Hostile Volume – A game about adjusting volume with intentionally bad UI
hostilevolume.com
hostilevolume.com
// ==UserScript==
// @name Hostile Volume Winner
// @match https://hostilevolume.com/
// ==/UserScript==
(function () {
const s = document.createElement('script')
s.textContent = `
(function () {
function visible (id) {
return !document.getElementById(id).classList.contains('hidden')
}
function win () {
if (visible('victory-screen')) return
if (visible('instructions-modal')) {
document.getElementById('start-btn').click()
setTimeout(win, 2000)
return
}
setTimeout(function () {
document.getElementById('l13-age-input').value = '01011970'
window.cancelAnimationFrame(levels[currentLevelIndex].frame)
}, 100)
window.setVolume(25)
setTimeout(win, 3500)
}
win()
})()
`
document.body.appendChild(s)
})()
And I’m not sure if that was still the case in 1997, but most likely changing the volume of digital sound meant the CPU having to process the samples in realtime. Now on one hand, that’s probably dwarfed by what the CPU had to do for decompressing the video. On the other hand, if you’re already starved for CPU time…
If you turned off the preamp (could be directly done in the EQ window I think), what did the volume control actually do?
It's 30 years ago now, but my recollection is that Winamp did not change Windows' global volume.
I am less certain, but I thought Windows' own Media Player similarly also did not change Windows' global volume.
What I definitely recall correctly is being surprised that Real Player would change the Windows' global volume and this would not have been so noteworthy to me unless it was unusual compared to other applications I typically used.
What I'm saying is: I still feel (perhaps wrongly, quite possibly so) that in 1997, changing the global volume was more common, and that even being able to change app-specific volumes required some non-trivial features from the app who can do so.
I imagine the existence of those means that CD drives had their own DAC and other logic. I guess there was an idea of wanting to play CD audio without it being a PC concern? Or on PCs without audio capability?
Unfortunately, a decent number of machines were not fitted with the relevant cable. Combined with the low-quality DACs that most drives used, the compatibility issues that plagued ATAPI implementations and the dramatic increase in CPU power and sound card quality throughout the mid-to-late 90s, this led media player software to quickly move on from drive based playback to so-called "digital audio extraction", where the CD is basically ripped in real time and streamed to your sound card's own DAC. Thus, unless you played older games that relied on hardware CD-DA playback [1], it's somewhat unlikely you ever experienced it under, say, Windows 98 or XP.
[1] As offloading playback to the drive had no CPU overhead, games often stored their music as additional tracks on the game disc and played it that way. Incidentally, basically all CD-ROM-based game consoles and arcade systems relied heavily on hardware accelerated playback as well, with some going even further and allowing for compressed (ADPCM) CD audio streaming with no CPU intervention.
https://recycledgoods.com/nec-cdr-400-3x-scsi-external-plus-...
I've never noticed because I use a Steel Series headset which presents as two output sound devices to Windows, the idea being that you can independently control the volume of your "game" and your "chat" application. Turns out it's useful for Teams as well.
The debian bug linked there implies it started 2012 or earlier, and ended in 2019.
But, if you put a resistor in parallel, you need to work out that:
R = 1 / ((1 / R1) + (1 / R2)) or Rbottom = 1 / ((1 / Rbottom) + (1 / Rfixed)) where Rfixed is the amount you're "bending" it by.
So you could make the amount of "logness" be adjustable by having another (linear) control to vary Rfixed.
You'd work out, for a pot rotation Vol from 0 to 1:
Rbottom = 1 / ((1 / Vol) + (1 / Rfixed)) Rtop = 1 - Vol Scale = Rbottom / (Rbottom + Rtop)
Now for those better at arithmetic than me, how can you reverse this? Imagine you've got a pot in a piece of equipment with a resistor between the wiper and ground giving a log curve, and you've got to read that with an ADC and turn it back into the linear position of the wiper.
It ought to be possible but I've always sucked at arithmetic.
Nothing changes in the UI to indicate this, nor could I find any setting to change this. Sometimes swapping the audio away from the headset and back to it helps, but it it at best a temporary fix.
for (i = 0; i < 50; i++) { document.querySelector("#l3-down").click(); }Love the game, btw.
#3 are almost like Google Maps' zooming buttons. They jump around more, making you click on the map itself or swap in/out.
edit: ok... somehow my approach didn't work the first time, but got to 18!
Diabolical villainy in this game