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[Buggy Loop]

Thread is mostly a focus on graphics but gameplay and paradigm shift wise, in 1998, the greatest online shooter ever made released : Starsiege Tribes

Imagine for 1998, on 56k modems, playing 128 players, team based, with light/medium/heavy classes with a plethora of items to equip to play certain roles, fly with a jetpack, vehicles, place turrets and stations, base repair and defense. Everything had inertia, you could build momentum by "skiiing" the slopes just right with the jetpack and so on. Same with grenade launchers.

Again, in 1998, a year before Quake 3 and Unreal and it was still so ahead of the curve in what it was doing in online multiplayer shooters that it played like nothing else in the market until years and years later.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Thread is mostly a focus on graphics but gameplay and paradigm shift wise, in 1998, the greatest online shooter ever made released : Starsiege Tribes

Imagine for 1998, on 56k modems, playing 128 players, team based, with light/medium/heavy classes with a plethora of items to equip to play certain roles, fly with a jetpack, vehicles, place turrets and stations, base repair and defense. Everything had inertia, you could build momentum by "skiiing" the slopes just right with the jetpack and so on. Same with grenade launchers.

Again, in 1998, a year before Quake 3 and Unreal and it was still so ahead of the curve in what it was doing in online multiplayer shooters that it played like nothing else in the market until years and years later.

I always say 1998 was one of the most transformative and important years for gaming ever. The lineups were crazy. What you mentioned is like a drop in the ocean tbh. But i agree

 

[Ozzie666]

Everyone goes on about the 3D revolution, but for me the perfection of 2D Sprite pixel games was just as impressive. Yes alot of this had to do with storage space and increased rom sizes. But just look at what Capcom and SNK were doing with the Neo Geo. Garou Mark of the Wolves is absolute perfection, Street Fighter 3 was amazing. Watching Disney animation take off in 1993 with fluid animation in Aladdin was so impressive, Disney supported later games of the 16 Bit generation don't get the credit they deserve as the generation transitioned. Cool Spot, Earth Worm Jim 1&2, David Perry and the Digi Cell process, to me was so gound breaking. I haven't even mentioned Metal Slug, Demon Front, Dark Stalkers etc.

Thie first 3D generation was like going back to Atari 2600. I'll say that the advancement from the aging Atari 2600 and Intelivision to Coleco Vision, was impressive at the time too. Arcade classics at home.

 

[FeralEcho]

5D with smell

I can already smell the fps in that area from nostalgia.

 

[Futaleufu]

I don't think there were any AAA games back then. The term was used here and there, but it meant "the cream of the crop" or "near flawless". Now it just means huge budget.

Arcade games were the AAA of its time

 

[amigastar]

Patience people, we will get there to realtime graphics which look like Blizzard Rendertrailers, it just takes some time.

 

[PeteBull]

It all comes down to hardware advancements.
Psx (so playstation 1) to ps2 was about 100x performance jump, so bigger jump than ps3 to ps5 and games showed it.

Now check how much of an upgrade game can be, if hardware provides devs with enough of an oomph:


Nowadays we got long cross-gen period and very few current gen high quality exclusives, ps4 to ps5 is not even 6x more gpu performance and about 3x cpu performance (ofc more vram, fast SSD, but still... ).
It means current gen consoles are so weak that if game took 100% or close to that out of base ps4 (say uncharted 4) and ran 1080p30fps stable, then same game cant run in 4k60fps on base ps5(enough cpu headroom, but not enough gpu headroom, thats why we getting all those smart upscaling techniques, to make up for weak hardware power),

Lets not even go into new tech like rt/UE5 or other next gen engines, not much point.

 

[Team Andromeda]

It's sad to see so many of the usual PlayStation fans say how 3D started with that system. Some of us old sods remember being amazed by polygon graphics on a humble ST or Amiga with the likes of Jimmy White Snooker (the 1st time I saw super smooth polygon graphics in the home ) and I'll never forget the 1st time I saw TFX running on a top spec PC in the shop

Sure I miss the old days and gaming will always seem more special when mum and dad buys your consoles and games, to being an adult in your 40's and sure we don't get big continual WOW's with graphics like we used too, same goes for films too.

Still if you 'have' a decent TV this gen consoles are awesome and a big leap over the last gen and the ones before that. I still have my PS 4 and One and it's painful playing those consoles today the loading times alone are a killer. Loving this gen of gaming myself, my Series X is on almost daily and I haven't played consoles so much since the 32-bit era myself.

 

[Moridianae]

Soul Calibur was one of the most visually impressive titles in that era.

Up until that point, it was usually expected that most games' home port would pale in comparison to their arcade counterpart.

Soul Calibur blew past it and still holds up even today.

Shenmue was also another game that showed off what was capable.

It was a divisive game to be sure, but I remember being astounded by the things you saw(NPC routines, day and night cycles, weather effects literally accurate to the time period and location it takes place in) and things you could interact with, even if it served no purpose.

And if we want to discuss others, there was the difference(maybe it was just style) of how much FF8/9 pushed past FF7 by a wide margin.

 

[cireza]

So the only real evolution, IMO, is anything that isn't graphics.

I agree with your post entirely, excepted for this part. We get the wrong impression that visuals are stuck, and then suddenly you get Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch that looks like a PS4 game running at 60fps on shitty hardware. Why ? Hint : it is not using Unreal Engine lol.

Graphics will evolve again when we will get back to optimizing engines for a specific hardware, and give up on the infinite stack of stupid middlewares and engines we use nowadays. The biggest lever is already there, we don't need AI shit or whatever, they will dilapidate even more resources.

People don't realize that back then, on 8/16 bits consoles, the hardware was infinitely weaker but it was used 100% of its capacity 100% of the time and nothing was wasted. Nowadays you get tons of resources but everything is wasted for the sake of making things simpler for devs and making engines portable. But this has reached a point where more powerful hardware will not be able to produce better visuals because of all the resource wasting layers we keep stacking on.

 

[Spukc]

Super mario bros nes
Tetris on gameboy handheld madness
Donkey kong country 32bit like platformer
Super mario 64 totally new genre
Half life fps bliss
Half life 2 physics garden
Half life alyx total immersion and impossible gameplay for flatscreen gamers

Big jump gaming

 

[nkarafo]

Thie first 3D generation was like going back to Atari 2600. I'll say that the advancement from the aging Atari 2600 and Intelivision to Coleco Vision, was impressive at the time too. Arcade classics at home.

What do you mean by first 3D generation?

Is it the flat polygon games you would see in computers like the Atari ST and Amiga? Because that's what i would call "Atari 2600 of 3D graphics". The PS1/N64 were more like "the NES level of 3D graphics".

I agree with your post entirely, excepted for this part. We get the wrong impression that visuals are stuck, and then suddenly you get Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch that looks like a PS4 game running at 60fps on shitty hardware. Why ? Hint : it is not using Unreal Engine lol.

I'm not saying visuals are stuck, i'm saying that you can't notice the jumps as much anymore because the difference is now on the little details. A 3D model from the PS4 era can be so detailed that adding more detail isn't going to be noticeable, unless you zoom-in on the model and see that the skin pores are 3D now or something. Or that each hair strand is made of a few more polygons than before. All those extra details go to waste 99% of the time since you are never supposed to see that kind of detail up-close.

Compare that to something like Silent Hill 1 vs Silent Hill 2. The difference was so vast that you could clearly see it in those tiny, low quality game magazine pictures at the time. Now you have to watch a DF video that zooms in the picture and even then you might not see the differences if the editor doesn't highlight them.

 

[Ozzie666]

What do you mean by first 3D generation?

Is it the flat polygon games you would see in computers like the Atari ST and Amiga? Because that's what i would call "Atari 2600 of 3D graphics". The PS1/N64 were more like "the NES level of 3D graphics".



I'm not saying visuals are stuck, i'm saying that you can't notice the jumps as much anymore because the difference is now on the little details. A 3D model from the PS4 era can be so detailed that adding more detail isn't going to be noticeable, unless you zoom-in on the model and see that the skin pores are 3D now or something. Or that each hair strand is made of a few more polygons than before. All those extra details go to waste 99% of the time since you are never supposed to see that kind of detail up-close.

Compare that to something like Silent Hill 1 vs Silent Hill 2. The difference was so vast that you could clearly see it in those tiny, low quality game magazine pictures at the time. Now you have to watch a DF video that zooms in the picture and even then you might not see the differences if the editor doesn't highlight them.

Yes more so referencing the first true console leap the Saturn PS1 N64 3DO and Jaguar if you wish.

Hardware specifically built for it not Amiga St or Pc. Games like Epic Robocop Hard Drivin etc were impressive but I personally separate console and computers. The death of console 2D has the main type of game.

 

[Celine]

The lower you start the higher the gains from the tech jump are perceived.

Astro Smash (Intellivision, 1981)

R-Type (PC Engine, 1988)

Boxing (Intellivision, 1981)

The Kung Fu (PC Engine, 1987)

 

[hemo memo]

I would say 2008 - 2009 was more crazy.
Just look at this difference only in 3 months:

Gears of War 2

Kill Zone 2

/s

 

[The Cockatrice]

I would say 2008 - 2009 was more crazy.
Just look at this difference only in 3 months:

Gears of War 2

Kill Zone 2

/s

 

[hemo memo]

 

[PeteBull]

 

[MrA]

 

[Chronicle]

I agree. I'm an older gamer who saw the beginning but really didn't start seriously with games until I saw the graphics of the PS2.

 

[Sid Of Bee]

Why start there ? Atari through to the snes was an incredible 10ish years as well.

Atari VCS/2600 came out in 1977, Super Famicom/ SNES in 1990. 13 years. 1990 - 2003 is a crazier jump IMO

 

[Ozzie666]

Atari VCS/2600 came out in 1977, Super Famicom/ SNES in 1990. 13 years. 1990 - 2003 is a crazier jump IMO

I still think that's because of the 3D aspects becoming main stream. It's like comparing apples to oranges. I think it does a disservice to the leaps from Atari 2600 to Super NES.Gernesis in terms of sprites and 2D gaming elements over that 13 year period. Not just graphics, but the types of games represented and the escalation of pesentation in Arcades during that time too.

 

[SmokSmog]

 

[diffusionx]

Atari VCS/2600 came out in 1977, Super Famicom/ SNES in 1990. 13 years. 1990 - 2003 is a crazier jump IMO

Not until you realize that videogames barely existed in 1977 and by 1990 we had thousands of games, defined genres, innovations, technology, etc. Going from 0 to 100 is harder than going from 100 to 500.

 

[hemo memo]

Not until you realize that videogames barely existed in 1977 and by 1990 we had thousands of games, defined genres, innovations, technology, etc. Going from 0 to 100 is harder than going from 100 to 500.

But games were so bad the industry crashed.

 

[diffusionx]

But games were so bad the industry crashed.

The business was being mismanaged and needed a correction, but gaming kept going. The Famicom came out the same year in Japan that the US industry bottomed out.

 

[Imtjnotu]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

4D sounds underpowered already. I'll be holding off till 5D

 

[hyperbertha]

As someone mentioned earlier, if we can make the jump to 4D, it might help to re-invigorate the games industry.

And exactly what does 4d mean? How does it look like?

 

[MadchesterManc]

The business was being mismanaged and needed a correction, but gaming kept going. The Famicom came out the same year in Japan that the US industry bottomed out.

Folk don't realise the gaming crash was pretty much just a US thing. Like you say Japan was still releasing home machines fine, here in the UK our gaming industry was always focused more around home computers (Commodore, Spectrum etc) and indie devs until the very late 80's when Japanese consoles started to gain traction, so it stayed unaffected too.

 

[Zug]

The next thing is VR, but it's not been handled very well sadly.

 

[Sephimoth]

Peak experience. Zoomers don't know what they missed

 

[Shake Your Rump]

It looks like nothing now but some shit Unreal did in '98 was fucking unbelievable at the time. We got our minds blown every few months I remember.

I didn't enjoy the game, but I recognized the effort. A game with awesome software rendering, coloured lighting, and the sole game to use MMX in any meaningful way.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

the click of my Voodoo 1

I still find it both hilarious and impressive that the first 3Dfx cards used a physical switch between the 2D pass through and 3D output. I personally had a Diamond Voodoo card that used an electronic switch.

 

[SHA]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

Any timeless game like fallout 3 is 4d.

 

[diffusionx]

Folk don't realise the gaming crash was pretty much just a US thing. Like you say Japan was still releasing home machines fine, here in the UK our gaming industry was always focused more around home computers (Commodore, Spectrum etc) and indie devs until the very late 80's when Japanese consoles started to gain traction, so it stayed unaffected too.

I think in the US, it really was just consoles. People just threw their 2600 in the closet, bought a C64, and played games on that. Which makes sense because the C64 was way, way, way better than the 2600 and the 5200 sucked. I think even arcades did okay.

What the console business needed was just proper management, which Atari was incapable of doing.

 

[Sid Of Bee]

Not until you realize that videogames barely existed in 1977 and by 1990 we had thousands of games, defined genres, innovations, technology, etc. Going from 0 to 100 is harder than going from 100 to 500.

I understand that and I was around for both of those generations of systems. I still feel the technical leap was greater the second 13-year.

 

[Tommi84]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

It's already there with all the shit-fcked up releases where you buy the game at launch and then wait a year for it to be fixed/patched and ontent added