machine; it should be able to run on a machine with the same hardware as the requirements for this 2D game.

        An 8MB 3D card and 300mhz processor would handle it just fine, a much faster but still cheap machine could be bought for under 200$.

        Using PriceWatch: 30$ US would buy you a GeForce 2 MX, 20$ would buy you a case, 23$ for a Duron 800, 38$ for a motherboard, 7$ for soundcard, 57$ for a 14" monitor. Total? 175$ US, and it can play Half-Life just fine (I played
        • all i'm saying is that the availability of higher-end hardware in eastern europe is probaly different than in the US.

          Also, playing half-life on a modem link is really painful on public servers, due to the number of people with broadband.
          • We're not talking higher end, we're talking stuff that's years out of date. After all, Half-Life will run on computers that are five or more years old.

            With a good hardware modem, dialup is perfectly playable. Pings of 150 are possible (again, with a good hardware modem), and Half-Life has goood prediction and lag-correction. In many mods, most weapons are hitscan, meaning latency does not affect aiming.

            I have broadband, yet I still find servers to which I ping 150-200 perfectly playable, at least in my fa

  • Unreal Tournament (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dot.Com.CEO ( 624226 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @08:31AM (#5935870)
    I remember playing UT on a P200 with 64Mb RAM,a Voodoo 2 card and a 56k (42k really) connection and it was a really good experience running at 640x480. Since the main problem with online gaming is high pings and not low bandwidth, as long as you stick with local servers or manage to get a truly global ISP (i.e. Via.Networks and UUNET in Europe, everything else does not have its own backbown afaik), you are guaranteed to play a good online game. Why you would need a 333MHz PC to play a game that is this basic is beyond me.

  • Here's one... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ErnieD ( 19277 )
    Duke Nukem 3D! Ahh the joys of playing this game on a 486 back in the day. Tons of fun, and trite system requirements.

    Maybe SOMEDAY we'll have that fabled follow-up game. Maybe.
  • If you enjoyed the Thief games at all, I highly recommend the Thievery UT mod [thieveryut.com] for Unreal Tournament. Do to the more relaxed gameplay (you spend a lot more time sneaking than fighting, as any fighting is liable to get the thief killed) it's very playable on even very slow connections.

    It is a mod for UT though, so your computer has to be able to run that. UT is fairly scaleable though, so if you have a reasonably decent machine you should be able to play.

    The main gameplay type in Thievery is Thieves vs. G

  • Get Cube! All the aiming is client side, so whatever your ping is, it doesnt matter. :)

    No cheaters yet either. ;)

    Get it here: http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/
  • Descent is an old game now, but it ran wonderfully over a modem. (At least on 2 player) It would barely lag if at all.

    Since it's a Doom era game, it'll run on probably any computer anyone's running today.

    *shrug*
  • HL (and most HL mods) should run fine on low-end machines with dialup connections.

  • Why use pretty graphics? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aleonard ( 468340 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @01:13PM (#5937882)
    When playing Quakeworld, I always played at 320x200, even after getting a Voodoo and having glqw opened up to me. Why? Because framerate was much more important than eye candy.
  • It's not really a shooter per se, but Netrek is quite playable on older machines and slower connections. Plus it's a damn good game. Maybe the best team game ever written.

    http://www.netrek.org [netrek.org]

    http://www.google.com/search?q=netrek [google.com]
  • Try 4D Shooter [planetquake.com]. (also here [moddb.com]) A test version has been released. I'll just copy and paste the info:

    4D Shooter is a 3D virtual reality game created in 2003, to look, sound, and feel like a retro 1991-esque 3D game, however, no one caught the idea of first-person-shooter then, and not much titles used the mouse creatively, so if Distinctive Software Incorporated (DSI) would take the FPS idea, this is what you'd get! (This project does not involve the actual DSI and 4D Rulers company, nor is related.)

    How m
  • I found soldat a year ago or so, it was mentioned on a "free" game site as one of the best, and I definately agree.

    It's similar to worms in gameplay. You're a small 2d person standing around in a large 2d map. You have a selection of around 8 (don't remember the exact number) different types of weapons. Rocket launchers, machine guns, hand guns, etc. All have different properties and reasons you would use them. You then fight against the other people on the map to see who can live the longest/get the
    • Yeah, I played it last year for a few months, and its good fun. The weapons are cool, and gameplay is easy to pick up. Also its fun to play Rage Against The Machine mp3s in the background at the same time. However, if you play it over a modem, it blows. I could not get it to run well over a modem with my friends.

      (what? I have friends! Good Lord!)
  • I am stuck with 56k, but my favourite online game is multiplayer Delta Force: Land Warrior. Its not perfect but good enough that you can play. Not to mention that the game kicks ass.

    I cant wait to get black hawk down - though I doubt 56k will be any good on that one.

  • Novalogic's original 2 Delta Force games were awesome over dialup. We used to play DF2 a lot back when I had 56k because it was the only game that three people could play sharing a 56k connection.

    That's right, sharing a single 56k connection. I was amazed that it was playable.

    DF2 forced you to use Novalogic's servers .. no idea if they are still running them or not, but I've seen DF2 in bargain bins for $9.99 CDN...

  • I played a lot of Q3 over a 56K modem when it came out.

    It's quite playable with a few caveats:
    1. find a server as few hops away as possible with as consistent lag/ping as you can find.
    2. optimize FPS above all else
    3. space levels will be hard due to LPB with the rail.

    My favorite mod was DM instagib (just not Q3DM17) and using the gauntlet ;)

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