• nate (unregistered)

    Sorry, but I totally don't get the joke about the game's error message. I know that jokes don't get better when somone has to explain them first, but for my peace of mind -- can anybody point out what I'm missing?

  • (nodebb) in reply to nate

    That one isn't really a joke as such. It's more a "Huh, a fixed-configuration machine can't cope with a broken configuration" thing.

    The error message almost certainly happened because (for some reason) a driver failed to load, so Direct3D is correctly reporting the capabilities of the "default" SVGA driver, which are more or less totally nonexistent, and the game (more likely its engine) is complaining that a feature it wants is not present.

    It's a WTF because the error reporting is, as usual, subperfect. The real error is the non-loaded driver, which under normal circumstances wouldn't ever happen on this fixed-configuration hardware, and the error is catastrophically unexpected, so much so that there is no code to detect it and report a more intelligible error.

    Bonus WTF points for the archaic version of Windows in use. Judging by the caption bars and their shaded colouring, I'd guess either Win2000 or WinXP, or possibly one of the later versions of the 9x line (98SE or Me).

  • (nodebb) in reply to nate

    Since he doesn't understand the joke, or went off on a tangent and forgot what you asked, here's your answer. The error message is something like.. There was an error with: "Your favorite game" Trying to render this resource. What you got was: There was an error with: 'Alpha Blending and the Revenge of Floating Point' Which makes it seem like that is the name of the game especially with how that is worded, it just.. sounds like a weird game for geeks.

  • Bob (unregistered)

    "One might think this game is titled 'Alpha Blending and the Revenge of Floating Point' but it's not. It's just broken," writes Ashley A.

    Why would you think this when the error is:

    "Your video card does not support alpha blending with floating point render targets (D3DFMT_A16B16G16R16F), which is required to run this game. Exiting ..."

    Seems a rather sensible error message along being along the lines of:

    Your <device> does not support <textural description of feature>(<feature ID>), which is required to <perform action>.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    The standard SVGA driver is the least of your worries. It looks like something is about to die soon with all those artifacts!

  • (nodebb) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    I see a PowerShell icon in the lower left corner. So it looks like Windows Vista/7 with the non-horrible theme, I mean, the classic theme.

  • turbok (unregistered)

    "Alpha Blending and the Revenge of Floating Point" actually sounds like the title of what could be a great game.

  • Tinkle (unregistered)

    That looks like Windows 2000 running in Kiosk mode. That is very common.

    The odd order of the survey answers is probably the survey software deliberately randomising them to avoid 'pick first option' bias. Although it does not make sense on a 1-10 list it makes sense on list-of-item lists.

  • Tristram (unregistered)

    The alpha blending one reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer is trying to find a newspaper headline with a mistake. "CRANFORD MAN MISSING. What's he missing? His pants? A train? Give me a break!"

    Sure, with some imagination you can come up with a way to parse that error message incorrectly, but I don't think anyone would do so without being told to first.

  • Guest (unregistered)

    Why would you want to go to Burwood Hospital when you can get to a right to remain ever concious blooms?

  • Foobar (unregistered)

    Drew C, are you sure the problem isn't the Trekkie mod you installed? Maybe it's doing a time travel maneuver.

  • welp (unregistered)

    The amusing part of the game error isn't so much the message (the description is indeed a bit of a silly stretch), but more the fact that it's a Time Crisis 5 machine at an arcade:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Time_Crisis_5_Arcade_Cabinet.JPG

  • Horov Bisheki (unregistered)

    It looks like 7 with classic theme. The messageboxes on XP/2K have a slightly different hue and the button is always in the center.

  • markm (unregistered)

    Tinkle, if that's the survey software randomizing the order of the answers, the developer made two mistakes:

    1 . Chose the wrong settings.

    1. Didn't review how it would look on the user screen before releasing it.
  • (nodebb)

    I live in Christchurch, but somehow I missed the announcement that Burwood Hospital was being renamed to A Right To Remain Forever Conscious Blooms Hospital.

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