Month: February 2025

Salty game dev comments, easier mods are inside Command & Conquer’s source code

With the right folks involved, EA can capably preserve and update its classics.

EA doesn't always treat its classic library with respect, as evidenced by its recent barely touched-up The Sims Legacy Collection. But the folks shepherding Command & Conquer, a vanguard series in the bygone genre of real-time strategy (RTS) games, are seemingly fueled by a different kind of Tiberium.

After releasing a reverential remaster of the first two games in 2020 with 4K upscaling and behind-the-scenes looks at their full-motion video scenes, EA is now opening up the series even more to its fans. Source code for the original C&C, Red Alert, Renegade (the first-person one), and Generals/Zero Hour has been dropped on GitHub. Along with Steam Workshop support for most of the series, that should enable a new generation of mods for the games. Given the extent of the code available, mods could include the kinds of modern updates, like higher and wider resolutions or beefed-up textures and refresh rates, that all good games deserve.

Building and working with this code will not be a plug-and-play affair. The namesake 1995 game and its hugely popular 1996 Red Alert sequel require some older dependencies, like DirectX 5 and the Greenleaf Communications Library (for a full build and tool access) and the Borland Turbo Assembler (TASM 4.0) to compile. Renegade and Generals, however, call for a whole lot more nostalgia: STLport 4.5.3, the SafeDisk API, the GameSpy SDK, the RAD Miles Sound System SDK, and at least eight more.

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Anzeige: IT-Service-Management effizient umsetzen mit FitSM

FitSM ist eines der führenden ITSM-Frameworks für die Optimierung von IT-Services. Ein praxisnaher Workshop vermittelt die Grundlagen des Standards und bereitet auf die Zertifizierung im IT-Service-Management vor. (Golem Karrierewelt, Unternehmenssoftw…

FitSM ist eines der führenden ITSM-Frameworks für die Optimierung von IT-Services. Ein praxisnaher Workshop vermittelt die Grundlagen des Standards und bereitet auf die Zertifizierung im IT-Service-Management vor. (Golem Karrierewelt, Unternehmenssoftware)

Microsoft is pulling the plug on Skype in May, encourages users to migrate to Teams

Long before there was Zoom, FaceTime, Teams, and whatever Google’s decided to call its voice and video calling service this week, there was Skype. When it first launched in 2003 as a way to make voice calls over the internet using peer-to-peer te…

Long before there was Zoom, FaceTime, Teams, and whatever Google’s decided to call its voice and video calling service this week, there was Skype. When it first launched in 2003 as a way to make voice calls over the internet using peer-to-peer technology, Skype evolved into a voice and video calling system used by millions. […]

The post Microsoft is pulling the plug on Skype in May, encourages users to migrate to Teams appeared first on Liliputing.

Europol arrests 25 users of online network accused of sharing AI CSAM

Europol’s hunt targets anyone making or sharing AI sex images depicting minors.

Europe is cracking down on AI-generated sex images of minors. So far, Europol has arrested 25 people in a large-scale ongoing probe called Operation Cumberland and confirmed that more arrests are expected in the coming weeks.

In a press release, Europol said that the 24 arrests occurred simultaneously on February 26 after Danish law enforcement arrested a main suspect in November. That suspect is accused of running "an online platform where he distributed the AI-generated material he produced" for others willing to pay to "watch children being abused," Europol alleged. The network was hidden from casual lurkers and required a "symbolic payment" to access, Europol said.

While fully AI-generated images may not depict real kids, at least one AI model (now scrubbed) has been trained on actual CSAM and images of real kids, so child safety experts fear outputs could potentially depict or resemble a known victim or actual child. And there's growing consensus globally that, in general, AI-generated CSAM harms kids by normalizing child sex abuse through the increased prevalence of CSAM online.

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“It’s a lemon”—OpenAI’s largest AI model ever arrives to mixed reviews

GPT-4.5 offers marginal gains in capability and poor coding performance despite 30x the cost.

The verdict is in: OpenAI's newest and most capable traditional AI model, GPT-4.5, is big, expensive, and slow, providing marginally better performance than GPT-4o at 30x the cost for input and 15x the cost for output. The new model seems to prove that longstanding rumors of diminishing returns in training unsupervised-learning LLMs were correct and that the so-called "scaling laws" cited by many for years have possibly met their natural end.

An AI expert who requested anonymity told Ars Technica, "GPT-4.5 is a lemon!" when comparing its reported performance to its dramatically increased price, while frequent OpenAI critic Gary Marcus called the release a "nothing burger" in a blog post (though to be fair, Marcus also seems to think most of what OpenAI does is overrated).

Former OpenAI researcher Andrej Karpathy wrote on X that GPT-4.5 is better than GPT-4o but in ways that are subtle and difficult to express. "Everything is a little bit better and it's awesome," he wrote, "but also not exactly in ways that are trivial to point to."

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Yes, it turns out you can make a Tesla Cybertruck even uglier

Mansory, infamous modifier of cars, turns its attention to the Tesla Cybertruck.

There's a saying about putting lipstick on a pig, but what if it's not lipstick? That's the question the universe set out to answer when it aligned in such a way that famed (or perhaps infamous) car customizer Mansory got itself a Tesla Cybertruck. The Mansory Elongation—a name that must have taken ages to think of—offers exterior, interior, and wheel and tire upgrades for the straight-edged stainless steel-wrapped pickup.

Among those who mod cars, there are tuners, who focus on adding power and (one hopes) performance, and then there are the customizers, who concentrate more on aesthetics. Once upon a time, the entire luxury car industry worked like that—a client would buy a rolling chassis from Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, or Talbot and then have bodywork added by coachbuilders like Gurney Nutting, Touring, or Figoni et Falaschi.

The rear 3/4 view of a modified Cybertruck At least the rear winglets don't entirely compromise access to the bed. Credit: Mansory

Modern homologation requirements have mostly put an end to that level of coachbuilding, but for the ultra-wealthy prepared to spend telephone numbers on cars, brands like Rolls-Royce will still occasionally oblige. More common now are those aftermarket shops that spiff up already luxurious cars, changing normal doors for gullwing versions, adding flaring fenders and bulging wheel arches, and plastering the interior in any hue of leather one might imagine.

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