How a 20 year old bug in GTA San Andreas surfaced in Windows 11 24H2

funnily enough, there was an infamous bug in GTA5 for a long time that was related to using JSON : https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times...

Loading times are still absurd, fwiw.

I remember that one too :)

They wrote a JSON “parser” using sscanf. sscanf is not bulletproof! Just use an open source library instead of writing something yourself. You will still be a real programmer, but you will finish your game sooner and you won't have embarrassing stories written about you.

Yes, but now it's in the realm of ~3 minutes, and not ~8 minutes even on a top-spec PC, right? I really liked the game, but waiting 8 minutes to load just to get griefed by hackers within seconds of walking outside... I don't understand how that game makes any money.

It was like crack. People put up with a lot of problems and bugs just because it was really fun just enough of the time to get them hooked.

IMO it varies widely. This past weekend it was taking me multiple attempts to get logged in to a public lobby— after waiting ~5-10 minutes!

Nothing has changed appreciably. If they would let you login to a private invite-only lobby that would likely speed things up greatly— but it’ll never happen.

That's probably just the nature of P2P networking code.

> If they would let you login to a private invite-only lobby that would likely speed things up greatly— but it’ll never happen.

Did they remove this option in the last couple years?

I don’t think its ever been an option to login directly to an invite-only lobby. But then I have taken multiple multi-year breaks! I was pleasantly surprised you can actually play most of the game in a private lobby now… that is a huge change and I am not at all certain when it occurred.

Definitely similar to a drug addiction, speaking from firsthand experience with both. GTA has been harder to give up than cocaine was.

Nitpicking: What you're describing is called a "variable ratio reinforcement schedule", and is considered to be the most effective form of operant conditioning.

However, it's not even remotely "like crack". Crack is really really really really fun, period, no "just enough of the time" about it. The reason people get hooked on crack is because it's guaranteed to be fun.

If I had to choose a substance that most closely mirrored variable ratio reinforcement conditioning, it'd probably be ketamine.