Unexpected Porthcawl in the borkage area: Riding an indoor Power Truck to nowhere
- Reference: 1598257808
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/24/bork/
- Source link:
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Today’s entry comes from Andy, a Register reader enjoying (“sort of,” he told us) a long awaited trip out of the house. In this case to the amusement arcade of the Trecco Bay Holiday park “in the delightful (sort of) Porthcawl.”
Seems harsh. Porthcawl is a lovely place. Located just west of Cardiff and not far from Swansea, it has much to recommend it, not least a charming promenade, pavilion and, of course Power Truck .
Sadly, Power Truck does not seem to have enjoyed its period of enforced hibernation, and has vomited up an error before reaching the dizzying heights of big truck madness. Indeed, while the game may put the player behind the glamorous wheel of an array of virtual diesel guzzling big rigs, the somewhat more prosaic AMD Athlon CPU behind the scenes is exposed for all to see.
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The Athlon64 on show seems to date the hardware to the first decade of this millennium, so it could be a simple case that the elderly gear is simply struggling to wake up. Something with which all of us beyond a certain age can sympathise.
Still, the presence of video game arcades reminds us of times gone by, when 10p coins ruled the roost and games needing graphics cards costing more than the price of a week away in Wales were behind the imaginings of those wrenching the Outrun steering wheel to and fro.
Today, if our experience of sea-front entertainment is anything to go by, the machinery is more intent on guzzling pound coins in return for tickets to be exchanged for goods available from most pound stores at a better rate of exchange.
Unless, of course, the dead hand of Bork has been at play. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/megatrends_bork1.jpg
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/megatrends_bork2.jpg
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
PC game makers take note. An arcade game on an AthlonXP.
I have an old computer that is struggling to run Windows 8/10 but this arcade game is using the same CPU.
If only games and O/S were highly optimised for the platform.
Re: The platform
This game may have been optimised for a specific CPU + Motherboard + Memory + Graphics Card with the added assumption that will not be attacked over the unconnected network connection and the user will not click on the attachment from the sexy girl excited to meet up for tea and scones with jam and cream. Other games may have to deal with whatever hardware they find and the OS has to clean up after the user downloads and installs pr0n viewer software.
If only games and O/S were highly optimised for the platform.
They are optimised for the platform, only platform = console these days :(
Chuckle, I was there last week..! As with any location, it has its good and bad points.
The Good is that there are plenty of exit roads. The Bad is everything else?
(Just joking - I mean I have no idea if there are plenty of exit roads...)
Nice little error code you got there
And good luck googling your way out of that one. My googlefu was certainly not sufficient to find any authoritative answers.
I'm guessing the CMOS setup experienced a power failure and needs to be reconfigured.
Or somebody forgot to plug in the keyboard. :) Always a classic.
Either way, here's to nonsensical error codes and the people who write them. (see icon)
Re: Nice little error code you got there
> I'm guessing the CMOS setup experienced a power failure and needs to be reconfigured.
Old system, BIOS battery almost dead, disconnected from power long enough, BIOS settings lost. Just guessing, but I have seen that exact scenario plenty of times.
Have you actually been there?
Look on map, "ooh a seaside town", not too far away, day trip time.
It is basically a Welsh version of Bream.
I think we stayed about 2 hours before we headed elsewhere.
Appears to the a giant static caravan storage area.
Stuck to Pembrokeshire afterwards.