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I still get a kick out of UT2004 playing a "holy poo poo" sound clip when you max the graphics. Which is much less impressive when you're playing on an ultraportable laptop and it still hits 60FPS.
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Dec 27, 2015 06:47
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0toShifty posted:In the same way - some older games can't handle being played on much faster systems. SimCity 2000's "African Swallow" speed was designed to run as fast as the computer could possibly run it. On a modern computer this has hilarious results. Your power plans explode in a few seconds because 50 years goes by almost instantly. There was actually a program for DOS called moslow.exe that would let you do things like run Wing Commander at a playable speed on your Pentium by either disabling L1 cache or even just throwing CPU cycles out the window. http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/deluxe.asp
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Dec 27, 2015 07:07
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Non Serviam posted:I'd dare say that it's the opposite, since when I was a kid (mid 90s, I'm 31 now) pc gaming was pretty small compared to consoles. Now, on the other hand, pc gaming is huge. PC games were a huge business in the nineties but/and there wasn't much overlap with console games apart from some big tie-ins.
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Dec 27, 2015 08:12
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Phanatic posted:There was actually a program for DOS called moslow.exe that would let you do things like run Wing Commander at a playable speed on your Pentium by either disabling L1 cache or even just throwing CPU cycles out the window. I remember using a similar program to be able to play Space Quest IV on Windows 95/8. IIRC, how it worked was that it ran junk calculations to eat up CPU cycles.
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Dec 27, 2015 10:19
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:Isn't it also something to do with gaming generally being much more console-focused now? The PC gaming market is smaller so publishers put more resources into making console games or something like that?
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Dec 27, 2015 10:30
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Has it really been so PC centric in the past? The entire Japanese market has been entirely consoles until very recently. fake edit: Forgot about Commodore/Amiga/etc., but since the Crash I can't think of very many prolific PC titles (though not none) AlphaKretin has a new favorite as of 12:03 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 10:40
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Now I just use DOSBox or get a version off GOG.com that is fixed for new computers.
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Dec 27, 2015 10:46
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Collateral Damage posted:Doesn't have anything to do with sales figures. It's just easier to develop for a more limited platform first and then port to PC than the other way around. The biggest thing now is both the xbox one and PS4 both use the same enough x86-64 AMD CPU, I would think developing for them and a PC at the same time is trivial compared to porting in the past.
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Dec 27, 2015 10:58
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AlphaKretin posted:Has it really been so PC centric in the past? The entire Japanese market has been entirely consoles until very recently. Both Japan and Britain had a huge home computing revolution in the 80's. There were tons of PC standards in Japan in the 80's and 90's and a lot of the major game system manufacturers, and many big name game creators, got their start on PC. The MSX and MSX2 were both big in Japan and it's were guys like Kojima were making games prior to the Famicom. The Famicom was even called the Family Computer because Nintendo didn't want to make a video game system post Atari, but home computers were big and selling large numbers (even though everyone was mostly using them for games anyways) they even released a keyboard and a basic programming module. NEC was the big leader in PC's for Japan, and their platform later became the TG-16. You might also know the Japanese company ASCII, know in the US for releasing a lot of obscure videogames, who started as Microsoft Japan and were responsible for the MSX format. Japan was into PCs because PCs were where you found RPGs with actual depth back in the "every RPG is a Dragon Quest clone" era, they got so into Wizardry that they even developed several Japan only sequels and an MMO. But as far as major devs that are still around and do primarily only PC development in Japan it's basically only Falcom, who have been married to whatever the dominant PC standard of Japan was for almost 30 years.
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Dec 27, 2015 11:59
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Humphreys posted:Now I just use DOSBox or get a version off GOG.com that is fixed for new computers. See - I got SimCity 2000 from GOG, and it's the dos version. It runs perfect, but it just isn't the same. I try running SimCity 2000 and SimCopter and Streets of SimCity in a VM, and it just doesn't quite work right in there either. Lots of MIDI issues, sound problems, 256 color cycling problems, etc. So I have this old Pentium 3 Dell here on which I installed Windows 98se. It came with 1GB of ram, so I took a stick out to bring it down to 512. Windows 98 doesn't like that much ram. There are startup options one can use to disable it as well, but I found the hardware option easier. The hard drive was unbelievably loud, (I guess it was normal then) so I am using a CF to IDE adapter with a 2GB card to replace it. It has a floppy drive and a zip drive, and an 8x CD-ROM drive. It has an AGP port on the mother board, and I found an ATI Rage 128, but I think it's a bit too slow for the "era" of PC gaming I'm trying to target. Right around 2001-2002 is where I'm going for. It actually has two USB 1.1 ports. USB Mass storage didn't work without a weird driver on Windows 98. A small flash drive seems to be the only somewhat reliable way of transferring files to it. I had initially been burning CD-Rs on my newer PC with stuff I wanted on there. I run some dos games as well with an MS-DOS boot floppy.
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Dec 27, 2015 13:07
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LethalGeek posted:The biggest thing now is both the xbox one and PS4 both use the same enough x86-64 AMD CPU, I would think developing for them and a PC at the same time is trivial compared to porting in the past. It's not all about architecture, you've got the platform poo poo too. Sure, optimising for the CPU lets you speed stuff up for both platforms, but you've still got the entirely different graphics stack, platform, and quirks to deal with.
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Dec 27, 2015 13:12
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0toShifty posted:So I have this old Pentium 3 Dell here on which I installed Windows 98se. It came with 1GB of ram, so I took a stick out to bring it down to 512. Windows 98 doesn't like that much ram. There are startup options one can use to disable it as well, but I found the hardware option easier. The hard drive was unbelievably loud, (I guess it was normal then) so I am using a CF to IDE adapter with a 2GB card to replace it. It has a floppy drive and a zip drive, and an 8x CD-ROM drive. It has an AGP port on the mother board, and I found an ATI Rage 128, but I think it's a bit too slow for the "era" of PC gaming I'm trying to target. Right around 2001-2002 is where I'm going for. It actually has two USB 1.1 ports. USB Mass storage didn't work without a weird driver on Windows 98. A small flash drive seems to be the only somewhat reliable way of transferring files to it. I had initially been burning CD-Rs on my newer PC with stuff I wanted on there. I run some dos games as well with an MS-DOS boot floppy. A few years ago I tried a similar thing. My flatmate at the time had bought three old computers from the late 90s/early 2000s for $10 and I tried installing Windows 98 on one to play some old games from that era that I just couldn't get running on Windows 7 or Ubuntu. Installing Windows was fine, but I had so much trouble getting and installing drivers for everything else that I gave up after a while. IIRC I needed drivers for the CD drive, ethernet, monitor to get it above 640x480 in 256 colours, USB, sound, and probably a couple of others that I'm forgetting now. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but drivers from that era seem quite hard to find. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. I remember struggling with computers sometimes back then, but I don't remember it being so bad. I think we're a bit spoiled these days with most things working straight out of the box.
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Dec 27, 2015 16:41
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:I think we're a bit spoiled these days with most things working straight out of the box.  
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Dec 27, 2015 16:45
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Lol. I'm actually using Linux (Ubuntu) as we speak. I actually don't mind loving around, I just like to feel as though I'm getting somewhere. My experience with Windows 98 that time ended with a bit of a catch 22. IIRC it was something like the install I was using didn't have the right drivers for USB (or something) to get more files on the computer, so there was no way of getting the drivers on to the machine to fix that problem.
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Dec 27, 2015 16:53
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:Lol. I'm actually using Linux (Ubuntu) as we speak. I actually don't mind loving around, I just like to feel as though I'm getting somewhere. You could always use an IDE-to-USB adapter to plug the hard drive into a modern computer, put the files on, then reconnect the drive to the old computer. I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes a SOC that emulates an old PC to the point you can just install and run Windows 98SE without fussing with drivers.
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Dec 27, 2015 17:54
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1981 Radio Shack computer catalog.
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Dec 27, 2015 18:15
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xlevus posted:It's not all about architecture, you've got the platform poo poo too. Sure, optimising for the CPU lets you speed stuff up for both platforms, but you've still got the entirely different graphics stack, platform, and quirks to deal with. Pretty sure the XB1 uses DirectX. Most decent development systems account for most of the things you mention anyway, the hassle is getting good performance from all three without having to create 3 sets of assets.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:14
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I don't remember if I got it from this thread or not, but here's ALL the Radio Shack catalogs. Man, I really need to go get the TRS-80 out of my parents' attic. My uncle used it for his business, and gave it to us around 1990 when he got a modern computer. I played text adventure games loaded from cassettes on it.
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Dec 28, 2015 01:18
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Collateral Damage posted:If you're nostalgic for having to gently caress with your computer for two days to get stuff working you could always install Linux. Linux is not the can of worms it used to be. Remember when no linux distribution would startx by default? Remember when ONLY FOOLS used a GUI? SLACKWARE! CALDERA! CONFIGURE GRUB! Mandrake? Now you can just run Ubuntu off a Live USB or Live CD - run chrome, install Now everybody uses Linux. Except they don't know it. They say iphone suck because MY SAMSUNG oh you have a DROID? LOL @ U (yes, the average dumbass out there doesn't know that Samsung Galaxy phones and Motorola's Droid both run Android) My first PC was a Packard Bell Pentium 75. It had PACKARD BELL NAVIGATOR! That poo poo made sense. What's this windows garbage? PC trying to be like the mac and amiga? Navigator is the FUTURE! 
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Dec 28, 2015 03:57
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0toShifty posted:Linux is not the can of worms it used to be. Remember when no linux distribution would startx by default? Remember when ONLY FOOLS used a GUI? SLACKWARE! CALDERA! CONFIGURE GRUB! Mandrake? If you don't speak Finnish, you'll never know the joy of calling Packard-Bell Pascard-Bell to a vendor.
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Dec 28, 2015 04:05
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Jesus h. Christ. Looking at those prices really makes me want to call up my dad and thank him for buying me a computer when I was like, 3. I totally remember having Tandy parts, and salivating over my moms old Commodore from college she kept in a box in her closet! The box had all these cool games on it! Mom, why can't I play it? Turns out it's because it was the only word processing version of her thesis saved on the hard drive. Speaking of obsolete technology, I ised to LOVE playing these games when they first came out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_(video_game_series) they were SO FUN. I don't even want to calculate the sheer amount of time I spent playing them.
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Dec 28, 2015 06:23
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0toShifty posted:My first PC was a Packard Bell Pentium 75. It had PACKARD BELL NAVIGATOR! That poo poo made sense. What's this windows garbage? PC trying to be like the mac and amiga? Navigator is the FUTURE! Packard Bell did skeuomorphism before Apple made skeuomorphism cool and promptly ditched it because lol what a bunch of hot garbage that was
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Dec 28, 2015 12:07
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0toShifty posted:My first PC was a Packard Bell Pentium 75. It had PACKARD BELL NAVIGATOR! That poo poo made sense. What's this windows garbage? PC trying to be like the mac and amiga? Navigator is the FUTURE! Wow, Packard Bell remade Microsoft Bob!
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Dec 28, 2015 14:47
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moller posted:Wow, Packard Bell remade Microsoft Bob! Pretty sure that predates Bob, but yeah. There's a reason we've moved away from such things.
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Dec 28, 2015 14:55
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Both Japan and Britain had a huge home computing revolution in the 80's. There were tons of PC standards in Japan in the 80's and 90's and a lot of the major game system manufacturers, and many big name game creators, got their start on PC. The MSX and MSX2 were both big in Japan and it's were guys like Kojima were making games prior to the Famicom. The Famicom was even called the Family Computer because Nintendo didn't want to make a video game system post Atari, but home computers were big and selling large numbers (even though everyone was mostly using them for games anyways) they even released a keyboard and a basic programming module. NEC was the big leader in PC's for Japan, and their platform later became the TG-16. You might also know the Japanese company ASCII, know in the US for releasing a lot of obscure videogames, who started as Microsoft Japan and were responsible for the MSX format. Japan was into PCs because PCs were where you found RPGs with actual depth back in the "every RPG is a Dragon Quest clone" era, they got so into Wizardry that they even developed several Japan only sequels and an MMO. But as far as major devs that are still around and do primarily only PC development in Japan it's basically only Falcom, who have been married to whatever the dominant PC standard of Japan was for almost 30 years. I went to a planetarium here in Japan a month or so ago and they had a couple of FM Towns there with stupid educational games for the kids. I had never seen an FM Towns in the wild and I was pretty shocked that in 2015 a place would be using them.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:36
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0toShifty posted:In the same way - some older games can't handle being played on much faster systems. SimCity 2000's "African Swallow" speed was designed to run as fast as the computer could possibly run it. On a modern computer this has hilarious results. Your power plans explode in a few seconds because 50 years goes by almost instantly. Older PCs often had a "turbo" button on the case, which would slow the CPU down to help address such problems.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:54
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Early 90's skeuomorphic interface design was pretty mental. IBM did a study where they realised how bad they were as people didn't necessarily translate real life actions into the program's intentions. In their study it was a program meant for dailing a phone. But people got confused over the fact you had to click the receiver in order to allow a number to be dailed. They presumed it was there for decoration and were trying to dial by clicking on a name in the address book. However that was nothing compared to the 00's chunky, round and glossy interface phase that dominated most skinnable apps of the day. A large influence came from Apple's translucent plastic look and I suspect hi-fi systems of the day given the music centric nature of these apps. This "high-tech" look also introduced the evils of pixel fonts in a poor attempt to slim down increasingly busy and overcrowded interfaces.   The main problem with these styles is that there's often so much contrast going on that your eye has no idea where to rest and the ton of padded borders (meant to be draggable) confused or in the worse case were actually poorly defined buttons. Most UI design trends usually follow a push and pull response where something constrained by it's limitations of the day will get replaced with ostentatious effects to show off new capabilities, such as everyday systems supporting more colours so gradients become the next thing as they finally look smooth.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:08
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Oh yeah, I remember Sonique: And K-Jofol:  Bonus hideous Linux window manager crap theme in that last one. Feast your eyes on a whole website full of the most offensive desktop themes ever: http://xwinman.org/ I mean seriously, how can anyone stand a desktop that looks like this?    
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Dec 28, 2015 17:31
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0toShifty posted:In the same way - some older games can't handle being played on much faster systems. SimCity 2000's "African Swallow" speed was designed to run as fast as the computer could possibly run it. On a modern computer this has hilarious results. Your power plans explode in a few seconds because 50 years goes by almost instantly. I remember trying to play F-16 Fighting Falcon (the CGA 4 color version) on a 30mhz IBM PS/2. It went so fast you'd crash on takeoff every time. And that was on a 30mhz CPU.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:35
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Krispy Kareem posted:I remember trying to play F-16 Fighting Falcon (the CGA 4 color version) on a 30mhz IBM PS/2. It went so fast you'd crash on takeoff every time. And that was on a 30mhz CPU. Wow, what kind of CPU was it designed for?
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Dec 28, 2015 17:36
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SinineSiil posted:Wow, what kind of CPU was it designed for? No idea. This link lists all the various versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)#Falcon It must have been the original Falcon, because Falcon A.T. had EGA graphics and there was definitely a lot of cyan in my version.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:40
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KozmoNaut posted:Oh yeah, I remember Sonique: mamasutra feel good feel good... The volume dial in the large and medium views was so annoying to use
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Dec 28, 2015 17:54
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SinineSiil posted:Wow, what kind of CPU was it designed for? PC XT/AT, so an 8086 or 8088 running at anywhere from 4.77 - 6 mhz.  A 30 mhz IBM ps/2 was a freaking (80)386SX, so the difference in processor power is more than the mhz difference by orders of magnitude. moller has a new favorite as of 17:59 on Dec 28, 2015 |
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Dec 28, 2015 17:54
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KozmoNaut posted:I mean seriously, how can anyone stand a desktop that looks like this? You are clearly not a l33t haxx0r 
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Dec 28, 2015 18:03
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KozmoNaut posted:Oh yeah, I remember Sonique: I remember a lot of people would get into serious fights over if Sonique was better than Winamp. Winamp
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Dec 28, 2015 18:04
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Iron Crowned posted:I remember a lot of people would get into serious fights over if Sonique was better than Winamp. Winamp I was firmly in the Sonique fanboy club for a long time, I have no idea how I put up with that piece of poo poo for so long. Winamp was kinda poo poo, but it was the least lovely music player until Foobar2000 came and showed everyone how to do a proper player with a standard Windows interface. Ah, the goodbad old days of Xing and Bladeenc and 64kbps Napster MP3s, and replacing the standard Winamp MP3 decoder with MAD or mpg123, because "it totally sounds so much better on my Creative computer speakers!" 
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Dec 28, 2015 18:08
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KozmoNaut posted:Bonus hideous Linux window manager crap theme in that last one. Feast your eyes on a whole website full of the most offensive desktop themes ever: http://xwinman.org/ They are really ugly now, but in the mid-90s when the alternative was Win95 with it's gray and green color scheme and dithering, seeing desktops like that was pretty impressive. Remember that at one point people thought that having orange shag carpet on every surface of a house and fake wood grain on everything with an electronic circuit looked good too.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:09
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KozmoNaut posted:I mean seriously, how can anyone stand a desktop that looks like this? 
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Dec 28, 2015 18:11
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 hotdog stand Windows 3.11The_Franz posted:fake wood grain on everything with an electronic circuit looked good too. Hey now, silver-faced wood-cabinetted hifi gear still looks awesome today  
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Dec 28, 2015 18:13
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KozmoNaut posted:Hey now, silver-faced wood-cabinetted hifi gear still looks awesome today Yeah, that looks nice. An early VCR with a fake wood grain sticker on the front, not so much. Still better than the pink/purple color schemes that every female librarian seemed to have at one point or another.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:17
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