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What games showcased and/or what time period were the "turning

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What games showcased and/or what time period were the "turning points" to when PC games started to look better than console games?
>>
>>3218983
PC games have always looked better than console games.
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>>3218983
I guess the late 90's or early 00's
>>
PC games have always "looked better".


If you mean surpassed consoles completely then in the 2000s with 6th generation. Prior consoles had an edge in some form or another. Scrolling, launch hardware capability to present PC hardware, etc.
>>
>>3218987
This. What kind of idiot made this thread?
>>
>mfw
PC is for fps, rts, and sim games
Consoles for platformers, beat em ups, rpgs.
Everybody knows that
>graphics
Fuck you
>>
>>3219027
Modern gamers buy consoles for walking sims, QTE/cinematic games, and FPSes now.

PC is pretty an indie box.
>>
What kind of PC and what kind of games?
Try comparing Atari VCS and Apple ][. The main advantage the VCS had was that it cost one tenth of the price.
>>
>>3219032
"Modern gamers" buy consoles out of technical ineptidity and convenience.
Not because they prefer a specific genre.
>>
>>3219021
Salty current gen console peasants. IMO though PCs only "fully" (Hardware accelerated 3D, Hardware T&L, shaders, proper audio support, etc.) caught up to console hardware in the 2000's.
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>>3219052
What are you basing that on? I love console games too, but come on there's no contest at all.
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>>3219071
>3 fps
>>
>>3219045
Wrong. See the top selling games.

Though you can say they buy it for streaming also.
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>>3219084
It's much better than that, but even if it was it's still more impressive than consoles could pull off at the time. Go look at Ultima IV on PC vs NES.
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>>3219105
Okay now you go look at Mega Man on NES vs PC
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>PC gaming
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>>3219109
One or two bad ports doesn't make your point. If you want to believe consoles were always on par or superior to PCs then that's your shit. But you're just plain wrong and I have better things to do than discuss it with you.
>>
>>3219119
>one or two

unfortunately, PC was plagued by bad ports from arcade/console games.

Thank companies like U.S. Gold.
>>
>>3219071
Sure, most PCs are versatile, but they tended to require a fast and expensive CPU since most things (like side-scrolling, 3D, advanced multi-channel audio, T&L, etc.) had to be brute-forced with a CPU since PCs lacked the hardware necessary pull it off.
>>
>>3219119
The difference is the TYPE of games, Moron.

Throughout and well beyond the /vr/ era, PC displays were capable of higher resolutions than the TVs that console games were designed for which not only made their games "look" better, but allowed for more readable text. Also, disk storage was much cheaper than ROM storage so PC games could be considerably deeper.

On the other hand, consoles were designed specifically to run games at 60fps with dedicated game related hardware for sprite rendering, scaling, sound which were all far better than on corresponding PCs. They were also more profitable leading to way more development being packed into them.

If you only play slow strategy and RPG games then sure they're better on PC but if you play action and arcade games they're better on PC it's comparing apples and oranges.

>>3218983
To answer your question, it was the invention of the EGA graphic standard that led to PC games looking as good or better than console games and it was the creation of 3DFX that led to them looking as goodor better in motion.
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>>3219021
Someone rooting out obvious underage b%s like >>3218993
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>>3219149
Read the thread. OP isn't talking about gameplay. Obviously PC and console games were different. OP is asking about when PC games looked better, which has always been the case.

Gameplay wise I prefer console games overall, but that's not what this is about.
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>>3219149
>To answer your question, it was the invention of the EGA graphic standard that led to PC games looking as good or better than console games
You mean VGA. EGA is still an eyesore and it's also awful if you tried to program it.
>>
Why do emulators and modern computers have such a hard time running 3D consoles from the 90s?

Shouldnt N64 be perfectly emulated by now?
>>
>>3219204
N64 is hard to emulate because its architecture is a horrible spaghetti mess and a lot of stuff was not documented that well especially microcodes.
>>
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/03/13-things-you-were-doing-on-the-computer-in-1997/

Guys, I know what I was doing on a PC in the late 90s; I don't need your crummy website to tell me.
>>
>>3219186
I really haven't explored any Sierra adventures outside KQ.
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>>3219186
There are plenty NES action games from 1989 that look better in motion than your picture book with autistic colors and character design.
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>>3219204
Feel free to reverse-engineer any console for free. People are waiting for your contribution.
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>>3219071
>4 colors
Meanwhile, on consoles...
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>>3219247
>autistic colors

This seriously is how /vr/ tries to make a point now. Yeesh this place just gets worse and worse.
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>>3219268
That's the VGA version though, not the Day Glo EGA original.
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>>3219247
Shit most European computer games like Turrican and Creatures look far better than Murrifat CGA rubbish.
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>>3219252
Meanwhile on PC. Full 3D. This really is no contest. It's stupid you're trying to turn it into a debate.
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>>3219274
It's still a PC game looking way better than any console game of the same era. Space Quest 3 does as well, even with it's limited color palette.
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it's funny seeing PCfags conveniently ignore amiga, which offered the best of computer and console
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>>3219287
Yeh but 90% of arcadey Amiga titles were Yuropoors making a shit-tastic copy of Jap console games.
>>
>>3219284
PCs have bitmap graphics; you have no limit on color/pixel placement unlike consoles. On the other hand, all attempts at doing side scrollers on a PC until Jazz Jackrabbit were...embarrassing.
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>>3219310
Again, not a thread about gameplay.
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>>3219280
Meanwhile on arcade. Did I mention this was released in 1983?
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>>3219316
And arcade cabinets are basically highly-specialized PCs.
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>>3219209
>N64 is hard to emulate because its architecture is a horrible spaghetti mess

This meme needs to end. N64 emulation is shit because the developers are shit.
>>
>>3219320
>I read a couple pages about the N64 on Wikipedia and I'm now highly qualified on the matter
fuck off dipshit
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>>3219321
Virtually everything you know about the N64 is based on memes so I'm not sure you should be calling anybody out.
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>>3219313
That's because the advantage of a PC is the controls, resolution, and storage capability. When it comes to moving objects around a screen, they fall short compared with a console.
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>>3219280
Not even as good as the Amiga version.
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>>3219316
Arcades are dedicated machines. Of course they will blow both out of the water.
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>>3218983
Playstation and N64 were objectively better at 3D than PCs at their respective launches, but that didn't last very long.

I'd argue the release of GeForce 256 in 1999 is really the start of the point where consoles never caught up. Once PCs had hardware T&L (vertex units specialized at calculating 3D) that was it for consoles.
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>>3219320
Congrats, you posted a block diagram, which says nothing about the actual architecture of the processors, microcode, and processor customizations.

This is like saying the GB/C uses a z80.
It DOES use one, but it has several custom instructions, a few standard instructions removed, and an additional circuit for sound generation.
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>>3219338
N64 and Saturn are both an architectural nightmare which is why the emulation for them is less-than perfect.
>>
>>3219338
>which says nothing about the actual architecture of the processors

Uh yeah it does. The CPU is literally an off-the-shelf MIPS R4300i, one of the most well understood RISC architectures of all time. The block diagram didn't designate it as custom made like the GB's Z80 because it wasn't custom made.

And the RAM is literally off-the-shelf base RDRAM.

The GPU is the most complex part of the N64 and even that is literally based on the MIPS R4300i too but it's extremely heavily modified. But that's just one chip. You can't say the architecture of the system is complicated when the only thing that even remotely poses a challenge is one chip.

A 20 year old chip.
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>>3219353
It's a mess because of how all the chips interact with each other and also because Nintendo's documentation was shit. The microcodes in particular; some of them weren't documented at all because Nintendo didn't want third parties using them. More advanced games like Conker had to really brute-force the hardware which is why only simplistic stuff like SM64 is accurately emulated.
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>>3219348
That's my point.

>>3219353
That one chip IS the reason why n64 emulation is shit.
Nintendo made that puppy a real power house with tons of programability, which means that there are loads of features to get working properly.
Furthermore, that one chip is really what makes the n64 the n64. Everything graphical is done by that chip and alot of it's innovations and changes aren't as well documented as they should be.
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>>3219370
>It's a mess because of how all the chips interact with each other

They interact with each other in a limited way (no DMA etc). So that's the opposite of difficult to emulate.

>and also because Nintendo's documentation was shit.

But plenty of N64 documents have been leaked onto the internet and it's clear the documentation wasn't shit at all. The addendum here includes a manual on how to use the included microcodes.

http://n64squid.com/Nintendo Ultra64 Programming Manual+Addendums.pdf

The only thing that is missing is the how-to-make-your-own-microcode documentation. So the only things that should emulate poorly are games that use custom microcode.

And yet plenty of games that don't use custom microcode have shitty emulation regardless.
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>>3219284
>Space Quest 3 does as well, even with it's limited color palette.
That's only because Sierra were an elite-level developer and had real artists drawing the graphics instead of the programmer doing it himself.
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>>3219307
at least amiga was able to run those games faithfully

at the same time you were lucky if your pc could render at 16 colors, if any at all
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>>3219280
>Meanwhile on PC.
>Meanwhile
That's not 1986 tho.
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They might have looked better in still shots but most were horrible CGA graphics mode with 15hz framerate.

It wasn't until the 256 color era that things turned around.
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>>3219459
Yeah, it's 2 years later. But NES still looked the same while PCs continued to plow forward.
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Doom says hi. Look how amazing that game was when they finally got the power of a console behind it!
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>>3219497
>SNES
>power

pick one
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>>3219497
Reality is that most commercially available pcs at the time had to run doom in a tiny window to maintain 15 fps, no mouse and no external speakers.
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>>3219524
Oh yeah, in low detail mode.
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>>3219086

People own consoles therefor they buy games for them more than they buy games for pcs.
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>>3219524
>most

Who cares what plebs were stuck with? PCs were clearly more powerful.
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>>3219510
>consoles
>power

pick one
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>>3219510

Super Power
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>>3219556
Plenty of consoles have been more powerful (at gaming) than PCs at their launch.

SNES was not one of them.
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>>3219551
true patricians had neogeo
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>>3219551
Was the reality we were stuck with, graphics way below SNES quality. I'm not American btw so what I'm saying might not apply to your childhood.
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>>3219251
>being this mad
its an honest question. i thought that a console 20 years more primitive would be able to run fine now but like >>3219209
said, its not that easy
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>>3219741
One other thing, in computing, emulating another architecture typically takes an order of magnitude more power than the system being emulated.

We have that now for the n64, and up to the wii, if you have a good computer. For this reason good PC emulation can take several years, waiting for the PC's power to be great enough to emulate the console.
At least, that was true for a while. Now consoles just use off the shelf pc parts.
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>>3219524

In 1995? A 33Mhz 486 was entry level shit at that point, and Doom flew on that.
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>>3219287
What is it with the Amiga and angry fanboys?

You guys are worse than Applefags.
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>>3219468
This. Pc fags in this thread acting like early 80s computers looking and playing better than consoles of the time are full of shit. I'd say around early 90s was when graphics on PCs started surpassing the consoles of the day.
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>>3220468
That's because most of them are underage Steamfags who only got into PC gaming recently and always assumed that the mustard race meme has always been true. They never experienced all those shitty PC ports of Japanese arcade games and cheap knockoffs of console games that populated PC platforms back in the 90s.

There was definitely some advancements with PC gaming during the late 90s though, but I would the PC/console divide wasn't truly bridged until the introduction of the Xbox in the 2000s.
>>
Doom and Myst, Wolf3D was "almost there" but its limitations were still very obvious while Doom brought it up to a level that was difficult for any console to reproduce when it was released; same story with Myst and the point-and-click games that came before it with a cartoony art style, usually with slightly better resolution or sound than you'd get on a console (think KQ6) but nothing that would make you go "there's no way they could do that" until that point

It is amazing seeing how far people are missing the mark with wild guesses here
>>
The Amiga and benchmark games like Shadow of the Beast.

I'd really like to play it on Mega Drive/Master System since I don't own an amiga but I'm not sure are they worth my time.
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>>3220468
How is the Atari 5200 anything but a gimped Atari 400? Or the Colecovision a less capable Coleco Adam.
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>>3220468
>This. Pc fags in this thread acting like early 80s computers looking and playing better than consoles of the time are full of shit
If you're talking early 80s (as in pre-1985) this was actually true; home computers of that time were easily better than the Atari 2600 or Colecovision, but if you mean NES era then yes, they come up short at arcade-style games.
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f8Oc1ANHAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cehaqXFCGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twSBuZNTDeQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fUYD8KKV9M

Lemme show you a few examples of how fantastic PC consoles/arcade ports were once upon a time.
>>
>>3219448
A lot of Amiga arcade ports were garbage as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1i8SpE6cIc
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>>3219468
I've never heard anyone except nostalgiafags think CK was actually "good".
>>
>>3219105
Reminder that if you're going to make a statement about Ultima 4 on consoles you should look at the superior Master System port and not the NES port. But that would undermine your argument, right?
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>>3220721
Is there a system without bad ports? Maybe x68k and Towns because they were powerful, irrelevant and didn't have developers trying to rebuild a game based on their limited experience at the arcade.
>>
It's not that computer ports of arcade games couldn't have potentially been good, it's that most of them were banged out in a couple of weeks by some neckbeard in his den as opposed to console ports made by the original dev with professional coders and musicians who had an entire year to work on it.

The MSX had some quite good Konami ports because they coded the things themselves.
>>
"I felt Atari were making a mistake with their 'Bringing the arcade experience home' philosophy when the consoles weren't good enough to properly recreate arcade games. They should have instead concentrated on making great original games."

-- David Crane
>>
>>3220762
>>
>>3219730
>SNES
>256x224 resolution
>PCs already had SVGA by this time
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>>3220771
People didn't want original games. They wanted the home arcade experience.
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>>3220805
Newsflash: The market isn't always right. Sometimes you have to give people what they need instead of what they think they need.
>>
>>3220803
But not hardware-accelerated. People ITT forget that a PC just had dumb frame buffer graphics; the CPU had to move everything by brute force. It took a 100Mhz Pentium CPU to do games that were done on the Mega Drive with an 8Mhz CPU.
>>
>>3220808
What people think they need is what they buy. This is the basis of marketing.
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>>3220805
Activision sold a ton of games and made $$$, so they can't have been all wrong.
>>
You ought to try the console version of SimCity or Civ2 to see what happens when you put a PC game on a console.
>>
PC compatibles fell short at just about everything but Sierra adventures until about 1993.
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>>3220823
And even then, the Amiga could have actually done them better except that Sierra didn't care about it and just made phoned-in Amiga ports with bleepy sound.
>>
>>3219252
Now look for a picture of the game you replied to over composite and see the magic
>>
Amiga wasn't relevant in North America anyway after 1990 and we really didn't get anything but the A500.
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>>3219071
>>3220849
Why would anyone play that rubbish PC port of Arctic Fox anyway? Go play it on the Amiga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCw7Q4PkNto
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>>3220849
They had Pole Position on the PC. Same old CGA rubbish.
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>>3220850
Poor Burgers didn't know what they missed.
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>>3220849
I don't think the IBM port of Arctic Fox actually supports the CGA composite output. You can use it and get some colors, but they'll probably be pretty fucked up.
>>
>>3220506
>underage
/vr/'s favorite bullshit word to throw around when they don't have anything worthwhile to say. Is this one guy doing it all the time?
>>
>>3221126
A $1500 computer that's crushed by a $99 Sega Genesis?
>>
>>3221219
It's really the board's downfall.

Even if they're correct that that person is underage, is it really any better, having another fagot scream underage or not retro?

Honestly, I don't care if the gba becomes allowed or not, I just want the shitpsting to stop.
>>
>>3221230
You do know the Amiga 500 is three years older than the Mega Drive. Actually you'd need one of the 32-bit models to have Mega Drive-level games but those were just niche machines with hardly any software support.
>>
>>3221230
Can I do word processing or create art or music on a MD? Can I program my own games? Can I go online with it? No but an Amiga could do all those things.
>>
>>3221235
Yes. You would need a 32-bit Amiga to even come close to the Genesis. Sad.
>>
Yeh but a Genesis can't do the company payroll as good as a hulking 386 PC so...
>>
>>3221237
No you can't do those things on a Sega Genesis. So unless your Dad needed to use some sorta obscure euro software for work I'd consider it a poor choice for a gaming machine.
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>>3221305
Why is that a surprise though? The 32-bit Amigas are more of the Mega Drive's contemporary than the A500 which is a NES-era machine.
>>
>>3221315
I can't tell if you are arguing with me or agreeing with me. I was heavily implying that these expensive home computers were a waste of money for gaming compared to consoles of their respective generations.
>>
>>3221328
The point I was making is that you're acting surprised and shocked that you need an A3000/4000 to do Mega Drive kinds of games when those machines were from the same era as the MD while the A500 is a NES-era machine.

> I was heavily implying that these expensive home computers were a waste of money for gaming compared to consoles of their respective generations

A computer though can do many more things than gaming, also it can do certain game genres (especially sims and adventure games) better than consoles.
>>
No idea about the Amiga, but a typical consumer PC clone from 1988-91 (Genesis era) would have struggled doing games like Strider or Streets of Rage.
>>
>>3218983
>What games showcased and/or what time period were the "turning points" to when PC games started to look better than console games?

All the top selling ones, really.

Just note that IBM PCs only caught up from the early 90s and solidified their position once 3d accelerators got out. Before that, they were business machines with the occasional game - if you want 80s computers that looked better than consoles, look at the Amigas.
>>
>>3221349
If you mean some 386SX shitbox, yeah that couldn't do Genesis types of games at all. You'd need some $6000 workstation to brute force it in software because PC video cards were just dumb frame buffers.
>>
>>3219316
I Robot was an extremely high end machine that had severe maintenance issues due to complexity, and not many of them were made.

Did I mention that it was also a huge commercial flop?
>>
>>3221358
It's a graphics issue. Even a 286 could have done that shit if there had been a video card with hardware sprite/scrolling support (remember that the Genny had an 8Mhz 68000). When the CPU has to do all the work...
>>
>>3219348
>N64 and Saturn are both an architectural nightmare which is why the emulation for them is less-than perfect.

No, emulation for them is imperfect because they either have no exclusive games worth playing, or because a D3D wrapper can make 90% of the library playable.
>>
>>3221361
Probably more like a 386 because the 286 is a weaker CPU than the 68000 with only the advantage of an on-chip MMU. Considering that it's also two years newer than the 68000, Intel done fucked up.
>>
>>3221349
They did have Strider on the PC and it sucks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGw12XCTnM
>>
>>3221231
Exactly. They're frequently wrong when they call underage, but that's not even the point. Even in the times they happen to be right that the person they disagree with is younger, they're still not making a real argument. "I'm older than you so believe what I tell you" is pathetic any way you slice it.
>>
>>3221390
Millenial shitbabby detected.
>>
>>3221378
That's kind of an asspull because the game is designed to run on a CGA/EGA 8086 PC. If you did it for a VGA-equipped 386, that would be another story but in 1989 that would have cost you like $5000 and who wants to pay that much to game.
>>
>>3221410
Actually there were two big things that caused the price of 386 hardware to drop.

1. Intel began licensing clone manufacturers whereas they had been the sole source of 386 chips prior to 1990
2. The 386SX chip came out which allowed the use of cheaper 16-bit components
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>>3221402
0/10
>>
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Pilot wings had bedder grafix than ne thing on pc by far and it went 60 fps. Nothing on pc was 60 fps and 3d. Commander keen was shit and was released around the same time as mario world.
>>
>>3221458
MS Flight Simulator 4?
Consoles couldn't into 70 Hz.
>>
>>3221458
Then again, CK is still 16-bit EGA shit. It's not taking advantage of then-current 32-bit VGA hardware.
>>
>>3221473
ID/Apogee games were just poorfag crap for people with outdated PCs and little kids who got hand-me-downs.
>>
>>3218983
If you want a CONCRETE example of when the divide became prominent, I'd say the original Doom/Wolfenstien/X-Wing games are a good starting point. Heck, here's Wing Commander from 1990:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlokYOPAa0o

A significant number of PC games from the early 90's exhibit graphical/processing fidelity that was ahead of console tech at the time.

Also, keep in mind that building PCs in the 90's was a bit harder than it is now. Things were generally less user-friendly.
>>
>>3221504
>If you want a CONCRETE example of when the divide became prominent
See >>3218987

The divide has been there since the beginning.
>>
>>3221473
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCI5q1XbdBw

It's not bad for what it it is, but this came out in 1991 and looks more like 1986-87.
>>
Crysis
>>
>>3221516
Also while the framerate is pretty good compared to most EGA games, I bet you still need a 386 to get more than like 10 fps. If you ran CK on an 8086, it's sure not gonna run that smoothly.
>>
>>3221510
Evidence > anecdotal hear-say
>>
>>3218987
Lol, compare Commander Keen to an NES side scroller. Not even close.
>>
>>3221521
But it came out in the early 90s when new PCs were all 386/486s so IDK why that was a concern.
>>
>>3221527
>compare Commander Keen to an NES side scroller

It's about comparable to one of the earlier NES games like Ninja Kid. But all this proves is that they were making 1986's game in 1991.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxR6U8KP99s
>>
>>3219313
That's directly related to hardware and you know it, hombre.
>>
>>3221532
>>3221527
Again, CK was designed for an 8086 and EGA.
>>
>>3221538
So NES-era hardware. In 1991. Proving nothing.
>>
>>3221538
NES did it better at the time is all I'm saying. Obviously PCs have surpassed consoles for like the past 2 decades, but there was no contest between the launch of the Famicom and the release of DOOM.
>>
>>3221504
Here's Comanche: Maximumum Overkill, from 1992

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1u3EoN-6V0

Makes the 16 bit consoles look like jokes.
>>
>>3221548
>>3221527
>>3221532
What about SMB3 or Kirby? Those are NES scrollers that look waaaaay more advanced than Commander Keen.
>>
>>3221551
Then again, this is designed for a VGA 386. As pointed out earlier ITT, that hardware existed as far back as 1987, but would have cost a couple thousand bucks.
>>
The PC port of Cool Spot looks like trash compared to the Genesis even thought it's also using VGA/386 hardware.
>>
>>3221552
That's because Commander Keen is an ugly game with ugly graphics. This isn't about cherry picking a few specific examples, it's about graphics overall. PCs were simply ahead of consoles.
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>>3221601
>That's because Commander Keen is an ugly game with ugly graphics
It's not any worse than the typical Famicom game which isn't much to look at either.
>>
>>3221598
While true, it was developed by Virgin Games who weren't all that great of a developer to begin with and they probably half-assed it. If you compare PC games made by quality devs like Sierra, Microprose, and LucasArts, they easily hung with the best console titles.
>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssXYwAW7Lp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6ok5_1y2c

The PC port of Garfield Caught In The Act is as good as the Genesis port graphically and it has better music because CD audio.
>>
>>3221592
So? By 1992 cost a couple hundred bucks.
>>
>>3221629
>couple hundred
This is how I know you're under 20. Our 486 in 1995 was roughly a mid-range model and it cost about $2000.
>>
>>3221615
Which is part of why side scrollers are a bad example to use, because a lot of it just comes down to the art.

But when NES was still stuck running games like Pole Position and Rad Racer, PCs were blowing them out of the water.
>>
>>3221626
Ok but looking at the specs for that game...

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/garfield-caught-in-the-act/techinfo

...reveals that it needs a 486 minimum to run. All that proves is that it took a 33Mhz 32-bit $1600-2000 computer to do the same stuff as a $200 console with an 8Mhz CPU.
>>
>>3221634
They're now trying to change the discussion. Once it was shown unquestionably that PCs were more graphically advanced than consoles, they still want to be right. So they are trying to re-frame the question by talking about cheap computers. It's all kind of surreal.
>>
>>3221637
>All that proves is that it took a 33Mhz 32-bit $1600-2000 computer to do the same stuff as a $200 console with an 8Mhz CPU.

All of that is completely beside the point.
>>
>>3219335
quake 2 on a voodoo 2 already looked better than its console counterparts
>>
>>3221635
They never had Pole Position on the NES, but putting that aside, Indy 500 came out two years after Rad Racer. On the other hand, here's Chase HQ which is from the same year and it looks way cruder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6efo4xJy12c
>>
If you go back to the Atari era, most of the home computer ports of Donkey Kong looked and played fairly nice and had all four screens.

For example, this is the TI-99/4A port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tDebgmxBQ

Now look at the completely embarrassing Atari 2600 port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzI1RBdK2_g
>>
>>3221661
Then explain this, PeeCeefag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPYJsxeQOMc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cehaqXFCGE

The PC port is a complete trainwreck compared to the NES version which is running on a goddamn 1Mhz 8-bit CPU.
>>
>>3221661
That's cheap as fuck considering the Texas Instruments is a 16-bit computer and also newer hardware than the Atari 2600.
>>
>>3221653
>quake 2 on a voodoo 2 already looked better than its console counterparts

Although not by every metric. It was only 16 bit color on Voodoo 2 while N64 was 24 bit color with Expansion Pak. Of course the Voodoo 2 version was superior overall, but the point was that it took until 1999 for PC to be better in every department (hardware T&L in particular).

Conker on N64 has better lighting effects than any PC game before 1999. Yes, it's a game released in 2001 but it's still made for the same old 1996 console hardware. Without a dedicated T&L processor it's very difficult to do that level of lighting in software. Once the GeForce 256 came along in 1999, PC was given T&L and could easily do high quality lighting like consoles.
>>
>>3221674
Ok, if you want to argue that, here's the Apple II port of DK. The Apple II came out the same year as the Atari 2600 (1977) and it has weaker sound, no sprites, and less color yet its DK still runs rings around the 2600 port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8T9jvZH_s
>>
>>3221685
It would have been way too expensive to equip a PC with a T&L processor in 1996.

See >>3221592

If you had $7000 to spend, you could get a PC in 1987 that blew away a NES graphically as well.
>>
>>3221687
You know that that was designed to run on an Apple II+ with 48k of RAM whereas the Atari 2600 had like 4k of cartridge ROM and 128 bytes of RAM.
>>
>>3221685
>Yes, it's a game released in 2001 but it's still made for the same old 1996 console hardware. Without a dedicated T&L processor it's very difficult to do that level of lighting in software. Once the GeForce 256 came along in 1999, PC was given T&L and could easily do high quality lighting like consoles.
This is an asspull because Conker came out (as you said) in 2001 after PCs had T&L processors. A 2001 PC was more than capable of doing a game made in 2001.

Meanwhile, if you looked at N64 games from 1996, they were primitive shit like SM64 that looked nowhere near at the level of Conker.
>>
>>3221701
But we're talking about hardware. A game like Conker could have been theoretically made in 1996 if the developers had the know how.

But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.
>>
>>3221708
>But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.
You definitely could have done it in 96, but it would have required super-expensive hardware way out of the reach of consumers.

If you compare an actual 1996 game like SM64, an average PC of that time should have been able to do that fairly easily.
>>
>>3221714
>You definitely could have done it in 96, but it would have required super-expensive hardware way out of the reach of consumers.

Yes, you would need an SGI workstation basically. But it's interesting because even the most basic SGI workstation is like an N64 times ten, so it just shows how far PC was from specialized hardware in those days.

>If you compare an actual 1996 game like SM64, a PC of that time should have been able to do that fairly easily.

Without a 3D accelerator card (and let's face it, in 1996, before 3dfx, they were all garbage) it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality. So no perspective correct, no texture filtering, z-buffer, no shiny metal mario, etc.

Of course once 3dfx came into play it wasn't a problem. The UltraHLE emulator, the first N64 emulator, was capable of emulating Mario 64 rather decently with a baseline of high-end 1997 PC hardware.
>>
>>3221717
Then why did Bad Dudes and most late 80s arcade ports on the PC look awful compared with NES games of the time?
>>
>>3221725
>Without a 3D accelerator card (and let's face it, in 1996, before 3dfx, they were all garbage) it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality

SM64 is, what, 320x200 resolution? PC games at that time were usually 640x480. The original Tomb Raider came out in 96 and it's not worse than any console platformer out that year.
>>
>>3221729
How about the Amiga Bad Dudes? This looks a lot more arcade-accurate than the NES and it also gets in the two player mode which the NES doesn't have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIEtzqIt-sg
>>
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>>3221735
>PC games at that time were usually 640x480.

You're not going to be playing complex 3D games in software mode on 1996 hardware anywhere near 640x480. High resolutions hit CPUs extremely hard in software mode.

You want 640x480 you need a 3dfx Voodoo.
>>
>>3221735
That's because the console version of Tomb Raider was developed first, although to be fair it plays more like a cinematic platformer ala Prince of Persia than a character based collectathon platformer.
>>
>>3221725
>it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality. So no perspective correct, no texture filtering, z-buffer, no shiny metal mario, etc
The typical PC in 1996 was a 100-166Mhz Pentium. This is broadly comparable to the N64's CPU which is 93Mhz and the fact that the latter is also 64-bit can be ignored since no games actually used 64-bit code anyway.

While most of the N64's advanced features like perspective correcting would have been tough to pull off in software, the early games from 96-97 didn't really use them anyway. The late stuff like Indy and the Infernal Machine did, but that was in 2001 by which time you had 700-800Mhz PCs.
>>
>>3221738
To be fair, you're not going to be doing them on a N64 either given that almost all its games use 320x200 because 640x480 mode was extremely resource-demanding.
>>
It's all good then. If you did a PC port of SM64 in VGA Mode 13 (thus giving you the same approximate resolution as the N64), that should have been a cakewalk for a mid-90s Pentium box.
>>
>>3221750
>The typical PC in 1996 was a 100-166Mhz Pentium. This is broadly comparable to the N64's CPU which is 93Mhz

That's besides the point. The only processor inside of a typical 1996 PC was the CPU. It had to do absolutely all of the 3D processing.

The N64 also has RSP (hardware T&L chip) and RDP (3D drawing accelerator). These are specialist chips that take huge amounts of load off the N64's CPU, and are much more efficient per clock at their 3D specific tasks than a PC CPU (which is a general purpose processor).

PC evened the odds with the 3dfx Voodoo, finally giving PC a competent 3D drawing accelerator. T&L continued to be handled by the CPU so PC users at the time needed constant upgrades since CPUs were getting hit very hard by increasing graphical demands.

>While most of the N64's advanced features like perspective correcting would have been tough to pull off in software, the early games from 96-97 didn't really use them anyway

They didn't use them on PC because developers didn't want the games running at 5 fps. But Mario 64 *as is* could not have run on a 1996 PC without compromises. No matter how good the port.

On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.

For Conker? That wouldn't have been enough.
>>
>>3221739
Tomb Raider does run in 640x480 though and it has no problem getting a decent framerate on an original Pentium.
>>
>>3221772
>On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.
>For Conker? That wouldn't have been enough.

Except Conker was out in 2001 which was when you had 800-900Mhz PCs. 200Mhz was 1997 stuff.
>>
>>3221708
>But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.

If you kept it running at 240x160 or so like how Conker did, then you definitely could have it done in 1996.
>>
>>3221782
>Except Conker was out in 2001 which was when you had 800-900Mhz PCs. 200Mhz was 1997 stuff.

But Conker is still running on 1996 era hardware. The console hardware doesn't magically change because year has changed.

Obviously 1996 hardware is going to be old hat 5 years later.

Running 2001 era PC games on a 1996 PC will yield much uglier results than Conker I can assure you :^)
>>
>>3221738
>You're not going to be playing complex 3D games in software mode on 1996 hardware anywhere near 640x480.

Duke3d could run in 640x480 iirc. Blood supported 800x600, but granted that was much later.
>>
>>3221772
>But Mario 64 *as is* could not have run on a 1996 PC without compromises. No matter how good the port.
>On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.

Keeping in mind that because a PC has to brute force everything in software, you need a CPU 2x faster than the one in a console. Since the N64's CPU is 93Mhz, the gap between it and an average 1996 PC is fairly small. I had a Pentium box made that year which was 133Mhz so only about 15% faster than the N64. A 200Mhz Pentium matches that 2x faster spec so that's enough to replicate Mario 64.

If you wanted to compare PS1 games, then that thing is only 33Mhz and has much simpler 3D hardware so a Pentium PC could easily do that.
>>
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>>3221789
>If you kept it running at 240x160 or so like how Conker did, then you definitely could have it done in 1996.

This would only be the case if T&L didn't exist.

The T&L load is irrespective of resolution. If you run the game at 1080p or 240p it still has to do the same amount of T&L. Conker is a HARDCORE T&L game. T&L is very slow on a general purpose CPU like a Pentium. Instead you want a vector unit. Vector units have something like 8 times the performance per clock at T&L than a CPU.

It's the 3D drawing acceleration that is hit by resolution increases.
>>
>>3221790
The difference is that for Conker, they spent 4 years optimizing for a single piece of hardware.

If you took 1 PC from 1996 and optimized the hell out of it direct to metal, then it could've done a lot of insane shit. But then it would've only run on that one configuration.

Cross compatibility is the price that PCs have to pay, but in return they can get 1 piece of software running in billions of configurations decades later.
>>
>>3221790
The hardware doesn't magically change on a console, but PC hardware was continuously evolving along with games. Say, the NES came out originally in 1983. You're definitely not going to do Kirby's Adventure on a 1983 IBM XT, but the game came out an entire decade after that when you had 486 PCs that could more than easily handle a port of it.
>>
>>3221794
Read this post more carefully >>3221772

Specifically this line
>The N64 also has RSP (hardware T&L chip) and RDP (3D drawing accelerator). These are specialist chips that take huge amounts of load off the N64's CPU, and are much more efficient per clock at their 3D specific tasks than a PC CPU (which is a general purpose processor).

I should also mention the N64's CPU is a MIPS RISC processor which has better integer performance per clock than a CISC processor like the original Pentium (although not being super-scalar it is a lot slower at floating point - but it doesn't need to be fast at 3D maths since that's what the RSP vector unit is for).

It's very very dangerous to try and determine the performance of a processor by looking at the clock speed. As mentioned here >>3221802
Vector units are ridiculously faster than CPUs per clock at vector maths. A 50mhz vector unit might outperform a 400mhz CPU at vector maths.
>>
>>3221685
I thought conker didn't need the expansion pak? What does it change?
>>
>>3221810
>It's very very dangerous to try and determine the performance of a processor by looking at the clock speed
Actually I mentioned earlier ITT that a 286 was a weaker CPU than the 68000 despite similar clock speeds as the 68000 has 32-bit registers and flat memory instead of segment/protected mode fuckery.
>>
>>3221806
>If you took 1 PC from 1996 and optimized the hell out of it direct to metal, then it could've done a lot of insane shit.

But that's not possible. There's nothing to optimize. Your 1996 PC just has a Pentium CPU and that's it. No "direct to metal" components exist. You're not going to get performance out of it that can compete with a vector unit and 3D drawing accelerator while also doing the general processing at the same time.

>>3221807
Yes, hence the original point being that the release of GeForce 256 in 1999 heralded the complete and permanent end of console superiority in ANY technical area.
>>
>>3221794
200Mhz in 1996 was middle of the road, we already had 300Mhz processors by then.
>>
>>3221810
>although not being super-scalar it is a lot slower at floating point - but it doesn't need to be fast at 3D maths since that's what the RSP vector unit is for)

Besides, a game console doesn't need to be able to run Excel or AutoCAD while a PC very much did have to be able to run them.
>>
>>3218987
aren't you a little young for this board?
>>
>>3221829
>we already had 300Mhz processors by then.

The first 300mhz Pentium came out in 1997. Fastest CPU of 1996 was the Pentium Pro 200 and it cost a gorrilion dollars.
>>
>>3221829
I'm pretty sure in 96 that low-end consumer PCs were in the 90Mhz range and that 166Mhz was high end. I don't think you would have found 200Mhz CPUs on anything but an SGI workstation.
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>>3221821
>No "direct to metal" components exist.

Yeah, I think you should just stop arguing here if you think that bypassing the entire HAL enforced by Windows would not give you a huge performance boost. There's a reason why it sucked hard for games until DirectX was introduced around 1996 - and even that only gave you a generic way to do more graphic intensive tasks that Windows needed.

This is a stupid argument anyway: PCs were office machines, so obviously they could not hold up to a stock SGI accelerator based console at the time. But if you get a proper SGI workstation (the thing that was meant to do rendering at the time), then the N64 suddenly looks like cheap toy performance wise.

Arguing that a 1996 PC can't run Conker is like arguing that a typewriter can't do Tetris.
>>
>>3221821
>But that's not possible. There's nothing to optimize. Your 1996 PC just has a Pentium CPU and that's it. No "direct to metal" components exist. You're not going to get performance out of it that can compete with a vector unit and 3D drawing accelerator while also doing the general processing at the same time.

Sure, if you had an SGI workstation you could do Indy and the Infernal Machine in 1996, but who wants to pay $10,000 to play a video game?
>>
>>3221842
>Arguing that a 1996 PC can't run Conker is like arguing that a typewriter can't do Tetris

In theory yes since the CPUs in PCs of that time are at or above the performance level of the VR4300 in the N64, but the actual 3D hardware needed to pull it off was way too expensive for a PC gamer.
>>
>>3221842
Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance, but there are physical limits to what you can get out of it.

The biggest "code to the metal" trick that you could do on them was take advantage of super-scalar twin pipeline to do free perspective divides. Quake did it which is why the textures don't warp on walls. But even so, it's very economic perspective correct (something like one divide per 16 pixels interpolated) while SGI machines like the N64 do perspective correct per every pixel.

Although for all we know, Conker's microcode might have been modified to reduce the accuracy too for better performance I suppose.
>>
>>3221853
>Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance, but there are physical limits to what you can get out of it.
>The biggest "code to the metal" trick that you could do on them was take advantage of super-scalar twin pipeline to do free perspective divides. Quake did it which is why the textures don't warp on walls. But even so, it's very economic perspective correct (something like one divide per 16 pixels interpolated) while SGI machines like the N64 do perspective correct per every pixel.

Obviously when the CPU has to brute force everything because you have dumb frame buffer graphics, you're limited in what you can do with that.

I mean, come on. The Mac 128 and Genesis have the same CPU, yet the difference in supporting hardware is night and day.
>>
>>3221867
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU7GUkCbmqs

For example, let's see a Mac Plus or SE do this. It's no different than the PC/N64 comparison - when the CPU has to do all the work by itself...
>>
>>3221810
The N64 hardware is also specifically optimized for gaming while the PC is not.
>>
>>3219378
please, go and make a decent n64 emulator, oh wise one
>>
>>3221842
And the whole time, people have systematically ignored the fact that 90% of N64 games are only 320x200 resolution and only a few late titles use 640x480 while that was the norm for late 90s PC games.
>>
>>3221897
>>3221775
Tomb Raider also doesn't have perspective correction or any of the other advanced 3D features seen in SM64.
>>
>>3221897
Like I said, it probably would not have been that hard to pull off SM64 on an original Pentium if you limited it to 320x200 which is low calorie enough that you can probably brute force everything in software.
>>
>>3221914
I'm not gonna argue that, however it wouldn't have looked too good to have PC games running in 320x200 resolution in the late 90s since the market at that time demanded 640x480. Consoles could get away with it in part because they had various hardware features to mask blur, plus a CRT TV provides free anti-aliasing. A RGB PC monitor at 320x200 looks jagged af. That would have been very unacceptable in 1997.
>>
>>3221885
And that's the debate: when did the average general purpose pc overtake dedicated gaming machines.

Personaly, belive it to be around the advent of the 3dfx Voodoo.
>>
>>3221926
Yeh but then again like I said, you're not gonna do decent 3D on a 100Mhz CPU with no hardware acceleration that way. Even the consoles at the time avoided 640x480 because it was too resource-intensive. Unless you wanted 5 fps, it was not a good idea to have N64 games use that.
>>
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>>3221932
>>3221926
While it's true that 640x480 would have been too much for 3D platformers, I assume they probably didn't worry much about it because most late 90s PC games were CRPGs, adventures, or simulations that had strictly 2D graphics and relatively minimal animation.

For example, here's Sanitarium. The game doesn't do much except have 1-2 characters moving around so despite the 640x480 resolution, it's putting only a very light load on the PC. Whereas a game like Mario Kart has a lot of stuff moving around on top of having to render/perform 3D calculations.
>>
>>3221853
>Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance
One reason why PC arcade ports in the NES era sucked was because most of the time, they had to go through the slow DOS/BIOS calls while C64 and Amiga games mostly just write to the bare metal.
>>
>>3221964
But that's only an issue when setting video modes or loading disk files. Actual graphics code was just writing to the VRAM buffer.
>>
>>3221976
It's also an issue when interfacing with the keyboard since you have to go through the slow af BIOS. Joysticks on a PC don't have to go through the BIOS, but there was no standardized setup for them like on a console and there's a lot of variance with different sticks, CPU speeds, and game port adapters.
>>
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>>3218983
Depends on what type of PC you are talking about.

Sharp X6800 was released in 1987 and had better looking games than the SNES and Genesis. The Neo-Geo could probably beat it.

More mainstream games, maybe around 1997 or 1998 when 3d add-in cards become very popular with PC gamers and you had games like Quake II and Half-Life out that looked distinctly better (in terms of polygons and lighting) than the console games.

However IMO a lot of PC games still looked shitty up into the 2000s. Too brown and dirty looking.
>>
>>3219497
If Carmack himself had done those ports you know they would have been amazing. The man was a wizard.
>>
>>3221794
Yeah, the hype that the N64 was the most powerful gaming machine ever built at that point was not completely false. It would have take an real strong PC (and vastly more expensive) to equal it.
>>
>>3218983
PC's have always had their strengths compared to consoles (and their weaknesses).

Through the 90s I was often taken aback by the clarity of computer games compared to consoles because I was looking a 640x480 or 800x600 screen with an RGB connection. You could see every little pixel.
>>
>>3221930
>a pc with a $450 3dfx voodoo card in it was general purpose
Really you're right though that's when PCs became truly superior gaming hardware than consoles however the price disparity led to the best games still being console focused until much later. It's only been in the last few years that game capable PCs became price competitive and enjoyed similar installation bases to consoles.

Now the only things saving consoles are artificial contract-exclusive titles and we're rightly seeing the impending death of the game console
>>
Nonetheless, I'm still fairly convinced that SM64 was doable on a 1996 PC if you limited it to 320x200 resolution.
>>
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>>3222006
>impying
>>
>>3222179
you could of found a better screenshot of unreal than that
>>
>>3221634
I'm 29.

Unless my family were secretly rich at the time, there's no titty fucking way my dad spent 2 grand on either our 386, or the 486 that replaced it.

I should point out, he built them all from parts. No prebuilt shit.
>>
>>3222217
What year were those systems built? 1996-1999?
>>
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>>3221687
You could improve the sound with extra cards, unlike certain other computers with little to no expandability.
>>
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>>3222179
I am suspicious of that screenshot's authenticity for 1998. However, it was a very nice looking game. Certainly better looking than Turok.
>>
>>3222217
I'm 31. We got a surplus 386 from a local college and it still cost $100 in 1999.

486's were still in use here and there and would have cost double that. In 1999.

A real Pentium or better desktop PC? No less than $500.

Prices dropped like a rock a few years later, so it's understandable if you don't believe this on first reading.
>>
>>3222179
The game's title was fitting. It was like the Metroid Prime of the PC (or rather the other way around), a game that was way ahead of its time in graphics.
>>
>>3219043
Who the fuck cares about Crapple and Atari? Fuck off, yank.
>>
>>3220803
We're talking about Doom here. No doom engine games even ran at 360x280 modeX, let alone SVGA.
>>
>>3222120
What a load of shit, for my voodoo card, I paid a minute fraction of the cost of my PC, and the graphics quality soared.
>>
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>>3222015
That would be an idiotic waste. If he did the ports for later CD based systems, at least they would have had a cross compatible engine to license.
>>
>>3220809
Oh, you think?
>>
>>3222801
I know, I'm just saying the SNES had the power for a better Doom port if it was optimized for it. The SNES ought to be able to play anything that will run on a 386.
>>
>>3222791
A Voodoo isn't a complete graphical package because your CPU has to do T&L as well.

So for good gaming performance you also had to spend more money on a beefier CPU.
>>
>>3222791
Voodoo cards retailed at about $300, well above the cost of a video game console at the time.
>>
>>3222912
By V2 they did offload more stuff to the card. Voodoo2 is less processor dependent that the original, since it incorporates full triangle setup, relieving the processor of those duties.
>>
>>3222997
That's a step forward, but triangle setup is the least intensive part of T&L (if it can even be broadly included in that category). Even the Rendition Verite did triangle setup.
>>
>>3222850
No, for starters, the SNES ought to play nothing that requires a joystick or steering wheel. To be fair, a gamepad was quite good for doom, especially with shoulder buttons... but they already pushed it with all those add on chips slipped into the system. And I don't see 386es running barely any games made for SNES, or even 486es. How about just one final fantasy title?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRicpWfML8Y

And I happen to have played doom on a cyrix "486", the kind that used a 386 board and just had the 486 instruction set. It was lousy.
>>
>>3222912
No games prior to 2000 supported hardware T&L so it doesn’t matter if the Voodoo cant do it.
>>
>>3222912
Screw that properly beefy CPU, back then, the MMX snakeoil was getting paraded out. Followed up by 3dnow. Fat load of good those gimmicks did.

Also depends what you mean by good performance, are you expecting 640x480 for everything? 512x384 looked quite nice by the standards back then.

>>3222952
Saturn costed more than that, and voodoo cards dropped in pricing quite well and had some great game bundles.
>>
>>3222217
It was a prebuilt, actually a Micron.
>>
>>3222518
Who the fuck cares about Sinclair and BBC Micro? Fuck off, Yurosemen.
>>
>>3222518
With Japanese systems you get a similar picture. PC-8801 from Shouwa 56 vs a Epoch Cassette Vision from Shouwa 56 for instance.
>>
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>>3222295
That's nice for the 3-4 games that actually could use the Mockingboard.
>>
>>3223229
And the one that lets you use two.
>>
>>3222429
>>3222217
>implying anyone cares about your age
>implying it's not highly lame when the only thing you have going for you in your life to lord over people is that you've celebrated more birthdays than them
>>
>>3221552
That's an asspull though because those games both use the MMC3 mapper to do some things that the base NES hardware can't.
>>
>>3220803
During the SNES era, 90% of PC games used VGA Mode 13. Only business software actually took advantage of SVGA resolutions.
>>
>>3221738
I ran Total Annihilation on an original Pentium. It would slow to like 2 fps when there was a lot of stuff going on.
>>
>>3223132
>And I don't see 386es running barely any games made for SNES, or even 486es
You saying a 386-486 PC couldn't handle SNES games?
>>
>>3223252
I bet you're not gonna do DKC or Starfox on them.
>>
>>3223257
Those games use Super FX chips though; you'd need a Pentium to pull them off. An unexpanded SNES shouldn't be all that difficult for a 486 to emulate; the CPU is only 4Mhz and general rule is that to brute force stuff in software, you need a CPU 2-3 faster.
>>
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>>3223242
Does Settlers 1 count as business software?
>>
>>3223270
Nonetheless, that game does also support normal 320x200 resolution.
>>
>>3223257
>I bet you're not gonna do DKC or Starfox on them.

I don't even know why you bring up DKC, it was the most generic platform game ever, it only used prerendered sprites and that was its big feature. A C64 can do that.

As for Starfox:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbegNmKRZUM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geyps1bNqEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuSxg4I1WQU
>>
>>3223314
Nonetheless, NASCAR Racing required a hulk of a PC to run in SVGA mode. The average person was going to only be able to run that in 320x200.
>>
>>3223268
A 486 but even a 386 from the era is leaps and bounds faster than the SNES main cpu.

The only advantage the SNES has is that it has dedicated video hardware that can do sprites and backgrounds. A PC does not have that, it has to bruteforce all graphics on a framebuffer. But provided you have a fast 2d blitter card, that's not much of an issue. PC titles in 1993 were doing vector graphics more and more often.

An Amiga would be a better comparison since it has hardware sprites; but it has a much weaker cpu (a 68k). A lot of games from the era looked the best on Amigas, while their PC versions were often less colourful.
>>
>>3223339
>Nonetheless, NASCAR Racing required a hulk of a PC to run in SVGA mode. The average person was going to only be able to run that in 320x200.

And Starfox required an on-cart accelerator chip to be able to run in 256x224 at 15fps. What is your point?
>>
>>3223252
I don't see such a lot of games being ported from SNES to DX1s.

Megaman X3 required a pentium 90!

Only the original Bomberman was ported.

I have no idea what sort of ports you're talking about even, Pascal, C, or whatnot, but X86 assembler ports are of course way beyond outlandish.
>>
>>3223343
It's quite different from the N64/PC comparison earlier where the performance gap between the N64 and a late 90s PC was considerably smaller. PS1 games would have been easy for a Pentium/PII to pull off, N64 and Saturn games would be much harder.
>>
>>3223367
>Megaman X3 required a pentium 90!
However, it's also running in 640x480 resolution while the SNES original of course is 256x224. If you did MMX3 in only 320x200, a 486 could have pulled that off.
>>
>>3223367
>Only the original Bomberman was ported
Also that PC port of Bomberman came out many years after the NES game which was originally out in Japan in 1986.
>>
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>>3218983
On the technical aspect it was in 1984, when this happened.
>>
>>3223385
That's not the original Bomberman, which was a computer exclusive game from 83.
Famicom Bomberman came out in 85 and was ported to the MSX in 86.
Not sure what it has to do with the SNES either, that would be Super Bomberman.
>>
>>3223375
Point proven about PC superiority though. The SNES does have a high-res 512x224 mode, but almost nothing uses it because you don't want 5 fps games.
>>
Unfair anyway because the SNES's commercial heyday occurred when PCs were 386/486s that almost exclusively ran games in 320x200. MMX3 was ported in 1997 which is 5th gen era.
>>
LOL go and look up video of Mayhem in Monsterland. This was in 1993 and an 11 year old computer with a 1Mhz CPU completely ran circles around PC rubbish.
>>
>>3223375
How much did that actually benefit it? Sounds like it might have compensated for reduced amount of CRT blurring that the sprites were designed for. Yeah, X1 was ported to DOS, but the music was mangled.

Though I'll give you one thing, cool spot was able to run on a 386 with 2mb of ram.
>>
>>3223412
The SNES was still alive and kicking in 95 and 96.
>>
>>3223416
The C64 was pretty much outdated the instant the Amiga arrived anyways.
>>
>>3223397
>The SNES does have a high-res 512x224 mode, but almost nothing uses it because you don't want 5 fps games.

No, it's not used because it can only do 1 background and 4-colour sprites in that mode.

>>3223416
>LOL go and look up video of Mayhem in Monsterland. This was in 1993 and an 11 year old computer with a 1Mhz CPU completely ran circles around PC rubbish.

Mayhem was rubbish.

>>3223367
I'm pretty sure that Super Star Wars was ported to PC DOS.
>>
>>3223395
Right, the classic bomberman then.

On the SNES, it was super bomberman 1-3, if you exclude japanese releases. Otherwise, it had the 3rd to 7th titles in the series, not quite, I know there were important, likeable bomberman titles on other systems with more special names.
>>
>>3223430
>Mayhem was rubbish

As compared to PC games and their interactive story books and mindless generic dungeon crawlers?
>>
>>3223416
Extremely bullshit comparison because the Rowlands brothers practiced almost an insane degree of fine tuning and code optimisation on Creatures and MIM (not to mention taking advantage of assorted l33t hax0r tricks with the VIC-II and SID), in addition the C64 had only a single configuration. In theory you could do that on a PC, but it would only run well on one of the myriad of PCs out there.

And even then, they were an extreme exception to the mountains of poor-designed shit tape games available from the Tesco discount bin.
>>
>>3223430
>I'm pretty sure that Super Star Wars was ported to PC DOS

http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/super-star-wars-series

Nope.
>>
>>3223430
>I'm pretty sure that Super Star Wars was ported to PC DOS.

No, I believe lucasarts was devoted to churning out adventure titles back then.
>>
>>3223469
>I don't know about Tie Fighter
I wish we banned all people under 21 from this website, I really would.
>>
We had Giana Sisters, Creatures, Turrican, Dizzy, Football Manager, Rock Star Ate My Hamster, Jack the Nipper. What did Americans have? Sierra and their silly interactive storybooks? Shovelware like those Hi-Tech Expressions licenced games? Abysmal arcade ports that ran in CGA graphics?
>>
>>3223489
The good interactive storybooks were in Japan.
>>
>>3223494
Those were shit too.
>>
>>3223489
What about all the terrible C64 arcade ports made by Ocean? That can't be blamed on Americans.
>>
>>3223504
Just because you suck at them doesn't make them bad.
>>
>>3223314
>A C64 can do that

Didn't they put DKC on the 8-bit GBC as well?
>>
>>3223235
End yourself, Millenial shitbabby.
>>
Why do Yuropoors gloat over their shitty 8-bit computer copies of console games in the early 90s when Americans were perfecting FPSes?
>>
>>3223421
>Though I'll give you one thing, cool spot was able to run on a 386 with 2mb of ram.

I believe the Genesis version used a 1MB ROM? Though Genesis games are probably less code dense than a PC.
>>
In the old times PC games looked far better than console games. Just compare some C64 games with Atari 2600 games.
>>
>>3223643
>Atari 2600
>released in 1977
>C64
>released in 1982 half a decade later
Uh...
>>
C64 is more of a NES contemporary than the Atari 2600 anyway.
>>
>>3223489
Please don't assume all Euros are like this cunt. I will gladly admit we were far behind America in terms of computer tech. The Apple II came out in '77 when Sinclair were still peddling calculator kits. The ZX81 came out when the IBM PC was being developed. We had Amigas with 800k floppies and no hard disk into the early 90s when Americans had 386 PCs.

I will add that by the 90s, PCs were becoming more common over here and shovelware was disappearing.
>>
>>3223684
I know what you mean. I had a Spectrum as a child, then when I saw Nintendo games running, I realised just what cheap, awful, and hard to control rubbish most home computer games were. A lot of the things weren't even beatable and would just lock up when you got to a certain level.
>>
>>3223385
To quantify, the PC Bomberman was released in 1992. Had it been released when the NES version was out, that would have been when everything was still CGA 8086 PCs.
>>
IIRC, the N64's 640x480 mode required a certain microcode to unlock and Nintendo didn't provide it to most devs other than Rareware.
>>
>>3223727
Yes and as I said, 640x480 mode was extremely resource-intensive which is why very few games used it. I think the PS1 also had a 640x480 mode, but it was only used for static screens.
>>
>>3223339
NASCAR Racing came out in '94. My Pentium 133 made only two years after that could have breezed that game in SVGA mode.
>>
>>3223734
Technology moved fast in those days though. In 1994, PCs were typically in the 33 to 66Mhz range; two years later, 100-120Mhz was midrange. The hardware needed to run NASCAR Racing in full 640x480 resolution at a decent framerate (not 5 fps) would have cost big bucks when the game was new. It needed a minimum 66Mhz CPU and realistically at least 75Mhz. Otherwise, you'd have to run it in 320x200 Mode 13.
>>
>>3223748
We had a 486 when I was a kid and we had a bunch of kiddie eduware titles like Math Workshop and Mr. Potato Head Saves Veggie Valley and these were all 640x480 games with (usually) full sprite animation and that computer didn't gag on them.
>>
>>3221695
b-b-b-b-busted
>>
>>3223750
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGahEcJ0c78

Come on, dude. You're gonna tell me that this thing is half as graphically demanding as NASCAR Racing?
>>
>>3223430
>Mayhem was rubbish
Consistently makes Top 10 lists on any C64 site I've been on.
>>
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>>3223226
>Yurosemen
>>
>>3223758
That's not hard to do when 80% of C64 games are abominable tape shovelware.
>>
>>3223758
People on Lemon64 are mostly delusional anyway because of nostalgia or who knows what other reasons?
>>
If you think PCs have ever been superior to consoles, you're welcome to look at those puke-tastic computer ports of Castlevania on the C64, Amiga, and DOS.
>>
>>3221527
>what is Amiga
>>
>>3223783
All that proves is that the programmers sucked and weren't John Carmack.
>>
>>3223268
>Those games use Super FX chips though; you'd need a Pentium to pull them off.

lmao

you can get almost get star fox running on a stock Motorola 68000 (check the Genesis homebrew demo) let alone a 486 or Pentium
>>
>>3223818
Carmack and Romero were good, but I still don't understand why they insisted on programming CK in EGA graphics at a time when it was functionally obsolete and all new PCs had VGA other than wanting to prove how hardcore they were and they weren't afraid of EGA's fucked up planar graphics.
>>
>>3223826
Sonic might be hard to do on a period PC though especially the high framerate would be difficult to pull off when you have no hardware scrolling or sprites.
>>
>>3223727
>the N64's 640x480 mode required a certain microcode to unlock

That's not true. Microcodes don't limit resolution, just performance and accuracy. Saying that though, if you wanted 640x480 in 3D with good graphics and framerate you definitely needed a custom microcode, but that's not to say it couldn't do theoretically 640x480 on stock microcode.
>>
>>3223829
Likely because Apogee targeted poorfags and kids with hand me down computers.
>>
>>3223834
Infernal Machine does use 640x480 though, in fact it's one of the only N64 games to use it which is why it can't be played on emulation.
>>
>>3223842
>Infernal Machine does use 640x480 though

Like most high-res N64 games it's not actually the full 640x480. It's more of a funny resolution like 480x480.
>>
Shouldn't most of this discussion go in >>3207370
>>
>>3223901
I gave up on the computer general. It's nothing but 1-2 weebs spamming weebshit. It got sickening and I want out.
>>
>>3223901
This isn't /vg/. Users can make and post in whatever rule abiding threads they want. In particular there isn't some ghetto for a specific type of content.
>>
>>3223474
I played a whole fuckton of TIE fighter and the whole landing party of star wars games that came to the PC, but it did come two years after the original super star wars.

And that's still a year away from when lucasarts got it's feet wet about mass-marketable star wars games like the SNES ones that are also PC friendly with rebel assault, and SSW was four years before lucasarts got a solid grip on that with Shadows of the Empire.

So back then they WERE far too into a broad variety of settings and properties to fuss around with porting a star wars thing between clunky, difficult platforms.
>>
>>3218983
Wasn't dos incapable of doing side-scrollers properly until Carmack did a port of Super Mario Brothers 3 as a proof of concept?
>>
>>3225387
You mean some supposed prototyping work that would have gone into commander keen?

Or maybe that's mixed up with Apogee, Mario Kart and Wacky Wheels, which I heard devised a scrolling method not known to be feasible for PCs. Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is also said to have done scrolling-gymnastics against the hurdles of EGA.
>>
>>3223132
There is no reason an SNES couldn't use a joystick or steering wheel. Both accessories existed for the system.

And you seem to have misunderstood or misread this:
>The SNES ought to be able to play anything that will run on a 386.

This meant the SNES will play any game that will will run on a 386, not the other way around.

Anyway, the SNES port of Doom was actually better than you could play it on the 386 or 486, as you have mentioned. I played Doom recently on a 233mhz Pentium I laptop with 32mb of RAM and it still didn't really run that great (but it was LXDoom so it may not have been optimized as well).
>>
>>3223235
It's to provide a frame of reference for the prices, dumbass.
>>
>>3223252
A 486 could, but with compromises. But it could bring some advantages to the table too. Having a hard drive lets you do some cool things all by itself.

Scrolling is the big problem. Flick-screens are a really ugly solution.
>>
>>3225656
>Flick-screens
double buffering?
>>
>>3223643
C64's rivals would be NES and Master System. Or even PC Engine.
>>
>>3223727
Why? Why would they do that? Just to be assholes? Was it dangerous for the system?
>>
>>3223901
I don't comingle with general scum
>>
>>3225659
Like in Super Mario Bros. Special
>>
>>3225670
That ran on a 4 MHz Z80, nowhere near a 486.
>>
>>3225702
But it still has the issue.
>>
>>3225649
No, I think you've misunderstood the key issue in that, a 386 or 486 could have run SNES games, but they didn't bother to put that careful effort into porting even a medium-small bunch of them, so it didn't.

Doom was not meant to run on a 386, but it did. A 40 mhz 386 with 5mb of ram and something better than the old 256kb graphics card couldn't have been all that bad.
>>
>>3225662
PC Engine is a Mega Drive-era console, not NES.
>>
>>3225917
If you look at a good, well-crafted PC game from the early 90s made by professional coders/musicians/graphics artists, the results could be impressive. Obviously games like Cool Spot were half-assed ports that were not up to the level they could be.

I'd said above that Garfield Caught In The Act is a perfectly solid port from the Genesis.
>>
>>3218983
>consolists get shown proofs
>scream "it doesen't count!"
the thread.
>>
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>>3221527
Sorry, you're BTFO kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekZ4LbAEZmg
>>
>>3226123
They're just kids who discovered dad's Nintendo. Most kids these days couldn't even manage to get most MS-DOS games to run. They've never seen a config.sys or autoexec.bat file. Consoles are a natural choice if you grew up playing with Game Boys and PSPs instead of C64s and Apple ][s.

Also consoles appeal to collector's autism. Lots of people like to think that their early Nintendo doohickey will become as valuable as an Apple I. Part of their game (as in any collector's hobby) is to drive up the price. Look what happened to 1950's and 1960's toy robots and laser pistols and shit - all the gay guys bought them up and they're "rare" now.
>>
>>3227219
Silky smooth 10fps. This game is memorable but certainly not as a platformer.
>>
>>3227251
Most people in 1992 couldn't get MS-DOS games to run and a CONFIG.SYS looked like Chinese to them.

>thinking the mass of computer users haven't always been idiots against a small percentage of elite neckbeards
>thinking back then there weren't legions of slugs who couldn't do anything on a computer but type memos on Wordperfect and required VERY simple, easily understood instructions to do that
>>
>>3218983
They always did.

A better question would be "when did PC games start to look better than ARCADE games?"
>>
>>3227360
Never, arcades always had expensive hardware so they were like 5 years ahead.
>>
>>3227365
Arcade games now are not at the levels of PC games, the fuck outta here with that. Arcades were probably surpassed in the 4th gen. There was nothing like Wing Commander or Ultima Underworld coming out in the arcades.
>>
>>3227375
Who the fuck would want to play Ultima Underworld in the arcade? LoL. Arcade hardware has always and will always be the most premium gaming platform at any time, for arcade type games. Some of the Japanese arcade malchines that have been coming out in the last few years would blow your mind
>>
>>3227282
Yes, it is memorable as a platformer.

Not my fault you had shit hardware back then.

Console kids BTFO.
>>
>>3227383
>most premium gaming platform at any time, for arcade type games
Sorry home consoles took that spot over when Street Fighter II came out for SNES.

I'm not counting Neo-Geo because it was too obscure and expensive.
>>
>>3227393
>I'm not counting the one console that proves me wrong
>>
>>3227393
When SF2 came out on SNES, Championship Edition had already replaced it in the arcade plus the console version of TWW is notably inferior.
>>
>>3227393
ISNT GENESIS THE DEFINITIVE HOME VERSION OF STREET FIGHTER? JUST SAYING BUT SNES IS KINDOF OVER RATED. I SAY THIS OWNING BOTH CONSOLES
>>
>>3218983
Fucking never dude. Show me a game developed for PC that looks better than yoshis island. Ill wait
>>
>>3227302
>Most people in 1992 couldn't get MS-DOS games to run and a CONFIG.SYS looked like Chinese to them.

What.
Just what.
FYI Windows 3.x at that time was not popular like at all, and anyone who wanted to play anything on PC absolutely had to know how to use DOS.

It was really, quite simple: you don't know how to set up a game - you dont play

>>3227365
>>3227383
Arcades started falling behind with the 7 console gen. All games began to look uniform, while, perhaps some arcade cabinets maintained slight hardware superiority, it was not such a big difference, as in 90's and many home PCs could outperform them. Many arcade cabinets started using a bit redesigned console hardware (Inferior to PC), and some were even straight up PC's in a box. Taito arcade cabinets even run Linux and Windows, which led to quick pirating of Blaz Blue - it turned out to be a Windows game inside arcade cabinet.

>>3227429
CAPS MAKES ME RIGHT
Genesis had inferior colors, SNES is more pleasing to look at
>>
>>3218983
As a matter of fact, Arcades are commercial computers which had better graphics than their ports for any given console. Same thing for PC games ported to consoles. As far as exclusives went, the PC market was full of hobbyist developers that the badly made games over saturated the market some of the really well done games got burried.
>>
I never really played on PC much when I was a kid, but my dad sure did. If there was anything I remember for a very long time was that the PC was so choppy at everything, even if it looked good and I always disliked it. I don't remember playing anything that was nice and smooth and really blew me away until Quake, Unreal was probably the next game that really got me.

Reminder this wasn't my primary platform so I'm not really that reliable of a source, I'm just giving what I remember. It's kinda funny how it's the opposite now. Games on consoles have low framerate while PC kills it in every way.
>>
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>>3227282
Two years later you had this.

Best platformer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFusaA31SUA
>>
>>3223235
I'm not lording anything over anyone. The person I replied to stated they knew I was was under 20, which was inaccurate, so I corrected them.
>>
>>3225649
Vanilla Doom actually ran on 386 better than on SNES, and that's with more sprite rotations and textures, and ran perfectly on 486, which it was designed for. 8Mb RAM is a must in both cases.

LxDOOM is in fact a direct linux port of Boom, that uses LUA for it's scripting, so no surprise that it runs like shit on older systems.
>>
>>3219247

millenial spotted

find me one NES game that has that many colors and details
>>
>>3218983

that picture is >9000 percent relevant to every john and jane doe millenials and their "muh console" opinions
>>
>>3228208
There aren't any sprite rotations in Doom. The environments aren't mapped with sprites. But yeah, that's a pedantic point for me to make.

The SNES is extremely weak outside of its hardware accelerated functions. The CPU is pathetic, its RAM is slow, and its PPU is allergic to high resolutions. It's got dedicated systems to rotate backgrounds and do transparencies so it's good at that.

But move away from in-built functions and there's no jiggle room for it to do much.
>>
>>3228743
>But yeah, that's a pedantic point for me to make
anon was referring to the number of images available for viewing angles of an enemy
>>
>>3227447
>FYI Windows 3.x at that time was not popular like at all
costanza.jpg
>>
>>3228786
gamers and developers alike hated Win 3.x. It added a needlessly complicated layer on top of DOS without much gain and plenty of performance loss. Even if people bought Win 3.x and used it for the office, for gaming it was understood to drop down into real DOS and play there. That only changed somewhere throughout Win 95, when DirectX provided enough benefit to offset all the resource hunger of the OS.
Yes, there were Win 3.x games. Most of them were simple and shallow. The mass of high end game dev was in DOS.
>>
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>>3218993
Eh, it depends on what you were doing. Early 80s computes had higher resolution and more colors earlier but the earliest had shit scrolling like the C64. C64 could do 320x200 with tricks to also get 128 colors.

>>3219052
They've always kind of had a back small back and fourth between the gaps and depending on what is preferential but no, 3D acceleration was before 2000 and passed consoles for graphics. For example look at a Mario 64, 240p/30fps. Quake 2 for example could do 800x600, 32 bit color in software mode at 60 with better performance every year on new PCs. But it also had hardware acceleration support as well. PS2 games were also limited to SDTV resolutions while PC games were able to output HD at that point.


>>3220468
That was DOS. IBM compatibles were largely garbage for that kind of thing until the 90s. They were more straight forrward business computers first and foremost. Early 80's home computers were more general usage and they looked far better. Pic attached is a 1992 game that runs on 1985 Amiga 500 hardware. His CGA argument is irrelevant.
>>
>>3228856
the worst thing about Amigas is that they had passable audio-visual capabilities. Makes it hard to irrationally hate them to pieces.
>>
>>3220809
You do realize that PC's from that era also had the same CPU as the Mega Drive as well?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500
Motorola 68000 @ 7.16 MHz (NTSC)
7.09 MHz (PAL)
>>
>>3227302
I guarantee almost anyone could learn to use a computer, they just don't have the right motivation. People will surprise you when they're properly motivated. You can't judge them on walking them through it either, if you're trying to walk them through it you're enabling them and they'll sit there and act like children to get you to do everything. You put something like porn on there and you tell them it's broke but they can have the porn if they fix it, they'll have that shit running within the week all by themselves.

One of the tricks to solving 60% of problems people ask you to fix on your computer is to simply put it off, given suitable motivation for the solution they'll figure it out before you even get around to it.
>>
>>3228867
Uh, you do know the Amiga has hardware sprites, right?
>>
>>3228786
I think he means popular for general computing usage.
>>
>>3228856
>Early 80s computers had higher resolution and more colors earlier
They didn't have higher resolution or more colors than consoles. The Atari 2600 was already capable of generating 256 colors at 320x200 resolution.
>but the earliest had shit scrolling like the C64
This is true. Scrolling on the C64 (also Amiga) is an absolute bitch and very CPU-intensive.
>C64 could do 320x200 with tricks to also get 128 color
Uh...no it can't. That shit's fixed at 16 colors.
>>
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>>3228856
And this is a 1992 game running on 1982 hardware. Your point?
>>
>>3228856
I've never seen an American Amiga game that looked as good as Lionheart.
>>
>>3229203
We had Genesis/SNES in 92, we didn't need poorly-designed Yuroplatformers.
>>
>>3229190
Japanese computers at the start of the 80s could handle 640x400.
>>
>>3229190
>They didn't have higher resolution or more colors than consoles
EGA (1984) went up to 720x540
VGA (1987) expanded the color palette to 18-bit colors

While VGA is definitely not early 80s, EGA arguably is. Regardless, consoles wouldn't get these color depths or resolutions until the 90s.
Even after that, consoles were largely limited by the output resolution of TV. That is, while PC gaming went to 1600x1200 and beyond, consoles have been at SD resolutions until HD TV became common place.
>>
>>3229228
Nobody cares about weeb computers though and even then, they still only have a few colors.
>>3229253
>EGA (1984) went up to 720x540
It's 640x350 and 16 colors on screen total out of a 64 color palette.
>VGA (1987) expanded the color palette to 18-bit colors
An unenhanced VGA card only does 256 colors at 320x200 resolution; the hi-res modes are 16 color or monochrome. Also almost all commercial games back then didn't use the hi-res EGA/VGA modes for various and sundry reasons.
>While VGA is definitely not early 80s, EGA arguably is
EGA is mid to late 80s.
>>
>>3229270
>It's 640x350
except for non-standard EGA cards

>An unenhanced VGA card only does 256 colors
out of the 18-bit palette

>the hi-res modes are 16 color or monochrome
at a time when consoles didn't do these resolutions at all
>>
>>3229282
>except for non-standard EGA cards
...that nothing actually supports except maybe AutoCAD.
>at a time when consoles didn't do these resolutions at all
Pointless when those modes are unsuited for gaming.
>>
>>3229279
>Nobody cares about weeb computers though
Where do you think you are?

>they still only have a few colors.
That depends on what model and year you look at. At first they only had 2 colors in high resolution, then 8, then 16, then 65,536 in 1987. At lower resolutions you could even get 262,144.
>>
>>3229291
>unsuited for gaming
And yet games used them, in particular games that relied on complex visuals
>>
>>3229298
>>3229291
It was common on Macs for obvious reasons.
>>
>>3218987
>>3219021
Umm no. While console gamers were playing (and enjoying the sounds to) the likes of Sonic, Mario, etc - PC gamers were playing Commander Keen with its PC speaker beeps/Soundblaster blurbs.

As for fighting games on PC? None.
>>
>>3229298
Almost all commercial DOS games use 320x200 resolution except perhaps SimCity. You seldom saw the EGA/VGA hi-res modes except in freeware/shareware.
>>
>>3229318
your point being? The system was capable of these resolutions, games that wanted the resolution, used them.
>>
>>3229318
Every PC98-DOS game is 640x400 except for a handful of old titles using 640x200.
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>>3220506
>Liam Frampton
So the Russian uses the Latin alphabet and vice versa?
>>
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I remember when the first 3D accelerator cards first appeared. There was this racing game called Pod that was some kind of showcase for them. I remember seeing screenshots and thinking "Wow, these 3D cards give PCs N64-style graphics".
>>
>>3229486
that's a terrible screenshot for P.O.D. Yes, the game looked gorgeous. I'd not drag the N64 into this, that's kind of insulting to the game's visuals. It had a few accelerator-only effects. Worked fine without accelerator though.
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>>3229494
>I'd not drag the N64 into this, that's kind of insulting to the game's visuals
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>>3229529
now do it in 800x600 and with textures
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>>3229547
But the point was that the N64 does produce Voodoo-like graphics. Only at a lower resolution.
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>>3229557
the point is that "lower resolution" is kind of a big deal, as it allows to use models with fewer polygons, smaller textures, and doesn't require as much fillrate
>>
>>3229571
Not the point. The fact is that Voodoo graphics resemble the N64 and vica versa in their hardware accelerated graphics. N64 doesn't have the fill rate of a Voodoo so it needs to go lower resolution out of necessity.

It even goes further than that though. Voodoo actually does the exact same kind of dither filter effect across the screen as the N64.
>>
>>3229586
>N64 doesn't have the fill rate of a Voodoo so it needs to go lower resolution out of necessity
which was my reason to say
>I'd not drag the N64 into this, that's kind of insulting to the game's visuals
Even a cheap Voodoo 1 clone blows the N64 a mile out of the water

>Voodoo actually does the exact same kind of dither filter effect across the screen as the N64
oh no, a 16-bit accelerator is doing 16-bit dithering, just like every other 16-bit accelerator on the fucking planet
>>
>>3223690
Are you me? This was pretty much the same revelation I went through when I saw Mario 3 on a NES in about 1991/2. I've even posted about it here, phrased in an uncannily similar way.
>>
>>3223727
What are these microcode things? Like secret passwords or keys that let programmers access certain features? Sounds like a strange way of doing things. I've never heard of it before.
>>
>>3229608
>Even a cheap Voodoo 1 clone blows the N64 a mile out of the water

I wouldn't expect the "clones" to perform any differently from each other considering they were all based on 3dfx's specifications. Voodoo 1 has better fillrate than RCP but unlike RCP It completely lacks T&L (the T&L units take up half of RCP's die space). So blow out of the water is relative.

>oh no, a 16-bit accelerator is doing 16-bit dithering, just like every other 16-bit accelerator on the fucking planet

Dither filtering 16-bit color to simulate a higher color depth is actually very unusual. I am not aware of any cards other than RCP and the Voodoo series that do it. Dithering is not the same as filtering dither.
>>
>>3223829
Then they went the opposite way with Doom by pushing the envelope with VGA as far as it could go at the time.

Wolfenstein was EGA though, right?
>>
>>3229642
think pixel shaders. Small programs put into dedicated memory to be executed by some processors directly
>>
>>3229647
>Wolfenstein was EGA though, right?
No.
>>
>>3229642
>>3229648
A better example would actually be vertex shaders, because that's what the microcodes essentially are for the N64. They don't "unlock" features, that's thinking about it in the wrong way. The 'features' part of the N64 (the 3D drawing accelerator) doesn't have anything to do with microcode.

No, the N64's GPU has a T&L core composed of a vector unit, a scalar unit and a couple of other things. It's not directly accessible, it has an abstract layer. You basically send data with "commands" to it and it mathematically processes and churns out a result. You program those commands with microcode. With different microcode you can have different commands that do different things, like calculates polygon data differently (e.g. less accurately for more speed).
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>>3229643
>So blow out of the water is relative
if only T&L was resolution dependent. Fill rate is, but that's where the accelerator steps in

>I am not aware of any cards other than RCP and the Voodoo series that do it
And the TNT series, and all 3D accelerators running in 16-bit mode, and the fucking PlayStation
>>
>>3229674
>A better example would actually be vertex shaders
and now you go explain the difference of vertex and pixel shaders to someone that has issues understanding microcode. Your desire to nitpick bullshit has been noted though. Now fuck off.
>>
>>3229674
>They don't "unlock" features, that's thinking about it in the wrong way
nobody except you is trying to say that. That's a fucking straw man. If you want to educate readers on the N64, be my guest. But don't you fucking dare doing it in an "akshually" post straw manning the hell out of someone
>>
>>3227410
>notably inferior
Not really, the gameplay was spot on. Of course some differences exist but it played the same.
>>
>>3228786
Literally about zero games exist for Windows 3.1 that were worth a shit. There were a few shite ones though.

Even Windows 95's game selection was paltry compared to MS-DOS for the first few years. Windows 98 was when Windows gaming came into its own.
>>
>>3229675
>if only T&L was resolution dependent. Fill rate is, but that's where the accelerator steps in

But it does mean the Voodoo alone isn't going to blow anything out of the water. Couple it with a lousy CPU and the T&L performance will hamstring the accelerator.

>And the TNT series, and all 3D accelerators running in 16-bit mode, and the fucking PlayStation

No, they do rudimentary dithering. Not like proper ordered reconstructive dither filtering. You're see mach banding on the TNT and Playstation in 16-bit color but you won't see it on Voodoo or N64.
>>
>>3227429
Genesis had a better controller layout, of course, but SNES had better graphics and sound. I also felt the Genesis version didn't play quite the same as the arcade and SNES.
>>
>>3229683
>nitpick bullshit

N64 microcode deals with T&L. Vertex shaders deal with T&L. Pixel shaders are part of pixel pipelines. The N64's pixel pipeline doesn't run microcode. This is hardly nit picking. I have no idea why you're acting so ass pained about this. Wounded pride?

>>3229689
Who the hell am I trying to straw man? I'm trying to clarify a technical matter.

Honest the fucking god some /vr/ posters have the thinnest skin on earth.
>>
>>3227401
>not including the most expensive, difficult to obtain console that most people never really even knew was available as a home unit, not carried in any stores except in the largest megacities, a unit so expensive that a console, a half dozen games, and a few controllers would run you thousands of dollars...

Yeah I fucked up, sorry thread master.
>>
>>3229707
>Genesis had a better controller layout
How so? The triggers of the SNES controller make use of your index fingers while leaving fewer buttons for your thumb to work with. It's a lot more comfortable than having 6 buttons for your thumb alone.
>>
>>3229704
>But it does mean the Voodoo alone isn't going to blow anything out of the water
your point being? Read back the fucking conversation. It started on POD, with some fuckface comparing it to the N64, despite running at more than double the resolution, in terms of viewport and texture size. No telling if the models have bigger meshes as well. Now you desperately derail the whole shit with T&L details. What the fuck is that fictional Cyrix CPU doing with a Voodoo card next to it? If POD is pushing the polygons with ease, why the fuck do you bother arguing the T&L angle? There was a screenshot, of a program, running, on a real machine, blowing the N64 out of the fucking water. Do you get that? The N64 is a nice console, and a hell of a lot cheaper than the accelerator, never mind the whole computer attached to it. Of course it's gonna be inferior to some dedicated hardware bought by rich kids and people with more money than sense. Trying to salvage that with minute details that lead nowhere is fucking insulting bullshit

>they do rudimentary dithering
Oh, so they're dithering, not dithering? Fucking scottish. The little fucker you are you can probably trivially point out said banding in the screenshot I gave you. Just so I can at least mark this exchange off as done.
>>
>>3229703
Are you specifying 3.1 so Solitaire doesn't count?
>>
>>3229494
I was just saying that was my impression of it at the time, not necessarily that it was a correct assessment. The N64 was my only experience of filtered textures at the time.
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>>3227886
>If there was anything I remember for a very long time was that the PC was so choppy at everything, even if it looked good and I always disliked it.

This was a problem, because the "PC compatible" game market aimed toward the largest possible audience usually. Some few games from the MS-DOS era really required a 486 and say 8MB RAM, but the developers wanted to sell their product to the largest possible market so while it would have been possible for a game to check and see if a system met the minimum requirements for decent performance, nobody did this because they wanted to sell games.

It was on you as the computer owner to upgrade your rig if a hot new game was slow on your machine, or if it wouldn't run at all. In those days there was no such thing as adjusting your screen resolution, decreasing the detail levels, etc. The game either ran smoothly or it didn't.

Another thing you could count on was that developers were pushing the limits of the graphics and sound capabilities of the platform, and were themselves likely using the hottest computers you could buy.
>>
>>3229730
>t started on POD, with some fuckface comparing it to the N64, despite running at more than double the resolution, in terms of viewport and texture size

It seems to be you trying to turn this into some kind of /r/pcmasterrace kind of war, that you're deliberately looking at the parts where PC and N64 were most different instead of looking at where they were most similar like that original poster.

The fact is that both N64 and Voodoo do hardware accelerated 3D with texture filtering, z-buffer, display perspective-correct textures, etc even a similar kind of advanced dither filtering. This gives the effect of the N64 producing graphics like a "mini-Voodoo". It's not the same resolution, and as you say, the N64 was alone cheaper than the Voodoo let alone the rest of the PC so it's to be expected.

But when the resolution is smaller the textures don't have to be as large either for a similar visual effect. And the N64's good T&L capabilities help sprice up the image quality in lieu of a higher resolution. The poster's comparison was entirely valid.

>Oh, so they're dithering, not dithering? Fucking scottish

Just read this. It's a real thing.

https://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/61/
>>
>>3229721
>>3229642
asked
>What are these microcode things?
There's no N64 in sight.

>I have no idea why you're acting so ass pained about this
Because it happens every fucking time. It may be somewhat justified here, because you know your shit about the N64, but I've been corrected on things I got fucking right because I deal with that matter daily. I'm all for going into more details, and adding more info, where applicable. But this post was plain bullshit.

>The N64's pixel pipeline doesn't run microcode. This is hardly nit picking
Again, I answered what microcode is, not more, not less. A pixel shader was the first random example I had at hand, something people may be familiar with. Understanding the difference between pixel shader and vertex shader, when you have only casual interest in graphics pipelines is already hard enough. That poster apparently didn't even know what microcode is, so what gave you the idea they're intimately familiar with the difference, care about it, and how it makes my example of microcode, platform-independently, wrong?
>>
>>3229732
We can count solitaire if you really want to.
>>
>>3229721
>I'm trying to clarify a technical matter
Then take it up with them, not me. I'm fucking sick and tired of neckbeards constantly giving people shit because they're not getting every single detail right. My point was a rough simile. Not more, not less. Yet you fucking shit all over it like a taco bell victim, because you just have to one-up someone on the fucking internet. Instead of telling the person asking what's what, and leaving me out of the whole thing, you drag me into it as laughing stock. Fucking hate shitheads like you.
Every now and then someone has a question, I try to be helpful and answer it without going into details, and you idiots have to jump out correcting me on said details. What the fuck do you gain from it? Why the fuck do you have to make fucking sure that people like me will not post? You want the board to your fucking self? You want only the circle of elitist assholes laughing at the imbeciles in their lack of your fucking knowledge? I don't. Fuck it, you people want this board to go to shit, then make it so. Piss on anyone trying to comment, mock them, laugh them out of the door. Then fucking wonder why the only shitstains remaining are you and /v/ trolls. You get the hell you deserve.

>Wounded pride?
partially. More importantly though, endless correction chains tend to derail threads. Just look at this one. You got two people that may or may not understand their shit, talking about stuff the vast majority of readers don't give a fuck about. For what? Winning an internet argument? Have your victory, put it on your belt. Congratufuckinglations.
>>
>>3229313
There were many unique and fun Mac games, Terminal Velocity's still great.

Also later on, by the OS 7 days, we had 3D accelerated gaming and shit too. Hellcats was a fucking absolutely amazing thing to behold after gazing in horror at MS Flight Simulator's ugly visuals at that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljx5aJ27sRg
>>
>>3229730
>. It started on POD, with some fuckface comparing it to the N64
Yeah that was me and, as I clarified, that was simply my impression of it at the time. Bear in mind that this was just from some screenshots in a magazine review. Plus it's essentially true - I was making a qualitative statement, not a quantitative one. I'm sure the PC 3D card's vital statistics were better than the N64's but it's pretty much the same kind of shit being done - namely texture filtering.

Plus, it sounds like your issue is with someone else, not me, so why insult me? You're only making yourself look like a neckbeard sperglord.
>>
>>3229750
There's no N64 in sight but it was linked to a post about the N64.

The pixel shader thing wasn't a bad comparison. It's instructions to hardware which is like what microcode is (except of course microcode is way lower level). But I didn't try to put you down by correcting it to vertex shader.

The poster asked about features (linking to post referring to resolution as a feature). Other "features" I'm guessing people might have in mind is texture filtering. That stuff is all along the pixel pipeline, the fill rate side of the GPU. So I was trying to clarify that the microcodes don't have anything to do with that stuff.

They deal with polygons (vertices) not pixel features. And yeah it is confusing to a beginner I understand that.
>>
>>3229743
What happens when a 40 year old guy who hasn't kept up with music since high school is commissioned to create a music-themed advertisement.jpg

Since this is 1993, a more accurate advertisement should have been computer puns related to being a whiny junkie who whines on an MTV video how bad you smell and how much your mom sucks.
>>
>>3229745
>It seems to be you trying to turn this into some kind of /r/pcmasterrace kind of war
That's the purpose of the thread, to figure out when the balances changed in what directions. Although in this particular case it's merely about 3D acceleration.

>This gives the effect of the N64 producing graphics like a "mini-Voodoo"
If only that poster would have said something like that. Instead they said it looks like the N64, despite being miles ahead of what the N64 can do, in most aspects. I'll give you T&L, I'll even give you edge AA, and a hell of a lot more, but that's trees for the forest of accelerator hardware outperforming the N64 since day one, and only gaining more of a lead with each generation.

Consoles were far ahead of computers in the 2D period. When they went the 3D route I was facepalming, because instead of relying on the strength they had, they went head to head with the peripheral market, and were nearly instantly crushed. It was the beginning of the end, when PCs not only were dominant in some genres (input heavy, resolution dependent, complex game state, very little 2D motion, like RTS or eco sims), but managed to grab the rest of what consoles could do. Not by gaining better 2D capabilities, but by the consoles giving up their 2D advantage. It was not a very surprising move. Desktop 3D has been active and successful long before the accelerator. Games like Quake or Descent were common-place when the big consoles went 3D, when everyone with an eye could see the accelerators on the horizon.

The only reason the desktop didn't leave behind the consoles ever since was port dependency.
>>
>>3229745
>Just read this. It's a real thing.
I don't care. You said dithering, I gave you dithering. Now it's "quality dithering" or somesuch.
You pulled the very definition of a no true scotsman
>>
>>3229765
>>3229785
It is just really terrible, isn't it. But it's great too.

You fags missed my point though, which is that PC gaming has a bad rep partly because people had shit hardware for the time, but the games would still mostly run.
>>
>>3229771
>I was making a qualitative statement, not a quantitative one
resolution is not quality, you heard it here first, folks

>it sounds like your issue is with someone else, not me, so why insult me?
frustration, sorry
>>
>>3229787
>If only that poster would have said something like that. Instead they said it looks like the N64,
DESU I was expecting people to realise this is what I meant. I wasn't really speaking formally. Also, get a grasp of tense. I used the past, not the present.

You're really making a mountain out of a molehill here, too. You're getting unduly angry at my 15-year-old self in the late 90s, which is just supremely irrational from my perspective, now, in the present.
>>
>>3229765
Damn it I hate it when people do this.
>>
>>3229785
There's an REM sticker on the amp if you look closely. It's not that out of it.
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>>3229805
Resolution is a quality but quality is not synonymous with resolution
>>
>>3229771
>but it's pretty much the same kind of shit being done - namely texture filtering
that's one of the many things being done, yes. Some (very few) software engines had (bilinear) filtering as well. Accelerators just made it more affordable. On the PC almost the more important aspect though was not the filtering, but increasing the resolution. Especially in a racing game like POD that matters, because it means you can see where and how a turn goes much earlier, to prepare for it,
>>
>>3229805
>resolution is not quality

Surely it's a quantity because, you know, you define it with numbers.

Saying it's a 2D raster display system with whatever features, bells and whistles is a qualitative statement.

Saying it can whack out 60 fps, X by Y resolution, Z amount of polygons, texels, whatevers, etc, etc... is a quantitative statement because, you know, it's specifying quantities.
>>
>>3229824
I didn't say otherwise. Your point?
>>
>>3229831
>>3229824
Get a room you fucking faggots.
>>
>>3229787
>but that's trees for the forest of accelerator hardware outperforming the N64 since day one

Well just to nitpick for perhaps the final time, when the N64 was released there wasn't any PC hardware that could outperform it. Not even in fill-rate. Voodoo hit in Jan 1997, the first truly great 3D accelerator. And yeah, that's when 3D really hit the ground running for the PC but not before then.

Earlier PC 3D accelerators were just embarrassing.

>>3229795
>I don't care. You said dithering, I gave you dithering. Now it's "quality dithering" or somesuch.

Well if you look at that article you'll see that there's a process of dithering color down and then filtering color up.

Most 3D accelerators like those you mentioned (TNT, PS1) process pixels internally at 32 bit and 24 bit respectively. Then in 16 bit color mode they dither down the output to fit a smaller framebuffer size. And that's it for the process. Usually the output suffers from a mach banding effect.

But what the Voodoo and N64 do is they take the dithered down 16 bit output and then they run a dither filtering algorithm along that framebuffer data to simulate a higher color depth and eliminate the mach banding.

That article in particular was touting how the Voodoo 3 has a much improved dither filter compared to the Voodoo 1/2 (which had some blur and artifacting). The N64's infamous 'vaseline' effect is actually caused by flaws in its own similar dither filter (not the anti-aliasing like some people believe).
>>
>>3229827
What I was simply trying to say was that, at the time, as far as I was aware, the only comparable thing to the kind of imagery being generated by these early 3D cards was the output of the N64's display chipset.

I might be wrong, but I don't think the Dreamcast was out, and before the N64 and 3D PC cards, 3D on both consoles and PCs (let's compare Quake on the PC and... any Playstation game) lacked any kind of texture filtering or anti-aliasing effects.

There may have been some exceptions but I was making a general statement.
>>
>>3229842
>when the N64 was released there wasn't any PC hardware that could outperform it. Not even in fill-rate
From the very post you quoted:
>Desktop 3D has been active and successful long before the accelerator. Games like Quake or Descent were common-place when the big consoles went 3D, when everyone with an eye could see the accelerators on the horizon.
or worded differently, mere 2 years after the N64 got released, the 3D accelerator was fairly common place, and had plenty of games supporting it. Nintendo was definitely aware of that development. They bought about a year and a half of time. That was it.

I'll give you that you used "dither filtering" throughout your posts. I do not understand why it's so extremely important in its distinction though. You probably have your reasons.
>>
>>3229863
>What I was simply trying to say was that, at the time, as far as I was aware, the only comparable thing to the kind of imagery being generated by these early 3D cards was the output of the N64's display chipset.
accepted. Sorry
>>
>>3229865
>I do not understand why it's so extremely important in its distinction though. You probably have your reasons.

Because Voodoo 1/2 and to a lesser extent, Voodoo 3 run a dither filtering process which is uniquely similar to the N64. Those cards have a slightly blurry image output which is reminiscent of the N64. Because the N64 hardware did pretty much the same thing.
>>
>>3229803
Makes you really wonder if the Gateway campus had a nice little lounge, or if they just set that up for the shoot.

The 1990s was a crazy time of excess and hedonism.
>>
>>3229882
It's ALWAYS a time of great excess and hedonism. There was actually quite a culture of bleak minimalism in the 90s. Goths and grunge you know
>>
>>3229729
For Street Fighter II the layout of the Genesis controller was 100% perfect.

You didn't need to hit multiple buttons at once, and with the SNES when executing special moves my left hand was not great at hitting the left shoulder button.
>>
>>3227508
>Arcades are commercial computers which had better graphics than their ports for any given console
Arcade machines, with some exceptions, were running on pretty bland 68k hardware comparable to or weaker than a 1992-era PC.

There was no technical barrier to making a good PC port by the VGA + 486 + CD-ROM + Sound Blaster era, and credible ones exist.
>>
>>3229907
A CPU is not the be all-end-all.

Look at the Neo-Geo. It's using a 68000 CPU and a Z80 just like the Genesis.

But it's shitloads more powerful because its VPU is shitloads more powerful. It was the VPU that qualified it as strong like an arcade machine, not the CPU.
>>
>>3229962
>shitloads more powerful
This depends on the machine you're comparing it to and the task at hand of course, you'd never try to make Tie Fighter or Descent on the Neo-Geo.
>>
up until the early 90's arcades where the top quality in graphics (Cave, NeoGeo, CPS-2 ... )
in 95 the home consoles were the lead in 3D innovation and late 90's or maybe early 2000's PCs started to shine a lot compared to consoles
>>
>>3229992
That's not something you can compare. You wouldn't be able to run TIE fighter or Descent on the Genesis in the first place!

Especially not without at least the Virtua Processor.
>>
>>3229992
>you'd never try to make Tie Fighter or Descent on the Neo-Geo.

Because the console is a 2D specialist. The powerful arcade VPU is based in that direction. For 3D you need a powerful CPU to do up framebuffers, so PC has an advantage there. But a PC of that era (486) would splutter and die if it tried doing ports SNK games

Much in the same way it would splutter and die on a non-compromised port of Virtua Racing, because it couldn't compete with the hardware accelerated 3D of the Sega Model 1.

You could probably get Star Fox running playable on the Neo Geo though. Homebrew runs it pretty well on the Genesis and the Neo Geo has a much faster 68000.
>>
>>3230604
>>3230695

Virtua Daytona had competition in those days. Formula One was kick ass and graphically close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSEtYTp78Sk
>>
>>3229907
>There was no technical barrier to making a good PC port by the VGA + 486 + CD-ROM + Sound Blaster era, and credible ones exist.
So basically a FM Towns
>>
>>3218983
>looked better
How do you measure artistry?

Oh, you mean technological dick-comparing of resolution and frame per second and polygon and all the shit that is useless on it's own unless you know how to actually use it.

Fuck you. One would think a retro board is ONE place where people know that polygon count =/= looking better.
>>
>>3231007
you really slaughtered that straw man, anon
>>
>>3218983
I think it was kinda back and forth, with PC emerging on the release of Doom, and then each new generation of consoles surpassing PC games of the time, each time to a lesser extent, until finally failing to do that on PS4/Xbox One gen.
>>
>>3231028
The N64 or perhaps the Dreamcast was truly the last time consoles were better at 3D gaming than PCs at their launch. When the N64 was released, PC 3D accelerators were fucking awful in general. Although Voodoo 2 SLi would have had somewhat more fill rate than the Dreamcast's PowerVR2, the Dreamcast's SH-4 CPU had a built in T&L processor giving it a partial edge.

At PS2 launch you could get a Athlon 850 with a GeForce 256 DDR edition (built in T&L). I suppose the PS2 would have some theoretical memory bandwidth advantages, but the "3D accelerator" part of the PS2 wasn't very good and GeForce 256's T&L was capable of keeping up with Emotion Engine. Two days later the Athlon 1000 came out.
>>
>>3231028
I'm gonna add that computers excel even earlier with 3d or 2d vector-based games like Corvette, Formula One Grand Prix, Another World.
>>
>>3229316
>Fighting games
Dude, games like Barbarian, Swashbuckler and Karateka, Karate Champ STARTED the fighting game genre.

The reason they got less popular was joysticks fell out of fashion - ever tried playing a fighting game on a keyboard? Not a fun experience. I spent my childhood trying to practice quartercircles on a keyboard playing PC version of Guilty Gear, without knowing any combos or even keymapping (game somehow came without a manual - I didn't even knew what key paused to game to have a list of special moves).

Also ironically, you kind of answered OP's question - they looked worse at the time Commander Keen was made, they looked better by the time Doom was released. So, early 90's.

... Now that I think of it, why don't modern fighting games on PC use mouse for movement and QWE-ASD for move input? It would nicely simulate a fightstick.
>>
>>3231013
Not a straw man, just bullshit presumption. Want to talk graphical fidelity, call it "graphical fidelity", not "looked better", since that depends on visual style employed by the game.
>>
>>3231056
OP didn't use your approved word list? That's your problem? You managed to figure it out, and yet decided to play dumb and shit on the thread. So, yes. Straw manning, and shit-posting
>>
>>3231051
Well, probably you are right. I can't find a PS2 game from 2000 that looks better than NFS Porsche Unleashed.
>>
>>3231052
Let's not forget Comanche, with its unique and very fast voxel graphics.

It was the best looking flight simulator on the PC for years.
>>
>>3232827
>unique
you mean used in almost every NovaLogic game

>It was the best looking flight simulator on the PC for years.
depends on how you define years. Comanche: Maximum Overkill is from 1992, but the resolution of its voxel engine is a bit lackluster. Comanche 2 is from 1995, but by that time Flight Unlimited was a thing
>>
>look better
Here we go again. Maybe I should force you all to play only 8-bit computer, Atari 2600, and early (pre-1983) arcade games for a few months and see how much you give a shit about graphics then.
>>
>>3231007
>>3233297
Why do you fags get so triggered by this? What if I said yeah I love to see how graphics can be improved over time and I like discussing the history of it. Would that give you ptsd?

Or what if people enjoy both old early 80s video games AND the progression into modern 3D accelerators and HD resolutions. Not everything is cut and dry
>>
>>3233297
>>/vr/
>>
>>3233267
I might be biased because I was working on the actual Comanche at the same time that I was playing the game.

Fun summer or two.
>>
>>3230695
>But a PC of that era (486) would splutter and die if it tried doing ports SNK games
You'd need a Pentium II to pull off SNK arcade games.
>>
>>3231053
I actually play GGX much better on keyboard. On gamepad or an arcade stick my Jam turns into a jumpy screamer that can't do any specials in time. For me, keyboard inputs are about 2 times faster than gamepad. Was rank A when GGXX#Reload Online was still alive.
>>
File: commander keen title screen.jpg (101KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]
commander keen title screen.jpg
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>>3218998
>PC games have always "looked better".
they haven't.

Commander Keen was the tipping point, the point where programmers figured out how to make smooth graphical animation and scrolling without the entire machine being made of specialized, dedicated graphics hardware.
>>
File: stunts_13.png (2KB, 320x200px) Image search: [Google]
stunts_13.png
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>>3234327
>>
>>3234327
You've never played or seen CK running, have you.
>>
>>3234161
NeoRageX was usable on Pentium MMX's and AMD K6-2/3's. Never tried it on my DX2/66.
>>
>>3234636
Well the one good thing about PCs and SNK games is that you sure as hell aren't lacking RAM on a PC.
>>
>>3218987

This isn't true. Screen scrolling didn't even exist for a while. NES and Genesis looked way better.
>>
>>3234651
>Screen scrolling didn't even exist for a while.
What do you mean it didn't exist? The NES or Genesis didn't exist before 83. You'll find enough games with scrolling from before that.
>>
>>3234851
>What do you mean it didn't exist?
On PC
>>
>>3234864
IBM PC? Even the classic DONKEY.BAS had scrolling.
>>
>>3234864
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9BKjnm_WOMeL_HGSItB2fCY6oAx8hvJH
>>
>>3234880
>>3234928
try some thinking next time, or reading the thread
>>
>>3234942
I think it's one of those retards who thinks Nintendo invented scrolling.
>>
>>3234961
one of the examples is vertical scrolling, the other is text scrolling. The problem Keen "solved" was fluent 4-directional bitmap scrolling. The key aspects being fluent, 4-directional and bitmap
It happens to be a rather difficult problem with a slow CPU-operated framebuffer
>>
>>3234990
It's not like the NES was great in that regard.
>>
>>3235006
it did 4-directional pixel scrolling natively, The hardware was purpose built to scroll tilemaps, so it better be somewhat good at that. Only problem was the size of the tile map, requiring some non-trivial programming to update the map just in time.
>>
>>3234365
This game was amazing.
>>
>>3235071
is amazing. Do play it. Then make some new maps and post them here
>>
>>3235016
But not fluently.
You had computers with hardware scolling at the time such as the X1.
>>
>>3235087
>But not fluently.
an arbitrary number of pixels per frame, at 60Hz not fluent enough?
>>
>>3218983
It really started with Doom

>>3223386
No one back then would have even pretended amiga and PC were in the same category.
>>
File: tg.gif (65KB, 640x360px) Image search: [Google]
tg.gif
65KB, 640x360px
>>3235150
OP's question is about computers in general I think. The Amiga and IBM PC (and clones) were both computers so it is fully relevant.

Also even before Doom PCs were superior. SNES needed a special chip to run Pilotwings in 1990 to do what computers had been doing for years. Look at Elite, or even MS Flight Simulator - Pic Related
>>
>>3235191
>SNES needed a special chip to run Pilotwings in 1990 to do what computers had been doing for years
Yes, but that's true the other way too. PCs really had trouble getting a good fluid tile-based scrolling until Carmack came along with his revolutionary scrolling approach in 1990, and it took some time until it was widely adopted, and DOS memory problems were rampant despite the hardware being there before, making it hell to run many games without tailoring your boot sequence for each until protected mode extenders like DOS/4GW became commonplace around 93 (incidentally, through Doom). It's only with Direct2D that it became trivial to port 2d action games from consoles.

Amiga had a completely different problem, which you could nickname the psygnosis effect: for all its graphical tricks bringing about beautiful graphics the games themselves were really janky in many cases.

Doom really pulled PCs ahead because it was graphically like nothing before it, ran in extended mode so you didn't need to juggle with memory, but also because it was a really tightly designed game.
>>
>>3235082
I used to play the crap out of it but these days I'm mainly a Dwarf Fortress man.
>>
>>3227219
This.
>>
>>3234990
How did they solve it? Some crazy-ass algorithm like iD's fast inverse square root function?
>>
>>3236884
>Some crazy-ass algorithm like iD's fast inverse square root function?

Which id didn't invent
>>
>>3236930
But they did implement successfully.
>>
>>3219524
speak for yourself and your shit at 8080 you tried running it on. I have never run it in anything but max screen and resolution.

maybe your toaster 8080 and your bias from it need to step outta the 80s

also cry moar bitch you got rekt
>>
>>3236930
I know but I was getting ready for work and rushed my post.
>>
Once VGA cards became a thing that was pretty much it. Consoles good look about as good in many cases, but never truly surpassed it.
>>
>>3235016
Actually the NES did have to jump through some hoops to get 4-directional scrolling.
Normally it'd only do either vertical or horizontal scrolling. There's even a pin on the cartridge that controls which mode the NES is supposed to be in.

4-directional games generally use tricks for the other direction. I think mappers were used often for this purpose. Now somebody more knowledgeable than me could probably fill in the techical details.
>>
>>3235272
I guess it all comes down to how someone defines "look better than console games." Some look at the smooth scaling on consoles and say that looked better, others look at 3D games on PC and that that looked better.
>>
>>3235191
Don't these 3D games run like ass unless you have an expensive (triple/quadruple the cost of a console) ultra-fast PC?
>>
>>3239289
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/PPU_registers#Scroll_.28.242005.29_.3E.3E_write_x2
As you can see there, setting X and Y offset for scrolling is as simple as it can get. The NES has no limitation there.
The bigger issue is, if you scroll vertically and horizontally at the same time, you may have to swap out more tiles, in order to give the illusion of a bigger map. With horizontal scrolling it's just one column of tiles, with vertical scrolling it's just one row. If you do both, you need both. For that to work, it's helpful if the cartridge can provide additional throughput
>>
File: c64-fs2.gif (14KB, 640x400px) Image search: [Google]
c64-fs2.gif
14KB, 640x400px
>>3240023
Well... that particular version was on the Macintosh (ATT $2000 computer) and was released around 1986 IIRC.

Pic related was the FS 2.0 for Commodore 64, released 1984. AS you can see, it isn't perfect but is reasonable due to memory limitations etc.
>>
>>3240290
MS Flight Simulator looked like that up to and including 4.0
>>
>>3221634
I call bullshit sparkle pants. I was building pentium computers in 95, and they were going for around 1500$. 486 machines were dirt cheap because the pentium processor came out 2 years prior.
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