Unveiling a Nostalgic Glitch in Space Cadet 3D Pinball
In the mid-1990s, Full Tilt! Pinball captivated players with its trio of pre-rendered 3D pinball tables, among which Space Cadet 3D stood out. While this beloved game may have slipped into the annals of gaming history, a recent revelation from former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has brought it back into the spotlight, showcasing an amusing yet embarrassing bug that once plagued the title.
Plummer recounted this tale on his YouTube channel, detailing the technical journey of porting Space Cadet from Windows 95 to Windows NT. This endeavor required him to construct a new game engine capable of managing the game’s video and sound components. However, a critical oversight in his coding led to a peculiar bug: the engine was designed to draw frames at maximum speed.
Originally, Space Cadet 3D operated smoothly at a frame rate of 60 to 90 frames per second on a MIPS R4000 processor clocked at 200 MHz. Yet, as technology advanced, players found themselves experiencing the game at an astonishing 5,000 frames per second on more powerful machines. Plummer humorously noted, “Fast forward a couple of years later, somebody notices that on multi-core machines, it’s using an entire core to play Pinball at all times.”
Fortunately, the situation was salvaged by another former Microsoft engineer, Raymond Chen, who implemented a frame rate limiter that capped the game at a more manageable 100 frames per second. While Plummer can now chuckle at his oversight, he recalls the gravity with which Microsoft approached such bugs. “If you had a bug that actually made it into the product and required work in a Service Pack, that was never a laughing matter,” he reflected. “That was kind of a shameful thing.”
For those looking to relive this nostalgic experience, a version of Space Cadet 3D Pinball is currently available on the App Store.
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