The Antisocial Gamer

Resurrection:  The Quest: Digital Archaeology To mod T-34 vs Tiger (TvT) correctly, I had to reconstruct a 2007-era development environment from the ground up. I built a dedicated Windows XP Virtual Machine to host a specific stack of software: Maya 5 for modeling and Photoshop 5 for texturing (both sourced via the Internet Archive). This setup allowed me to finally utilize the original, proprietary G5 Tools and Shader Creator exactly as the developers intended. The Discovery: What the Manual Doesn’t Tell You The original G5 manual found in the tools folder is incomplete. It implies that after export, the object will "just appear" in the editor. Through days of trial and error, I’ve identified the "Four Handshakes" required to actually implement a custom asset: The Texture Handshake: The G5 exporter does not generate DDS textures. These must be created manually in Photoshop 5 and then converted to the game's .tex . Model in Maya5 The Model Handshake: ...

  Five Things T-34 vs. Tiger Got Right and Why They Still Matter Old video games are often treated as sealed artifacts. Their code is compiled, their assets locked behind proprietary formats, and the tools used to create them long gone. Approaching a mid-2000s title today usually means fighting undocumented binaries and opaque data structures. T-34 vs. Tiger is often assumed to be one of those games. It isn’t. I’ve known for years that it was built differently. I was part of the MMP mod team, and I’ve modified the game myself. What has changed since then isn’t the underlying design, but our ability to document it cleanly and explain why it works as well as it does. Looking through the game’s files today doesn’t reveal hidden cleverness so much as it confirms an engineering philosophy that was already evident at the time: use standard formats, keep data readable, and don’t over-engineer problems that don’t need it. This article isn’t about rediscovery. It’s about explaining w...

  Panzer Elite's Particle Editor under Windows 11 Why I Opened the Particle Editor I’ve been playing Panzer Elite on and off for over quarter of a century. Some parts of the game still hold up well, especially the way it handles vision, ranges, and the general feel of the battlefield. But visually, some of the smoke effects always felt a bit thin or too clean. I wasn’t planning a deep dive. I just wanted to see if the smoke could be made a bit more convincing. Opening the Tool Panzer Elite includes a Particle Editor that has been circulated alongside other modding utilities for years. It’s clearly original PE-era, and the interface reflects that: multiple boxes per parameter vague labels effects that sometimes don’t preview without adjustment no obvious guidance inside the tool itself Running the Particle Editor on Windows 11 Getting the editor to launch on a modern system takes a bit of a dance. On Windows 11, it only ran reliably after enabling a few specific ...

Episode 1: We Wanted Realism The moment simulation felt real and why we didn’t see the end coming. Falcon 3’s HUD, 640 KB of memory somehow convincing you that you were really there. The Spark The first computer game I ever saw was on my mate’s BBC Micro. It was Spitfire , wire-frame lines and imagination and I was hooked straight away. The only problem was, I didn’t have a BBC Micro of my own. From that moment on I was chasing that feeling: that one day a screen could really make you believe you were flying. I was a flight simulation guy back then. It’s kind of sad that I’m not anymore but we will get to that, these days I’m more of a tank guy but then, it was flight everything. They were the cutting edge: graphics, gameplay, sound, the lot. I don’t think there was a sim I didn’t own. The Golden Age Falcon 3 with the MiG-29 add-on, TFX , Hind , Strike Fighter , Su-27 Flanker , I loved them all. Tornado was another big one; Digital Integration knew what they were doin...

  Briefing... Under the long stewardship of BRIT44 and MY , the Panzer Elite code has been safely looked after and steadily evolved. With the original source in safe hands, it has never been frozen, only refined. With that quiet continuity, the simulator has reached a new technical and historical peak with Torch 2025 , a reworked Tunisian campaign built on modern DirectX 12 foundations. A Modern Core The 2025 build runs through a DirectX 12 wrapper with improved fog and accurate lighting. It’s compatible with Windows 8 through 11 and can be tuned in real time through the DDrawCompat interface (Shift + F11). Frame rates are smoother, the visuals cleaner, and the game finally performs on modern hardware as its designers had once hoped it might. Physics Grounded in Fact The armour and gunnery system has been recalibrated against empirical data from the Lorrin & Bird World War II penetration tables. Each ammunition type now has its own slope and velocity curve, and a ...

  Cupola View of MY's PE For a long time, I never quite connected with Michael Y’s version of Panzer Elite. The vehicles still used the classic 2-D wheels and the original optics, and because I usually play through the gunner’s view, that always felt like a bit of a throwback to the original PE release. So, I tended to admire his work from a distance rather than spend time in it. Today I finally gave Full Monty DX12 v58 a proper run, exactly as he intended, from the commander’s seat with the new in-game settings menu, and it completely surprised me! MY's new menu system   The 3D world now has a real sense of depth. Lighting plays beautifully across the terrain and let’s be clear, we’re not talking Battlefield 6 here; this is still a 1998 engine but with Michael’s additions it somehow feels fresher more believable. You can see other units moving about, carrying out their tasks in the distance, and it all feels very cohesive as   Panzer Elite  always does. One ...