<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I thought it was to deal with everyone using the keyboard arrows to turn and aim.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That was to deal with the mediocre ~30 FPS performance <b>and clunky interface</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Right, the HUD isn't the only thing referred to as interface...
I just doubt the fps was a big factor when adding all those handicaps to them old games.
Considering how I used to rage on the forums over not even knowing where to look to change video options, get frustrated, find where and turn as much off as I could. Now apparently I have everything on automatically and the game's running better than befor ... thats called progress ... whining for fps in a beta is so hedonistic.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
<!--quoteo(post=1966618:date=Aug 25 2012, 02:45 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Aug 25 2012, 02:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966618"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I remember playing wolfenstein 3d on a (10 MHz?) 286. You just expanded the border a bit and it comfortably ran at 20-30 FPS. And once again, the game was designed for poor performance; you just had to aim vaguely at an enemy and they moved predictably and slowly.
Wolfenstein, doom, doom II, duke 3d, Rise of the triad, blood, nearly all early FPS had vertical auto-aim, a huge enemy hitbox and sluggish enemies. That was to deal with the mediocre ~30 FPS performance and clunky interface.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I call shenanigans. As someone who still has a 386SX/33, a 286/10 wouldn't come close to 30fps in Wolf3D. And it wasn't 'vertical auto aim', it was the fact that the maps were 2D, and the Z axis was simply ignored. Because the systems weren't powerful enough to handle three-dimensional math including the maps at an acceptable (15fps) framerate. Same with the sluggish enemies, where AI compute cycles were at a premium, and the primitive (and thereby large) hitboxes.
<!--quoteo(post=1966623:date=Aug 25 2012, 03:26 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Aug 25 2012, 03:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966623"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Riva TNT2 M64 was my first 3d graphics card, in late 1999 I think. It was a real crummy budget card but you just picked a sensible resolution and it was still decently competent for unreal tournament, half-life(HLDM, CS, NS, science and industry...) and anything else I cared to play. Spent much of my budget on a decent CPU instead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yep, I'm more talking early 1996, when the TNT2 was just a twinkle in an engineer's eye. Even then, would 'sensible' be 320x200 or did it actually manage to crack along at 640x480 at over 20fps in S&I? Mostly as a couple of years later, I remember being excited to get a Radeon 9200, because it meant I'd be getting a whopping 35fps in that on my Athlon K7 Slot-A 600 machine, and could bump up to 1024x768 finally.
And no. For the longest time, 30fps was considered the 'smooth' breakpoint to shoot for. 15fps was the 'playable'. Being spoiled by modern hardware may make it easy to forget, or not having actually experienced it at all may give no actual reference. Calling 30fps 'unplayable' is still absolutely ridiculous.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 27 2012, 01:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 27 2012, 01:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not sure if troll or srs.
Sure its 'playable'. Doesn't make it any less of a waste of time compared to any other game they could otherwise be spending their time on. If we had two versions of NS2, one with high fps and one with low fps and people weren't told which was which, which version do you think people will end up playing? Which one would people find more enjoyable? The answer i think is pretty blatantly obvious.
Some people actually get physically sick from low fps after adapting to higher fps. Fps affects mouse behaviour, input responsiveness, and the gap between moving objects frame to frame - i don't see how you can talk yourself around that. As a competitive multiplayer game, playability is more than just 'it runs'.
Being able to tolerate low fps doesn't make you any more of a man than others.
If your talking about this in the sense of minimum system requirements, then your totally avoiding the question of comparable hardware. NS2 will run a 'playable' 30 fps on equipment that should by right be running it many times faster.
Yeah, I'm not sure what your intention with that reply was tbh, Talesin.
60 FPS constant with no hitching whatsoever is a minimum requirement if you're willing to play on low settings today. Especially if you exceed the recommended settings.
<!--quoteo(post=1966657:date=Aug 25 2012, 11:12 PM:name=Argathor)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Argathor @ Aug 25 2012, 11:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966657"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I clearly missed this gaming dark age too. I used to get 100-120 ping with my 36k modem and 90-110 with my 56k modem in the early CS days. Along with considerably higher FPS than I currently get with NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So maybe I exaggerated a bit when I said 250ms. It's part of the traditional nostalgia story format, "uphill both ways" etc. (I don't remember ever getting modem pings as low as you are describing, though).
Still the difference was big enough that there were dedicated "high ping only" Rocket Arena servers just for modem players.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I call shenanigans. As someone who still has a 386SX/33, a 286/10 wouldn't come close to 30fps in Wolf3D.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's kind of hard finding benchmark numbers for wolfenstein 3d. The best I can do is find some dude playing it on youtube on a 286: <center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Gvz6PMtEuU"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Gvz6PMtEuU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
That looks about ~10 FPS. To get 30 FPS Shrink the border by 40%(i.e. 60% of full res on X and Y axes) which shrinks the number of pixels by a factor of 3, and there you go. Rendering pixel spans is where nearly all of the work is.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And it wasn't 'vertical auto aim', it was the fact that the maps were 2D, and the Z axis was simply ignored.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You couldn't have level over level or look up and down, but the z-axis was still accounted for. Sectors had a floor and ceiling height and they were correctly rendered as such. Most ray-cast renderers(e.g. doom, hexen, heretic, duke) accounted for the Z-axis in movement physics, in projectile physics(rocks, pipe bombs and so on). It just so happens that this makes aiming trivial.
Ultima underworld, released before wolfenstein 3d, had looking up and down(same cheap hack as duke 3d), slopes(not stairs), jumping, swiming etc. but it was still a raycast engine without level over level. It was about as demanding as doom, but the pacing in the game was slow so it didn't much matter.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Because the systems weren't powerful enough to handle three-dimensional math including the maps at an acceptable (15fps) framerate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But they did. Rockets, the BFG, plasma bullets etc. didn't just hover 48 "units" above the floor, following the floor regardless of height. They didn't always travel horizontally(e.g. when they locked onto an enemy on a different level). Not even bullets were locked into traveling horizontally and they had "random"(probably just a LUT) recoil offsets. You only had to check the height at each traversed linedefs and sidedefs and thing/enemy until you hit something.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Same with the sluggish enemies, where AI compute cycles were at a premium, and the primitive (and thereby large) hitboxes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes no extra CPU power to have enemies moving faster and less predictable. It's still just one tick per frame, but with a larger increment or higher probability of switching directions or otherwise move eratically.
Primitive does not imply that the hit box must extend much farther than the chest and head area of the enemy, maybe even larger than the bounding box(it felt like it).
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yep, I'm more talking early 1996[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Until half-life and unreal, were there <i>even any decent games to play</i>? I seem to remember quake being the next big thing and running fine on a pentium 133 and glquake didn't get released until some time later. Duke 3d, another big title with a software renderer.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->when the TNT2 was just a twinkle in an engineer's eye. Even then, would 'sensible' be 320x200 or did it actually manage to crack along at 640x480 at over 20fps in S&I?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It was mostly CPU-limited in 640x480 16 bit mode at something like 30-50ish FPS during normal play. Smoke grenades in CS chugged, as did anything else with a LOT of overdraw(e.g. close view of RT nozzle particle system in NS) or anything with attrocious CPU use(e.g. NS structure spam, dod_charlie).
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mostly as a couple of years later, I remember being excited to get a Radeon 9200, because it meant I'd be getting a whopping 35fps in that on my Athlon K7 Slot-A 600 machine, and could bump up to 1024x768 finally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I got somewhat worse OpenGL performance in CPU-limited games(anything half-life!) going from an mx440(I wasn't playing much of anything but half-life mods at the time anyway, don't need shaders...) to an ati 9800 pro.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Calling 30fps 'unplayable' is still absolutely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, it's correct. Expectations <b>SHOULD</b> rise. Comparing 60 FPS to 30 FPS is like night and day. If you give me a choice between a great game at 30 FPS or a bunch of mediocre games running at 60 FPS, I'll pick one of the mediocre ones and I'll have a better, less frustrating time.
I've seen and felt quake 3 at rock solid 120 FPS, 120 Hz refresh rate and there is no unseeing it. 60 FPS is the new playable, 30 FPS is decidely unfun and low teens like endgame tram is just, no.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited August 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1967580:date=Aug 28 2012, 08:07 PM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Aug 28 2012, 08:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1967580"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Until half-life and unreal, were there <i>even any decent games to play</i>? I seem to remember quake being the next big thing and running fine on a pentium 133 and glquake didn't get released until some time later. Duke 3d, another big title with a software renderer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sorry, but WHAT?! How can you forget the almighty System Shock (1994)? :( Granted, it had poor performance (probably the game closest to true 3D before Quake) and it was very hard to play since it had no mouselook (there's a version out with mouselook now, love it :D). I'm sure there were even more awesome games before 1996.
I agree with the rest of your points. Standards and expectations rise over time and you certainly can't compare today's standards to the very beginning of gaming, where everything was completely new anyway so noone really cared about FPS.
Pentium 133 reminds me of playing UT99 in 320x240 windowed. :D It was a laptop, not sure whether it had a GPU at all.
<!--quoteo(post=1968051:date=Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968051"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sorry, but WHAT?! How can you forget the almighty System Shock (1994)?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But system shock had a software renderer. Where were the decent games in 1996 that required or even just benefited from a graphics card?
<!--quoteo(post=1968051:date=Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968051"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sure there were even more awesome games before 1996.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Right, the HUD isn't the only thing referred to as interface...
I just doubt the fps was a big factor when adding all those handicaps to them old games.
Considering how I used to rage on the forums over not even knowing where to look to change video options, get frustrated, find where and turn as much off as I could. Now apparently I have everything on automatically and the game's running better than befor ... thats called progress ... whining for fps in a beta is so hedonistic.
Wolfenstein, doom, doom II, duke 3d, Rise of the triad, blood, nearly all early FPS had vertical auto-aim, a huge enemy hitbox and sluggish enemies. That was to deal with the mediocre ~30 FPS performance and clunky interface.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I call shenanigans. As someone who still has a 386SX/33, a 286/10 wouldn't come close to 30fps in Wolf3D.
And it wasn't 'vertical auto aim', it was the fact that the maps were 2D, and the Z axis was simply ignored. Because the systems weren't powerful enough to handle three-dimensional math including the maps at an acceptable (15fps) framerate. Same with the sluggish enemies, where AI compute cycles were at a premium, and the primitive (and thereby large) hitboxes.
<!--quoteo(post=1966623:date=Aug 25 2012, 03:26 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Aug 25 2012, 03:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966623"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Riva TNT2 M64 was my first 3d graphics card, in late 1999 I think. It was a real crummy budget card but you just picked a sensible resolution and it was still decently competent for unreal tournament, half-life(HLDM, CS, NS, science and industry...) and anything else I cared to play. Spent much of my budget on a decent CPU instead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep, I'm more talking early 1996, when the TNT2 was just a twinkle in an engineer's eye. Even then, would 'sensible' be 320x200 or did it actually manage to crack along at 640x480 at over 20fps in S&I? Mostly as a couple of years later, I remember being excited to get a Radeon 9200, because it meant I'd be getting a whopping 35fps in that on my Athlon K7 Slot-A 600 machine, and could bump up to 1024x768 finally.
And no. For the longest time, 30fps was considered the 'smooth' breakpoint to shoot for. 15fps was the 'playable'.
Being spoiled by modern hardware may make it easy to forget, or not having actually experienced it at all may give no actual reference.
Calling 30fps 'unplayable' is still absolutely ridiculous.
Not sure if troll or srs.
Sure its 'playable'. Doesn't make it any less of a waste of time compared to any other game they could otherwise be spending their time on. If we had two versions of NS2, one with high fps and one with low fps and people weren't told which was which, which version do you think people will end up playing? Which one would people find more enjoyable? The answer i think is pretty blatantly obvious.
Some people actually get physically sick from low fps after adapting to higher fps. Fps affects mouse behaviour, input responsiveness, and the gap between moving objects frame to frame - i don't see how you can talk yourself around that. As a competitive multiplayer game, playability is more than just 'it runs'.
Being able to tolerate low fps doesn't make you any more of a man than others.
If your talking about this in the sense of minimum system requirements, then your totally avoiding the question of comparable hardware. NS2 will run a 'playable' 30 fps on equipment that should by right be running it many times faster.
60 FPS constant with no hitching whatsoever is a minimum requirement if you're willing to play on low settings today. Especially if you exceed the recommended settings.
Lowering people's expectations is just bad.
So maybe I exaggerated a bit when I said 250ms. It's part of the traditional nostalgia story format, "uphill both ways" etc. (I don't remember ever getting modem pings as low as you are describing, though).
Still the difference was big enough that there were dedicated "high ping only" Rocket Arena servers just for modem players.
It's kind of hard finding benchmark numbers for wolfenstein 3d. The best I can do is find some dude playing it on youtube on a 286: <center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Gvz6PMtEuU"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Gvz6PMtEuU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
That looks about ~10 FPS. To get 30 FPS Shrink the border by 40%(i.e. 60% of full res on X and Y axes) which shrinks the number of pixels by a factor of 3, and there you go. Rendering pixel spans is where nearly all of the work is.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And it wasn't 'vertical auto aim', it was the fact that the maps were 2D, and the Z axis was simply ignored.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You couldn't have level over level or look up and down, but the z-axis was still accounted for. Sectors had a floor and ceiling height and they were correctly rendered as such. Most ray-cast renderers(e.g. doom, hexen, heretic, duke) accounted for the Z-axis in movement physics, in projectile physics(rocks, pipe bombs and so on). It just so happens that this makes aiming trivial.
Ultima underworld, released before wolfenstein 3d, had looking up and down(same cheap hack as duke 3d), slopes(not stairs), jumping, swiming etc. but it was still a raycast engine without level over level. It was about as demanding as doom, but the pacing in the game was slow so it didn't much matter.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Because the systems weren't powerful enough to handle three-dimensional math including the maps at an acceptable (15fps) framerate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But they did. Rockets, the BFG, plasma bullets etc. didn't just hover 48 "units" above the floor, following the floor regardless of height. They didn't always travel horizontally(e.g. when they locked onto an enemy on a different level). Not even bullets were locked into traveling horizontally and they had "random"(probably just a LUT) recoil offsets. You only had to check the height at each traversed linedefs and sidedefs and thing/enemy until you hit something.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Same with the sluggish enemies, where AI compute cycles were at a premium, and the primitive (and thereby large) hitboxes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes no extra CPU power to have enemies moving faster and less predictable. It's still just one tick per frame, but with a larger increment or higher probability of switching directions or otherwise move eratically.
Primitive does not imply that the hit box must extend much farther than the chest and head area of the enemy, maybe even larger than the bounding box(it felt like it).
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yep, I'm more talking early 1996[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Until half-life and unreal, were there <i>even any decent games to play</i>? I seem to remember quake being the next big thing and running fine on a pentium 133 and glquake didn't get released until some time later. Duke 3d, another big title with a software renderer.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->when the TNT2 was just a twinkle in an engineer's eye. Even then, would 'sensible' be 320x200 or did it actually manage to crack along at 640x480 at over 20fps in S&I?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It was mostly CPU-limited in 640x480 16 bit mode at something like 30-50ish FPS during normal play. Smoke grenades in CS chugged, as did anything else with a LOT of overdraw(e.g. close view of RT nozzle particle system in NS) or anything with attrocious CPU use(e.g. NS structure spam, dod_charlie).
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mostly as a couple of years later, I remember being excited to get a Radeon 9200, because it meant I'd be getting a whopping 35fps in that on my Athlon K7 Slot-A 600 machine, and could bump up to 1024x768 finally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I got somewhat worse OpenGL performance in CPU-limited games(anything half-life!) going from an mx440(I wasn't playing much of anything but half-life mods at the time anyway, don't need shaders...) to an ati 9800 pro.
<!--quoteo(post=1966873:date=Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 26 2012, 10:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1966873"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Calling 30fps 'unplayable' is still absolutely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, it's correct. Expectations <b>SHOULD</b> rise. Comparing 60 FPS to 30 FPS is like night and day. If you give me a choice between a great game at 30 FPS or a bunch of mediocre games running at 60 FPS, I'll pick one of the mediocre ones and I'll have a better, less frustrating time.
I've seen and felt quake 3 at rock solid 120 FPS, 120 Hz refresh rate and there is no unseeing it. 60 FPS is the new playable, 30 FPS is decidely unfun and low teens like endgame tram is just, no.
Sorry, but WHAT?! How can you forget the almighty System Shock (1994)? :( Granted, it had poor performance (probably the game closest to true 3D before Quake) and it was very hard to play since it had no mouselook (there's a version out with mouselook now, love it :D). I'm sure there were even more awesome games before 1996.
I agree with the rest of your points. Standards and expectations rise over time and you certainly can't compare today's standards to the very beginning of gaming, where everything was completely new anyway so noone really cared about FPS.
Pentium 133 reminds me of playing UT99 in 320x240 windowed. :D It was a laptop, not sure whether it had a GPU at all.
But system shock had a software renderer. Where were the decent games in 1996 that required or even just benefited from a graphics card?
<!--quoteo(post=1968051:date=Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Aug 29 2012, 01:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1968051"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sure there were even more awesome games before 1996.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That require or benefit from a graphics card?